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Research Finds Realtor.Com is the #1 Real Estate Site for Finding a Home

Posted on: Friday, 24 August 2007, 12:12 CDT

SAN FRANCISCO and WESTPORT, Conn., Aug. 24 /PRNewswire/ -- eVOC Insights, a customer experience consulting firm, and RelevantView, a leading technology provider of Web-based research solutions, announce the release of a new syndicated real estate report, "To Buy or Not To Buy - Finding Your Dream Home Online".

With the recent explosion of the subprime mortgage crisis that is proliferating across the globe, investors and home buyers alike are actively watching the market to see what will happen next. Financial losses have forced some lenders to close their doors and others to seriously tighten their underwriting standards. Short-term home buyers, now more than ever, need to be thoroughly informed of what investment opportunities they can afford, and how to find a desirable home in a market that may be skeptical of underwriting anyone, even those who qualify for prime financing. So where do consumers go to initiate the home buying process and what factors are influencing their purchase decision?

The eVOC / RelevantView Real Estate Report addresses these questions in detail by comparing the customer experience and purchase decision process between leading online real estate sites including Realtor.com, RealEstate.com, Trulia.com, and Yahoo! Real Estate.

Highlights from this report include: -- 9 out of 10 home buyers have used or plan to use the Internet to aid their real estate search -- Realtor.com is the #1 real estate Website across key metrics, including site traffic, brand recognition, property selection, search results, and home descriptions -- Real estate portals (e.g., Realtor.com) are perceived to have more listings, better selection, and neutrality, while local realtors (e.g., Coldwell Banker) seem more accurate and trusted -- Short-term home buyers (defined as those who recently purchased a home or plan to purchase in the next year) tend to have higher incomes than long-term buyers, and short-term buyers are also twice as likely to visit a local realtor site as long-term buyers -- Photos, clear property / neighborhood descriptions, effective search tools, and mapping are the most important features on a real estate website -- Trulia.com has less brand awareness than Realtor.com, but outperforms the competition for its innovative mapping functionality, ease of use and clear design -- Short-term home buyers tend to prefer Realtor.com overall, while long- term buyers are evenly split in preference between Trulia.com (32%), Realtor.com (29%) and Yahoo! (22%)

Combining RelevantView's online technology, ActiveSandbox(R), with eVOC's strategic consulting and analytical expertise, this report helps real estate providers maximize the effectiveness of the online channel by providing a clear understanding of the customer decision process when researching and purchasing a home. Unlike other methodologies, this research combines behavioral and attitudinal metrics to understand the thoughts, actions and preferences of consumers as they interact head-to-head with leading real estate Websites.

Obtain a free Abstract for this report: http://www.relevantview.com/sr_ore.asp For more information about this report, please contact Claudette Levine at claudette.levine@evocinsights.com.

To learn more about upcoming Syndicated Research or custom research provided by eVOC Insights and RelevantView, please visit: http://www.evocinsights.com/ or http://www.relevantview.com/

About eVOC Insights

eVOC Insights, LLC is a customer experience consulting firm that focuses on Web strategy, usability, and "voice of the customer" research. We combine innovative technology, comprehensive market research, and expert analysis to deliver actionable insights into the behavior, thoughts and attitudes of customers. It provides the most appropriate, cost effective methodology to meet customer's research needs. eVOC is headquartered in San Francisco, CA. More information is available at http://www.evocinsights.com/.

About RelevantView

RelevantView, LLC is a leading technology provider of web-based market research solutions, serving market research firms, advertising agencies, website design firms, usability professionals and website owners around the world. RelevantView supports web site usability and concept testing. RelevantView is headquartered in Westport, CT.

RelevantView

CONTACT: Claudette Levine of eVOC Insights, +1-214-887-6400,claudette.levine@evocinsights.com; or Marshall Harrison of RelevantView,+1-203-221-1310, mch@relevantview.com

Web site: http://www.relevantview.com/http://www.evocinsights.com/http://www.relevantview.com/sr_ore.asphttp://www.realtor.com/http://www.trulia.com/http://www.realestate.com/

Source: PRNewswire

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