August 23, 2006
Hello Ryan,
I want to talk with you more about our on-line real estate web site, www.BuyWaterfronts.com. It needs a front door for shoppers and a back door for Realtors across North and Central America. We want the site to be clean, easy to navigate for both shoppers and Realtors. Also, we want the site to load quickly.
There will be no For Sale by Owners, only licensed professional real estate persons. There will be a "for Sellers" button which will explain why they need to contact their local realtor, and can get a list of local subscriber agents by typing in their zip. There are enough FSBO sites already.
We want the site to have up to 15 photos per property, and go to pretty good size photos. A slide show would be nice. We also want the agents to be able to upload their personal photo or agency logo in the upper corner of their listing page(s). Included will be a "read bio" link.
Our front page will start with an invitation map. We already have our logo designed and ready. We will have featured properties available for rotation on our front page, state page, and area page. Each individual listing will stand alone with no additional properties featured on the same page.
We would like to consider offering ad space for related services, ie; lenders, appraisers, inspectors, etc. We would also like to have links to area CVB's or Chambers for shoppers to find more info. We have heard pros and cons about this.
The most important things for shoppers are properties/descriptions, area info, and Realtors. 80% of all property searches begin on-line. Shoppers for properties on or near the water need one place to go to find this information. Also, Realtors need a medium of advertising for these special properties.
Home searches are going vertical. With 75 million "Baby Boomers" nearing retirement, the market for 2nd and retirement properties is escalating rapidly. We sell properties on Lake Livingston as we speak, so we are experiencing this first hand. I am a Boomer myself.
The site needs to be able to have additional features added when necessary. For instance, I see home video tours coming real soon, where the agent is guiding the shopper through the house. This feature may not be needed at roll out, but would be great to give as added value later.
Of course, we would have on-line payment features. This company is a start-up. We plan to market directly ourselves to scale quickly. Our plan is, as the development of the project progresses, to have a pre-launch campaign with a couple of pages available for viewing. We will offer a free trial to our Realtor subscribers. We will use the code word "promo".
One thing we want to offer, that our competitors do not, is "Affordable Packages". This will allow an agency to share the cost of many listings, with all points of contact back to the agency.
Shoppers can browse freely, and only log in if they want to be notified of new listings that meet their parameters. We will have advanced searches with typical info, ie; square footage, price, waterfront, etc. Not too much, and not too little. Our goal, with proper marketing, to have in excess of 500,000 listings.
I know there is still more to discuss, but I think this, with the links I supplied, will give you some scope of our project.
Regards,
Scott Brooks
Brooks Prime Properties
2380 Hwy 19 N Huntsville, TX 77320
936-295-0005 office
936-291-9322 fax
936-662-5043 mobile
There where times that I wasn't sure we would ever see this become a reality. But we stuck to it. What do you think?
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