Monday, May 19, 2008

HOW HOME-SHOPPING OPTIONS HAVE EXPANDED IN THE HIGH-TECH ERA

Are you old enough to remember how prospective home shoppers got basic real estate information before PalmPilots, BlackBerries, iPhones, the World Wide Web, personal computers and cable TV?

Let’s recall the old media days before Google, Yahoo, Zillow, RSS feeds, blogs, and the social media of Flickr, MySpace, Facebook and YouTube.

In the 1950s and 1960s, home shoppers went to the newsstand on the corner, bought a newspaper, opened to the real estate section and scanned the new-development housing advertisements. The post World War II boom subdivisions were in the cornfields of Hoffman Estates, Streamwood, Schaumburg and Buffalo Grove where ranches were for sale for $10,000.

House hunters also read stories written by reporters who batted them out on clacking manual typewriters. On deadline back then, reporters needed ear plugs because the news room sounded like a jute mill.

Resale home shoppers called a local Realtor who checked available listings and drove around on weekends to show properties targeted to the price range and buyer’s neighborhood of choice. For sellers, Realtors put an ad in the paper and sign on the lawn. Surprisingly, Realtors still do this today.

While newspaper reporters today are writing real estate news on Macs and PCs, there is increasing emphasis by editors to provide house hunters with comprehensive on-line information on new developments, resale values and neighborhoods.

Also, the following new high-tech home-buying and selling innovations are available for today’s home shoppers:

• Comcast Spotlight’s Real Estate On Demand. In early 2008, when snow was piling up on your driveway, tens of thousands of Chicago-area home and condo shoppers were quietly flicking their cable-TV remotes to Comcast Spotlight and touring new housing developments and resale home listings from the comfort of their easy chairs.

In the first quarter of 2008, an average of 108,827 house-hunter real estate views per month were made in the 11-county Chicagoland area and Northwest Indiana on Comcast Spotlight (cable channel 888), reports a new viewing study by Hyperion/Everstream. Views per month have increased 227 percent from the 47,900 in the first quarter of 2007.

“More than 1.2 million Comcast cable subscribers can simply click their remote and tune to Comcast’s home-shopping option on channel 888 and browse videos of more than 25 new housing developments plus resale home listings,” said Steve Schwartz, Comcast’s Real Estate Division Advertising Manager. Visit www.comcastspotlight.com for more information.

• HomePerks.com. This new high-tech networking innovation, offers rewards, or “perks,” to help market real estate. The perks are redeemable via an online catalog with more than 12,000 name-brand items.

“Through HomePerks.com, all types of real estate professionals can market themselves to consumers and other complimentary professionals while using the power of rewards to build loyalty,” said Brian Columbus, founder and CEO of HomePerks.com.

“Realtors and developers also can create custom perks offers for consumers and professionals to attract more business, such as offering perks for buying or selling home, applying for a loan, or visiting a sales center or open house,” Columbus said. For details, e-mail: Bcolumbus@HomePerks.com.