Realtor.com Expands Virtual Tour Offerings

Business Wire, Oct 5, 2004

WESTLAKE VILLAGE, Calif. -- Realtor.com, the official Web site of the National Association of Realtors, today announced that it will be expanding its virtual tour offerings to support nearly all virtual image creation technologies. Beginning November 30, 2004, real estate professionals will be able to enhance their listings on Realtor.com in one of two ways: An expanded, full service hometour360(degree) program or a new, more flexible PicturePath program. Both will enable participating virtual tour companies to better service real estate professionals by marketing their customers' homes with virtual tours, the online listing enhancement consumers prefer.

"We are very excited about the changes being made to Realtor.com's virtual tour solutions," said Allan Dalton, president of Realtor.com. "Consumers repeatedly stress their attraction to listings with enhancements like multiple photos and virtual tours. The decision to transition our virtual tour strategy is based on our commitment to providing the industry with increased flexibility, which we believe will result in a better experience for consumers and our customers. Flexible technology options, multiple images, agent and property branding features, reliable hosting and the Virtual Tour Distribution Network make the new hometour360(degree) virtual tour an extremely attractive product for the today's savvy real estate professional."

Homestore (NASDAQ:HOMS) will convert its comprehensive hometour360(degree) product into a hosting and distribution solution powered by a choice of virtual image creation technologies. Homestore will continue to support IPIX's virtual image solutions, but will now enable alternative imaging technologies to be used. At the same time, the current PicturePath product will transition to a link submission solution. Homestore intends to begin offering these solutions November 30.

Historically, access to Homestore's hometour360(degree) program was only available to virtual tour service providers that agreed to acquire the hometour360(degree) Wizard software and keys needed to create IPIX 360-degree images. Under the new solution, hometour360(degree) service providers will be able to purchase virtual image creation software from a variety of technology providers, including, but not limited to, IPIX. Participating hometour360(degree) service providers will be able to upload these images along with property information, flat photos and agent information to create the industry-leading hometour360(degree) virtual tour. These tours will be hosted by Homestore, operator of Realtor.com, and disseminated across the Internet through the Virtual Tour Distribution Network (VTDN). Unprecedented in its breadth, the VTDN includes more than 600 national, regional, broker, office and branded real estate Web sites that accept virtual tours from Realtor.com.(1)

All other virtual tour service providers will be invited to join the PicturePath program. These providers will have increased flexibility to deliver their virtual tours, created with any technology and hosted themselves, to Realtor.com for listing enhancement for a nominal fee.

For more information about changes to hometour360(degree) and PicturePath, visit http://imaging.homestore.com or call (866) 483-4749.

ABOUT REALTOR.COM

Realtor.com is the official Web site of the National Association of Realtors. Ranked as the No. 1 homes-for-sale site, Realtor.com currently offers potential homebuyers more than 2.1 million Realtor-listed homes for sale as well as the most brokers and agents to contact. The site also provides home sellers with the Internet's largest marketplace to reach more than 6.1 million consumers per month.(2) By using Realtor.com, agents and companies have the power to customize the resources of the Realtor.com Web site to maximize their brand and productivity. The Realtor.com Web site is operated by Homestore, Inc.

REALTOR.com(R), hometour360(degree)(TM) and the Virtual Tour Distribution Network(TM) are trademarks of Homestore, Inc. REALTOR(R) is a federally registered collective membership mark which identifies a real estate professional who is a Member of the NATIONAL ASSOCIATION OF REALTORS(R) and subscribes to its strict Code of Ethics. All other registered trademarks, or service marks are the property of their respective holders.

(1) Listings must be active on these sites in order for virtual tours to appear.

(2) comScore Media Metrix, June 2004