Like other new brokerages, Austin, Texas-based HomeCity.com doesn't have any ideas on how to improve the real estate transaction. Nor does it have any insights into how to cut operating costs except through utilizing proprietary technologies. But it could have the answer to the compelling question of the industry - how to get more sales.

Where Homecity feels it can gain a market advantage is by providing consistent high-quality information to clients. On any site, you can look at homes and there will be some with photos, some with virtual tours, and much information about a home is text only, says Homecity cofounder, David Rubin, and little of it is useful if you are relocating. "Most sites including Realtor.com are aggregators of information, we are content generators," he says proudly.

To get that consistency, Homecity does two things no other brokerage does. It actually scours each neighborhood for everything from restaurants to schools to favorite sports activities, and puts community and neighborhood descriptions into a searchable database that consumers can open by employer, if they are being relocated, or by area. Side-by-side comparisons of up to three neighborhoods lets consumers know which is closest to work, which has the most homes in a certain price range, which ones are closest to golf courses, which schools have the highest SAT scores, most active nightlife, etc.

Select a neighborhood, and Homecity offers virtual tours of its own and other brokers' listings, complete with other proprietary data such as aerial views, interior virtual tours, as well as floor plans, elevations, and property lines. Want to see if that swing set and fort will fit in the backyard before you move it? You won't have to eyeball it in person - the property line is right there for you to measure online.

But this rich relocation data is only for serious prospects. If you want to see every home in the MLS free, forget it, unless you are willing to give your e-mail address to be allowed admittance. Then you can play to your heart's content.

"We're not a portal," says Rubin without apology. "This is for our clients." In fact, the site looks like it doesn't care if it never gets a search engine referral. Why? Homecity has other ways to get clients besides the Internet.

"Instead of spending money on a lot of advertising, which I think is an ineffective model," says Rubin, "we are going directly to the employers in the area and showing them what we can do. We can make the relocations a lot easier for their employees. Before they even step off the plane, they have an idea of which neighborhoods and homes they want to see. That saves them and the relocation department time."

The strategy is bold but there could be a pay-off. Dell Computers, a strong Austin economic spoke, relocated over 1,300 employees last year. If Homecity starts with only a few accounts like that, it could quickly become a market leader in short order.

Its investors are counting on it. Backing the company is Castletop Capital, an investment firm founded by former vice chairman of Dell Computer Corporation Mort Topfer and his sons Alan and Richard Topfer. Homecity's CEO Phil Williams and Rubin left executive positions with another dot-com to correct the "inefficiency of the traditional real estate model."

"Between the portals and online brokers the experience is poor for consumers, because it is wide but not deep. If I'm sitting in Silicon Valley and I need to look at Austin, I want to see Austin, and half the homes don't have pictures or virtual tours," explains Rubin. "Discounters said they were going to generate efficiencies for the consumer, but that's not working because the vast majority of participants aren't online. The way the Web could make a difference, is that you can use it to see lot plats and aerial views of areas."

That's why the site isn't worried about online traffic. "When you are a Realtor.com, you have to get maximum users to your site because you are trying to please advertisers," says Rubin, "but a broker has to provide the most value and the way to do it today is not with back-end transactional systems. It is providing the best content to consumers in terms of areas, communities and individual properties and showing how they are all tied together."

"With our proprietary technology, we can take lot plats (property lines) and overlay them over recent aerial views and then overlay other geographic and MLS information so the net result to consumers is they can see a complete new listing on the MLS. Within 24 hours of the listing appearing in the MLS, our clients can see zoomable aerial views with lot plats, road names, and maps and these are automatically posted on the web with no human interaction."

The company plans to be just as efficient at getting business with in-person sales calls from top relocation agents, and that is where the executive-level service comes in, he says. "Today Dell may refer to 100 different brokers in Austin," says Rubin, "and we have a huge difference to offer."

Published: June 19, 2001

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