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.
Intel Corp chief executive officer Lip-Bu Tan (陳立武) is expected to meet with Taiwanese suppliers next month in conjunction with the opening of the Computex Taipei trade show, supply chain sources said on Monday. The visit, the first for Tan to Taiwan since assuming his new post last month, would be aimed at enhancing Intel’s ties with suppliers in Taiwan as he attempts to help turn around the struggling US chipmaker, the sources said. Tan is to hold a banquet to celebrate Intel’s 40-year presence in Taiwan before Computex opens on May 20 and invite dozens of Taiwanese suppliers to exchange views
Application-specific integrated circuit designer Faraday Technology Corp (智原) yesterday said that although revenue this quarter would decline 30 percent from last quarter, it retained its full-year forecast of revenue growth of 100 percent. The company attributed the quarterly drop to a slowdown in customers’ production of chips using Faraday’s advanced packaging technology. The company is still confident about its revenue growth this year, given its strong “design-win” — or the projects it won to help customers design their chips, Faraday president Steve Wang (王國雍) told an online earnings conference. “The design-win this year is better than we expected. We believe we will win
Power supply and electronic components maker Delta Electronics Inc (台達電) yesterday said it plans to ship its new 1 megawatt charging systems for electric trucks and buses in the first half of next year at the earliest. The new charging piles, which deliver up to 1 megawatt of charging power, are designed for heavy-duty electric vehicles, and support a maximum current of 1,500 amperes and output of 1,250 volts, Delta said in a news release. “If everything goes smoothly, we could begin shipping those new charging systems as early as in the first half of next year,” a company official said. The new
Quanta Computer Inc (廣達) chairman Barry Lam (林百里) is expected to share his views about the artificial intelligence (AI) industry’s prospects during his speech at the company’s 37th anniversary ceremony, as AI servers have become a new growth engine for the equipment manufacturing service provider. Lam’s speech is much anticipated, as Quanta has risen as one of the world’s major AI server suppliers. The company reported a 30 percent year-on-year growth in consolidated revenue to NT$1.41 trillion (US$43.35 billion) last year, thanks to fast-growing demand for servers, especially those with AI capabilities. The company told investors in November last year that
RSS