Inman

Alain Pinel offers school, community info with real estate searches

Alain Pinel Realtors, an independent real estate company based in Los Gatos, Calif., announced today that the company now offers neighborhood and school data to accompany information on property details at its Web site, www.apr.com.

A “communities” section at the company’s Web site provides information on neighborhood demographics, crime and housing statistics. “Cities are compared to average standards in the metro area served by the target city, as well as to national averages,” according to a company announcement today.

“The school site reports academic performance of the schools, teacher credentials and experience, average class size, student economic level and access to technology and compares with data based on statewide averages.”

GreatSchools.net, a San Francisco-based independent and nonprofit resource for parents who want information about kindergarten through 12th grade education, supplies the school information for the Web site. GreatSchools.net was nominated for a Webby Award in the “Family/Parenting” category, Alain Pinel announced. The Webby Awards are determined by the International Academy of Digital Arts & Sciences.

“For consumers, understanding the make up of neighborhoods and local school systems is very fundamental to the process of selecting places to live and once we have visitors on our site, it makes sense to keep them there, rather than lose them to Internet links in order for them to find the same information. We embedded the information with every property detail page to make it the most convenient for the home buying consumer to find. The more detail we can add to the property page makes for a richer online experience for the consumer,” said Ginny Cain-McMurtrie, the company’s vice president of marketing.

Susan Smith, an Alain Pinel Realtor in the company’s Saratoga office, said in a statement, “This information … gives them a good overview of a community and useful data on its schools. When we get in the car to tour prospective homes for purchase, my clients have a much better understanding of the community we are in.”

The school and neighborhood information is available to consumers who click an icon on any property details page. The information is also available by clicking the “moving” button at the www.apr.com site and the selecting “neighborhood information.” School and neighborhood information is available there by county and city area.

Alain Pinel Realtors has 24 offices in Santa Clara, San Mateo, San Francisco, Alameda, Contra Costa, Monterey and Santa Cruz counties. During 2005, Alain Pinel Realtors had a record total sales volume of $7.75 billion, compared with a previous record of $7.4 billion in 2004. Last year, APR represented home buyers and sellers in 6,788 total transaction sides. The average sale per transaction side for Alain Pinel sales professionals in 2005 was $1.14 million.