Real Estate Weekly Takes It ONLINE!

REW.ca Launch Party!

Last night I was invited to attended the launch party of REW.ca in the beautiful downtown Vancouver Four Seasons Hotel.  Among lovely canapes and open bar, my fellow Vancouver bloggers, Realtors® and Brokers had the opportunity to hear/see 1st hand the goals and direction of the now online portal.  It was only a matter of time before Real Estate Weekly print advertising jumped into the online space with some other Real Estate data portals like Zoocasa, Trulia and Zillow.

(photo credit @CathyBrowne)

Duck canapes

@MeenaSandhu (ING Direct) Scott Dawson @SDD (Verico Morgages)

Salmon and cream cheese

Rudy Nielsen founder of Landcorp data corp shared his view of the market and importance of good data.

Rudy Nielsen of Landcorp
(photo credit @CathyBrowne)

 So how is REW.ca different?

At first glance its a super sharp, clean and easily navigated site.  I like the feature of most recent listings first vs price ascension or descension.

The most noticeable difference is that REW.ca will be hyper local in BC only. (for now I'm guessing)

I have to say I quite liked the breakdown of the neighbourhood details with Walkscores, school info, new developments, demographics and property stats. Its a great overview particularly if you're moving in from outside the area.  It could prove as a valuable resource for both Buyers and Realtors®.







They've also launched their mobile version simultaneously which was a wise decision in my opinion. One glaring issue right out of the gate is if you're searching for a Realtor® either on your desktop or on mobile you'll notice all Realtors® are listed alphabetically so unless your last name begins with an "A" you're likely not going to get a lot of traction and if you're searching for an agent there's no way to distinguish one from the other. It would be nice to see some sort of peer recommendation tool integrated down the road.

Matthew Collinge @604homesguy

It is a 'freemium' site which means all MLS listings will be available providing the Listing Brokerage is in agreement.  Yes that's right! REW.ca is able to pull data directly from the Vancouver Board and the Whistler Board but all other listings required agreements from each independent Brokerage! That's a lot!  Of course Agents will have the opportunity to further brand themselves by purchasing featured advertising.

General Manager of REW.ca Ian Martin presented to the group of local Realtors, Brokers and Vancouver Community Bloggers including friends Marc Smith of Amuse Events, Dennis Pang and Rick Chung of Vancouver is Awesome and the site seemed well received by the group.

Marc Smith @Amuse_Events

In the end what makes a site like REW.ca useful or not will be the amount of data shared and the functionality and ease of use!

So will you use the site? What would you like to see?  Check out the site and let me know what you think! 

(Video tour here)

REW.ca - Your New Local Source for Real Estate from REW.ca on Vimeo.

"REW.ca is an exciting new real estate portal that will provide real estate consumers and enthusiasts with a dynamic search experience for Vancouver and the Lower Mainland. We're owned by Glacier Media Inc. and also the online sister company of the Real Estate Weekly newspaper which is distributed weekly to approximately 450,000 homes throughout the Lower Mainland."