Pittsburgh Homes Daily

HouseFront announced yesterday that it now provides home valuations online and via text message for 100 million homes in the United States. HouseFront CEO James Eberhard graciously agreed to answer a few of my questions about HouseFront.

Tell me a little bit about HouseFront:

HouseFront is a Denver, Colorado based company. We were founded in late 2006. Our purpose is to provide accurate real estate values and information to the public and the real estate community. We believe that we have some of the most relevant data available on houses in the United States and we are using it to drive our service. Perhaps most notable, HouseFront leverages text messaging to deliver its real estate information. Text messaging is available on virtually all cellular telephones. By combining our services with text messaging we are able to deliver accurate information anytime, in any place to our users.

The advantage of HouseFront for real estate voyeurs is obvious. Why should buyers of real estate use HouseFront?

I have purchased numerous homes in my life. Every home that I have purchased I have taken the same steps. First, I decide that I have an interest in buying a home and I make a decision on two or three neighborhoods where I would like to live own an investment. Second, I research and get to know those neighborhoods. I will often ride my bike or take a jog in and around the area. I always carry a paper and pencil so that I can jot down houses that are for sale and take notes on what I think the average price range is. I also like to know what the listed price is for many homes and reference it against what others feel. After many weeks of research on the ground and then online I contact a realtor who truly knows the neighborhood I am interested in. At this point, I know where I want to buy, what the neighborhood is like and I have a feel for my price range. I leverage the realtor to provide expert advice on what homes I should put an offer on. Finally, I close the deal.

With the advent of HouseFront, this becomes a much easier process. I will still identify the neighborhoods I like and I’ll still get to know them, but now homebuyers have the ability to simply enter a text message and get valuable, pertinent info about houses in that neighborhood. Further, our website becomes a valuable research tool. We maintain an online database of every house text messaged for every one of our users! Homebuyers can go to the website and instantly view houses they have seen on the ground and compare them to other homes in and around the area. The research process becomes streamlined and homebuyers are able to make more well informed decisions.

As HouseFront matures, we are also developing new ways to link expert local real estate agents with these homebuyers.

One piece of information that HouseFront provides is an estimated price for the home. What is HouseFront doing to ensure the accuracy of this figure?

Boy, this is not a simple answer! HouseFront realizes that the accuracy of our data is paramount to the usefulness of our service. As such, we place incredible emphasis on continually refining our data which helps drive our house values.

Our values are built upon cascading technology that harnesses the power of MLS and public data to systematically improve the depth and accuracy of residential real estate intelligence.

Often public data is recorded incorrectly, which inaccurately describes the characteristics of a home. To overcome this, HouseFront leverages more accurate Multiple Listing Service data and unique neighborhood clustering to accurately depict the value of a home. Trusted property valuations are grounded in industry standard statistical measurements and our patent-pending algorithms.

Is there any way for home owners to opt out of the system or correct information that isn’t accurate?

This is something we are actively integrating into our services. Users will be able to log into the website, verify that they are the owner of a particular home and provide data on the house if it is incorrect.

I saw a few cost per click ads on the HouseFront website. Any other monetization plans for the near future that users should be aware of?

In the future we will enable real estate professionals to advertise via our text message service, direct to home buyers and sellers.

We love being near the top of rankings here in Pittsburgh. When I first checked out HouseFront, Pittsburgh was #38 on the list of the top 100 Popular Cities, beating out nearby cities such as Philadelphia, Cleveland, Baltimore, and Buffalo. Now we’ve slipped to #43 and we’re behind Baltimore and Philadelphia. Any way that we can reverse that trend?

The best answer I can give is through word of mouth. It sounds like you are doing a good job telling all of Pittsburgh about our service! Thanks.

Thank you, James, for answering my questions. For online home valuations when you are on the move, check out HouseFront. And keep up to date with the latest developments at HouseFront on the HouseFront blog.