Homes.com, Inc., a leading provider of Internet real estate products and services to brokers and agents, announced today that it has signed an agreement with Warnock’s by Owner, based in Utah.

Warnock’s by Owner, in the business of researching and compiling FSBO leads, has been serving Realtors® and mortgage professionals as well as title, appraisal, insurance, and home improvement companies for twelve years. Last month, Warnock’s identified more than 30,000 brand new FSBO’s as a result of searching newspapers, FSBO websites and magazines in over 300 markets. There are no duplicates and information includes the name, address, phone number and description for each property.

The information is sold on a subscription basis and delivered every morning to the subscriber’s e-mail address. The subscription can be canceled at any time, with no long-term contract required. The subscription fee includes a Monthly Newsletter that offers tips, ideas, and scripts from top agents across the country who are successfully prospecting FSBO’s. Brent Warnock, CEO of Warnock’s, says, “I founded Warnock’s by Owner because, as a Realtor® myself, I got tired of spending two hours a day tracking New By Owner’s advertising in my area. We are very pleased to be working with Homes.com; their reach and distribution channel is the best there is.”

John Perkins, COO of Homes.com, adds, “Homes.com wanted to meet the needs of two markets, the real estate professional, and the consumer searching our portal, www.homes.com. On the Realtor® side, Homes.com’s business model was built on content-rich and powerful websites for brokers and agents, BrokerAdvantage™ and AgentAdvantage™, respectively. The new Homes.com has expanded its product and service line to Lead Generation and Productivity Tools. We were impressed by Warnock’s approach, their product, exceptional customer service level and passion to the real estate industry. Those attributes run parallel to our own commitment to the real estate industry.”

The FSBO Lead Service is nominally priced at $39 per month, on a month-to-month basis. There is special pricing for adjacent and additional geographical areas. Upon request, at no additional charge, Realtors® can receive their daily leads in a comma delimited format to import directly into any software program. As an introductory offer, all new subscribers in the month of October will also receive all of the past 60-days worth of leads in one collective batch shortly after sign-up and first month’s payment. To find out if your geographic area is covered, go to www.wbyowner.com. Even if you area is not covered, you can fill out an interest form on the website. Bring a friend to the Homes.com or Warnock’s by Owner exhibit booth at the Realtors® Conference & Expo in November in New Orleans and ask about the special rewards program for referrals.

Homes.com, Inc. also announced that it has signed an agreement with WorldLingo, one of the Internet’s leading translation services.

Homes.com now offers its broker and agent clients the opportunity to enhance their website with a translation engine, powered by WorldLingo. At the click of a button, consumers visiting BrokerAdvantage™ and AgentAdvantage™ websites can translate the website content from English to Spanish, French, Italian, Dutch, Portuguese, Greek, Japanese, Chinese, or Korean.

Website translation is one of the major growth areas in the translation market today. Internet usage continues to exceed all time highs, both in the United States and abroad.

“This is a Lead Generation opportunity. Homes.com realizes how important it is to provide the necessary tools to help our clients effectively communicate to anyone interested in purchasing a home in the United States, regardless of where they live or what their native language is,” says Patty McNease, Homes.com Director of Client Services. She continues, “Most of our major markets have an ethnic diversity. The Internet itself brings us all closer together, nationally and internationally. We saw the need for both the Realtor® and the consumer, and are confident that WorldLingo’s comprehensive technology fulfills that need.”

RE/MAX of New York and Beazley Real Estate in Connecticut, as early Homes.com customer adopters, have already added this enhancement to their BrokerAdvantage™ websites. Carolyn Weber, Vice President, RE/MAX of New York says, “We were gratified to see that in our first week of the translator being up, that we received two referrals; one from Korea and one from Sweden. Our website, on a daily basis, garners a great deal of domestic hits and the ability to attract international buyers and sellers is of tremendous value to our agents.” Fiona Beecy, Director of Information Technology at Beazley says,” I think we all need to conduct business in the consumer’s language of choice, whether it be on a website or in person. As a forerunner in the marketplace and in a diverse community, that means providing a translation feature on our website and listing all of our multi-lingual agents.”

Tanja Hill, business development director, WorldLingo says, “According to Forrester research, the chance of converting a website visitor to a customer increases threefold if you speak to them in their native language. If you cannot communicate with potential customers in their language of choice, they will simply look elsewhere. Homes.com BrokerAdvantage™ and AgentAdvantage™ clients have the opportunity to be the “elsewhere” consumers will look for and find. They can be the ones with the leading advantage and never miss a customer relationship opportunity because of a difference in language.“

Published: October 2, 2002

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