A Surrey man is hoping to make shopping for new real estate developments easier with his new free online resource.
Hoperty.com aims to provide homebuyers with a one-stop source of information about new real estate developments in Metro Vancouver.
It’s the first map-based search engine of its kind in the region that delivers the most extensive selection of new real estate development properties on one website.
“Our goal is to make finding new real estate developments easier,” said Hoperty’s president Raveen
Seran, a former project and finance manager for a residential construction company. “Hoperty is a one-stop resource dedicated to helping home buyers, realtors and developers find and share information about new real estate developments spanning Vancouver to Abbotsford.”
How does it work? The user enters a price range and number of bedrooms and bathrooms, and instantly sees red pin maps with new condos and townhouses for sale that meet the search criteria in a given area.
Seran's day job is as an Internal audit manager at a major credit union. In his spare time, he created Hoperty. The idea for the website came from Seran's previous experience when he was a buyer and later worked as a realtor helping clients looking to purchase a new home. He was surprised by the amount of time and energy required to learn about new real estate projects.
New real estate projects are seldom listed on the Multiple Listing Service, which means that finding condo and townhome development information can be time-consuming.
"I invested a considerable amount of time conducting online research, scouring newspapers, commuting, and visiting presentation centres to obtain detailed property information and thought to myself, ‘there must be a better way’," said Seran.
“When consumers are considering one of life’s biggest financial transactions, easily accessible, detailed information about new real estate developments amalgamated on one site helps buyers make well-informed decisions.”
For buyers:
• Can register on Hoperty.com and receive regular updates on properties that interest them.
• They’ll also be the first to learn about price changes, information on properties that interest them, exclusive offers and other developer incentives.
For realtors:
• Hoperty will send them regular updates on new developments.
• Hoperty will also notify them of agent open houses, price changes, new unit releases, and developer incentives.
• They can save properties to the favourites list so they can compare them at any time.
For developers:
• They can post their real estate developments for free and reach their target market easily.
• All postings provide complimentary uploading of pictures, listings, descriptions, neighbourhood information and links to the developer’s website.
• An optional paid service is available, which includes premium benefits not available in the free version.
Currently, Hoperty features 70 per cent of real estate development projects that are actively being marketed and sold in Metro Vancouver. The company expects to continue to add more properties throughout 2013 and plans to expand to other Canadian cities in the future.