The No. 2 and No. 3 online listing ports made major announcements yesterday (Tuesday), signaling the real estate industry that the race to be No. 1 on the Internet isn't quite over yet.

In separate announcements, Microsoft HomeAdvisor said it had snared the 10,000 listings of the country's fifth largest real estate brokerage firm -- Arvida Realty Services. And HomeSeekers.com announced it had surpassed the 800,000 listings mark with the signing of 11 more multiple listing systems.

Despite the positive news, reality is that both services are well behind the leader -- REALTOR.com which reports its database contains more than 1.3 million listings.

Arvida Realty Services is Florida's largest brokerage firm with nearly 90 offices and more than 2,700 agents. CEO Richard W. Cope said Arvida selected HomeAdvisor because of its technological edge.

"Our Internet strategy focuses on using the Web as a tool to ensure that we deliver a set of services to our customers. We set out to work with (Microsoft) because it had the tools and technology to help us remain two steps ahead of our competition," he said.

A spokesman for Arvida noted that the company's listings already were on REALTOR.com and would remain there.

"We've always been very strong advocates of REALTOR.com and we want our brokers and sales associates to understand the importance of that network," the spokesman said. "But we've also heard from our sales associates that they want (their listings) to be wherever consumers are looking for properties -- and that may not always be just REALTOR.com."

"We feel REALTOR.com has done a good job of promoting their site, but the truth is we can't control where buyers will look. A lot of people belong to the Microsoft Network. We've had sellers say they want to be able to see their properties on there" on HomeAdvisor.

The spokesman also said Arvida was considering posting its listings on other sites as well.

In its announcement, HomeSeekers.com said it had signed 11 new regional MLSs, pushing its listings count to 805,000. Additionally, the company said it was preparing to sign agreements with 19 additional regional MLS's located in Utah, Nevada, Connecticut, Arizona, Colorado, Florida, Pennsylvania, North Dakota, South Dakota and California.

"At the current accelerated listing rate, we believe that our goal to achieve the 1 million listing count by the end of 1999 will be achieved," said HomeSeeker's CEO Gregory Costley.

Adding HomeSeekers were: Real Estate Information Network Inc., Va.; MLS of Southwest Washington, Wash.; Olympic MLS, Wash.; Southwestern Illinois Regional MLS, Ill.; Southeast Arizona Multiple Listing Service Inc., Ariz.; Lancaster County Association of Realtors, Pa.; Tallahassee Board of Realtor, Fla.; Metro Listing Service, Ga.; Houston Association of Realtors, Texas; Bayridge-Bensonhurst MLS Inc., N.Y.; and Computer Services Plus, Utah.

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Published: August 25, 1999

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