homSALE

Focus on real estate search

Jason — Mon, 10 Mar 2008 05:25:01 +0000

As we continue to add and refine features on the site, we are continually looking for feedback on what works and what doesn’t. We crave that feedback actually – to know that people actually care enough to send us a note is invigorating during these early months of starting up.

A pitfall that we strive to avoid from all of the feedback is staying focused on our core competencies. It is easy when a suggestion is submitted to feel that it is the next great feature that we just have to include – that it will be the killer feature to market and bring in the scores of eyeballs that we crave (and ultimately need to make this thing go).

However, as Seth Godin points out, “…just about every place, has a shot at greatness, at becoming a destination, a place with profits and happiness and growth. Along the way, it’s easy to start compromising your marketing, because it seems like in that moment, it’s expedient.”

From our experience, this is a constant struggle – especially in the competitive (i.e. well funded – trulia.com is one example) landscape of our vertical market – as we try to differentiate our site from the many options available on a shoestring (nearly non-existent) budget. We are after all, two guys doing this in our spare time, so staying focused is of the utmost importance if we ever hope to make this work.

So, while we have lots of new features planned in the coming year, you won’t see lots of functionality changes in the near future. We are more focused on increasing the depth of the listings in our existing markets (Madison, Milwaukee, Minnepolis/St. Paul and Chicago) and keeping our user interface clean and simple. Having said that, if there are geographical areas that you would like to see us expand into, tell us on our contact form, we do plan on lots of expansion this year from that standpoint.

Along the way though, we continually remind ourselves to not stray from our core mission: real estate search made simple. Let us know if we are accomplising that (or not)!

Listio Listed

Stuart McIntosh — Fri, 07 Mar 2008 04:50:52 +0000

We were just submitted to Listio.com by asemana and voted on. Feel free to take a look at it, they specialize in indexing Web 2.0 sites and we are rated in the recently popular section.

Rated on KillerStartups.com

Jason — Thu, 06 Mar 2008 05:57:31 +0000

We were recently reviewed by Siri over at KillerStartups.com. Go check it out, give us a vote and then head back here to keep looking around. Things like this keep us motivated to create the best user experience possible (we know there are lots of areas for improvement) and love the feedback. Keep it coming!

Updated Browse Function Released

Stuart McIntosh — Fri, 30 Nov 2007 06:50:19 +0000

We are really excited about our latest function that we added, browse. With this updated feature you can dynamically build your search by click on the options you would like to select. The new browse page can be seen here: www.homsale.com/browse/. Check it out and let us know what you think.

New Interface Released

Stuart McIntosh — Fri, 30 Nov 2007 06:50:09 +0000

As you might have seen, we have officialy released a new interface for our site. We hope that the changes make it easier to find your dream home.

Please keep checking back on our site, we will be releasing more innovative options. Also keep sending your feedback.

New Features Released

Stuart McIntosh — Fri, 30 Nov 2007 06:49:49 +0000

We have been busy again with more features requested by users of our site. We have now added School District, Year Built and last Taxes for all entries that have this information available. We are looking to incorporate this information into the advanced search options as well as displaying the info.

We also have added a new sort option, Price Per Sq Foot. On the listing results you will see a sort option in the top right. You can select form any of the options to sort your results.

Keep the good ideas rolling into us so that we can provide a more valuable experience. Thanks again.