If you've wondered why you need to advertise globally on the World Wide Web when you are a local neighborhood expert, you're not alone. More Internet companies are gearing up to provide real estate agents with new online marketing opportunities at the local level.

Citysearch, a subsidiary of Ticketmaster.com, has just announced a partnership with Network Communications, Inc. (NCI), a real estate and publishing giant with over 500 magazines in circulation including The Real Estate Book(r), New Home Finder(, Unique Homes Magazine(r), Mature Living Choices(r), Apartment Blue Book Finder(r), Apartment Finder(, Corporate Choices.com(tm), The Luxury Real Estate Book( and Commercial and Investment Properties,) as well as private label magazines for over 30 real estate agencies. Through its Web site, Livingchoices.com, the publications enjoy over 1.5 unique visitors monthly.

Citysearch was formed in a merger with Ticketmaster in 1998, and in 1999, Tickmaster bought Microsoft Sidewalk, Citysearch's biggest competitor, making it a premier local entertainment, employment, and general city information resource for over 81 key cities. Citysearch receives over three million unique visitors a month and already has real estate guides.

The joint venture will result in a new Web site called Livingchoices.citysearch.com which will be the front door to the real estate channel for both companies.

Steven Trepp, president of Citysearch, says, "This alliance will offer the best local search with the best local content. We have a considerable audience and we felt that Network brings the best real estate content. With Citysearch it has been general content information and we looked to partner with some of the classified offerings like automotive (Edmunds.com), employment (flipdog.com) and now real estate."

The new site will debut sometime in the next 60 to 90 days, says Trepp, and will offer an array of products to Realtors from Web sites to interactive ads featuring lots of photography.

Both NCI and Citysearch believe the timing is right for a joint venture. Citysearch boasts an 80 percent in traffic over last year, signaling a possible trend toward localization of searches by consumers.

Says Ray Peabody, director of online services, "People have just a few ways to access real estate information online. You can go to a real estate site or you go to a local site through a search engine or what you've seen through advertising. You go to Citysearch to find out about the city you are interested in, and once you are there, what are you going to find? You will want to know what homes are for sale, because you are right there."

"We have significant relationships with Realtors in so many markets," says Peabody, "We currently sell ads to approximately 80,000 Realtors, so we are looking at doing a lot of research to find out what the realtor is looking for. We are an advertising medium, and Realtors want leads. They want people to call them. That's where we excel."

NCI currently supplies about 130,000 listings online to other third-party service providers including Yahoo! and HomeAdvisor, and Excite, among others. "We get a lot of requests for content, but we do not sell leads," emphasizes Peabody. "We have a closely monitored leads delivery system. We don't get involved in sites that denigrate agents or imply that agents are overpaid. They are professionals."

Under consideration is including listings from other service providers in areas where not much content is available, but the site is under no pressure to match the online listings of Realtor.com (1.4 million) or others, says Peabody.

"The way we see it is that if you choose to shop at a store, you want goods that are preselected and that is why you go to that store. We don't aspire to have the volume that Realtor.com does. We feel that our combined consumer traffic will be enough to attract Realtors to our site."

Published: February 5, 2001

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