SOUTH Africa's oldest real estate company Acutts has relaunched its website at a time when Acutts operations director Jonathan Acutt believes more than 70 percent of buyers consult the internet before contacting estate agents. "Buyers are turning to the technology to research what properties are available in a certain area and what price they would have to pay for the type of home they are seeking.
While most real estate companies already have group websites, there are few who have taken the time and effort to establish the features buyers want and designed the site around those features," he says.
In developing the new www.acutts.co.za site, the company invested time researching the amount of time the average buyer spends on a real estate company's website and sought ways to enhance the website to maximise the clients' exposure to as many properties as possible while they searched for a new home.
Acutt says the group of only one of two South African real estate companies that had its own licensed mortgage division and had consequently included an accurate mortgage calculator and an affordability calculator on the site. Although this remained an estimation and an actual bank application was still required, the test provided tests as accurately as possible.