The New HAR.com
Key Features of New Consumer Site

Key Features of HAR REALTOR Site

HAR.com Awards and Recognition


One of the nation’s most popular Internet real estate sites goes live this Thursday, February 14, after undergoing a sweeping “remodeling” that offers a more contemporary layout, added features, improved functionality and richer content. The enhancements to HAR.com, the Houston Association of REALTORS®’ pioneering online resource for property listings, will also include new, state-of-the-art mapping technology developed by Microsoft Corp.

The new HAR.com integrates Microsoft® Virtual Earth™, which provides detailed, high-resolution satellite-image mapping—available with aerial, bird’s eye and 3-D options—so that viewers can examine fine details of most properties and the surrounding area from multiple angles and distances. It will enable property searches to be conducted based on proximity to schools, hospitals, police and fire stations as well as businesses, such as supermarkets, restaurants and banks. Visitors to the site will be able to search through the traditional process of selecting property options from drop-down menus and by highlighting a particular section of a map, also called a polygon, if they have a specific neighborhood, subdivision or area of town in mind. Properties that meet their criteria will be displayed with colored pushpins that reveal detailed property information, including enlargeable photos, when clicked.

It will also be possible to conduct property searches based on the newest listings available through the MLS. Search results may be compared side by side and bookmarked for those interested in tracking listings. Another feature will enable those bookmarks to be integrated with several social bookmarking sites, including Facebook, Digg and del.icio.us.

The new site will include a listing of foreclosed properties, a feature that has grown in interest among prospective home buyers in the wake of the subprime mortgage crisis. HAR.com will also be the only REALTOR® association Internet site in the country to display detailed tax information for every property in the greater Houston and surrounding area. As before, property listings within the site will be available in multiple languages—Spanish, Chinese, Vietnamese, French, German and Italian—thereby accommodating the tremendous ethnic diversity of the Houston area population.

Visitors to the new HAR.com will also benefit from a more powerful and efficient search engine that provides more sophisticated sorting functions, expediting the process of finding specific real estate information. The home page and interior pages of the new Web site sport a completely new look that is the result of months of design planning by HAR’s Technology team.

For more than a decade, HAR.com has been the go-to site for would-be home buyers and sellers. The site began averaging more than one billion hits last March and continues to draw an estimated 900,000 consumers each month.
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Quick Property Search: Search by address, MLS number or zip code from more than 60,000 listings and 2 million tax records from seven surrounding appraisal districts.
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Property Search Engine: Property search engine can perform a search by location, area, amenities, view foreclosures, newly listed, open houses and option in other languages..
o Revise your search criteria.
o Customize your search by selecting your display type to list view, gallery view and option to display number of results per page.
o Listings results display on the map with a single click.
o Add to Cart to compare listings side by side.
o Tax information for each listing.
o School Finder tool is integrated into detail page.
o Social Bookmarking allows users to bookmark listings to popular sites such as Facebook, Yahoo, Google, del.icio.us and more.
o Text message property information right to your cell phone.
o Nearby Places displays banks, shopping, dining, grocery stores, recreational area and more.
o Translate property listings into Chinese, French, German, Italian, Vietnamese and Spanish language
o Live currency converter
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My Home Finder: Almost 100,000 active users who have more than 105,000 saved searches, 79,000 bookmarks, and more than 150,000 e-mail notifications sent monthly.
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Property Map Search: Search for listings using Microsoft Virtual Earth Map, perform polygon searches, see bird's eye view, turn-by-turn directions, proximity search and live traffic with the latest technology.
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Featured Tools
o School Finder: HAR.com’s most popular tool allows you to search more than 8,000 schools for information based on county, district, campus and/or zip code.
o Home Value Finder: Search recent home sales and property tax information for more than 2 million properties in seven surrounding Appraisal Districts.
o Neighborhood Information Finder: View more than 12,000 subdivision's information and neighborhood price trends for the past 13 years and create comparative analysis.
o Real Estate City Guides: Real Estate Market overview, school information, listings in the area, census reports and other city resources.
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Most Popular: Provides real estate activity for cities. Displays most viewed, most bookmarked, recently sold, least expensive listings and more.
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Nearby Places: Search for Point of Interests around your home, office or school such as restaurants, hotels, banks and many others.
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International: Multi-Lingual Home Search allows you to search in six languages. Search more than 3,900 Multi-lingual/ Multi-Cultural Realtors®, speaking 84 languages. View International Listings across the world using International Council Site.
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Realtor Value: Online video ads that promote the value of using a Realtor.
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.Mobi: Search HAR.com using your mobile device. Offers (ease) of use, navigation and speedy response.
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Find a Realtor: Search for a Realtor or service provider from approximately 29,000 members.
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Other Highlighted Consumer Tools: Golf Course Finder, Master Planned Community Finder, High Rise Finder and Senior Living Finder are also useful ways for the consumer and Realtor to search for property information.
The New look and changes did not stop at the Consumer site. We have also added features to the member’s portion of HAR.com.
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Site Search Toolbar: that is powered by Google, allows a member to search HAR.com site for any information.
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Featured Tools:
o Training- Recipient of NAR Outstanding Web Site Award* for Outstanding Education Feature with our Real Estate Course Finder. Search more than 275 Real Estate Classes, Schools and view calendar.
o HAR TV- Watch video that is separated by various channels.
o Shopping- Shop for all of your real estate needs at HAR Online Store.
o Software- HAR Appointment Manager is a free online appointment schedule platform for HAR Broker Members.
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Member Web sites
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Other Launched Member Tools: Member tools are now separated into main categories, including Productivity, Online Marketing, Networking/Communication, Reports and Information Tools. Each tool displays more information on how to use it and where to find it.
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HAR Department Sites: Instant access to Communications, Commercial Gateway, Governmental Affairs, Technology and more.
The HAR Technology department is always working to provide you with cutting edge technology and services. Some of the upcoming features are: Blogs, user ratings, video upload area and more.
*Each year, NAR hosts a Realtor® Association Outstanding Web Site Contest.
HAR.com Ranked #1 Houston Real Estate Website
According to comScore Media Metrix Key Measure Report of January 2008, HAR.com ranks #1 Houston Real Estate Website, based on Total Unique Visitors. ComScore Media Metrix is a source of Internet audience measurement for advertising agencies, publishers, marketers and financial analysts.
HAR.com Ranked #21 Real Estate Website in the Country
National Association of Realtors® (Realtor.org) publishes the Real Estate Vertical Metrix Internet traffic report on a monthly basis. Requirements for ranking are real estate listing sites with traffic greater than 250,000 unique visitors. HAR.com ranked #21 Real Estate Website in the Country according to the January 2007 report. HAR.com is the only local Web site that regularly ranks among the top 25 real estate sites on this list.
HAR.com Makes Top-20 List of Most Popular Online Real Estate Sites
HAR.com, the popular online resource of the Houston Association of Realtors®, was among the 20 most frequently visited Real Estate Websites, according to web metrics company Hitwise. Hitwise reported that HAR.com climbed from 26th place in October to 20th in November.
HAR.com Serves more than One Billion or Nearly 50 Percent of Internet Users
RISMEDIA, June 2007-”One billion served” can now also be used by the Houston Association of Realtors®’ HAR.com, one of the pioneers in Internet real estate sites. HAR.com was visited by 49 percent of internet real estate consumers in Houston during April 2007, according to comScore Media Metrix.
2007 Outstanding Real Estate Association Website Winner
Each year, Realtor® Association Executive Magazine of NAR hosts a contest for Outstanding Realtor Association® Website. HAR is proud to announce that HAR.com won an award in two of the five categories. HAR.com received the 2007 Realtor® Association Outstanding Web Site Award for Outstanding Education Category with our Real Estate Course Finder and Outstanding Online Property Search Category for our Home Finder. This brings our total number of awards since the inception of the contest to five. We previously won in 2003, 2004 and 2006. Read more
Stories and Blogs
A [HAR]d Lesson
December 11, 2007
Now we are at a crossroads where every Realtor® or Broker wants to have the most versatile and consumer pleasing search interface. Unfortunately, a Realtor® or Broker can never keep up, and still sell real estate, with these agile, venture funded Technology companies stacked with techno-geeks that may never leave their console. Granted there are a few larger brokerages which can manage. However, do they have the breadth of data that some of these other services are offering or the ability to continually push the envelope? Such as Points of Interest, School Data, Sold Data, Heat Maps, and Valuation tools. Some may, some may have components. But it gets increasingly harder to keep up. So what is one to do? I have been advocating for a while that to compete with this phenomenon/trend/need/reality that you have to move search upstream. Right now, there are 1.3million people reinventing the wheel. Move that to the Broker level, you have somewhere between 12,000-15,000 (best guess). Take that one step higher to the source, the MLS, and you have just under 900. Houston Association of Realtors® website is a terrific example of this. You start at the source. The listings are timely.
Real Estate Institute of New Zealand recognizes HAR
February 11, 2008
On February 11, 2008, an article titled “Real Estate Institute of NZ Applauded for Providing Regional Housing Supply Information” from Scoop Independent News, recognized HAR.com as the global leader – with respect to the quality of the website and the high standard of information it provides.
HAR Stories Shared by Members and Consumer Users of HAR.com
It is great to belong to an association that offers so much “tech touch”-we have bragging rights all over the country because of our online success and our lead system which is generating and delivering more than 500,000 quality leads annually to Houston Realtors®.
Chaille Ralph, Martha Turner Properties

Yes, the quick call back is a very nice feature and impressed me. With what I do I have a special interest in seeing applications that work and add real value. I recently moved here from Los Angeles and must say the HAR.com site is the best site real estate I have ever seen.
Richard Longview, Consumer