May is Open House month at BTO!

This new promo launching today places the properties using the open house feature up-front on the website.

The Open House section will receive additionnal traffic due to bold visuals added to the website’s background and to the listings for sale.

List your property in the open house section today to get the maximum visibility for the next month!

Also, have a look at the new “add to my itinerary” feature available at the right of the properties infos when you click on the house icons. Pretty cool!

Frédérick Dubois
Lead Programmer, ByTheOwner.com

A small change was made today to the search results.

The “Order By” default value, which was set to “new listings first” since a couple of months have been rolled back to “less expensive first”.

Note that you can change this setting via a drop-down menu located on top of your search results.

Frédérick Dubois
Lead Programmer
ByTheOwner.com

A slight improvement was made yesterday to the “Featured Homes” algorythm.

The featured homes, which are displayed on top of the search results, now get more emphasis when they match the “property type” search criteria, thus according more quality visibility to the clients using this service.

Frédérick Dubois
Lead Programmer
ByTheOwner.com

The open house section on ByTheOwner.com just got updated.

What’s new?

1. Visual aspect of the page. (Damn it used to be ugly!)
2. Possibility to show/hide the neighborhood pins
3. Possibility to “jump to a city”
4. Possibility to display all future open houses OR all open houses on a specific date

There is more to come concerning the open houses in the next days, I’ll keep you updated
Hope you like it!

Frédérick Dubois
BTO Programmer

Oyé! Oyé! Once again, ByTheOwner.com innovates!

A meeting of the masterminds behind your favorite real estate website has given rise to a revolutionary idea!

This new feature is in the login page “Your Account”. A small checkbox labeled “Remember me on this computer” has appeared just below the password field. When you click this box and you log on, a Hi-Tech-Technology ensures that you to stay connected to the website for the next 30 days without having to re-enter your username and password.

However, if you click the “disconnect”, you will then “disconnect”…

The tool allowing homeowners to display pins on the map next to the homes for sale, in order to “sell their neighborhood” is a freakin’ success! More than 1500 pins were added on the map in various areas of Canada!

This success however created a problem in some areas where it was too popular. That’s why we’ve implemented a new fonction in the map search. A on/off “NEIGHBORHOOD” button is now available on top of the map, allowing the visitors to hide or show the neighborhood pins.

Here’s an example :

The Open Houses feature will be redesigned in the following weeks.

Organizing an open house day is a great way to attract visitors and potential buyers. If you got any suggestions concerning this tool, now is the moment!

We got a new cool tool online this week that will allow our clients to market their home by email to all of their contacts. This new feature is available to Gmail and MSN hotmail users only for now.

This tool allows you to retrieve your email contacts from your email account. A list of all your contacts will then be displayed before the message is sent. You’ll then be able to select the email addresses to whom you’d like to send your message.

Note that we do not keep copy of your mailbox login information.

If you use this option to market your home, don’t forget to ask your friends to pass the email along to their own contacts. This is a great way to increase the visits to listing!

The page is also available to all visitors going to the website if they wish to share their interest in a home they are dreaming of.

When you’re looking for a new home, you are searching for a house. But you’re also searching for a place where you’ll feel great and which will correspond to your lifestyle. So we’ve decided to develop a new tool that will allow our customers to “sell their neighborhood” to potential buyers!

In their online account, our clients have access to a new web page where they’ll be able to describe places of interest around their home. Schools, restaurants, parks, hospitals… It can be anything, as long as you feel like it is part of the reason why you love your area. You can see below for instructions on how to use this new tool.

The items saved by the private home sellers will be displayed to the website’s visitors in the map search interface. Arrow markers will show up next to the other markers. Clicking on those markers will open an info window with all the information entered by the home owner.

How to add my places of interest on the map ?

Here’s a little tutorial guiding you through the basic steps of adding neighborhood markers on the map :

1. Take a walk down the street and take some pictures of the cool places around; (640×480 would be perfect);
2. In your ByTheOwner account, click on the Your Neighborhood button;
3. Optional : Fill in the address fields, the map will then position a marker automatically;
4. Click on the map to make sure the marker is on the right spot;
5. Type in a brief description that will communicate your passion for your neighborhood to potential buyers;
6. Click the “Add” button. Voilà!

Note that you’ll be able to complete and modify the description later. Now, let’s see how to add your pictures :

1. Click on the “Browse” button;
2. Go get the picture on your computer and click “Open”;
3. Press the “Go” button;
4. You can select your pictures order by dragging them (if you have more than one, eh!);

So… where is Canada’s coolest city?

You have an incredible idea that would bring your visits on ByTheOwner to a greater level of satisfaction? You think many other visitors share your need?

Welcome to the suggestion box!

This new section, dedicated to our visitors, is online since yesterday. We’ve been using it for a couple of weeks with suggestions from our staff and got pretty interesting results, so we decided to open it up to the visitors! Here is how it works :

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