Ever-expanding portal player Yahoo! Inc. today announced the latest addition to its stable of sites, Yahoo! Real Estate.
The company becomes the latest in a list of sites to add a real estate offering, a resource that is becoming an increasingly popular choice for portals as they aim to expand electronic commerce and advertising opportunities, and attract new users.
Yahoo! Real Estate will contain news and information related to purchasing,
selling and renting residential and commercial property. Features include
viewable property listings, consumer news, industry updates, mortgage
calculators for loan applications, insurance, tax and school data and local
maps.
Yahoo! said the Real Estate area will be incorporated with Yahoo! Classifieds so that users
can also access that site’s database. Featured ads include those from For Sale By Owners, Apartments.com, Cyberhomes, NewHomeSearch.com, RE/MAX, RentNet and others. Real estate agents will also be able to list properties, that can be linked directly to their agency’s home page and e-mail
account without charge.
Yahoo! Finance will also be integrated with the Real Estate area to provide money information concerning mortgage rates, loans, insurance and taxes. Users will be able to view national mortgage rates by locale or metro region, research loan rates provided by 65 vendors, and apply for residential loans directly online. Insurance content will be contributed by
InsWeb, with E-Loan providing mortgage quotes, and loan pre-qualification
data.
In addition, the Yahoo! Real Estate City Comparison feature will be
provided by Virtual Relocation.com. It allows users to target statistics on
areas of 350 cities, such as cost
of living, average home prices, violent crime, and property taxes.
Other content providers include Inman News and Real Times, which will offer
real estate news, industry analysis, and daily headlines.
“Yahoo! Real Estate delivers a complete online real estate center for users
to post and view
classified ads free of charge, track trends, follow industry news, and make
more informed decisions and investments relating to property,” said
Jim McCarthy, senior producer of Yahoo! Real Estate.
