Editor's note: This series is designed to help real estate professionals evaluate the large listings services as potential marketing partners. The information is provided by senior level executives with each company.

When John Giaimo, president and COO of Homeseekers was recently asked in an interview what his biggest business nightmare would be, he laughed, "They've already happened. We've survived both the entrance of Microsoft into the listings arena and Realtor.com's Gold Alliance agreements which restricted us from partnering with some MLS's."

Despite such challenges, HomeSeekers has made lemonade out of lemons. From its early entrance as the nation's first listings aggregator, HomeSeekers has evolved into a business-to-business solutions provider, including providing data aggregation and agent Web sites to its former nemisis Homeadvisor.com. The two listings services have an agreement to give any agent who wants one a free web page and a presence in the directories on both sites.

The real key to the company's sur-thrive-al is its diversified revenue model. Homeseekers offers services to consumers on the listing portal; it creates intranets and internet sites for such notables as the Trump Corporation; it offers virtual MLS information management systems, featuring an open standard platform; it offers survival training and tools to small and mid-size real estate companies; and it sells Internet marketing tools to Realtors. Put it all together, and the synergy enables a real estate broker and agent to have it all, from virtual MLS management to personal marketing tools.

For its premium Web site customers, HomeSeekers.com provides an "On-Line" editor. This is a password-protected section of the users web site that allows them to change the look and feel and add or change text and images. You can also change the entire look of the site with one mouse click, including seasonal selections like Halloween, Thanksgiving, Christmas, and Easter among others.

HomeSeekers.com, submits your site to the top ten search engines on a monthly basis. and maintains two developers that work on keeping participating agents as close to the top as possible.

HomeSeekers.com lists each of its customers under the Agent Finder directory. In addition, they are listed on the home page of the community they represent.

Agent URL's are also provided to the Microsoft HomeAdvisor.com web site through a data aggregation agreement. A link to the agent Web site is included on a listing, similar to HMSK. This provides the agent with two national web site placements as an advertiser at one cost.

But where HomeSeekers really departs from the rest of the listings giants is its controversial CityNet feature, The Citynet feature enables any participating agent to offer their client a private password protected area to view listings in which the MLS-authorized listings are slightly altered so that the listing brokers and agents' information is moved to the bottom of the listing and minimized.

Listing agents may feel uncomfortable that their information is relegated to the bottom, but the format meets MLS and state rules and regulations. Giaimo maintains that the listing agent is actually better off - more click-throughs for the listings show the seller that the listing agent is doing his/her job. That's better than a buyer's agents copying and pasting the listing and then stripping the listing agents information.

In short, CityNet gives buyer's agents a way to compete on the Internet. So far, the Internet has favored listings agents because the data aggregators have wanted the listings to get traffic numbers. With listings down to a national average of three months on hand, HomeSeekers has evolved another strategy - take the listings and get them more viewings.

Governing philosophy: "Communication is what the HMSK sites are all about - making it easy for customers to communicate to the agent. We make sure that the agent can easily collect leads through basic email, "CityNet," the "Live Assistance" chat, FAX, and leads form the net connecting the agent and the consumer directly through the cell phone or Palm Pilot. " John Giaimo, President and COO of HomeSeekers.com.

Restrictions: None

Active listings nationwide: 800,000

Number of visitors monthly: 1.3 million

Number of viewings per listing monthly: N/A,

Daily updates of listings: Yes

New listing email alerts: Yes

Number of leads generated for agents :

Does HomeSeekers sell Web sites/pages to agents?: Yes.

Other marketing programs available?: Yes

Is Broker/office marketing available?: Broker "only" program through REinnovators

Most expensive: Standard Agent web site $649.00

Least expensive: Free web page

Upgrades to Web site/page available?:yes

Affiliates where my listings will also be seen: HomeAdvisor (with permission)

Company revenue model: agent web sites, MLS services, advertising, agent desktop software, corporate Web sites, publishing

Last word: - By John Giaimo

“I think a lot of people may have looked at HomeSeekers.com as the underdog -- but not any more. That’s because we have helped to literally transform every aspect of real estate technology, by focusing directly on the brokers, agents and MLS’ needs, and creating the type of solution that really impacts their business.”

“Our national site ( www.homeseekers.com) is the magnet that drives consumers to HomeSeekers, and that keeps getting stronger and stronger. Our recent marketing alliances with a nationwide group of TV and radio station websites gives HomeSeekers.com the real estate content in over 500 well-trafficked sites that literally blankets America. Add to that the special relationship that HomeSeekers has with Microsoft HomeAdvisor (we do a lot of their back-end support), and special agreements that are on the table, significantly changes the landscape of unique visitors and web traffic. In January, HomeSeekers.com hit the magical mark of having over 20 million page views in a single month, and that number is only going to grow.”

“When other companies were coming out with their special “alliance” programs, we knew that we could overcome that. Because less exposure is just plain bad for the industry. Have you ever heard anyone in a listing presentation say they wanted less exposure, not more? That just doesn’t happen.

“As a result, more and more MLS groups are signing up with HomeSeekers. We have contracts on the table that will clearly put us over a million listings. And we’ve just introduced www.HomeSeekersCANADA.com, www.HomeSeekersMEXICO.com, and www.HomeSeekersFRANCE.com, the first of many international sites on the horizon.

“We designed the site for ease of use, and most homebuyers can be looking at homes online in as little as three clicks, compared to other sites that are sometimes take twice as long. And because HomeSeekers.com updates their listings on a daily basis, we have what we consider to be clearly the most accurate and up-to-date online real estate website on the market.

“And the technology that it takes to manage one of the world’s most complete and up-to-date sites is used on all of our other products.

“We were one of the first to introduce an internet-based MLS system, replacing the more costly and slower “legacy systems.” At the time, people said that an internet-based MLS wouldn’t work -- until we explained to them that our consumer site is infinitely larger that any of their own MLS systems, and runs at an astonishingly high reliability level. So the acceptance level of xmlsweb (HomeSeekers.com MLS system) has been well ahead of expectations. We just signed, for example, the Sarasota, Florida MLS this past week.”

“Earlier this year, we launched REInnovators.com, a specialized broker technology program that allows an office to actually generate additional revenue through their current relationships with their vendors, and essentially make them the center of their own e-neighborhood. This has been exceptionally well received, because many of the brokers felt left out of the technology revolution.”

“Our Executive Net Services Division does real high end websites and front and back end technology solutions. After an exhaustive search, the Trump Corporation chose Executive Net Services to handle their real estate related holdings from a website technology standpoint (www.trumponline.com).”

“HomeSeekers.com also continues to offer one of the most robust agent websites on the market, and has just introduced its new premium edition of the site. This is literally light years ahead of the competition, because not only is it totally revamped with new 3-D graphics and icons, but it has three of the most state-of-the-art communication systems attached to it. One is “Connect2Call”, which allows an online web visitor to call the real estate agent on the phone, while they are still online. Another is called Unified Messaging, which give a real estate agent one phone number to check e-mail over the phone (through text to speech technology), re-direct faxes anywhere in the world, and be paged when they get a message or e-mail. The third communication device is an online “chat”, that gathers specific buyer information and relays it to the agent, but makes that all important first contact. The new premium edition also has a great lead generator using detailed school reports as the lure to consumer “contact”.

“Our Realty 2000 software just came out with its latest “Platinum” Edition, which among other things gives the real estate professional over 100 four-color marketing templates to work from. These can be sent electronically (greatly reducing overhead) or be output via the traditional methods of a printer or other output service. Best of all, it’s free to the agent (http://r2000.hmsk.com).”

“So we’ve put easy-to-use technology every step of the way, from the consumer, to the MLS or association level, to the broker and all the way to the agent level. We think we have the broadest suite of services in the real estate business, and it’s only going to grow.”

Overview

Pros: You can't beat free exposure, complete with your name and your broker's on every one of your listings. From there, you can choose the level of Web presence you want. The Citynet feature enables any participating agent to offer their client a private password protected area to view listings from the MLS-authorized database to their buyers and sellers. This feature makes HomeSeekers the winning marketing partner for buyer's agents or transactional agents who don't have personal listings. But listing agents have little to gripe about. They still have their information on the listing and their listings are enabled with a feature that allows them to track the "hits." If a home has been viewed a number of times by buyers without a call to the agent, it could be time to lower the price. This gives the listing agent a great tool to use with the seller.

Cons: Like Realtor.com's other competitors, HomeSeekers suffers from the Gold Alliance shut-out, but perhaps a little less so than some since it encourages broker/agent direct input of listings.