Whittington & Associates, LLC

News Release

Homesellersfriend.com offers low-cost marketing for Realtors, builders

Jacksonville, Fla. (May 10, 2010) – A Jacksonville-based company has introduced a new Internet service that offers real estate professionals an efficient, low cost way to create marketing materials for their home listings.

To introduce the service, agents and builders can get a free trial at www.homesellersfriend.com and simply upload digital photos of their listing, select information about property from drop-down menus and give it a try. Animation effects, background music and customizable descriptions of listing features are also available. Subscribers receive a link to the virtual tour that can be easily forwarded to potential buyers and other agents. The tour can also be uploaded to social media applications like Facebook and Twitter and embedded on the agent’s blog or website.

Local company VestaVu, which created the website in conjunction with DiscoverTec, uses templates to create virtual tours and flyers on line in less than 30 minutes. VestaVu Chief Technology Officer Al Tomasetti expects the service will find a receptive audience among realtors who are looking for ways to create high-quality marketing materials for their listings without the high-end price tag.

“Agents are currently paying up to $200 to have a professional virtual tour produced for each home listing,” Tomasetti said. “With our website, an agent can create unlimited tours for even less than $200, along with the flyers and marketing materials they need.”

Tomasetti says that with over 80 percent of property searches taking place on line, homesellersfriend.com “is the perfect one-stop marketing site for today’s real estate professional.” “While we created the site with agents in mind, it certainly offers low-cost marketing opportunities for custom builders and others in real estate professionals as well.”

The virtual player allows the viewers to playback a photo tour of the property with music, select and view individual photos, read details about the property amenities, download any documents or flyers, forward the tour to friends or post it on social networks, and view a detailed location map through a Bing map feature. A full subscription of the service costs about $15 per month.

The virtual tour system was created using the Microsoft Silverlight delivery platform. Silverlight is a browser plug-in that helps companies design and deliver applications at maximum speeds across the Web.

For more information about the VestaVu service, visit www.homesellersfriend.com.

Media Contact: Ron Whittington (904-563-0402)