RISMEDIA, April 28, 2008-Homes & Land, LLC has spent the past 35 years scripting the Great American Love Story – Homeownership.
“Our Realtor® clients witness first-hand the empowerment that comes with homeownership,” says Homes & Land CEO Patrick Nadler. “In 1973 when Homes & Land launched, there were 44 million owner occupied homes in the US. At the end of 2007, there were 75 million owner occupied homes.”
“Although we can’t take credit for nearly doubling the number of homes owned, we like to believe that over the last 35 years we have played our part,” said Nadler with a smile. Adding, “We’re in the business of marketing homes to active buyers. It is what Homes & Land publishers do well.”
According to the company, Homes & Land was one of the first publishing companies that focused exclusively on selling real estate. What began as a local venture in Tallahassee, Florida expanded throughout the Southeast and eventually throughout North America. In 1984, Homes & Land began to offer franchising opportunities and was named to The 220 Best Franchises to Buy just three years later. In January of this year, the company says that Homes & Land announced the franchise division grew 7.5% over 2006 to 340 publications. Homes & Land has become one of the nation’s most visible real estate brands by distributing magazines in more than 30,000 local communities and printing over 60 million magazines annually.
“Reaching buyers and sellers has changed significantly over the past three decades,” said Nadler. “What began as a printed publication distributed locally in high traffic areas has grown to include online capabilities where home buyers have access to hundreds of thousands of listings across North America, twenty-four hours a day.”
People are using the Internet to conduct their search for a home. The real estate Internet audience is 18% of the total Internet audience, according to ComScore Media Metrix. That represents 32,747 million unique visitors per month visiting real estate portals, and the online audience continues to grow. In 1995, a National Association of Realtors® (NAR) survey found that only 2% of buyers used the Internet to search for a home. A decade later that number had skyrocketed to 77%. While the Internet is a top resource, only 24% of buyers in 2005 found their home through the Internet; 36% first learned about the home they purchased from a real estate agent — human interaction still reigns supreme.
Interested in selling your home? Include photos and lots of them. According to researchers at the NAR, six or more photos linked to a listing online got 300% more views than properties with just one photo. In addition to engaging an agent, and posting lots of photos, home sellers and their agents need to market properties both in print and online. This ensures that a property is seen multiple times by potential homebuyers.
Homes & Land, says the company, specializes in helping agents and home sellers reach an affluent audience. Through strategic partnerships, HomesAndLand.com has become one of the top real estate search sites for affluent buyers. More than 65% of visitors to HomesAndLand.com have household incomes of $100,000 or more. *
“Our mission is to sell homes for our advertisers and we take great care in attracting active buyers to our publications and our website,” says Nadler.
For more information, visit www.HomesAndLand.com.