Real estate agent and broker websites that offer Internet data exchange listing search powered by RealtyTech’s IDX123 platform now display school data on listing detail pages.
Homebuyers who visit a listing page powered by RealtyTech’s IDX123 search platform will see information on nearby schools collected by GreatSchools, including school ratings, grade levels and proximity to a listing.
IDX123 handles listing feeds from MLSs throughout California, as well as Midwest Real Estate Data (MRED), which covers the Chicago metro area.
“We strive to add the most desired information to our IDX home search,” said RealtyTech CEO Richard Uzelac in a statement. “Adding this feature to our IDX123 system increases the value offered to our clients, and, ultimately, the new prospective homeowners and their families.”
The new feature has already increased the amount of time that people are spending on websites powered by its IDX system, Thousand Oaks, California-based RealtyTech says. If a user clicks on a school name on an IDX123-powered website, the site links to an individual school’s GreatSchools profile in a new window.
School quality can drive the decision-making of many homebuyers, bolstering home prices for neighborhoods served by top-rated schools.
That helps explain why GreatSchools, which provides data on schools including simplified ratings, attracted a claimed 52 million unique visitors to its website in 2013, and why its ratings have become commonplace on real estate sites today, including Zillow, Trulia and realtor.com.
A growing number of search sites are catering to buyers’ interest in schools by rolling out search tools that let people filter listings based on school attendance zones. RealtyTech’s product doesn’t provide such functionality. It only displays data about nearby schools on listing pages.
Some housing observers have speculated that the proliferation of online school data and school-based search tools could magnify the price premiums of neighborhoods that are served by top-rated schools.
