Harcourts Launches New Upgraded Website

18 November 2009: Harcourts has just launched a new, upgraded New Zealand website incorporating significant design and functionality enhancements, Harcourts International Chief Technology Officer Jason Wills announced today.

Mr Wills says the new Harcourts New Zealand website (http://www.harcourts.co.nz), which went live yesterday, meets demand for larger and more photos of listings, has an improved property search tool and easy-to-navigate functionality along with the latest Web 2.0 features.

“One of the key changes is that the design of the new site allows users to see larger photographs of each listing and more photos too, with an unlimited number of photos of each listing now able to be uploaded to our site.

“Building on this, users can now opt for a “gallery view” of their search results with the focus being on show photos of each property, and using the new smart search tool they can also filter their searches based on open home times, auctions and latest listings.

“The new Web 2.0 functionality meanwhile enables visitors to the site to share their favourite property or a media release for example via Facebook, Twitter and numerous other social media sites,” Mr Wills says.

“We’ve also built a new ‘Find Offices/People’ section that incorporates Google Maps and therefore allows visitors to more easily locate our offices and anyone in our team internationally.”

Another innovation is the new Community page, which includes the latest Harcourts news and blog posts, access to Harcourts newsletters along with links to Harcourts Facebook pages and Team Harcourts YouTube Channel amongst other things.

For decades Harcourts has prided itself on being an industry leader in real estate technology, launching the first public searchable property database on the internet in 1996 and two years later launching a unique online listing and client management software programme.

Mr Wills says the new Harcourts New Zealand website and the recently launched Australian and South African versions – http://http://www.harcourts.com.au and http://www.harcoursts.co.za – are the latest example of Harcourts’innovation.

“We see our investment in real estate technology as imperative to providing the public and our team with the best tools possible to ensure their real estate experience is productive and successful,” he says.

Founded in Wellington in 1888, Harcourts has a total of 600 offices in nine countries. It is the largest real estate group in New Zealand, the fastest growing in both Australia and Africa, where there are Harcourts offices in South Africa, Zambia and Botswana, and also has offices in Fiji, Indonesia, Singapore and China.

ENDS

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