Inman

Fidelity unveils new real estate valuation tool

Fidelity National Real Estate Solutions is now offering a Web-based lead generation tool for real estate professionals that gives consumers instant home values while capturing their information as leads for agents, the company said Monday.

NeighborhoodHomeSales is powered by Fidelity’s proprietary property ownership database, which contains more than 120 million real property records nationwide, according to Fidelity.

In keeping with consumers’ growing desire to search the Internet for property listings and value information, Fidelity’s NeighborhoodHomeSales service allows real estate professionals to put a home evaluation link on their existing Web site or a standalone Web site and provide consumers with instant home evaluations.

The resulting lead is then provided to the real estate professional or lender to nurture over time. By offering this tool as a free value-added resource to consumers, real estate professionals can increase the number of Web site visitors who provide contact information, supporting their online lead aggregation efforts, Fidelity said.

Consumers register for the home evaluation service on the real estate professional’s Web site, allowing agents and brokers to determine whether the consumer is a potential buyer or seller, thereby enhancing the quality or value of the lead.

By incorporating the automated home valuation tool within their Web sites, real estate professionals are able to provide consumers with valuable content while driving traffic to their personal or company-branded Web sites in lieu of purchasing leads from other sources, the company said.

“Spending marketing resources enhancing traffic to personal Web sites is a far better return than purchasing leads from other national providers,” said Jim Guy, senior vice president, Lead Generation Solutions for Fidelity National Real Estate Solutions, in a statement.

“Our goal is to leverage our technology to increase revenue and bottom line savings for real estate professionals. The introduction of NeighborhoodHomeSales for use by real estate professionals supports this goal by driving visitors to their Web sites and helping them to rapidly prioritize leads for quicker conversion,” Guy said.

Once real estate professionals receive leads from NeighborhoodHomeSales, they also have the option of having the leads automatically populate into Fidelity’s ManagementCenterStandard for Agents system, an online lead capture and customer relationship management solution, the company said.

By utilizing ManagementCenterStandard in conjunction with the NeighborhoodHomeSales offering, real estate professionals can prearrange automated e-mail campaigns that periodically contact the consumers, helping to increase the likelihood that the real estate professional will be first-in-mind when the consumer is ready to move forward in the real estate process, Fidelity said.

Agents also have the ability to share leads with their mortgage partner to increase the effectiveness and follow through, according to Fidelity.

***

Send tips or a Letter to the Editor to janis@inman.com or call (510) 658-9252, ext. 140.