HOUSTON – HAR.com, founded by the Houston Association of Realtors almost 20 years ago, will begin carrying listings of homes for sale across Texas.
HAR has signed an agreement with List-Hub to make the Texas listings available in a beta version later this month. The statewide version of the website reportedly will be operating with the “Homes And Realtors” marketing moniker to capitalize on the H-A-R acronym.
The Houston realty association was the first major Multiple Listing Service in the nation to post its listings online, in a forward-looking innovation that started in the mid-1990s. HAR.com has gone on to be one of the largest real estate websites in the world and Bob Hale, the Houston Association of Realtors president and CEO, has gained stature in the online realty industry nationally.
“As an MLS, the accuracy and integrity of the content on our website is of top importance, and with ListHub, we know that the content will be 100 percent broker-authorized, and MLS-accurate,” Hale said.
HAR.com attracts millions of visitors per month on the website and mobile apps, and looked at 37 million detailed listing pages in January 2014 alone. There will be no competing ads on the listings in the statewide HAR.com. All leads will be routed to the listing agent and to the listing broker’s designated lead management email and phone number.
HAR.com is the only local site that regularly ranks in the top 20 real estate sites in the country, according to Experian Marketing Services, and it was the number two real estate site in Texas in January 2014, behind only Zillow.
“HAR.com is the #2 real estate website in Texas and Realtor listings were viewed 37 million times in January,” said Virginia Cook, CEO of Virginia Cook, Realtors of Dallas. “We are so pleased that we will soon be able to promote all our listings on HAR.com at no cost. We congratulate HAR for always helping our agents grow their business in this digitized 21st Century! Bravo! Bravo from your Dallas fellow Realtors.”
ListHub, the leading distributor of property listings and provider of performance metrics in real estate, is operated by Move, Inc.
By Ralph Bivins, editor, RealtyNewsReport.com