Home and real estate network Homestore.com Inc.
launched its content on America Online’s
The debut is a highlight of the five-year content, e-commerce and
distribution alliance between the companies that was announced last May.
The new channel allows users to find an existing home or a new home; find an
apartment; find a real estate professional, gardener, remodeler, landscaper
or decorator; access moving and relocation tools; gain information on
financing a home; access
home improvement “how to” guides; and access home improvement calculators
that help determine the costs for performing various tasks.
“This deal should provide a tremendous surge of exposure to our family of Web
sites, and it will give AOL consumers unprecedented access to a staggering
volume and depth of information to help guide their homemaking decisions,”
said Stuart Wolff, chairman and chief executive officer of Homestore.com.
The deal (financial arrangements were not disclosed) makes Homestore.com the
exclusive national provider of professional home and moving services in
home-related areas across the AOL, AOL.Com, CompuServe, Netscape Netcenter
and Digital City brands.
Homestore.com also becomes the exclusive national provider of aggregated
apartment inventory and newly constructed homes inventory, and continues to
be the exclusive national provider of aggregated residential real estate
listings across these AOL properties.
Within the House & Home Channel, Homestore.com also serves as the premier
content provider in the Home Decorating, Home Security, Hardware and Lawn &
Garden areas, and is a prominent content provider in the Commercial Real
Estate, Home Finance, Home Technology, Home Office, Senior Housing and Home
Appliances areas.
Features on the new channel include one-click access to more than 1.4 million
home listings, over 130,000 new homes and more than 45,000 apartment
properties.
To promote the new channel from now through Nov. 5, AOL and Homestore.com
have designed, with the help of Promotions.com, an online promotion called
“The $100,000 Celebrity Home Makeover” Sweepstakes. The grand prize winner
gets a remodeling or redecorating project with the help of an interior
“decorator to the stars.”
A Home of Their Own
