Nearly 80 percent of real estate firms have a Web site that’s been live for a median of five years, according to a new study by the National Association of Realtors, a trade group. Most of these Web sites have listings online, three out of five have mortgage or financial calculators, and more than half have community information. Our own very unscientific observations reveal that 99 percent of that community information is useless and that more than nine out of 10 Realtor Web sites are poorly executed.
It’s amazing that brokerages haven’t put more creativity and effort into their Web sites since more and more buyers are starting the home hunt online. There are some exceptions. Rubloff Residential Properties offers lakefront building profiles by neighborhood and integrates buildings’ basic specs with recent sales data. Century 21 Sussex & Reilly has a new “Open house router” that allows you to plug in a date, a starting address and property criteria to create a handy itinerary of the company’s open houses with complete directions. Coldwell Banker Residential Brokerage has a similar “create my tour” option for open houses. Baird & Warner integrates recent sales data with Google Maps to help consumers do their own market research.
Seen anything else snazzy in Chicago real estate online? Click “Comments” below and let us know.