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| May 11, 2007 | Sarasota, Fla., |   |
| Coldwell Banker Residential Real Estate Announces New Online Marketing Initiatives Enhanced Property Search and Partnerships with Google.com and Trulia.com Keep Florida’s Largest Real Estate Company on the Leading Edge of Industry’s Technology Revolution |
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| Coldwell Banker Residential Real Estate continues to be an industry leader in introducing new technology with the announcement of its advanced property search on FloridaMoves.com. New property search features include four ways to search for properties, improved saved search and alert functionality, and enhanced aerial views via Microsoft Virtual Earth, powered by a Web 2.0 element called AJAX to increase the interactivity, speed, and usability of our property search.
“This serves as a milestone in our strategy to maximize the advantages of the Web for the benefit of our business partners and our customers,” said Budge Huskey, president and chief operating officer, Coldwell Banker Residential Real Estate in Florida. “The playing field has changed in terms of the consumers’ expectations of online property information. Two years ago, we mandated that each of our properties must have a minimum of six (6) digital photos uploaded to our various Web sites. Today, six photos are the minimum expectation. The online home shopper demands a more dynamic environment with more images, virtual tours and advanced property search features.” The company’s new property search is the result of exhaustive research by parent company NRT Incorporated, which conducted a nationwide survey of 10,334 participants to solicit feedback on what consumers were looking for in an online real estate property search tool. According to Sue Louis, regional senior vice president, Sarasota Bay, “By focusing on the small details, such |
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| as enlarging the property thumbnail sizes and making the search process more efficient and intuitive, we believe the online consumer will benefit and ultimately generate more opportunities for our sales professionals.”
The enhanced property search launch follows on the heels of the company’s decision to market its 19,000-plus homes listed for sale in Florida on both Google™, the world's largest search engine site, and Trulia.com, a leading real estate search engine. According to Huskey, “Our listings distribution strategy will significantly broaden exposure for our listings and align effective marketing strategy with online consumer behavior.” Google sites captured 48.3 percent of the U.S. search market, comprising over 3.5 billion searches online*. Trulia.com, 2006 Business Week’s Best of the Web, Real Estate Category winner, is one of the fastest growing websites in the real estate category, reporting 25 percent month-over-month growth over the last six months. “Trulia.com takes online real estate research to a whole new level with a Heat Mapping feature, which helps the consumer visually compare prices and popularity by state, county, city and neighborhood,” added Louis. Coldwell Banker’s move to host its listings on leading search engines and real estate industry websites is designed to capture the online consumer at the point of entry in their Internet search and direct them to the home’s property details page, which is hosted on the company’s website, FloridaMoves.com. A key to Huskey’s strategy is to ensure a very positive experience for the consumer. “By driving online traffic to FloridaMoves.com, we can control the consumer experience and ensure that they receive a prompt response to their online inquiry by one of our highly-qualified real estate professionals. Our goal is to prove our website’s value by providing immediate access to all of the information the consumer wants on over 375,000 homes available for sale on the numerous multiple listing services in the major Florida markets that we serve. Ultimately, we hope that anyone interested in Florida real estate will add FloridaMoves.com to their Internet browser’s “Favorites” folder and repeatedly return to our site. We will continue to aggressively position our business partners with the most advanced technology to ensure their competitive advantage,” said Huskey. About Coldwell Banker Residential Real Estate:
Coldwell Banker Residential Real Estate (FloridaMoves.com), is the leading real estate brokerage company in Florida, serving the communities of Central Florida, Palm Beach, Sarasota Bay, Southeast Florida, Southwest Florida and Tampa Bay. Coldwell Banker Residential Real Estate is part of NRT LLC, the nation's largest residential real estate brokerage company. NRT, a subsidiary of Realogy Corporation, operates Realogy's company-owned real estate brokerage offices. |
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| For more information, visit our Web site, www.FloridaMoves.com Any house. Any time. Anywhere. |
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