REDMOND, Wash., Oct. 17, 2000 — For the second consecutive quarter, the HomeAdvisor.com™ online house and home guide has been named the nation’s Best Online Home-Buying Site, according to the Gomez™ Fall 2000 Internet Home-Buying Scorecard™
. The rankings are based on an independent evaluation of the top 20 online real estate Web sites, based on more than 200 specific criteria.
With an overall ranking of 6.79, HomeAdvisor.com maintains its top billing – a ranking it first earned in the Gomez Summer 2000 Scorecard – and continued pulling away from the pack with the highest score ever on the Gomez Internet Home-Buying Scorecard. Gomez cited HomeAdvisor.com as the best Web site for independent home buyers because of extended features such as 850,000 property listings updated daily, home valuation tools and an electronic reminder service.
The award continues the strong momentum HomeAdvisor Technologies Inc., the company that created HomeAdvisor.com, has gained in recent months. This includes the recent announcement that HomeAdvisor Technologies has received more than $100 million in equity funding, one of the largest single-round investments in the online real estate and mortgage category. In addition, HomeAdvisor.com is the only site providing real-time, risk-based pricing for mortgages. Gomez specifically cited HomeAdvisor.com for its innovative mortgage technology:
“MortgageDirect offers instant approvals and guarantees* the best priced loan and will match a competitor’s price or refund $250 back at closing.”
About HomeAdvisor.com
HomeAdvisor.com is the Internet’s most complete guide for finding everything about the home, combining Microsoft® technology with services and expertise from the most trusted names in the real estate and mortgage industries. HomeAdvisor.com helps consumers address every home-related decision and will provide the guaranteed* lowest rates for mortgage loans. Named Best Home-Buying Site on the Web in the Gomez Summer and Fall 2000 Internet Home-Buying Scorecard and winner of the Inman Innovator Award as the best residential real estate site, HomeAdvisor.com is a PC Magazine Top 100 Web site, a Yahoo! Internet Life Best of the Best winner and one of its 100 Best Sites for 2000, and a Family PC Web Site of the Month. Launched in July 1998, HomeAdvisor.com can be found on the World Wide Web at http://www.homeadvisor.com/ .
About HomeAdvisor Technologies
HomeAdvisor Technologies is dedicated to dramatically improving the way homes are financed, bought, sold and maintained. Formed in March 2000 and backed by Microsoft Corp., HomeAdvisor Technologies consists of three divisions focused on delivering the tools and services necessary to revolutionize the real estate and mortgage transaction while delivering significant time and cost savings to consumers as well as real estate and mortgage professionals.
About Gomez
Gomez is the leading provider of e-commerce customer experience measurement, benchmarking and customer acquisition services to help firms build successful e-businesses and guide consumers in transacting online. GomezPro provides firms with e-commerce customer experience measurement tools, consulting and advanced data services to help them build successful e-businesses by understanding and utilizing e-commerce best practices.
GomezNetworks provides companies with real-time site performance measurement and diagnosis/analysis. Gomez performance measurement technology and tools enable companies to optimize customer experience and improve service performance. Gomez.com™ provides consumers with Scorecard rankings and merchant certification of over 5,000 firms in over 30 industries. Gomez content, tools and incentives enable consumers, through Performance Media™
, to navigate and transact online with confidence. For more information, visit http://www.gomez.com/ .
About Microsoft
Founded in 1975, Microsoft (Nasdaq
“MSFT”
) is the worldwide leader in software, services and Internet technologies for personal and business computing. The company offers a wide range of products and services designed to empower people through great software – any time, any place and on any device.
* Certain offer restrictions apply. Details can be found at http://www.homeadvisor.msn.com/financing/finder/guarantee.asp .
Microsoft and HomeAdvisor are either registered trademarks or trademarks of Microsoft Corp. in the United States and/or other countries.
Gomez, Internet Home-Buying Scorecard and Performance Media are trademarks of Gomez Advisors Inc.
The names of actual companies and products mentioned herein may be the trademarks of their respective owners.
Note to editors: If you are interested in viewing additional information on Microsoft, please visit the Microsoft® Web page at http://www.microsoft.com/presspass/ on Microsoft’s corporate information pages.
