Let It Shine!

Buyers are looking for a place to live, breathe, and relax. Unless you’re specifically selling a place designed to be the next and best “man cave”, be sure that as much natural light as possible is entering the home and turn on all the lights. (Note that this does not mean “all the things.”) While the current homeowner may be averse to that glaring afternoon sunshine, be sure to open those curtains to highlight the bright home that is possible. If the home has dark accents – such as brown walls or dark furniture – this is especially important to prevent the impression of a dark and dreary home. (Because who wants to buy one of those?)

Skip the Smelly Scents

Anyone who has ever faced seasonal allergies knows how annoying a little pollen can be. For those with permanent allergies, even a burning candle can induce an allergy attack that will force your potential buyer back to their car and headed to the hospital. If the house needs some freshening-up, consider opening a window, or looking for allergy-free options like making hot apple cider to clear the air before the open house. Your current homeowners will thank you when potential buyers don’t have an allergy attack at the front door.

Set the Mood with Music

There is mood lighting (see tip #1) and then there is mood music. Both of these sensory experiences can subconsciously impact how a potential buyer feels about the home. Consider playing different types of music throughout the house (quietly!) to impact how those who tour your house feel about the home. Whether you want a couple to feel a sense of romance when viewing their future bedroom, a sense of playfulness in the finished basement or a sudden impulse to dance around the kitchen, you are empowered to make this happen – whether or not those feelings actually exist. (Honestly – who actually dances around their kitchen?)

Serve Delicious Snacks

This might be common sense, but we’ll cover it anyway – always, always, always offer delicious snacks at an open house. Many default to the typical cookies and punch menu, but if you really want to impress potential buyers, consider offering a little something different. If you live in a region that is known for a specific type of food (such as seafood here in the Pacific Northwest) consider offering a “taste” of the area. Alternatively, if the neighborhood is known for being home to vegans or backyard barbecues, consider offering snacks that feature a similar “taste” of the area.

Allow for Easy Access

Open Houses can be tricky for potential buyers to navigate – especially when parking is difficult to find. Be sure that all cars are out of the driveway (it’s just for a few hours!) and consider asking neighbors to move their cars from nearby curbs to make room for those stopping by for the afternoon. If a potential buyer can’t find anywhere to park, they’ll just drive right on by instead – which you probably don’t want. (That is, unless you want to eat all those delicious snacks yourself, in which case, we don’t blame you for skipping this nugget of advice.)

Entertain, But Don’t Forget to Educate, Too

An open house is a great opportunity to inform potential buyers about all the details critical to selling the house, including information related to inspection reports, appraisals, major repairs, and blueprints. Often times this information is not discussed during a typical tour, but can offer details that may persuade a potential buyer to consider this house more than another – especially if it hasn’t offered such information. A great inspection and blueprints that inspire a potential buyer to make possible additions could make or break a potential sale, so be sure to have these documents available at an open house.

Show and Tell

A picture is worth a 1,000 words – especially at open houses. Consider creating a bulletin board of what the home (and it’s surrounding foliage) looks like throughout the year. If your open house is during the winter, potential buyers may not be able to see how gorgeous the backyard garden looks in spring. For some buyers, the surroundings of a home are just as important as what is inside of it!

Let Those Neighbors Get Nosy

Typically a house sells every few years – which means the current neighbors have never had a chance to get a peek inside the home you’re listing. We all know how nosy neighbors can be – and what better chance to fulfill their needs and yours than to hold a special preview just for your neighbors? Consider opening the doors to the Open House an hour early for a “Neighborhood Preview Only”. All you need to do is create a few special flyers for the neighbors advertising these “special hours”. Just make sure you OK it with the sellers first.

Hide All The Things

Okay, so you don’t have to hide all the things – but be sure to hide anything valuable and breakable. People can be clumsy, and you can’t discriminate against families with kids from visiting your open house (as much as you wish you could, we know.) Since the homeowners likely won’t be present, it’s hard to keep an eye on everything happening during an open house, so be sure these delicate items are hidden during the open house.

Don’t Worry – Be Happy

Finally, don’t forget to be happy. A popular open house is a good thing – even if a bit overwhelming. Be prepared to answer questions, be sure to greet everyone who enters, and be sure everyone leaves with all the information they need. While the house may not be for everyone, do the best you can to make the experience enjoyable for everyone – and yes, as cheesy as it sounds, that starts with you.

Are you a real estate agent who is a pro coordinating open houses? Share your tips and advice in the comments!

$1,350,000 - Tampa, FL

301 South Magnolia Avenue
Lets take a stroll to 301 South Magnolia Avenue, Tampa Florida. This historic 1911 property can house 12 luxury vehicles or two firetrucks if that’s your thing. While it is a 1 bedroom, 2 bath, it is two stories with 5,200 square feet. The upstairs features an apartment penthouse accessible through a private elevator and while the ad doesn’t specify, fingers crossed on the firepole for the way down. The place also has firehouse memorabilia throughout. The exterior has the classic red brick firehouse aesthetic as well as an upgraded exterior sound system. The property comes with a secluded courtyard with “mature landscaping” as well as a pool and a spa. If $1,350,000 is too steep for you, you have to realize that is only $260/sq ft and that’s a deal.

Mary Kelly

Smith and Associates Real Estate

office 813-839-3800

mobile 813-695-0163

$349,900 – Oshkosh, WI

The Brooklyn #4 Hook & Ladder Firehouse
The Brooklyn #4 Hook and Ladder Firehouse is found on 17 W 6th Avenue, Oshkosh, WI. It is a landmark in Oshkosh’s prestigious fire fighting history. The restoration of the property was under the guidance of David and Rosie Zuern who hired the renown restorer Terry Laib of Laib Restoration, Inc. This 2500 sq ft mixed zoning building has a bottom floor of leasable space as well as a second story is a museum quality residential space. It could all be yours for $349,900.

Kevin Purtell

The Premier Group of Oshkosh, Inc.

920-236-3800

$675,000 – Irvington, NY

27 North Ferris St
Why own a piece of history when you could live inside of one?! This late-19th century Irvington firehouse has been reconfigured for modern living. Found at 27 North Ferris St, the place has wide-plank pine floors, 11 foot ceilings, 6 foot custom double-glazed windows, a front porch and two balconies with river and treetop views. The surrounding neighborhood has shops and restaurants only a block away from the firehouse. This is the best way to spend $675,000.

Rummy Dhanoa

Real Estate Expert Advisor / Associate Broker

Keller Williams Realty Group

$450,000 – Floresville, TX

This Historic Floresville Firehouse is hard to miss: with a living room, dining room, kitchen, wet bar, 4 bedroom suites (7 baths/2 half baths) and gorgeous ballroom, you can live upstairs and run a successful business on the first floor. This Texas firehouse has hardwood floors, high ceilings, tall windows and a beautiful patio. For $450,000, this place is a catch.

Kuper Sotheby’s Int’l Realty

Harry Kuper

210-822-8602

And finally…What’s up, Seattle! Home to Estately.com and home to two converted firehouse listings:

$250,000 – Seattle, WA

Fire Station 37

Cruise on down to Fire Station 37 at 7300 35th Ave SW, Seattle, Washington. Here you will find a 1925 firehouse (renovated in 1986) up for sale and if you have $250,000, it’s yours. Featuring the Mission Revival Style architecture and 6 parking stalls in the back, this 9,464 square foot property is a piece of Seattle history. Sorry, no firepole…

Colliers International

Office 206 223 0866

Greg Inglin (206) 515-4491

Steven Swanicke (206) 223-0866

Arvin Vander Veen (206) 654-0521

$350,000 – Seattle, WA

Fire Station 38

If Fire Station 37 didn’t spark anything for you, truck on over to Fire Station 38 at 5503 33rd Ave. This fire station is going for $350,000, $100,000 dollars more than the previous but for good reason: the building had a major renovation in 1987, featuring Mission/Spanish Revival and Neo-Classical Revival styles throughout. The building has 2,568 square feet and the property totals at 8,960 square feet. Not unlike the last, the fire station comes with 6 parking stalls in the back.

Colliers International

Office 206 223 0866

Greg Inglin (206) 515-4491

Steven Swanicke (206) 223-0866

Arvin Vander Veen (206) 654-0521

Never before have we served such (scalding) hot cities. When our sun-deprived Seattleite brethren complain anytime the thermometer rises above 76 degrees, it’s nearly impossible to imagine 110 degree weather in Austin, 72 days of over 100 degree heat in a year, or 109 degree Houston heat. We like to pretend we know the difference between wet and dry heat, but I doubt anyone in Seattle could describe a humid 109 degrees.

Maybe that’s why we’re so fascinated with the architecture down south. Does every house really have a pool? We haven’t found one yet, but we wouldn’t be surprised if one or two came with a commercial ice machine to cool them down. (Would 353 pounds of ice per day be enough in the Texas heat?) They say everything is bigger in Texas, and it’s true – check out this 7,000 square foot house in Austin!

We’re looking forward to joining the Houston and Austin communities – and many more in the future, too!

Jim Carrey in "Liar Liar" (Universal Studios)

As the market gets tougher so do the home sellers. If you don’t know any better, you can go from a buyer to a victim. Here are some tips on how to deal with the shady home sellers before and after you interact with them.

A desperate home seller will say just about anything to get you to fork up the dough. And while it sounds perfect, it probably isn’t.
1. “We’ve never been close to foreclosure.”

With liar loans and a recession, there is a chance that the home sellers are on their way to foreclosure and the home seller wants to avoid their home becoming a short sale. If the home seller thinks they can sell it to you before the home is foreclosed, it is not illegal. It can be, however, a disappointing situation if the home is foreclosed right before you hand over the money. Best thing to do is sit down with your mortgage broker and attorney and insure that the deal will close on time. Here’s a good example of undisclosed short sales.

2. “The house has no foundation problems.”

Many times when finishing a basement, the home seller will cover up foundation problems. It is, after all, in their best interest to make the house appear as nice as possible. While it may look fine aesthetically, the repair costs start at $5,000 and go up to $100,000. Rather than take the risk, an easy way to avoid this is to hire a professional home inspection- they will be able to immediately spot cracks or uneven floors that indicate foundation flaws. If the realtor or home seller recommend a home inspection company, tell them you have someone in mind. Remember: it’s in their best interest to get you in their house and you don’t know what bias the home inspection company has to the home sellers.

3. “The exterior walls are sturdy.”

Some exterior walls are made from EIFS, which is a synthetic stucco. At first, it was seen as a perfect product and contractors would use EIFS from the top to bottom of walls. Unfortunately, EIFS was not a perfect product in the least- while it did it’s job, it also absorbed water and moisture at an alarming rate. This causes the walls to rot and the EIFS to crack. As of today, it is said that home owners with EIFS walls have a much higher premium when buying home owners insurance due to the general effects of EIFS. As a home buyer, you must realize that rotting walls are easy to cover up and it’s in the home sellers best interest for you to not know. Like foundation problems, this could end up costing you up to $100,000.

While you may not see the effect of the rotting immediately, it will certainly become an apparent problem with living in your house.

3880 Oak Knoll Rd SALEM, Oregon:  $999,900

Photo courtesy of Lakehouse.com

The first listing is a beautiful home found at at 3880 Oak Knoll Rd Salem, Oregon. Imagine waking up in your bed (pretty easy so far), sliding your feet into your slippers (still pretty easy to imagine) and walking over to your window to see a volleyball court, a sports court, 17 acres of private land and a private lake (WHAAAAAA?!?). As though 5 bedrooms, 4 baths and 5446 square feet weren’t enough in this Salem home, this place features a bonus room, with a full bar, stadium seating and a 132-inch drop screen. The last time the realtor stopped by, there was a long line of Regal employees camped out waiting to get good seats in the best movie theater in town. If you have a spare $999,900 sitting around, buy this pad- This is the type of place that could make an Occupy protestor join Wall Street.

Jake Buckendorf
(503) 371-5192
Re/Max Equity Group, Inc.
1860 Hawthorne Ave NE
SALEM, OR 97301

8 Ames-bott Bridge Road Livingston Manor, New York: $1,849,000

Photo courtesy of Lakehouse.com

If it were legal to marry a house, this is the one to put a ring on. Priced at $1,849,000, this  6608 square foot New York State home sits on a hill with 112 acres of private land to overlook. Rather than carry around a dinky boombox, this house features a $30,000 sound system throughout the house, both indoors and outdoors. Which means that no matter if you are in the gourmet kitchen, the formal dining room, the marble steam showers, the basketball court, the volleyball court, the tennis court, the pool, the 4 bathrooms or the 6 bedrooms, you can still listen to ‘Girls Just Wanna Have Fun’ full blast. Speaking of good rock, the house has marble countertops, stone sinks, stone patios, and stone wall. Maybe it’s just the honeymoon phase, but this house could be the one.

Christine Sweetman
845.583.4900
Chapin Sotheby’s International Realty
2902 State Route 55
White Lake, NY, 12786

27245 Lotus Pond Escondido, California: $2,499,999

Photo courtesy of Lakehouse.com

This glorious estate is found in the county of San Diego, the home of legendary anchorman Ron Burgundy. The 5 bedroom, 6000 square foot home is on 13 acres including a 2.5 acre private lake. The lake homes ducks, fishes, turtles and the Lotus flowers that bloom once a year (which explains why the home is found at 27245 Lotus Pond, Escondido, California). Within the double gates, you will find a home filled with high vaulted ceilings and fine interior finishes. A home theater, a veranda and an “oversized” gazebo? Beautiful. You want an oversized gazebo. No one ever asked for an undersized gazebo. The property is priced at $2,499,999 and while $2,499,999 seems like a lot of money, it actually ends up only being about $23 for each square foot of property. As Ron Burgundy says, “Stay classy, San Diego.”

Candace Hart
MIddleton & Assoc. Real Estate
CA DRE#: 01824761
1.858.775.6350

361 Lake Avenue Babson Park, Florida: $1,375,000

Photo courtesy of Lakehouse.com

Florida isn’t just a place to retire. Babson Park, Florida has a 3 bedroom home made from dreams. Each of the 3 bedrooms opens up to the same indoor pool, a convenient place for roommates to hold house meetings/happy hour dining. The estate offers 5,868 square feet and unlike many other lakeside homes, this house is near health facilities, schools and nationally recognized retailers. The home’s full size office has it’s own entrance as well as a screened porch that wraps 2 sides of the open terrace. Once you get in this house, you won’t want to go to sleep for fear that you’ll wake up and it was all a dream…

Kay Davis
(704) 483-8474
United Country Real Estate

Gulliver, Michigan: $1,595,000

Photo Courtesy of Lakehouse.com

No need to buy water ever again if you move into this next house: Built in 1948, this Gulliver, Michigan home sits next to a lake so pure it’s supposedly drinkable. Because of this, the lake houses all sorts of beautiful animals: beavers, porcupines, bobcats, deer, bears, moose, cougars, bald eagles, hummingbirds and more! Large sand dunes are found throughout the property, perfect for ATV cruising or hiking. On a summer day, you can easily hike to Lake Michigan. In fact, many times you can fall asleep to the sound of the lake’s surf. The 2 bedroom house is 2300 square feet, with an additional basement that can be used as a third bedroom/guest room. At $1,595,000, this is a steal.

Ray & Carolyn Giles

214-361-6577

Bandera, Texas $8,000,000

Photo courtesy of Lakehouse.com

They say everything is bigger in Texas and they weren’t lying. Placed on 1,200 acres in Bandera, Texas, there is a 2,000 square foot lodge with 2 bedrooms and one bath as well as 10 completely furnished guest cabins plus Recreational Vehicle & camping sites. The lake itself is 47 acres but if the lake is too cold, there is a pool and a pool house where you can hang with a Long Island and relax. The property features a tack and feed barn, an outdoor barbeque, a bunkhouse and a game prep facility. Whether you are looking to open up vacation rentals or live a luxurious life by the lake, $8,000,000 is a small price to pay for a lifetime of happiness. This place is more memorable than the Alamo!

Kay Davis
(704) 483-8474
United Country Real Estate

Tamaroa, Illinois  $1,500,000

Photo courtesy of Lakehouse.com

Now, it was implied that having a private lake on your property made you awesome, but what was never taken into account is the notion of two private lakes: In Tamaroa, Illinois, you could live next to TWO private lakes (one 16 acres and the other 8 acres) and your own pool. The need for two lakes (let alone a pool alongside) seems strange but if you are the type of person who can’t get enough lake, here it is. The 5145 square foot home with three bedrooms and three bathrooms, features a 15×58+ screen room, huge dining area, jacuzzi, turret room & steam room. And two lakes. Two. Lakes. At $1,500,000, that’s only $750,000 per lake!

Jerry Grodesky
(217) 386-4220
Farm and Lake Houses Real Estate

Over the last two days I have been getting a lot of questions about our relationship with the largest real estate brokerage in Canada, Sutton West Coast (our cease and desist order was covered by Geekwire yesterday). For the past three years, Estately powered Sutton West Coast’s real estate search. We mutually agreed in November of 2011 to end our relationship and that they would have through March to transition to a new site. We offered multiple times to help them select a new vendor and to give them feedback on the product they were building as we wanted to ensure a smooth transition (we were declined on all fronts).

Last week we were surprised to see the new search hosted by their new vendor at search.suttonwestcoast.com. It made extensive use of our IP, including our design, HTML, images, CSS and Javascript. The site was not merely a near-perfect clone of Estately from November 2011, it was a clone that uses our code and copyrighted materials.

Obviously no startup wants a clone of their front-end intensive website floating around out there. The list of ways it can damage your business, your opportunities and your ability to raise capital and eventually sell is too long for a single blog post (just imagine reaching out to a reporter only to have them ask you why you copied another site or imagine trying raise money when a perfectly identical site is out there – Yowza!).

Last week we tried to work things out with Sutton West Coast. I started with a simple phone call. They said they were surprised to learn that their product was a virtual clone of Estately and that they would look into it and call us back. It seemed odd, but I gave them the benefit of the doubt. I ended the call feeling confident they would pull it offline and we’d be all set by morning.

A day later, we hadn’t heard from them. I tried the phone again (no answer) and decided we needed to get something in writing before the weekend and we realized that meant a cease and desist letter. I always assumed the first cease and desist order I would see would be from a big company using it to oppress my startup, not that I would be issuing it to protect us.

We ended up waiting all weekend and most of Monday in silence. I called again and this time got their CEO who told me they didn’t know if the site was a copy and that they would get back to me when they had looked into it more. Then nothing for the next day and a half.

We were getting stalled.

So finally we did something I never thought I would do: issued our own DMCA takedown notice.

The DMCA is the only law I know that operates at startup speed: Amazon responded within 36 hours and took down the infringing materials.

The DMCA isn’t a panacea (some parts are horrible), but it has some real strengths that level the playing field for startups and make running a business efficient. In particular:

• Accessibility: We filed a DMCA takedown notice with just one or two hours of work. Attorneys are optional. In a DMCA-free world, our IP could have continued floating around for weeks before a court would hear us and we would need to spend thousands of dollars on attorneys leading up to that point.
• Speed: Big companies can bury a startup like Estately in paperwork and distractions and can run up a big legal bill in advance of a judgement. Distraction is bad for big companies, but it can kill a startup. The speed of the DMCA means we can get back to work building a business.

The law is supposed to create a level playing field and good law should be clear enough that court cases should be safe and rare. The DMCA passes that test with flying colors.

Are we in the clear? No. Sutton West Coast is a big company – they’re the biggest real estate brokerage in Canada with over 1,700 real estate agents spread across 17 offices – and they could move their hosting to somewhere outside the reach of US law tomorrow.

I never thought I would utter these words, but this week I was thankful for the DMCA.

A few screenshots for the curious:

More Screenshots and a code sample below:

We’ve heard a lot of chatter recently that the housing inventory in close to Seattle is crazy-tight. The word on the street is decent houses sell on the spot under an attack of bids by hungry buyers.

“Almost every listing is getting at least two offers.”

- Phil Leng quoted in Eric Pryne’s article earlier this week

We thought we’d crunch the numbers to see just how tight the Seattle market is. Note: data is accurate through March 8th, 2012.

The Claim: Multi-bid situations are up dramatically – especially in Seattle.

The Reality: Multibid situations are insanely up in Seattle in the first week of March. Of the 44 homes that closed in the first week of March, nearly 1 in 3 sold for above the original asking price. We don’t expect the rest of March to look like this, but if the percentage of homes sold above asking price in the rest of the month is cut in half, it would still be a record month:

Wow.

Full disclosure: January and February don’t look as phenomenal, but according to the agents we have spoken with, this trend really began in early February, meaning the closings are just starting now.

In February, about 16 houses in 100 sold for over the original list price. The percentage of homes selling for above the original asking price was up 6% year-over-year in February (from 15%to 16%) – well within the norm.

The last time the market was on fire was during the scramble leading up to the expiration of the first time home-buyer tax credit in 2010. Talk about higher highs! A whopping 20% of the homes sold in April 2010 sold for over list price. The resulting Snooki binge-worthy hangover lasted the rest of 2010.

The Claim: More homes are flying off the shelves the moment they are listed

The Reality: This is more of a backwards looking stat, so it hasn’t caught up with the price increase trends. Homes are moving at about the same rate as they have been for the last two years. The percentage of homes selling within 60 days of being listed is up year-over-year, from 33 in 100 to 38 in 100, but we aren’t seeing the same speed-to-sale percentages we were seeing at the beginning of 2010. We suspect we’re going to see this number go up quite a bit through the rest of March and in early April.

The Claim: There Very Few Homes On the Market

The Reality: True. The number of homes for sale in both King County and Seattle has plummeted over the last two years.

Another way of approaching this question is looking at the “months of inventory,” or the number of months at current sale rates that it would take to sell all the homes on the market. Both Seattle and King County are way below the February norm in 2012 – months of inventory is a whopping 44% lower in 2012 than it was in 2011:

Inventory of single family homes has been fairly low for the last year, but we typically expect a seasonal bump:

Like many, we expect 2012 will be the year we return to normal – and by normal we mean 1970s and 1980s normal, not 2000s – with home prices fairly flat. As a nation, we still have a lot of foreclosure inventory to work off, but in cities like Seattle or San Francisco, where stock option millionaires are being printed every day, we expect some real competition for mid-range homes.

That said, January and February are always slow months. Trying to predict whether home owners will list or sit on their homes for the rest of the year from the slow months is like trying to predict Christmas retail sales from March’s numbers – general directions are probably right, but a lot can change between now and then.

A few notes about our methodology:

• Stats were generated using data from the Northwest MLS – the same data we have on our Seattle real estate page
• We used single family homes for every report here and excluded townhouses from our dataset
• These stats not compiled, verified or published by The Northwest Multiple Listing Service

You will have to squint to get a good idea of the inside of a given home: the small photos available from the local MLS don’t give the thorough inside look we like to deliver to our customers. We will push for larger photos in the future.

I can’t write about San Antonio without remembering the Pace Picante ads that introduced me to San Antonio and intimately linked it to New York City. I to this day mentally exclaim “New York City!?!” when I hear someone say New York City. As an adult remembering those commercials, I have to wonder if anyone really produced salsa in New York City and why they would ever do that. Here are a couple of the classics:

We have a slew of improvements in the pipeline. Until then, happy house hunting!

The townhome boom of the aughts was particularly concentrated in Seattle, but people throughout America are passionate about the topic of shared walls. Given the vehement hatred of townhomes by many of our users, it might seem amazing that any townhomes ever get built, let alone sold – but as one of our Seattle agents pointed out to me last month, everyone hates townhomes until they see the condition of the farther away free standing homes that are smaller and with fewer bedrooms that they can get for the same amount of money.

One thing is a virtual certainty: if you are at all serious about looking at both townhouses and old-school houses, odds are you’ll probably end up in a townhouse. It’s hard to beat the value. And if you are one of those people, we now have a townhouse icon so you can see them on the map.

Whether you are a townhome hater or a born again townhome lover, you can now tailor your search on Estately to reflect your deeply-held beliefs and never be forced to look at the way the other half lives again. Like the House and Condo search option, Townhouses show up on the map with an icon depicting a blue roof and shared wall.

This is available in many of our major metros – like these townhomes in Seattle and these townhomes in Los Angeles - and we will be rolling it out to additional metros over the next week.

Enjoy and, as always, contact us with any questions.

We have no allusions about the likelihood of our transit information on every property getting much use in Dallas, but in place where walking is unheard of, we find walkers really value having Walk Scores and high Walk Score neighborhoods do exist: Dallas only has one property available with a 95+ Walk Score, but in that building, you can go high and build out the penthouse or go for one of the other 5 units.

There are a many more listings in Dallas with 90+ Walkscores (here are a few) including one from 1865. Fort Worth also has three buildings that can play the 90+ Walkscore game (here are two).

It should be no great surprise that there are a lot more great Walk Score homes in New York. We have 95+ Walk Score listings all the way up the Hudson, from this place in Peekskill to this place in Croton-on-Hudson to this listing in Tarrytown.

We’re also bringing our (IMHO) awesome school search to Dallas and New York. Here’s an example for Bear Creek Elementary in Euless, TX:

Zoom in any where with homes for sale on Estately to see the local schools on the map. Click on any school to see its boundaries.

Backing out, I want to point out that we aren’t just launching in the big cities of Texas. You’ll find Estately to the north in Sherman, to the West in Weatherford, to the South in Midlothian and to the East in Greenville. From an outsiders view point, Texas appears to be a state rich with flavors and fragrances, from sweet-sounding Flower Mound and Grapevine to the savory Mesquite and the potentially foul smelling Sulphur Springs.

Our new New York markets that the average American may recognize include Yonkers, Poughkeepsie, and New Rochelle.