Fidelity National Financial released a completely redesigned and enhanced Cyberhomes.com, the real estate listings and home evaluation site from Fidelity National Real Estate Solutions.
The changes reflect the growth that Cyberhomes experienced during its introductory year. The new site brings to the forefront the more than 2.5 million homes for sale licensed from its broker, MLS and franchisor content partners, and expands upon the presentation of home and neighborhood evaluation information for which it is already well-known, covering 100 million property, ownership, sales and mortgage records drawn from more than 85 percent of the United States population. Cyberhomes now also features more than 500,000 virtual tours and 700,000 foreclosure and pre-foreclosure listings.
In its first year, the site's broad acceptance by both consumers looking for real estate information, and professionals looking for a better way to engage homebuyers searching the Web, resulted in much faster growth than anticipated. The new design of the site accommodates far more content and functionality, has beautiful graphic continuity, and has integrated several new technologies that speed navigation and will allow future expansion to continue to take place quickly.
"We are very proud of the real estate industry's acceptance of our product, and of the partnerships we have formed," said Marty Frame, Cyberhomes' general manager. "We have now reached a point of critical mass in listing content, and it makes sense to reposition around our partners' listings, since the payoff for them and for the consumer is so good. With so much information, creating new navigation to move users rapidly through it in single clicks... likewise became even more important."
Cyberhomes has added new searches for neighborhoods and schools to provide consumers with different starting points in their search for real estate information that are specifically suited to their needs. In addition, an extraordinary amount of new editorial content is featured in a new section called "Good Reading." This content is developed by Cyberhomes's own editorial staff using the site's incredibly rich database.
"If we use the analogy of a new home, then Cyberhomes began as a 900-square-foot cottage and, within a year had added ten more rooms," Frame added. "Each room was a crucial addition, but getting from one to another could be circuitous. It's not as if we created a Winchester Mystery House here, but the 'renovations' we are releasing now will speed each user's visit through Cyberhomes. And that will not only make it more enjoyable, but more valuable."
The first time users visit Cyberhomes they now see a landscape with a prominent search for all homes for sale, or for a specific home they may already want to track. After searching, most users will land on the search results page, with its newly expanded analysis and tools. Here they will see the home's listing photos, virtual tours, remarks, list price, size, address and a variety of other features.
On the map to the right of a home's profile, users will be shown the boundary of the neighborhood they were searching within, which will adjust to contain each house as the viewer scrolls through the list of homes. Below the map is a snapshot of the neighborhood and a link to more details about it.
Once the user selects a home to view in detail, Cyberhomes now provides comparisons of a property to other homes in or out of that neighborhood. Cyberhomes also offers an enormous amount of information for people who are not currently searching for a home.
"In the world of real estate listing sites, Cyberhomes has started to emerge as the logical first stop for any home buyer, seller or real estate professional. It's no surprise our average visits last more than 30 minutes," Frame said. "Now, with more robust searching, mapping and good reading available, there is even more available to the information-hungry consumer."