HOMES.COM, the comprehensive apartment and property rental services Web site for consumers and apartment/property managers, along with Rental Guide Magazine, the rental property pictorial magazine available in markets throughout the United States, have entered an agreement with Yahoo! to distribute their comprehensive apartment listings on Yahoo! Classifieds.

Through the agreement, HOMES.COM plans to further expand its Internet presence by placing its apartment and other rental property listings within the Yahoo! Classifieds "Rentals and Roommates" area.

Via its strategic partnership with Rental Guide Magazine, HOMES.COM currently carries more than 100,000 apartment units and other rental properties, and provides a host of services to consumers, including amenities comparisons, localized community content, financial information, school reports, and more. Through this agreement, consumers have easy, free, and convenient access to an expanded selection of apartments, vacation properties, and other rental units nationwide. Apartment and property managers also have a fast and effective way to reach consumers looking to rent apartments and other properties.

"This relationship dramatically increases the availability of rental property information to movers throughout the nation, and places this information at their fingertips before they visit their destination community, resulting in a much less problematic and more efficient move, said Jay Westmark, vice president of electronic commerce for HOMES.COM. "HOMES.COM is committed to continually finding new and innovative ways to offer Web-based support to renters and property managers throughout the nation. Our agreement with Yahoo! is a strong indicator of that commitment."

"Through this new agreement, Yahoo! users now have an even larger selection of rental properties from which to choose," said Jim McCarthy, senior producer with Yahoo! Classifieds, Yahoo! Inc. "We already have a very successful relationship with HOMES.COM for residential properties for sale. Today we are deepening that relationship by adding rental properties, giving our millions of users daily even more reason to start their apartment search on Yahoo! Classifieds."

In addition to rentals, Yahoo! Classifieds provides users with a wealth of listings in such areas as residential and commercial real estate, employment, autos and personals, and is the Web's most popular classifieds site (Media Metrix, January 1998). Yahoo! Classifieds is part of Yahoo! Inc., a leading Internet media company. Yahoo! served an average of 95 million page views per day during the month of March 1998, and has more than 30 million unique US adult users in a 30-day period.

Launched in 1993 as the first nationwide, comprehensive Web-based resource for both consumers and apartment managers, HOMES.COM contains more than 100,000 apartment units and rental property listings, amenities comparisons, financial information, community content, school reports, relocation tips and savings opportunities, external links, and more.

HOMES.COM currently is visited by more than 22,000 consumers every day, and more than 100,000 apartment rental/property views are recorded each day. HOMES.COM has a strategic partnership with Homes & Land Publishing, Ltd., the Tallahassee, Fla.-based publisher of Rental Guide Magazine and several well-known real estate pictorial magazines available throughout the United States, including Homes & Land Magazine. HOMES.COM leverages its relationships with these magazines to draw traffic to the Web site and bases its content, in part, on apartment and rental property listings and other information from them.

Homes & Land Publishing, Ltd., currently publishes over 250 of these magazines covering over 15,000 US communities, with a monthly circulation of more than 5.5 million copies viewed by more than 15 million consumers. Both HOMES.COM and Homes & Land Publishing, Ltd., credit 20 years of success serving consumers and the apartment/rental property management community to cutting-edge technology, high-quality publications, easy-to-read formats, and sophisticated direct-mail and telemarketing support programs.

Published: May 15, 1998

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