Real estate portal Homes.com is now offering media outlets the ability to integrate Homes.com into their existing site at no charge.
The newly launched "Powered by Homes.com" platform allows partner media outlets’ Web visitors to search 4 million listings, including nearly 20,000 rental listings from ForRent.com, right from the outlet’s website. Homes.com and ForRent.com are divisions of Norfolk, Va.-based marketing and publishing company Dominion Enterprises.
The platform is co-branded to match the media outlet’s site, and allows the outlet to make edits and control the overall appearance of the page. Homes.com controls the display of listings, however, "to ensure content displays accurately and represents the listing broker and agent fairly by applying the same data quality assurance process used on Homes.com," the company said in an announcement.
Media partners will also be able to incorporate their display advertising networks, allowing them to generate revenue on a site hosted by Homes.com, the company said.
Homes.com has already signed up its first media outlet: Landmark Community Newspapers LLC, a nationwide media company with more than 50 publications across the country. The platform has already been implemented. For example, when a user clicks on "Homes.com" on the home page of Landmark publication the Canyon Courier in Evergreen, Colo., the user is redirected to canyoncourier.homes.com.
Screen shot of Homes.com integration into Canyon Courier website.
Homes.com is not only targeting newspapers, however, said Homes.com spokeswoman Sydney Weaver-Bey.
"The media outlets that are a target audience for the platform are essentially local to national consumer destinations sites that we think will add value to our local agent and broker customers while providing the media outlet an industry-leading content channel that helps strengthen their market position," Weaver-Bey told Inman News.
Homes.com competitors Zillow, Trulia and Realtor.com also power real estate listing searches on other websites.
Visitors hunting for homes on MSN Real Estate see framed results from Realtor.com, and Realtor.com operator Move Inc. syndicates listings to AOL Real Estate through ListHub, a listing aggregator Move acquired in 2010.
Zillow powers for-sale listings on Yahoo Real Estate and sells ads that feature real estate agents and brokers on both sites.
Trulia serves up listings, market data and lead forms for real estate agents on the real estate section of CNNMoney.
