Realty Times - Homestore Defines the Vortal

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Homestore Defines the Vortal

by Blanche Evans

Announcing what it calls the next generation "vortal," Homestore.com announces its new site expansion, making it the most complete source of home and real estate content on the Web for buying, selling, moving, renting, decorating, and shopping.

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Defining "vortal" as a "portal site" devoted to serving a singular (vertical) content category", Homestore is securing its position as the go-to site for all home related products and services, connecting visitors to a convenient, one-stop source for thousands of pages on properties, resources, tips, advice, decision support tools and photos.

"Over the last several years, we've seen a range of vertical/portal sites devoted to retail, stocks and sports," said Stuart Wolff, chairman and chief executive officer of Homestore.com. "Today, on our three-year anniversary as a company, we are introducing a 'vortal' that covers the largest and most important purchase in the consumer's life cycle - the home."

The new Homestore.com vortal is organized according to the following master tabbed categories:

Homes by REALTOR.com®, Homestore.com's(tm) flagship site and the official Internet site of the National Association of REALTORS®, features approximately 1.36 million existing and new home listings, neighborhood information as well as directories for real estate agent and broker services. Consumers can search for homes on REALTOR.com® by location or by property type including single and multi-family homes, condominiums, land, and farms.

New Homes offers a homebuying guide detailing the advantages of purchasing a new home, how to choose a builder and other concerns faced when purchasing a new home. In addition, users can view more than 125,000 models, available new homes and built to suit plans, find a builder from more than 15,000 builders nationwide or plan their new homes online.

Apartments offers access to over 6 million apartments for rent in over 6,000 cities and provides apartment hunting tips, moving checklists, neighborhood information as well as the opportunity to search for apartments nearby work addresses or university campuses.

Finance houses information regarding loans and credit, banking, insurance, investing and taxes in addition to a variety of calculators for computing costs of renting versus buying, refinancing homes, home affordability and the cost of a mortgage agent.

Moving is a complete source of relocation information, featuring city reports, school district reports, community comparisons and crime statistic. Visitors may also use special tools designed to help them price and organize their move.

Remodel and Maintain, the official site of National Association of Home Builders (NAHB) Remodelors* Council and the National Association of the Remodeling Industry (NARI), provides do-it-yourself information about virtually any remodeling job as well as complete databases of professional remodelers, searchable by area and specialty.

Decorate contains interior design information by room and season, outdoor landscaping information and professional tips and advice.

HomeTech holds automation information, home office and home theater set-up tips, and even information about living in outer-space!

Holiday Shop offers 70 of the most popular home items to buy with gift ideas for everyone in the family. As charitable donations are a part of the holiday season, visitors can even find a way to help make the holidays bright for those less fortunate.

The newly redesigned Homestore site also features edutainment to pure entertainment, with information that consumers can find out about their own homes, visits to the "hottest properties in the nation," million dollar homes, and homes of Hollywood movie stars.

Published: December 8, 1999

Use of this article without permission is a violation of federal copyright laws.

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Today's Headlines 12/08/1999 12:00:00 AM

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