Underscoring the viability of second home market niche and the real estate professionals who serve it, EscapeHomes.com has formed a unique partnership with a group of innovative Rocky Mountain resort home real estate specialists.

The Rocky Mountain Resort Alliance of 3,000 real estate agents from nine real estate boards in the Rocky Mountain resort areas of Colorado, Idaho, Utah, Wyoming and British Columbia, Canada has agreed to post approximately 10,000 resort area listings to the EscapeHomes.com Web site this fall.

Alliance agents already place their listings on their own sites and Realtor.com, but the EscapeHomes.com Web site will provide targeted exposure on the Internet's only site exclusively devoted to the second home market. It's the first time EscapeHomes.com has captured such a large block of listings. Also, the alliance is further evidence of EscapeHomes.com's pioneering efforts in carving out a niche market to attract the attention of traditional real estate players.

"Our relationship with the Rocky Mountain Resort Alliance is another important move in addressing the unique needs of the Resort Specialist," said Clark Thompson, CEO of Escape Homes.

The Rocky Mountain listings will be offered through EscapeHomes.com's new "Ski Locator Channel," a new consumer service, offering home shoppers access to multiple listing service listings, vacation rentals, travel information, snow reports and a Buyer's Toolbox of additional services.

The ground breaking affiliation has attracted the attention of the National Association of Realtors which sees the partnership as evidence of a real estate industry trend toward specialization, key to the industry's credibility in the new Millennium.

The partnership should further boost the profile of so-called Resort Specialists (RS) by making them more accessible to the growing ranks of second home consumers who need just the brand of expertise the special agents offer.

Capitalizing on the growth in the baby boomer population and its demand for second homes, EscapeHomes.com is a real estate dot com survivor that boot strapped its way to success as a privately funded company using time-tested revenue models.

Since April of 1999, EscapeHomes.com has used information technology to match second home buyers and sellers with a unique cadre of real estate professionals and affiliated segments of the second home industry -- vacation, resort, retirement and time share homes, both for sale and for rent in 275 cities nationwide and 20 countries.

Visitors can search for properties by city, by town type -- beach, ski, golf, island, lake or world town -- or by category -- timeshare, resort or adult communities. The Web site also showcases destinations by describing the unique flavor of each of the more than 300 communities, the climate, local attractions, amenities and events for each.

One key to EscapeHome's success is exclusive to the vacation home market -- a listing and referral forum for RSs. NAR defines the RS as a real estate practitioner who facilitates the buying, selling, or management of properties for investment, development, retirement, or second homes in a resort, recreational and/or vacation destination.

While RSs bring to the table traditional real estate skills, they have gained a specialty that's crucial to the second home market. To best serve second home buyers, RSs must be in tune with the intricacies of the local and regional resort markets and resort home marketing, and they must have established a network of like agents in similar markets to keep referrals and the cash perks that go with them in the association's community. The new partnership facilitates that need with national exposure.

"Our client, the second home or vacation home buyer, is coming out here and not saying they are married to buying in say Park City, but they are saying they want to buy in one of the ski resorts in the Rocky Mountains. The more we know about each others resorts the more we can talk to the buyer and say what's available and who is a great person to help them look," said Dennis Hanlon, president and founder of the Rocky Mountain Resort Alliance.

RSs are are also in touch with the unique discretionary spending and buying habits of second home buyers, resort home financing and related issues.

"Nobody has to buy that resort property. It's strictly for fun. It's emotional and it is bought with discretionary money. The finances are different, there are exchanges, investment property potential," said Hanlon.

"It's also extremely important how close the property is to the resort. Size is also important. Families grow up and scatter and when the heads of the family are looking for a fun place to gather for the holidays they want a place where children and grandchildren can all come together as a family again," said Hanlon, who is also an associate broker with Lewis Wolcott & Dornbush Real Estate in Park City, UT.

And demand for niche home shopping is evident.

"Coldwell, Prudential, RE/MAX, Century 21, all have a vacation living channels on their site, however, our research shows that people prefer on targeted marketplace showcasing listings from all companies," said Thompson.

The alliance has been instrumental in getting NAR to take a look at the special educational, training and support needs RSs demand. Four years ago, the alliance conducted the first round table discussion on the subject at an NAR convention.

"They gave us a small room with 10 tables and the fire department came and kicked people out because there were too many people in the room, said Hanlon.

A NAR Presidential Advisory Group proposal is now before a NAR Leadership Team to make resort real estate a distinct industry group, much like the existing commercial, international, appraisal, auction, buyer representation and property management groups. Such a designation would mean a heightened level of training, education and marketing support.

"We started this in May and there is a lot of diversity among the group: residential agents, property mangers, investment people. We took some time deciding who they are and what they are and we defined what a resort specialist is," said Chicago-based Jan Tarnow Hope, NAR's Manager of Business Specialties.

The Leadership Team of national officers plan to meet in October to examine the proposal to make recommendations that it will present before NAR's board of directors in November.

"Those folks are the ones who said 'NAR, you may be missing a segment in membership. They have been very instrumental in bringing this new niche to NAR," said Hope.

Thompson said interest in the second home niche markets could spark alliances in other sub-niches, including new home resales, golf course communities, beach communities, island communities and the like.

Published: September 27, 2002

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Broderick Perkins parlayed a career in old-school journalism into a contemporary digital news service that really hits home. The award-winning consumer journalist, originally from Wilmington, DE, is founder, publisher and executive editor of the bootstrap DeadlineNews Group, a Silicon Valley-based editorial content and consulting service specializing in residential real estate, consumer news and related editorial consulting services. The DeadlineNews Group includes the website, DeadlineNews.com, offering real estate editorial content and consulting services, and its back shop, the Deadline Newsroom, an open house on news that really hits home. Perkins obtained his formal journalism education from University of Delaware and a journalism boot camp, the Institute of Journalism Education at the University of California-Berkeley. He went on to 20 years of service as a daily newspaper journalist at the Wilmington, DE News Journal and San Jose, CA Mercury News. Perkins covered housing on the San Jose Mercury News reporting team which earned a General News Reporting Pulitzer Prize in 1989 for coverage of the Loma Prieta earthquake. He has also produced real estate, consumer and small business content for the Wall Street Journal, Los Angeles Times, RealtyTimes.com, Nolo.com, Better Homes and Gardens, the National Association of Realtors, Homestore/Move and Intuit/Quicken among more than three dozen publications. In addition to managing the DeadlineNews Group, Perkins most recently served as chief editorial consultant for Nolo's Essential Guide To Buying Your First Home, Nolo, and writes real estate television scripts for RealtyTimes.com.