Internet portal Yahoo-Kimo Inc (
"The Internet has become the primary channel for home shopping," Rose Tsou (
The demand for online house searches has increased significantly along with the red hot property market in recent years, making the channel even more important, Tsou said.
Yahoo-Kimo inaugurated a property portal that provided listings from seven realtors in 2005.
The number of partners on the new site has expanded to 11, with six real estate agents including Sinyi Real Estate Inc (
POLL
A poll conducted by Yahoo-Kimo showed that 65 percent of Internet users said they search for properties online when they started shopping for new homes.
A survey of the 11 firms showed that in the past, realtors needed to take their customers to visit 13.6 apartments on average before a transaction was concluded.
Visits for those who searched houses online decreased to 6.3 apartments, which greatly increases the efficiency for agents, Yahoo-Kimo said.
Taking house listings online also helps to accelerate the time it takes to clinch deals. It takes about 28 days for home buyers who search for houses online to purchase a property, while it takes 39 days for those who don't, the survey showed.
"Online real estate is without doubt a trend in the market," said Howard Chou (
"Customers no longer need to waste time by physically visiting vast numbers of houses like they used to," he said.
Despite most real estate agents having their own sites to provide pictures and video clips of houses and apartments, the huge amount of traffic generated by Yahoo-Kimo has proven to bring even more business to the company, Chou said.
VIDEO CLIPS
Currently, Sinyi Real Estate has video clips for more than half of the properties it sells, which allows users to get an all round view of the houses, Chou said.
Other new functions provided by Yahoo-Kimo's new site include buying aids such as feng shui, legal and moving advice, decorating guides with different styles and budgets and online loan accounting.
China has claimed a breakthrough in developing homegrown chipmaking equipment, an important step in overcoming US sanctions designed to thwart Beijing’s semiconductor goals. State-linked organizations are advised to use a new laser-based immersion lithography machine with a resolution of 65 nanometers or better, the Chinese Ministry of Industry and Information Technology (MIIT) said in an announcement this month. Although the note does not specify the supplier, the spec marks a significant step up from the previous most advanced indigenous equipment — developed by Shanghai Micro Electronics Equipment Group Co (SMEE, 上海微電子) — which stood at about 90 nanometers. MIIT’s claimed advances last
ISSUES: Gogoro has been struggling with ballooning losses and was recently embroiled in alleged subsidy fraud, using Chinese-made components instead of locally made parts Gogoro Inc (睿能創意), the nation’s biggest electric scooter maker, yesterday said that its chairman and CEO Horace Luke (陸學森) has resigned amid chronic losses and probes into the company’s alleged involvement in subsidy fraud. The board of directors nominated Reuntex Group (潤泰集團) general counsel Tamon Tseng (曾夢達) as the company’s new chairman, Gogoro said in a statement. Ruentex is Gogoro’s biggest stakeholder. Gogoro Taiwan general manager Henry Chiang (姜家煒) is to serve as acting CEO during the interim period, the statement said. Luke’s departure came as a bombshell yesterday. As a company founder, he has played a key role in pushing for the
Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電) has appointed Rose Castanares, executive vice president of TSMC Arizona, as president of the subsidiary, which is responsible for carrying out massive investments by the Taiwanese tech giant in the US state, the company said in a statement yesterday. Castanares will succeed Brian Harrison as president of the Arizona subsidiary on Oct. 1 after the incumbent president steps down from the position with a transfer to the Arizona CEO office to serve as an advisor to TSMC Arizona’s chairman, the statement said. According to TSMC, Harrison is scheduled to retire on Dec. 31. Castanares joined TSMC in
EUROPE ON HOLD: Among a flurry of announcements, Intel said it would postpone new factories in Germany and Poland, but remains committed to its US expansion Intel Corp chief executive officer Pat Gelsinger has landed Amazon.com Inc’s Amazon Web Services (AWS) as a customer for the company’s manufacturing business, potentially bringing work to new plants under construction in the US and boosting his efforts to turn around the embattled chipmaker. Intel and AWS are to coinvest in a custom semiconductor for artificial intelligence computing — what is known as a fabric chip — in a “multiyear, multibillion-dollar framework,” Intel said in a statement on Monday. The work would rely on Intel’s 18A process, an advanced chipmaking technology. Intel shares rose more than 8 percent in late trading after the