HomePages.com - A New Real Estate Site?

The folks at HouseValues.com have just launched another website. This one is called HomePages.com. Interesting name? One has to ask themselves, how easy will it be for them to make online consumers think of a website about 'homes' rather than 'homepages' of websites? I can just imagine the marketing meeting where this idea came up. "Hey, we've got boat loads of cash, let's just pay whatever it cost to buy this great domain name I heard was avaliable for our new site—HomePages.com!"

For you REALTORS® out there, it is a national IDX website designed to build the HomePages.com and HouseValues.com brand - not yours. When you perform a property search, the REALTOR who has purchased the zip code for that area is profiled (if you can call it that) on the top of the page. We can only assume that all 'leads' captured here will go to that agent.

Link: HomePages .

Listing Display in Canada - Not Here You Won't

Here's an interesting site, a REALTOR who is telling is website visitors to NOT waste their time on the MLS systems. Now why would any REALTOR do that in today's online, IDX world. Well friends, it's simple, he's in Canada and REALTORS in Canada don't know what their American cousins really have...

In the U.S., the National Association of REALTORS (NAR), mandated back in the year 2,000, that all MLS's would have until 2001 to provide IDX (Internet Data Exchange) for their members. Since that time, Brokers and Agents in the good old US of A, have had the ability to present a thumbnail of the MLS on their website for their visitors. Not so in Canada.

The Canadian Association, CREA, has been hard at work developing their online monopoly called MLS.ca. This website, is the only place in this country where a consumer can go to see the listings for their area. CREA appears to be very paranoid about their control of this monopoly. Over the past 5 years they have upgraded their website to make sure no REALTOR (the same ones who pay their dues so that this site exists) can even frame the site. In addition, they make the consumer 'Accept' their terms and conditions before gaining entrance.

The sad fact is that most Canadian REALTORS are oblivious to this abuse of control. Why? Well, the market has been pretty good. I don't have to do much to get make a living. Why rock the boat? Well, it would appear a few REALTORS are starting to figure out what's going on. This REALTOR (click on the image above to see what he is doing) has decided it is not in his best to send his website visitors off to check out the competition and has resorted to telling the consumer that the ONLY MLS site in Canada, is no good. It is not up to date. Don't waste your time.

Good for him.