Property ManagementHomes.com Puts Realty Times News On 12,500 Agent Web Sites
Homes.com has strengthened commitment to its ongoing distribution partnership with Realty Times by removing its previous news service provider and putting Realty Times consumer news on all 12,500 of the Web sites it has sold to and hosts for its agent customers.
Jody Lane, president of Realty Times says, "We have a successful distribution agreement with Homes.com, and now Homes.com has made a commitment to all their customers that they not only believe in our products, but they believe in our news authority as well - enough to put us as a standard feature on all their broker and agent customer Web sites."
Including the agents who participate in or who are otherwise touched by the 500 broker sites Homes.com hosts, the company calculates its reach to approximately 100,000 real estate professionals.
Tom Orsi, CEO of Homes.com says, "We made the switch because we believe Realty Times is the clear leader in the industry for real estate news, and we are proud to offer it to our customer base."
Adds John Perkins, senior vice president of business development, "Realty Times has superior products, and we took the opportunity to work with them because it is a win for our customers."
Century21 Judge Fite Company, ranked seventh in size for the Century 21 franchise, has carried the
custom version of Realty Times and Agent News on its Website for some time.
Says Jim Fite, president of Century 21 Judge Fite Company, "I"ve been pleased with Homes.com, and they have been very responsive to our account and our needs. Our properties are getting exposure through their efforts that we have elsewhere. We have gotten listings and sales from our association with Homes.com. Realty Times is another service that we respect, and we are glad to see a partnership between Homes.com and Realty Times to provide even better service to our agents."
"We have weekly sales meetings," says John Lundquist, manager Century 21 Judge Fite Company Preston Road, "I go to Realty Times exclusively for agent information to pass onto our agents to help them build their business. I find them a useful source - they have more information I can use, so this is good news to me that Homes.com is using Realty Times."
Homes.com is experiencing a resurgence of its popularity and growth harking back to the early days of the dot-com Website-as-lead-generation boom. A victim of overspending and poor management, Homes.com was forced into bankruptcy two years ago. Under the new management of Orsi, a turn-around specialist, and his hand-selected management team including Perkins, Homes.com is expected to emerge from bankruptcy in the next two months.
"We have met with the company"s major creditors and have tentative approval for a reorganization plan," says Orsi.
Orsi has so impressed Homes.com investors that its lead venture capital firm, Hummer Winblad, has asked Orsi to speak about how he and his team affected what could be the first exit from bankruptcy of a dot-com company.
"If we are successful, we will be one of the first if not the first to exit bankruptcy," says Orsi. "There"s nothing magic about it - we went back to the fundamental business that the company was in which was selling Websites to brokers and agents. We rededicated the company to provide the highest quality of service available in the industry, and we are going to improve on that.
"We are working on major enhancements to improve our products, including deepening our partnership with Realty Times and its products for our customers," says Orsi. "We are delighted to work out an arrangement to sell the Realty Times e-newsletter, the Real Estate Update, and we are entertaining more opportunities to work together.
"Our slogan is "We only promise what we can deliver and we deliver what we promise." says Orsi, "and we live by that. If we screw up, we fix it."
"The company"s operations have stabilized and we have a new management team, with strong leadership in every important area of the company"s business."
Recently, Yahoo! Internet Life gave Homes.com its coveted Gold Star Site award for Best Wireless Listings in the online real estate category. At the same time, Realty Times received the Gold Star Site award for Best Real Estate News.