Edina Realty's New Website Allows Minnesota Consumers to Search for Homes by Lifestyle, Features and School Attendance Zones from Any Device
EDINA, Minn., Nov. 10, 2016 /PRNewswire/ -- With two-thirds of consumers reaching for a mobile device to search for homes, Minnesota-based Edina Realty spent the last 18+ months creating a responsive website that delivers a consistent experience across all devices – smartphone, tablet and desktop. The new website is located at www.edinarealty.com. Edinarealty.com is the most popular real estate brokerage website in the region (Hitwise 2015) with more than 13 million visits in 2015. Combined, the company's website, mobile website and mobile apps attracted more than 32 million visits last year – an increase of 29 percent overall from the previous year.
Consumers can also now search for homes according to school attendance zones and view school ratings, reviews and data powered by SchoolDigger®, directly on edinarealty.com. The company's new website runs on Microsoft's Azure cloud computing platform and includes community market statistics presented alongside each listing, powered by Onboard Informatics, as well as county property data, sold information and more. The site also features a large interactive map of Minnesota with drawing tool for consumers to easily customize their search parameters.
In addition to a comprehensive home search, edinarealty.com offers a rich library of articles about home buying, selling, owning and more. Topics range from insights about what to do if your tree falls in your neighbor's yard to whether a car lease can affect your ability to get financing for a home. New articles are posted frequently so that topics remain fresh, current and relevant to today's consumers' questions and issues.
While many companies have gravitated to responsive website designs, it's difficult for a real estate company to deliver this experience, due to the sheer number of pages, photos and data integration required. Additionally, many smaller residential real estate brokerages lack the resources necessary to create and maintain a robust website.
Edina Realty did have a mobile website; however, it presented a more limited experience to those seeking to buy or sell their home. The company's new, responsive website presents a more integrated, robust experience, regardless of the device it is viewed on. Edina Realty will continue to offer its mobile apps for iPhone, iPad and Android devices.
Traffic on Edina Realty's mobile site increased by 100 percent in 2015 versus 2014 and visits to its mobile apps also increased 18 percent, while desktop traffic declined slightly. "Minnesota home buyers and sellers want immediate access to customized information about real estate," said Greg Mason, president and CEO of Edina Realty Home Services. "Smartphones have become so ubiquitous, we had to take a serious look at the changing demographics, usage patterns, what consumers want and how they prefer to access information about homes."
The 2016 National Association of REALTORS® Home Buyer and Seller Generational Trends reports that 71 percent of millennial buyers search for homes through a mobile app or website; in contrast, 64 percent of Gen X; 46 percent of baby boomers; and 26 percent of the silent generation use mobile apps for websites. Despite these trends, 49 percent of consumers said online content was not displayed properly on their smartphones, according to a 2015 Pew Research Center report.
"The modernized edinarealty.com features a search that allows consumers to easily select criteria that is important to them, such as a fireplace, two-car garage or 55-plus living community, right from tiles on the homepage," explained Mason.
To design and develop its new site, Edina Realty worked in partnership with RBA, an award-winning national digital and technology consultancy based in Minneapolis. The teams worked collaboratively to identify key user experience and design objectives to ensure visitors to the site would get the information they need and have an optimized experience on any device. Additionally, by architecting the solution within the cloud, the site is equipped for future growth to allow easy scalability as website traffic fluctuates. "By bringing Edina Realty's website in-house, we can adapt the site to our clients' changing preferences and reduce the time it takes to introduce innovative online tools to the market," said Mason.
The new responsive website features one-touch access to speak with an agent or a local customer care representative.
For more information on Edina Realty's new website, visit www.edinarealty.com or call Edina Realty customer care at 952-928-5563.
Edina Realty is a Berkshire Hathaway affiliate and a wholly-owned subsidiary of HomeServices of America, Inc. It is one of the nation's largest real estate companies with more than 75 real estate offices and 2,350 REALTORS® throughout Minnesota and western Wisconsin. Edina Realty's family of companies includes Edina Realty, Edina Realty Title, Edina Realty Insurance and Edina Realty Mortgage. Edina Realty closed more than 32,000 real estate transactions and more than $8 billion in sales volume for 2015. For more information, visit www.edinarealty.com, m.edinarealty.com, or find us on Facebook: facebook.com/EdinaRealty; and Twitter: Twitter.com/Edina_Realty.
About RBA
RBA is a national digital and technology consultancy headquartered in Minneapolis that combines expertise in strategy, design and technology to close the gap between ideas and results. We are passionate about helping our clients transform their businesses through digital and technology solutions. Visit rbaconsulting.com or follow @rbaconsulting.
About Onboard
Onboard Informatics is a leader in data-driven consumer engagement. Founded in 2002, Onboard has information on all 150 million US properties and the areas surrounding them. Clients use that content to engage their consumers and convert that interest into sales.
SOURCE Edina Realty
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