In New York City, locals take great pride in their neighborhood and all it has to offer. For newcomers who want a slice of urban living, it can be challenging to navigate the real estate scene without good local advisers.
With this in mind, StreetEasy, the New York City real estate marketplace owned by Zillow Group, is introducing Neighborhood Experts, a new advertising program for real estate agents operating in 300 neighborhoods across New York’s five boroughs. Launching in early December, it will help New York City homebuyers and sellers quickly connect with real estate agents who have proven experience buying and selling in a particular neighborhood or group of neighborhoods.
How Neighborhood Experts by StreetEasy works
Screen shot of StreetEasy app
To qualify for the StreetEasy Neighborhood Experts program, real estate agents must have at least two buy or sell-side transactions in the last three years within the neighborhood. Buyers and sellers can view a Neighborhood Expert’s verified deals and contact them for more information with one click.
Agents who qualify will appear in a new contact box across various building pages within the neighborhood they’re advertising in. The contact box will also display the volume of deals or listings they have in a neighborhood.
The Neighborhood Experts program follows on the heels of Building Experts, which StreetEasy launched in March this year with 250 buildings. Building Experts focuses on an agent’s experience and knowledge of a specific building. In July, it expanded to include 1,300 buildings after encouraging numbers of qualified agents participated.
Neighborhood Experts will be available on a first-come, first-served basis. There will only be three Neighborhood Experts that appear on a building page at any time, but there can be more than three agents advertising in that neighborhood.
“Because each neighborhood incorporates hundreds of buildings within the area that agents will be advertised across, there is a much greater opportunity for more agents to participate in their neighborhood of interest on some level and to interact with relevant buyers and sellers,” said Susan Daimler, StreetEasy general manager.
After the initiative rolls out in December, agents will be able to view a list of all the areas they qualify for by logging into their StreetEasy account and clicking on the new “StreetEasy Experts” tab at the top of the page, which will replace the Building Experts tab.
StreetEasy Building off Building Experts
“It’s important to have a real estate professional who can provide hyper-local insights and navigate nuances that may affect a property in a particular area. Neighborhood Experts helps surface this expertise so home shoppers and sellers can connect with a knowledgeable agent who can answer their questions,” said Daimler.
“For agents, they are now able to further build a personal brand on StreetEasy and target their marketing efforts to reach prospective buyers and sellers whose needs match your areas of expertise,” she added.
“As Building Experts progressed, we frequently received requests for a type of non-building-specific program,” said Daimler.
“Building Experts showed us that this type of hyper-local marketing and advertising was not only of interest to agents, but it was facilitating a valuable connection between agents and buyers and sellers who were using StreetEasy,” she added.
“Consumers are contacting agents for insights about a building and listings, and we’ve also tracked new listings back to a Building Expert connection.”
