NHS

New Home Source tied with Bloomberg News for top honors in the 65th Annual Journalism Awards from the National Association of Real Estate Editors (NAREE) with seven awards each. The Wall Street Journal was second with six awards.

The journalism awards, presented on Friday, June 26, 2015, at Miami’s InterContinental Hotel capped a four-day meeting attended by more than 150 real estate writers and editors from the nation’s leading newspapers, websites and magazines. To insure impartiality, award judging was done by a retired profession of journalism from Ohio University.

65th Annual Journalism Awards of The National Association of Real EstateFor the second year in a row, Patricia Garcia, BDX Content Manager, was honored with an award for Best Newsletter. This year’s Bronze Award follows up her Gold Award last year for The New Home Source Home of the Week newsletter.

Four other contributors to New Home Source were also honored, led by Camilla McLaughlin, who received three awards for her work for NHS. Also honored for articles for New Home Source were Ken Harney, who also writes a nationally syndicated column for The Washington Post; Marcie Geffner, who contributes to The Los Angeles Times and other media; and Lew Sichelman, who writes a nationally syndicated column on real estate in addition to his work for New Home Source.

The NAREE meeting included speakers and panelists on a variety of topics as well as tours of cutting-edge, Miami area real estate projects. Several CEOs and presidents (as well as six chief economists) spoke from leading organizations and companies that included the National Association of Home Builders, Crescent Communities, the National Association of Realtors, leading MLSs and brokers, and Realtor.com, Zillow, Trulia, Homes.com.

Other media honored included The New York Times, The Washington Post, Seattle Times, Bankrate.com, The Denver Post, The Atlanta Journal-Constitution, Inman News, The Boston Globe, Reuters, Consumer Reports, Professional Builder, The Chicago Tribune, RealtyTrac Reports, The Houston Chronicle, The Dallas Business Journal, The New York Daily News, The Arizona Republic and others.

65th Annual Journalism Awards of The National Association of Real EstateFor the second year in a row, Jay McKenzie, BDX Director of Content and Social Media, was a panelist and speaker on new media models emerging in real estate. Patricia Garcia, BDX Content Manager, represented New Home Source again this year in a round of three-minute Meet the Press meetings with attendees at the event.

BDX is very proud of New Home Source’s recognition by NAREE and applaud our winners!

NHS GalleryGreat photography and renderings are vital components to helping shoppers envision themselves in your homes. That’s why New Home Source is going even further to provide builders with expanded photo galleries to show off their beautiful architecture. Site visitors can will soon be able to experience images and video in a full-screen viewer.  And with the addition of community images, leads on average increase by 28% and click thrus by 20%! And don’t forget about video! Embedding video with your listing also increases leads by 28% and click thrus by 36%.

So how does it work?

  • From any community or home details page, click the “Expand” icon in the corner of the on-page gallery
  • Enjoy larger images and videos that fill your screen
  • Navigate via the forward/back toggles or via the thumbnails at the bottom
  • Icons for “Videos”, “Photos”, “[Interactive] Floor Plan” and “Tour” identify current media shown and can be used to jump to that/those slides in the viewer
  • Share images via Pinterest!
  • Grab a free brochure from the community via the form embedded in the viewer (last slide and also persistent button)

NHS Gallery 2We expect that this experience will delight users and should impact conversion positively — especially for those builders who have the recommended minimum or larger image sizes. To get the most of this new feature, we recommend images that are 1200×800 pixels or larger. We also tend to see best results with a 3:2 (sometimes called 1.5:1) aspect ratio, but we can accommodate others as needed. When you start to update your photos, a best practice is to include 1-3 exterior images, 2-5 interior images, & a floor plan for each story of the home.

What are you waiting for? If you don’t have stunning renderings or photos of your homes, contact us at info@thebdx.com today!

 

NAREE 2014 Award CeremonyWe are so very pleased to announce that our very own Patricia Garcia, BDX Content Manager, and New Home Source received the Gold Award for Best Newsletter on Friday night at the 64th Annual Meeting of the National Association of Real Estate Editors (NAREE) in Houston.

This is the pre-eminent award for real estate journalism. The program honors excellence in reporting, writing and editing stories about residential and commercial real estate. A panel of judges from the E. W. Scripps School of Journalism at Ohio University selected winners. Patrick S. Washburn, a former news reporter and editor and a professor emeritus, chaired the panel.

More than 300 journalists from leading media and industry leaders from around the nation attended the event. Patricia and Jay McKenzie, BDX Director of Content, were both panelists at the event. Patricia also represented New Home Source ably in a fast-paced series of three-minute Meet the Press interviews. Leaders of realtor.com, Trulia, Zillow, Homes.com and several MLSs and brokerages were present as speakers, panelists and attendees.

In presenting the Gold Award to Patricia Garcia for the New Home Source Home of the Week eNewsletter, the judges stated,

“This e-newsletter offers far more than its home of the week feature. It covers the hottest trends from cool gadgets and gizmos to the future of the mortgage interest deduction.”home of the week newsletter

In the above photo, Patricia has just received her well-deserved award. Standing between Jay and Patricia are Ken Harney, a columnist for New Home Source, The Washington Post, The Los Angeles Times and many other leading newspapers across the nation. Next to him is Michele Lerner, a frequent contributor to New Home Source, New Home Source Professional, Fox News, The Washington Post and REALTOR Magazine.

NAREE is a non-profit journalism organization founded in 1929. A list of all award winners can be seen at: http://www.naree.org/index.php?src=news&srctype=detail&category=Association%20Headlines&refno=151

Congratulations, Patricia!

What’s that in the sky? A bird? A plane? NO! It’s Cupid! Cupid is back again to remind you of all his favorite new features from BDX that he has fallen madly in love with!

FREE Basic Listings For All Builders on New Home Source and Move New Homes

Now every builder can list their communities for free on the leading new home websites NewHomeSource.com and MoveNewHomes.com. These basic listings are a great way to establish a presence on these sites and put your name in front of the over 1 million unique visitors each month to these sites. Signing up is easy! Just visit www.thebdx.com/free

Updated NewHomeSource.com Logo

We’ve given the top new home listing website a makeover! Even though it is consistently the leading new home website, we are always looking for ways to improve NewHomeSource.com. Our latest changes include a new and modern logo and a redesign of some of the major pages on the site to make them more user-friendly.  Fall in love with NewHomeSource.com!

New Home Source TV

New Home Source TV, the companion television program to the leading new home website NewHomeSource.com, provides a glimpse of the latest floor plans, design trends, green features and neighborhood amenities from the hottest new home builders from around the country.  Architects, designers, contractors and other experts will also contribute to the show by highlighting the more subtle benefits of today’s new homes, such as modern construction techniques and the lower cost of living that comes with owning a truly new home.

Interested in being on future episodes of the show or want to know when it’s coming to an area near you? Contact us to put the spotlight on your homes!

NewHomeSource.com’s “Home of the Week”

Each week, we select a “Home of the Week” from active communities listed on New Home Source. Why “Home of the Week”? When we recently surveyed visitors to NewHomeSource.com about the type of new home content they would like to read, this idea was a clear winner!  The “Home of the Week” email is being promoted on every page in the New Home Source Resource Center, with the subscription list growing each day!

New homes have even taken over the homepages of MSN.com and realtor.com as 14 of our Home of the Week builders were featured in a spotlight slideshow. Read more about it here!

So how do we choose the next “Home of The Week”? If you think one of your homes has what it takes, be sure that your NewHomeSource.com listing is up to date with photos of exceptional quality.  Not only will it help you to be considered for the next email, but also will help drive and engage traffic on your listing. If you would like to be considered for Home of the Week and put the spotlight on your homes, contact us today.

We hope you enjoyed this year’s edition of Cupid’s Picks and wish you a Happy Valentine’s Day from everyone here at BDX!