Press Release

Weichert.com Offers New Features to Help Buyers Plan Weekend House Hunting

MORRIS PLAINS, N.J. – Searching for Open Houses can be an extremely daunting task for home buyers.  Now, Weichert, Realtors has made this process easier than ever.  Through new enhancements to Weichert.com, prospective buyers can search through Open House listings based on numerous criteria, have customized and printable Open House tours created, and even receive weekly alerts regarding Open Houses in their area of interest.

James M. Weichert, president, said, “At Weichert, we realize that there are numerous steps involved in finding the right house. These additions to our website bring a new level of convenience and ease to the home purchasing process by allowing prospective buyers to search for Open Houses based on their needs.  With more and more consumers turning to the Web to start their home search, we feel that it is critical to integrate Open Houses into our Internet Marketing approach.”

By logging on to Weichert.com, users can search for Open Houses based on location, property type, price range, number of bed and bath-rooms, and even choose homes that are exclusively new construction and/or in adult communities.  Those who sign up for Weichert Valet^SM can save Open Houses searches for later viewing. The online house-searching service on Weichert.com, Weichert Valet also enables users to sort homes, assign ratings, make side-to-side comparisons, and add personalized notes.    

To help plan their weekend house hunting, prospective buyers can sign up to receive weekly Open House alerts.  After creating a Weichert Valet account, users can elect to receive e-mails with information on Open Houses planned for the upcoming weekend in the area specified in your search criteria.  By clicking the links in the e-mail, you can access the full listings on Weichert.com, see all the other Open Houses that match your specifications and even get directions to and from the homes you wish to visit.  For those interested in visiting several Open Houses in one outing, a round-trip route will be mapped out for you, with stops at each selected home. 

Weichert.com features Weichert listings as well as the listings of virtually all other cooperating real estate brokers.  Among its popular features are the newly added open-house features, neighborhood information, school reports, and buyers’ and sellers’ guides. Prospective buyers seeking quick mortgage credit approvals can submit a streamlined mortgage-information form directly from Weichert.com to Weichert Financial Services, a Weichert affiliate.

Most importantly, whether you call the Web site’s 800-number or send an e-mail, you can expect an immediate response from a friendly Weichert Contact Center specialist.  That specialist can connect you to a Weichert sales associate who’s able to answer your questions about a property and schedule a time to see it.

One of the leading real estate Web sites, Weichert.com gets more than three-million visitors monthly.  Indicative of its usefulness, it consistently ranks among the top real estate companies for the length of time that visitors spend on the site, according to Hitwise®, which monitors major Web sites.  

Weichert has nearly 18,500 sales associates in over 500 company-owned and franchised sales offices in key markets throughout the U.S.  A family of full-service real estate and financial services companies, Weichert helps customers buy and sell both residential and commercial real estate, and streamlines the delivery of mortgages and home and title insurance.  For more information, Weichert's customer service center can be reached at 1-800-USA-SOLD or at Weichert's Web site, www.weichert.com.  Each Weichert franchised office is independently owned and operated.

###