Inman

RealEstate.com launches beta home-search site

RealEstate.com has launched a new online property search site for the Dallas-Fort Worth metro area. Now in beta form, the site will be expanded nationwide next year, the company announced.

RealEstate.com, owned and operated by LendingTree LLC, has real estate brokerage operations in several states, including Colorado, Oregon, Utah and Washington. LendingTree links consumers with lending and real estate services and operates a lead-generation program that matches consumers with real estate agents.

The new site, at http://beta.re.com, “is heavily focused on listings,” the company announced, and is intended to ease the home-search process.

“The new RealEstate.com beta design gives customers what they’ve told us they want, which is free access to home listings without having to register their contact information,” Kimberly Gorsuch-Bradbury, senior vice president and general manager of RealEstate.com, said in a statement.

“But it’s not just about providing access to listings — there are plenty of sources for that. The trick isn’t finding listings; it’s finding the right ones. Our innovation comes in the tools we are developing to get people closer to the listings they really want,” she also said.

The new site features a listings counter that updates the number of listings that meet a consumer’s search criteria prior to clicking the “search” button. The search tools allow users to narrow down their searches by property type, price range, number of beds and baths or square footage without leaving the page with listings results. “This eliminates the frustration of jumping back and forth between pages,” according to the company announcement. “Each list is broken down to reveal the number of available homes from which to choose before the user moves forward.”

The site also features maps powered by Ask.com that allow users to zoom in for a street or aerial view of a home’s location. “By hovering over any listing in the results column, the corresponding location on the map will highlight to help users get a birds-eye view of the home’s location in relation to other homes for sale,” the company announced.

Users can view addresses, photos, pricing information and a listings detail page that describes the home’s attributes, lists of internal and external features, and school and community information.

LendingTree LLC is a part of IAC/InterActiveCorp, which also owns or operates LendingTree Loans, LendingTree Settlement Services LLC, GetSmart, Domania, and iNest.