January 4th, 2012

Windermere Real Estate Uses Neighborhood Navigator

By Kim Cipriano Prior, SVP, Marketing and MLS Market Development

Seattle-based Windermere Real Estate has revamped its website,Windermere.com, which now offers “a streamlined user experience requiring few clicks to access information and listings,” the company said.

Onboard Informatics is happy to to contribute to the better user experience by providing a customized version of Neighborhood Navigator to help display local community, school, amenities and market information at the neighborhood level.

In addition to the “Discover Your Neighborhood” feature, Windermere.com will also include the ability to save listings and searches for registered users; listing detail pages with more multiple listing service data fields; search results integrated with Bing maps; expanded buyer and seller tips; a new agent and office search.

What a great launch to the new year!

August 25th, 2011

The Creig Northrop Team, of Long & Foster Chooses Onboard Informatics to power Lifestyle Search Widget and Neighborhood Navigator on their state-of-the-art website, designed by SM Sold

By Stacey Ret, Director of Marketing

Innovative search experience and community pages allows website visitors to find the neighborhoods that best meet their lifestyle needs in Maryland, and surrounding areas

August 25, 2011 – New York, NY. Onboard Informatics, the premier data and technology services provider to top-tier real estate, media, and technology companies, is supplying robust community information through Neighborhood Navigator, as well as Lifestyle Search for The Creig Northrop Team of Long & Foster; the top real estate team in the state of Maryland, and #2 in the United States.  These content solutions were a part of the launch of their new website, www.northropteam.com, designed by the talented real estate marketing agency, SM Sold.

The Lifestyle Search Widget, an innovative home buyer search tool, powered by Onboard Informatics, allows The Creig Northrop Team website visitors to search for a home based on specific criteria that is important to them – excellent schools, family friendliness, a fun & hip area, golfer’s paradise, to name a few – prior to searching for a home in a neighborhood that may not possess the qualities important to them.

“We are aware, now more than ever before, that 90 percent of shoppers start their home search online,” said Creig Northrop, principal of The Creig Northrop Team. “We are the leading real estate resource in the Maryland and Washington, D.C. area and that means staying ahead of the curve and meeting our technology savvy consumers where they are most comfortable. We listened to our customers and what they want is an innovative, five-star website that combines all of the great services we offer.”

Lifestyle Search, paired with Neighborhood Navigator is a perfect marriage of two solutions.  Neighborhood Navigator provides the property detail pages, which feature easy-to-read graphs and charts of community information, including recent home sales data, population demographics, school information, crime data, and nearby establishments, allowing the homebuyer to receive a full picture of the area, all before falling in love with a home.

“We are thrilled that The Creig Northrop Team has chosen to feature Onboard’s industry-leading Lifestyle Search feature and data solutions on its state-of-the-art website,” states Marc Siden, CEO, Onboard Informatics. “As a leading real estate firm in Maryland, they have the responsibility to their consumers as well as their agents, to provide cutting-edge technology and maintain a competitive edge in the marketplace.”

“Today, real estate professionals need the advantage of technology to compete. SM Sold offers a web-based content management system that provides Internet marketing and social media tools to keep them connected with prospective buyers and sellers,” states Joseph Freedman, Sales Director, SM Sold.

About Onboard Informatics

Since 2001, Onboard Informatics has provided comprehensive local, regional and national real estate data solutions, powerful Web tools and Web services to some of the most innovative companies in real estate, publishing, and technology.  Onboard delivers seamless integration of lifestyle search, property listings, community, school, neighborhood, geographic and demographic information to support clients in achieving business objectives on Web and mobile platforms.  Privately held since its founding, Onboard is located in the heart of the world’s financial center in the Wall Street area of New York City.  For more information about Onboard Informatics visit www.onboardinformatics.com.

About The Creig Northrop Team of Long & Foster Real Estate, Inc.

The Creig Northrop Team, a part of Long & Foster Real Estate, Inc. is the #1 real estate team in the state of Maryland and #2 in the United States. Serving the Baltimore/Washington, DC region, The Creig Northrop Team has built a reputation for expertise and a track-record for results. For more information regarding buying and selling services in the area contact The Creig Northrop Team of Long & Foster 410.884.8362 or visit www.northropteam.com.

SM Sold

Located in Irvine, California, SM Sold is a real estate marketing agency with more than 10 years of industry experience.  The company serves real estate agents and brokers both locally and nationally and builds successful brands through websites, e-campaigns, printed materials, social media and online/offline strategies.  To contact SM Sold, call (888) 474-2004, or email contact@smsold.com.

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Tags: community data, data, lifestyle search, neighborhood navigator, neighborhoods, real estate data.

April 5th, 2011

Onboard’s Technology Learning Series Kicks Off Today

By Colleen Staunton, Product Manager

We spend a lot of time working with content and web engagement tools at Onboard Informatics, and for the next two months, we’d like to share some of our secrets with you. Our new Technology Learning Series program will feature weekly webinars for our friends in the industry to learn how our content and products can best be implemented to save time and increase revenue. We’ll share our research insights and best practices from our clients. All webinars will be held at 3pm EST on Tuesdays and Thursdays.

April 12: Getting the Most Value From Neighborhood Information
April 14: Getting the Most Value From Neighborhood Information

• Access Community Comparison and Cost of Living Reports
• Review all the data available through the application
• Customize to blend in with your current site

April 19: All the Rage – What is a Lifestyle Search Widget & How can it Improve my Business?
April 21: All the Rage – What is a Lifestyle Search Widget & How can it Improve my Business?

• Provide consumers with the search tools they are demanding
• No development needed for quick and easy implementation
• Brokers and Agents can provide more value to their consumers

April 26: How to Improve SEO using Data
April 28: How to Improve SEO using Data

• Increase your page rank with various implementation strategies
• Learn how our data is SEO friendly
• Review strategies by current clients

May 3: School Content – It’s Free. Why do I need Enhanced School Content on my Site?
May 5: School Content – It’s Free. Why do I need Enhanced School Content on my Site?

• Provide more than just basic school profile information
• Enhance your SEO with Ratings & Reviews that are updated frequently
• Review how current clients are utilizing our school content to their benefit

May 10: Printable Reports: The Importance, Value, and Options
May 12: Printable Reports: The Importance, Value, and Options

• Customizable reports for brand recognition
• Brokers and agents can provide home buyers with detailed reports about a community
• Pick and choose which data sets you would like to provide to consumers

May 17: Lifestyle Search: The Pandora for Real Estate
May 19: Lifestyle Search: The Pandora for Real Estate

• Home Buyers search for a neighborhood ‘fit’ first, so let them search this way on your website
• Create a unique and custom search experience
• See how brokers and agents can benefit from Lifestyle Search

May 24: Neighborhood Information – for Canada
May 26: Neighborhood Information – for Canada

• Community reports for every province and postal code in Canada
• Customize the application to match your website branding
• Capture leads through a lead form

January 26th, 2011

BestPlaces.NYDailyNews.com in Action

By Jackie Berg, Marketing Manager

The New York Daily News relaunched their real estate website this week, powered throughout by Onboard Informatics content. This site is an end-to-end implementation of our services that work in concert to help NYDN bring their city and its dwellings to life. We figured we’d give you a little behind-the-scenes tour on how these pieces fit together and what it means for our client.

Building a site that will build a following

NYDN approached Onboard Informatics in the hopes of creating a new and unique website to highlight the Best Places to Live in the metropolitan New York City area. In the process of creating a destination real estate website, NYDN needed to employ techniques to drive search engine rankings, enable highly targeted on-site search, and deliver compelling navigation capabilities.

One of the most crucial pieces of the development of this project was the delivery of rich content to create a user experience enabling consumers to immerse themselves deep in communities and neighborhoods of the city without going further than their browser. The result is Best Places to Live in NY, an intersection of hyperlocal editorial content, accurate neighborhood data and property listings for buyers. Here are some of the key pieces of the site:

One of the reasons our clients come to us is for a complete solution that is non-disruptive with parts that are capable of creating a synchronized user experience. So how exactly are these parts intertwined?

• The Best Places Lifestyle Profiler is NYDN’s implementation of Lifestyle Search Engine
• Results of neighborhood recommendations feed to neighborhood profiles that are based on real boundaries that truly reflect the vibe and culture of the city’s hundreds of neighborhoods
• Neighborhood profiles are supported with Community and School data (also part of the “Explore NYC Neighborhoods” section)
• Best Places guides are interspersed throughout, including custom top neighborhood lists for niche lifestyles based on our Best Places methodology
• Listings Search Engine drives property search with advanced search criteria (filter by distance to parks/transportation/schools, find a house with pets allowed or a roof garden, etc.)

We invite you to check out the site, find your ideal hood, drool over some ridiculous real estate, and see the city come to life in the process.

Tags: Best Places, Best Places in NY, Best Places to Live, New York Daily News, real estate websites.

December 8th, 2009

Matching Foreclosure Buyers and Sellers

By Jackie Berg, Marketing Manager

Our client Countdown to Buy launched a matching platform today that accelerates the sales cycle of foreclosed properties. CTB uses a technology that automatically matches buyers and sellers in a real estate transaction through a time-limited process that reduces the property’s list price 1% per day. According to CTB, this matching process generally takes 60 days or less.

So what is the countdown process?

Each property is listed with an offer range. Qualified buyers bid privately and confidentially within this range. The price decreases 1% per day across the offer range. As soon as the day’s price matches a buyer’s offer, the property goes to contract immediately.

Since Countdown to Buy can do a better job explaining this model than I can, check out this video for a simple explanation on how the match process works and what happens when multiple buyers are in the mix.

CTB President Dan Connell says this new way of purchasing a home is not your typical auction model:

“We integrated the best features from the traditional real estate model and the prevailing auction method and created a next generation real estate transaction model that brings transparency, trust and a controlled urgency into the process. From the traditional model, CTB took the insights and a local knowledge of agents, inspectors, contractors, and appraisers and incorporated their roles in a much more efficient manner. From the auction model, CTB created an environment of controlled urgency, but not a manic high pressure sales environment that can potentially be manipulated.”

As of today, the pilot program features properties from Connecticut, New Jersey and New York with the potential for additional locations to be added pending negotiations with leading banks and service companies.

In an auction scenario, buyers need to quickly consume relevant information about prospective homes, especially regarding an area’s home sales trending and seasonal activity. CTB’s implementation of Onboard’s Neighborhood Navigator gives buyers all of this information instantly.

Tags: Clients, Countdown to Buy, foreclosures, property auctions, real estate innovation.

September 29th, 2009

Introducing MLS OneSource – The One Stop Shop for Today’s MLSs and REALTORS

By Colleen Staunton, Product Manager

From shopping for clothes, to cars, to homes, online purchases have been growing at an exponetial rate over the past 10 years.  The Nielsen Company did a survey, which suggests that around 85% of online surfers have used the internet for shopping.  Out of those, 94% of all buyers aged 25 to 44 years used the internet to search for a home - NAR Annual Study 2008.  

With that kind of percentage of people (and climbing) utilizing the web for home search, I’d say it’s pretty important for agents to have access to the most accurate local content and innovative technology possible.

 They need engaging information on their websites and in their reports and presentations that goes beyond bed, bath, and square feet. They need access to tools that give invaluable insight into their local communities with just a few clicks. The flexibility to customize, brand and tailor their websites and sales materials to meet each of their customer/prospect’s needs. The content that increases their search engine placement and costumer engagement. They need to be a local expert, a resource, an authority on  local stats and ‘in the know’ information in order to attract, retain and drive quality lead generation.

Technology-driven tools for agents and the need for outsourced data and content used to be something that only the most tech savvy and prosperous companies were involved in. Now, especially with the economic state, it’s a ‘must have’ ‘gotta do’ business move not only to get onboard but to find the highest quality, most efficient, and most cost effective solutions possible.

We started meeting this demand roughly a decade ago when it all started, fine tuning and perfecting the art of data aggregation. Over the years we’ve made it our goal to produce the most accurate and trusted localized content to some of the most established information resources in the country; Coldwell Banker Real Estate Corporation, Century 21, NRT, Realtor.com, Long & Foster, The New York Times, WashingtonPost.com, CNN Money Magazine, and many more.

MLSs and REALTORS®  also have a major responsibility to provide their agents with easy to use tools and accurate local information and have shown an increased interest, over the the past year or so, in the solutions and services we can provide.

We decided to answer the call with our new solution, MLS OneSource.

“Creating the MLS OneSource platform was a natural progression for us. “With an influx of calls and interest stemming from the increase in pressure on agents to enhance their value proposition to consumers, it just made sense for us to formalize a platform. MLS OneSource is specifically designed to help MLSs and REALTORS® engage their consumers by providing relevant and insightful local content and easily integrated solutions that fit their individual business models.” – Marc Siden, CEO, Onboard Informatic

We are excited to launch and introduce MLS OneSource at the CMLS 2009 event this week in Lake Tahoe, California. The platform contains a suite of cutting edge products and services giving full access to our localized content for both agent portals as well as consumer-facing websites. Content categories include detailed information such as home sales, trends, school profiles with GreatSchools.net ratings, demographics, local amenities, and neighborhood boundaries.

The suite of products and solutions offered in the platform range from customizable reports and presentations, easily integrated plug and play neighborhood search tools, standardized web services, to fully tailored delivery of all Onboard’s data, providing complete control over design, development and integration. These tools play a major role in adding value to real estate websites through increasing search engine placement and customer engagement all while building credibility and quality lead generation.

Now is the time for not only real estate but all industries to realize the importance and value in innovative  web and technology solutions. The number of buyers using the internet to do their own research is only growing by the day.

Online shopping trends are showing a consistent rise due to the great response from people. In the coming years, the numbers suggesting the development of the online shopping trends are expected to rise alarmingly.

Kim Cipriano Prior, Onboard’s National Sales Director, is solely devoted to understanding and addressing the MLS sector’s unique set of needs. Kim has over 15 years in strategic business development and sales and marketing experience with 10 years specifically dedicated to the real estate industry and working with MLSs.

If you are interested in learning more about Onboard’s MLS OneSource platform, please email Kim Cipriano Prior at kprior@onboardinformatics or call 646-747-4396.

Tags: CMLS 2009, community reports, data, MLS, neighborhood data, Real Estate, realtors, school profiles, technology tools.

March 5th, 2009

Community 2009 CoPilot and Navigator Release

By Colleen Staunton, Product Manager

Today we released the Community 2009 data into our CoPilot and Neighborhood Navigator products. As we communicated last week the changes will add new reports to both.

Fair Market Rents was added to both CoPilot and Navigator and Smoking Ban was added to Navigator. To see the full details please refer to the following post: http://blog.onboardinformatics.com/2009/02/changes-navigator-and-copilot-community-overview-2009/.

If you do not want to display either of these reports on your Navigator please contact our Product Support team at support@onboardinformatics.com.

Tags: community data, community information, copilot, data updates, neighborhood navigator.

February 27th, 2009

CHANGES – Navigator and CoPilot Community Overview 2009

By Colleen Staunton, Product Manager

Onboard Informatics will be releasing the Community 2009 update to our CoPilot and Neighborhood Navigator products in the coming weeks. For the CoPilot reports we will be including HUD Fair Market Rents. We have added two new reports to the Community Profile in Navigator:  Smoking Ban information and HUD Fair Market Rents.

If you do not want to display these reports in your CoPilot or Navigator products please contact our Product Support team at support@onboardinformatics.com.

CoPilot

As was messaged last year, Onboard will no longer support certain debt/net worth fields. As a result the following tables will be eliminated from all CoPilot reports (both new reports and reports that were previously created and saved):

Financial Report:

Now included in all CoPilot reports is a report on Fair Market Rents:

Neighborhood Navigator

1. Smoking Ban data – This data will be provided at each geographic search level within Navigator. The data indicates whether an area has a smoking ban in place for the following:

• Workplaces
• Restaurants
• Bars

A report will look like this:

2. Fair Market Rents – These estimates will also be provided at each geographic level. Navigator will show estimates for the following:

• Studio
• One Bedroom
• Two Bedroom
• Three Bedroom
• Four Bedroom

This Fair Market Rents Report will look like this:

Onboard’s data team works diligently to estimate FMRs for our place, zip and county level data (not all counties are identified in HUDs base data). Please note that FMR values typically occur at a county or Metropolitan Statistical Area (MSA).

The definition of FMR from the HUD website states:

“FMRs are gross rent estimates.  They include the shelter rent plus the cost of all tenant-paid utilities, except telephones, cable or satellite television service, and internet service. HUD sets FMRs to assure that a sufficient supply of rental housing is available to program participants.  To accomplish this objective, FMRs must be both high enough to permit a selection of units and neighborhoods and low enough to serve as many low-income families as possible.  The level at which FMRs are set is expressed as a percentile point within the rent distribution of standard-quality rental housing units^[1].  The current definition used is the 40th percentile rent, the dollar amount below which 40 percent of the standard-quality rental housing units are rented^[2].  The 40th percentile rent is drawn from the distribution of rents of all units occupied by recent movers (renter households who moved to their present residence within the past 15 months).  HUD is required to ensure that FMRs exclude non-market rental housing in their computation.  Therefore, HUD excludes all units falling below a specified rent level determined from public housing rents in HUD’s program databases as likely to be either assisted housing or otherwise at a below-market rent, and units less than two years old.”

^[1] Standard-quality rental housing units have the following attributes:  Occupied rental units paying cash rent; Specified renter on 10 acres or less; With full plumbing; With full kitchen; Unit more than 2 years old, and Meals not included in rent.

^[2] FMRs were initially set at the 45^th percentile, but were reduced to the 40^th percentile, beginning with the FY1995 FMRs. The vast majority of areas remain at the 40^th percentile rent. However, certain areas are assigned the 50^th percentile rent. Fiftieth percentile FMRs were established by a rule published on October 2, 2000, that also established the eligibility criteria used to select areas that would be assigned 50th rather than the normal 40th percentile FMRs. The objective was to give PHAs a tool to assist them in de-concentrating voucher program use patterns. The three FMR area eligibility criteria were: 1. FMR Area Size: the FMR area had to have at least 100 census tracts.  2. Concentration of Affordable Units: 70 percent or fewer of the tracts with at least 10 two-bedroom units had at least 30 percent of these units with gross rents at or below the 40th percentile two-bedroom FMR; and, 3. Concentration of Participants: 25 percent or more of the tenant-based rental program participants in the FMR area resided in the 5 percent of census tracts with the largest number of program participants. The rule also specified that areas assigned 50th percentile FMRs were to be re-evaluated after three years, and that the 50th percentile rents would be rescinded unless an area has made at least a fraction of a percent progress in reducing concentration and otherwise remains eligible. (See 24 CFR 888.113.)

Tags: community information, copilot, data, HUD, neighborhood data, neighborhood navigator, Onboard Informatics.

January 26th, 2009

Yelp Content Live On Neighborhood Navigator Client Sites

By Colleen Staunton, Product Manager

Onboard Informatics has officially released Yelp Ratings and Reviews in our Neighborhood Navigator product.  Users looking at business listings in Navigator will now be able to glean further insight into the local community around a client’s listings.   Over 3 million Yelp reviews can be accessed through the newly updated user interface.

Current clients who have amenities do not need to make any changes as the update is automatic.  For clients who would like to take advantage of this content set, please contact our Product Support team at support@onboardinformatics.com.

January 20th, 2009

Amenities XML and Neighborhood Navigator Product Updates

By Colleen Staunton, Product Manager

Amenities XML Service

Onboard Informatics has formally launched its new Amenities XML Web Service.  Existing clients can now choose to receive their amenities via our new web service interface.

This new web service interface for amenities (business listings) content has many advantages over bulk delivery.  Onboard clients can eliminate the hassles associated with batch flat file updates (FTP download, file loading, data management, update processing) as Onboard will now process all updates directly to the XML web service.  End users can enjoy even more information about their prospective communities with the availability of Yelp Ratings and Reviews through this web service (Note – Yelp content is not available by bulk delivery).

Neighborhood Navigator

On Monday, January 26, 2009, all clients who have the amenities (business listings) content set in Neighborhood Navigator will now have Yelp Ratings and Reviews added to their Nearby Establishments pages.  This update will happen automatically so that on Monday morning your users will be able to view Yelp reviews on your Navigator.

Over 3 million Yelp reviews will be available.  Navigator users will even be able to link to Yelp to write their own review.  If clients do not wish to have their Navigator display this data, they should contact our Product Support team at support@onboardinformatics.com.

Tags: navigator amenities xml products updates.