CataList Homes Launches AJAX-Supported Technology Improving the House Hunting Process

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Friday, July 14, 2006; 02:20 AM

CataList Homes has launched a new technology on its website, http://www.catalisthomes.com/, that promises to influence the way consumers shop for homes.

catalisthomes.com

CataList Homes is the first Southern California firm to deploy new mapping technology by Microsoft that allows consumers to see home listing data plotted directly on high-resolution, low altitude aerial imagery. Microsoft's 'Birds Eye View' will allow consumers to rotate around a home as if they were in a helicopter at 100 feet viewing the complete context of the home location and local neighborhood, even zooming in to see the backyard spa or how the neighbor keeps their yard. Users will not only be able to see the homes with clear, low altitude photographs, but they will be able to change the map location, the selected zoom level, and the map coordinates, all the while seeing results change in real-time.

"Home search technology on the web has remained fairly stagnant from the consumer's perspective the last five years until the recent mapping wars by technology giants like Google, Microsoft, Yahoo, etc.," says Michael Davin co-founder of CataList Homes. "Now the ability to plot data directly from the Multiple Listing Service over these new interactive aerial photos gives consumers a highly effective way to house hunt. It is a lot of fun for anyone to zoom into a neighborhood at very low altitude and scroll down the street viewing all the homes for sale in comfort of the home or office-even if you're not in the market."

"We expect a real estate industry arms race to quickly embrace this technology," states Mr. Davin, "Consumers will be blown away with how easy and effective it is to find their dream home." Instead of seeing rows upon rows of listing data-many without address or photos-the new interactive map search will allow buyers to zoom into the local neighborhood, while property data is instantly adjusted on the map based on criteria set by the user. Mouse over the icons on the map and pertinent for-sale data appears on the page. One more click and users can view pending and sold home data to really research the market. Users can also move from street to street with great ease by simply dragging the map in any direction.

New AJAX (Asynchronous JavaScript and XML) web technology has made the user interface incredibly dynamic, allowing the web page to instantly change as the user moves down the block or zooms in or out on the map. Many of the multiple listing services allow 10 to 20 interior photographs, which CataList Homes also displays.

"The days of sitting in the back of a luxury sedan at the mercy of a fully-commissioned, real estate agent are going the route of the horse and buggy," says Mr. Davin, "web savvy home buyers and sellers will be fully empowered by this flurry of new technology offered by CataList Homes. With 'free time' a precious commodity, this new web technology makes house hunting extremely productive and quite fun, not to mention that it virtually eliminates wasted trips to view homes that don't meet the criteria."

Of great interest is the impact of the technology on the future of traditional real estate agents who work with these newly empowered buyers. "Savvy home buyers will chose a private virtual helicopter ride to view the active, pending, and sold home data over a Sunday in the back of a Realtor's car any day," adds Mr. Davin. "The traditional linkage between homes for sale, real estate agent, and home buyer has been forever altered. Now the client is telling the Realtor what homes they want to see and what homes they want to write an offer on. Not only that, buyers will be lured away from traditional agents by receiving rebates of up to $15,000 cash when buying a million dollar home, not to mention buyers who choose to go direct to the listing agent."

CataList Homes and other informative websites such as Zillow.com, Trulia.com, and ZipRealty.com are driving data transparency to new levels putting pressure on an industry which has long operated in a controlled environment.