Homes.com

Author: Kaitlyn Short

Homes.com began over 40 years ago as a marketing company that helped connect real estate agents with people looking to become homeowners. In the 90’s they concentrated their efforts and launched their website. Now they are even more focused on bringing the two parties together through effective advertising solutions. Since they work with all of the different people involved in this industry, (agents, brokers, buyers, etc), they really understand the market and process. This knowledge helps them to make all parties happy in their deals.  

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The Good

• Neighborhood information
• Listing types
• Organization

For some customers, the surrounding area and neighborhood are just as important as the house itself. Many companies do not offer much information about these parts of the home other than a simple map and maybe the schools that are close by. This is not the case for Homes.com; they offer a very wide variety of information about the amenities close by. The first thing that is offered to the customer is a view of the street the home is located on. The customer can move around the surrounding street to see the homes in the area, as well as some of the traffic patterns in the area. The customer can explore the surrounding houses and their values; this helps customers to see how the desired house compares. There are also graphs to show the average year the homes were built to go along with the average values. Of course, the local schools and their ratings are available with the listing as well. The 'explore the neighborhood' function is very helpful for the customers to make an educated decision when buying a home. This function is not the only thing that makes finding a home on Homes.com efficient. One other feature that helps the customers find exactly what they are looking for is how the listings are organized. There are different sections for each type of home the customer is looking for, these sections are:

• For sale
• For rent
• Foreclosure

This separation allows customers to quickly find what they want instead of having to sift through all of the listings to find the few they want. Each of these sections is further broken down by type of home (like condo, apartment, house) and sometimes by specific areas. All of this organization is designed to help the customer and does just that. The customer also has the ability to search for an agent in the area of their choice. These agent profiles are also separated into categories (states) and then further into sub-categories (regions or cities). This is also helpful for the customer to find someone who can really help them.

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The Bad

• Limitations

The information provided to the customer on each listing is for the most part very helpful. The listings are very organized and the customer can search for specific features that they are looking for in their future home to narrow down the results that they have to look through. But there is still some information that, if provided, would be even more helpful to the customer as they make this important decision. Their neighborhood guide is pretty helpful for the basic information about the surrounding area, like the schools that are in that area's district. One thing that might also be important for customers to know is if there are any businesses nearby that they could take advantage of, like restaurants or grocery stores. It would be helpful to know if this area was conducive to walking or public transportation as well. There is also no information about the crime rate in the area or if there are any specific issues the customer should be aware of before moving into a home. The information that is provided for the customer on each listing is different and some listings seem to be missing some vital information (like square footage). But overall, the information provided is very helpful.

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The Bottom Line

As a whole, Homes.com provides their customers with a lot of information to help them make the best decision they can. Each home listing has an organized list of the important features of the house, pricing information (including a mortgage calculator and similar home review), neighborhood information and the agent who is listing the home's contact information. Their company has made it easy for customers to search for exactly what they want in a home with their filtering system. The only downside could be some missing information, but that information is not necessarily the most important and could easily be found out with a quick Google search or visit to the home. Homes.com seems committed to providing accurate, up-to-date listings for all of their customers to find exactly what they are looking for.