Every Home In America Is Up For Sale!
Make An Offer At Reply.com
New Reply! Portal Helps Consumers Make Smarter Decisions:
Instantly Find the Valuation of Almost any Home, Make an Unsolicited Offer™,
Then Research The Car You Want To Park In The Driveway
Walnut Creek, CA – August 22, 2006 – Reply!, Inc. (www.reply.com), a leading provider of online services for consumers, today launched the first portal destination that provides instant access to valuations of virtually any home in the United States and then allows users to make an Unsolicited Offer™. Reply! users can write their personal reviews on homes and automobiles, access factual data about virtually any home or car in the country, view aerial photos and parcel maps of homes and find a rich array of information about U.S. neighborhoods – all for free. The Reply! site, currently in Beta form, is designed for consumers who want to be better informed when engaging in major life-stage transactions, such as buying or selling a home, purchasing a car, and more.
Using the Reply! web site, consumers simply enter an address to access instant information including an aerial photograph of the neighborhood with comprehensive valuations for every home. With the click of a mouse, users can view additional details on the property, including the number of bedrooms and bathrooms, square footage & lot size, historical value changes, and a list of recent transactions in the area. They can also access in-depth neighborhood profiles, including information about school districts, demographics, climate, crime rates and much more. The Reply! portal has information on more than 95 percent of all of the homes in the United States, representing an inventory of more than 70 million homes, with an estimated value of more than $19 trillion.
Reply! also offers a wealth of information and research tools to help in making decisions about buying a new car or truck, or trading in, buying or selling a used vehicle. With detailed reviews and information – ranging from the everyday to the exotic luxury vehicle – users can quickly and easily research MSRP, invoice price and photos of virtually any new vehicle. Reply! also gives auto enthusiasts a chance to “sneak preview” models that have not yet hit the market.
To help “close the loop” and make a transaction, consumers can also find a qualified local real estate agent or an auto retailer in their neighborhood from Reply!’s nationwide network of more than 17,000 service providers. If a consumer is interested in moving forward with a car purchase, Reply! can provide up to three competitive quotes from local new car retailers. With real estate transactions, users can make an Unsolicited Offer™ on any home in America, or can take advantage of an
extensive network of over 15,000 qualified real estate agents and hire an advocate partner to assist them throughout the process.
“Today’s consumers are smart and active participants in researching and making a decision about major transactions – like buying or selling a home or car,” said Payam Zamani, Chairman and CEO of Reply!. “Reply.com is the new online platform for consumers - no other destination offers more tools and unbiased information and analysis on homes, cars and more -- including reviews and feedback from people just like you. No other site allows you to instantly evaluate and make an offer to buy a home anywhere in America.”
Trusted Instant Home Valuations Reply! takes information service beyond simply providing valuable data. Based on the understanding that every home is unique, and that every consumer who is serious about a real estate transaction needs access to unbiased and independent data, Reply! offers multiple information and research functions that are vital to creating better informed, more effective home buyers and sellers – all provided to Reply! users at no charge.
Reply! meets the needs of value-driven consumers by providing confidence ratings on every home valuation along with complete transparency into the information behind those confidence ratings, which rely on the freshness, proximity and relevancy of comparable home sales used in the valuation analysis. With Real Market Values, consumers can combine the unbiased valuation information of a home provided instantly by Reply! with the invaluable opinions of a local real estate agent at no charge and without any obligation.
Go Ahead, Make an Offer Reply! is the only web portal that empowers each visitor to make an Unsolicited Offer™ on any home in the country. Users simply go to the Reply! site, identify and research the home or homes of their choice, and then complete an offer on the site – either a specific offer or simply an indication of interest in buying the home. For $24.95 Reply! will deliver a physical package notifying the homeowner of the offer. The homeowner can then retrieve the offer at Reply.com and is free to engage directly with the prospective buyer.
“Conceivably, every home in the country is for sale – for the right price!” suggests Zamani. “At any time, only a small percentage of homes in America are actively on the market. With the Unsolicited Offer™ service, we believe we can stimulate commerce by connecting a homeowner, who may have been thinking about selling their home, to transact with a prospective buyer through Reply.com,” stated Zamani.
For Consumer, By Consumer Reviews Reply.com is the only destination on the Internet where consumers help consumers make better decisions by providing reviews and ratings of individual homes, neighborhoods and cities, as well as reviews of new and used automobiles. The new site allows users to easily and quickly provide feedback and insight into home interiors and exteriors as well as neighborhoods and communities.
“As more and more consumers turn to Reply.com to provide feedback on homes and neighborhoods - Reply! will amass a huge database of consumer feedback and commentary that will prove to be the most important, reliable and trusted database available anywhere for efficiently helping consumers make a better decision,” Zamani concluded.
Homes, Automobiles and More Reply.com is more than a real estate site, or an automotive site. It’s a trusted portal where consumers can go to truly become empowered when making major life-stage decisions. Reply! will soon address other critical decision-making areas, such as loans, insurance, and more.
“Consumers are starting to limit the number of web sites they visit to make transactions and decisions, choosing sites that provide time saving tools and reliable information,” said Zamani. “Reply! is the trusted independent destination for making life’s big decisions easier. Real estate and automobiles are just the beginning.”
Beyond the Purchase
Reply! also serves as the trusted advisor once users have purchased a home, delivering a database of do-it-yourself home improvement content. No matter what stage a home-owner, home-buyer or home-seller is in, Reply! will provide the tools, data and services needed to help make decisions more efficiently.
“Some home owners like to stay informed about the value of homes. Others are looking for tips that help maximize the value of their house. In the past, these unique users have had to seek out multiple resources – and sort the unbiased information from the “sponsored” sales pitch. With Reply!, consumers can start the process of buying or selling a home and will continue to rely on the portal to research information and tools as they move forward with other major life decisions,” said Zamani.
About Reply!, Inc. Since it’s founding in 2001 by a team of e-commerce veterans, Reply! has become the leading provider of online consumer services in its commitment of “making life’s big decisions easier”™. Reply! provides consumers with free-of-charge access to valuable services and decision making tools currently in two core industries: real estate and automotive, with continuing expansion into other major categories. Reply!’s comprehensive family of online trade brands - RealtyNow®, AgentConnect®, Connecting Neighbors®, and iMotors® - provide a highly effective model of performance based e-marketing solutions to locally targeted service providers.
Based in Walnut Creek, CA, Reply! has experienced significant overall expansion and success. Within the last 12 months, Reply! has expanded its workforce to over 250, secured a funding round of $17 million, and made a series of important executive management hires. To learn more about Reply!, visit www.reply.com.
Media Contacts:
Tonya Hayes
Reply!
925.947.2166 x 283
media@reply.com
Cedric Vanhaver
Neale-May & Partners
650.328.5555 x 125
cvanhaver@nealemay.com
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