Display changes….

You may notice that the results from your searches are now returned by distance.  So, a search for “Seattle, WA” will now show results moving out concentrically from Seattle.  You can still sort by clicking the column headings to group price, zip codes, cities etc. together either ascending or descending or alphabetically, but the default results are now shown by distance from your input city or zip code.  We should soon have mileage indicators in the search results also.  Just one of the things we updated this week.   If you have feedback, please let us know.

Open Source Effect?

A user wrote to us recently suggesting that we might be to real estate what open source is to software.  Although we hadn’t thought of it quite that way, and the parallels are indirect, it is a similar type of movement that we’re trying to initiate; simply, another choice for those not wanting to pay large commissions.  So, if we are to real estate what open source was to software, I guess that’s not a bad thing.  We’re all about busting down walls, and with enough of a following we’ll do just that.  

Do we plan to make money at this for sale by owner thing? …you bet! Whoever creates an alternative and reorganizes the FSBO market with any sort of critical mass is going to make a lot of money, we just won’t do it by taking a big cut of the sale price. We have other ideas in mind and they’re in-the-works. Ultimately it’s hard to imagine that the traditional model is not going to experience a true direct competitor and that’s where our model plans to carve niche. Please keep the listings and feedback coming, and we’ll continue to build more tools for you to use

Signs are coming.

We were getting quite a few emails on this topic so we decided to post something here.  Yard signs are coming. They will not be the big, bulky wooden signs that require post hole digger installations.  Rather, they’ll be something a bit more basic such as the picture to the left. After all, we are a web-centric company where we hope the Internet will provide the primary method of locating your property that is for sale.  We think that something like this will be cost effective (for you and for us), and will still allow you to get noticed by those driving through your neighborhood.  We haven’t come up with final pricing yet but we’re trying to keep them as inexpensive as possible.  We’re not quite ready to start shipping them yet, but will be pretty soon.  Send us an email if you live in Portland or Seattle and would like one - we can work something out.  We hope to have these available on our site in the near future.  Thank you for all the continued interest in what we’re doing.  Please keep the listings coming.  http://choicea.com

Thank You Portland (and Seattle), (and Eugene), and….

We’re not sure how many of you have found us already, but we’re happy you did.   We have been live for less than a week and quite a few of you have posted with us – mostly in Portland and Seattle.  We appreciate the early users of our site. We had initially just sent a few emails to friends and family to test things out.  One person told another (and one of you posted a nice note on a forum, thanks) and soon we had a bunch of listings. We still have a few bugs, but once we iron out the bugs, we will then have flat bugs

Please continue to email us with feedback on your experiences, we read all of them.

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