REDMOND, Wash., Feb. 24, 2003 — MSN®
House & Home ( http://houseandhome.msn.com/ ), a part of the MSN network of Internet services and one of the Internet’s most comprehensive resources for home buying, selling and ownership, today announced a national multiyear distribution agreement with PRIMEDIA Inc.’s Real Estate Division. The agreement brings together MSN House & Home’s consumer reach of 6.4 million unique visitors per month* with PRIMEDIA’s database of residential real estate listings and related content, to enhance the breadth and depth of features for MSN House & Home visitors.
PRIMEDIA will also provide consumer assistance technologies, such as Home Valuation analytics tools; the ability to match, filter and direct qualified real estate buyers and sellers to the real estate industry; and its advanced Guided NavigationTM search capabilities. The launch of the integrated site will take place early in the second quarter of 2003.
Research indicates that the number of consumers using the Internet to facilitate the home-buying process has increased dramatically. In 1996, 2 percent of Internet buyers used the Internet to shop for a home, according to the National Association of Realtors (NAR). In 2001, that number jumped to more than 40 percent. In 2003, use of the Internet in the home-buying process could be as high as 70 percent, according to some industry estimates.
“MSN House & Home is committed to the real estate market and recognizes that growing consumer demand for greater online access to real estate information and services has led to changes in the industry,” said Kevin Doerr, group business manager for MSN House & Home. “This agreement is part of our strategic decision to focus on our core strength as a consumer portal, while teaming with leading national content providers such as PRIMEDIA’s Real Estate Division to deliver content and tools that have been created to assist consumers in buying, selling, renting and owning a home.”
This agreement supports PRIMEDIA’s strategy of developing its unique integrated residential real estate offerings and builds on the three-year relationship between MSN and PRIMEDIA’s ApartmentGuide.com. ApartmentGuide.com is the exclusive content provider in the rental section of the House & Home site and receives almost 30 percent of its consumer leads from MSN.
“PRIMEDIA is far and away the leading provider of real estate information and services in the market today. This agreement is part of PRIMEDIA’s broad real estate strategy, which includes the integration of the converging residential real estate markets, apartment rentals, the new-home-building business and the resale residential real estate brokerage business,” said Jamie Gallo, COO of PRIMEDIA’s Online Real Estate Division. “All these industry categories will ultimately play an integrated role in the creation of a strategy for the use of the current RealEstate.com domain. We have really just scratched the surface of what we feel will be a unique residential real estate offering for both the industry and the consumer.”
MSN House & Home continues to team with industry leaders to provide the deepest content and services available to its growing consumer base of 6.4 million unique monthly visitors. The deal with PRIMEDIA follows other recent agreements with industry leaders including Builder HomeSite Inc., ConsumerInfo.com Inc. and MortgageSelect.com.
About PRIMEDIA’s Real Estate Division
PRIMEDIA’s Real Estate Division provides real estate content including resale homes, new homes and apartment homes. PRIMEDIA’s Real Estate Division is a unit within the Consumer Guides division of PRIMEDIA. PRIMEDIA’s Consumer Guides division is a vertically integrated provider of information regarding apartments and homes through its HPC Publications, which produces 112 publications; HPCi, which oversees numerous Internet sites including ApartmentGuide.com, NewHomeOnline.com and RealEstate.com, comprising an impressive content presence on the Web; and Distributech, a free publications distribution business.
About PRIMEDIA
One of the world’s most innovative media companies, PRIMEDIA is pioneering the concept of targeted scale through its combination of traditional and new media properties. The company capitalizes on its focused content across print, television, the Internet and live events to offer highly effective integrated advertising and marketing solutions in some of the most sought-after advertising sectors including teens, automotive, outdoor, luxury, real estate and business-to-business segments. With 2001 sales from continuing businesses of $1.6 billion, PRIMEDIA is the No. 1 special interest magazine publisher in the United States, producing more advertising and editorial pages through its more than 250 titles including Seventeen, Automobile, Motor Trend, New York, Fly Fisherman, Power & Motoryacht, Telephony, Ward’s Auto World and American Demographics, than any other media company. It is also the No. 1 producer/distributor of specialty video with 18 satellite and digital video product lines, including Channel One Network; and the No. 1 news and information group on the Internet, led by About.com. PRIMEDIA’s stock symbol is: NYSE: PRM. More information about the company can be found at http://www.primedia.com/ .
About MSN House & Home
Launched in 1998, MSN House & Home is the most comprehensive resource on the Internet for buying, selling and owning a home. With fully integrated content and services, ranging from improving and maintaining to buying and financing a home, MSN House & Home is one of the most trusted names in the online real estate category. MSN House & Home is the exclusive real estate channel on the MSN portal and can be found at http://houseandhome.msn.com/ .
About MSN
MSN has 9 million subscriptions and attracts more than 300 million unique users worldwide per month. With localized versions available globally in 34 markets and 18 languages, MSN is a world leader in delivering Web services to consumers and digital marketing solutions to businesses worldwide. MSN 8 is the first Internet software product to have earned the trusted Good Housekeeping Seal. The most useful and innovative online service today, MSN brings consumers everything they need from the Web to make the most of their time online. MSN is located on the Web at http://www.msn.com/ . MSN worldwide sites are located at http://www.msn.com/worldwide.ashx .
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.
* comScore Media Metrix, January 2003
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