Fidelity National Real Estate Solutions (FNRES) is relaunching an old, familiar friend, Cyberhomes.com, but the new Cyberhomes is more than a site for Realtors to advertise their listings -- it's going to have professional appraisal-enhanced automated valuations on all the homes in its database. All consumers have to do is key in an advanced search, and a map of the community appears with homes for sale lit up like Christmas trees.

Lots of sites have announced home valuations lately as a tool for consumers and as lead generators for Realtors, but what FNRES says it has figured out is that real estate brokers don't want their prospects going to a third-party website to get information. They want the consumer to come to them. No problem. FNRES plans to put Cyberhomes on agent websites and let them do the evangelizing free of charge.

But agents don't necessarily want traffic for nothing. They want people who are ready to execute on a plan -- to buy, sell, rent, or invest.

Marty Frame, FNRES Chief Information Officer, claims that fewer than 15 percent of people who look at homes online are actually ready, willing and/or able to make a transaction happen. Most are there because they're curious or they are trying to figure something out -- like whether it's the right time to buy, sell, or improve their homes.

This means the vast majority of online "consumers" aren't online to transact business, which poses an interesting dilemma for real estate agents and their listings.

Enter FNRES' Cyberhomes, with a new prod to get consumers talking to agents -- home valuations. And what do agents get out of the deal? Fresh exposure for their listings without having to pay for it.

"The vast audience 85 percent is not in the market to buy or sell -- they just want to look at the information," says Frame, "It dwarfs the number of people in a year that actually make a transaction, so there is a huge audience that just likes to look at real estate for whatever reason. If Realtors are spending all this money trawling the web, how badly are we damaging people who want to look at the information?"

Continues Frame, "What most people want is to buy or sell a home, but there is a far vaster audience that just wants to look or do a mix of things. They track their home's value like an asset because it's fun to do, or they might see a sign go up in their neighbor's yard, and that gets them wondering how that would change the value of their home," explains Frame. "The thing is they aren't getting caught in a lead management system, and the Realtor isn't spending their money processing 85 percent of leads and then throwing them out. You can say, I didn't damage them in the process, but I'm not economically set up to deal with people at this stage, and you don't have to spend the money to retain them because what they are looking for is a media experience to do again and again. We're saying to the Realtor, 'Don't worry. They will keep coming to you until they are inspired to act, they'll be with you on your website.'"

FNRES believes Cyberhomes will have a solid advantage with Realtors because the company already serves the industry with MLS, appraisal and broker price opinion data, and more importantly, is not interested in competing with them. There will be no Cyberhomes brokerages opening up.

"We have worked hard to build solid partnerships with real estate companies throughout the country, and it was important for us to create a website that benefits brokers and their associates by helping them provide consumers with total transparency to home evaluation data, tools and content," says Frame. "Cyberhomes.com helps real estate professionals get connected and stay connected with consumers by providing a destination site that links directly to their own websites and is fully integrated with a rich and dynamic home information experience."

He explains, "There are three key elements of the Cyberhomes experience," continued Frame. "First, Fidelity National's leading property information database and automated valuation tools. Second, the capability to integrate listings for sale from participating companies right now, to show consumers what's happening in the marketplace and how home prices are affected in real time. Third, the power of the community itself, by incorporating information based on site usage to enhance the site's picture of supply and demand."

Cyberhomes is fully co-brandable, says the company, and designed to integrate directly and fully into the websites of participating real estate companies. Cyberhomes will include the real estate companies' branding and listing content and has been designed with sophisticated agent servicing rules to route traffic and inquiries exactly as each company wishes, on an associate-by-associate basis. Consumers on a company's website will have the full experience without having to leave the site, exposing them to the real estate company's brand throughout.

Data to Cyberhomes.com is supplied by Fidelity Information Systems' (FIS') leading information and tools, in conjunction with the listing content of all participating brokers, providing material information on more than 100 million properties in the U.S.

"Cyberhomes is designed to satisfy this appetite for information and to help position participating real estate companies front-and-center, at the critical point when the online consumer goes from being simply curious to actively needing to sell or buy," says Frame.

Published: November 8, 2006

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Blanche is a renowned author of five real estate books. Her newest, Bubbles, Booms and Busts: Make Money In Any Real Estate Market, McGraw-Hill, was rave-reviewed by The New York Times. She was also selected from hundreds of real estate experts to contribute to Donald Trump's book, Trump: The Best Real Estate Advice I Ever Received: 100 Top Experts Share Their Strategies, Rutledge Hill Press, and is featured on page 68. Order Now Review - Honors In 2006, Blanche was selected among scores of candidates to author two consumer real estate guidebooks for the National Association of Realtors: The NAR Guide to Home Buying, and The NAR Guide to Home Selling, Wiley & Sons. She is currently planning two new books for the NAR and its members.       Known for her keen insight into real estate industry issues and for her ability to make complex subjects easy to understand, Blanche is a sought-after keynote and continuing education speaker. Real estate organizations from MLSs, to brokerages, to franchisors, to associations hire her to provide up-to-the-minute analysis of real estate industry news and advice on how to improve revenues. Her passionate delivery, peppered with stinging wit, is a huge hit with audiences and fans. Don Klein, CEO Greater Nashville Association of Realtors, Blanche Evans, Richard Courtney, president 2007, GRAR "The GNAR membership meeting last week featured Blanche Evans as the keynote speaker. Her comments and insights resonated extremely well with those in attendance and we have had many requests for copies of her PowerPoint Presentation. She was a terrific part of the membership meeting and convention program!" - Don Klein, CEO Greater Nashville Association of Realtors Coverage from WSMV, Nashville - 8-14-2007 That Interview Guy - Get Inside The Head Of Today's Generation 2007 AE Institute Session - To purchase 2006 AE Institute Session - Parts 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 HouseValues Mastermind call - Parts 1 2 Blanche's fireside chat with Jeremy Conaway, HAR - Click here. For more articles by Blanche, click here.