Brown Harris Stevens unveils new website design...

It's beautiful. Kudos.

ali r.
DG Neary Realty

Does it discuss how overpriced properties are?

Does bestbuy.com discuss how overpriced some of their electronics are? Not sure what you're expecting.

That is what you have Streeteasy for.

Always thought the BHS website needed this. Definitely better than before.

"their new website design which focuses on presenting information in a clear and easy manner"

Well, bestbuy doesn't make this claim.

Neither does BHS - MRussell made that comment on this thread.

u know I think this is excellent improvement! Simple, clean, easy to use. And I LOVE how the search results show huge pics of the property in rows, not a column of addresses and details. this is just first impression, havent really done through it all yet.

You know what I love about this site? How right from the front page it says: "Hey, hoi polloi, don't bother, you can't come close to affording it." The photos are of a ginormous NY place that looks like a men's club reading room, followed by the Hamptons and Palm Beach. I'm surprised the website doesn't have a dress code or a club floor. It is exquisitely obnoxious, in the wonderful Larchmont lockjaw way.

I can't find the square footage on any of these listings I checked on BHS' new site. What th' hell kind of work of fiction leaves critical details to its readers' imaginations? They could at least state precisely how large the apartment feels.

alanhart - they did the right thing, they only list sft for CONDOS, and leave it blank for coops.

http://www.bhsusa.com/manhattan/midtown-west/146-west-57th-street/condo/1151801

Even condo has aprox tag and Im sure there is more protective language in terms of size as the off plans vary with how each developer measures their units. Almost all coop stated sft is a broker or a seller estimate, and usually way off to the high side. Very few have documented appraisals stating size that is used for verification for marketing purposes. So, I say leave the number blank than mess up all the ways to measure the listing or market's value or trend. How off are price per sft trends or monthlies per sft valuations for coops with a guessed total size?

i think that the site layout is great. clean and to the point. the only issue that i have is the size of fonts and pics. i think a bling man will be able to see these things.

i have a reasonable 20 inch screen and had to scroll on the page where you choose the properties you're looking for. in web design 101, they teach you to fit the selection screen on 800X600, not 900X1500.

but of course the larger question is why would anyone go to their site other than to see a specific property? it is hard to believe that someone sits down and does a search on an individual broker's site.

@ab_11218: What specifically bugs you about the font and pics? They all look appropriately sized to me.

Also, I completely hear your reasoning regarding sizing, especially when you think of what is displayed 'above the fold' before you would have to scroll. However, my iPhone 4 has a resolution greater than 800x600, and most monitors are at least 1024x768 if not beyond full HD (my iMac at home is 1920x1200). At this point in time it is hard to pick the right size to base your site on because higher resolution screens are more and more ubiquitous, but at the same time, you can't assume everyone has one. It looks like the resolution they went with is 980, which is... interesting considering it isn't a standard (that I'm aware of at least). But all things considered, it looks like the right balance of larger photos and readable text. Clearly the focus nowadays is showcasing the properties with big and beautiful imagery, and I think they did a fantastic job without adding unnecessary clutter.

To echo a few of you, they did a really great job. It took a while, but I would rather they did it right the first time instead of playing catch up after it was out there for the world to see.

*** Just to make it very clear. I had and have absolutely nothing to do with the site design for BHS. Just putting the new info out there :)

I'm at 1280X1024 and have to scroll. That's just bad judgement can be remedied within 1/2 hr of work. I develop financial apps and am not much into "designing" them, the number are what's important. That said, my users would get upset if i would give them something like your company's new site.

since they choose 980 for width, they should've fit the pertinent info on 882, not 1500.

^------- No such problems about the screen width here. Either I'm not seeing what you guys are seeing or we're using different web browsers. I'm using firefox on a laptop.

not the width, the height is the issue of scrolling down with so little info to fill out

looks great on iPad. No scrolling issues at all.

"Does it discuss how overpriced properties are?"

No need. It's implicit in the fact that this is a brokerage firm's web site. Just assume everything is overpriced and you won't be far off reality.

Why would anyone go to their site other than to see a specific property? It is hard for me to believe that someone would sit down and do a search on an individual brokerage site.

with that logic, a seller would be signing a 6-month exclusive marketing agreement to a broker and a firm that does not even offer them a website to promote the listing.

In addition to the usual links to "share" the listing or "contact agent", they have added a link that just says "purchase." Yikes. I didn't dare click it.

"alanhart - they did the right thing, they only list sft for CONDOS, and leave it blank for coops."

urbandigs, I respectfully disagree. For the enormous compensation they are receiving from the seller, they can set or adopt reasonable standards (from the target audience's perspective; the buyer's perspective) for calculating square footage, hire a professional to calculate it, and include it (with the usual and unhelpful disclaimer). They can do work for their money, rather than just gather and repeat incorrect information provided by others, or omitting critical information.

Do they just repost any old photos that they can get their hands on for free? No, they hire photographers who specialize in real estate interiors, who can best convey to the buyer what they're looking at, presumably avoiding deception while highlighting positives. A good floorplan can do the with labeling of good features.

As a brokerage that puts itself forward as catering to a luxury high-commission niche, BHS is particularly well-suited to taking the lead in this area, or doing the right thing even when other brokerages don't.

I know of at least one other metro market, dominated by SFRs, where floorplans are virtually never included in online listings, and indeed are pretty much unavailable. Can you imagine trying to find a property you like (or, as a broker, trying to sift through properties) without being able to understand the setup and flow? Same goes for omission of square footage, or using standards set up by developers that might aid them in their business but are useless to buyers, or just plain wrong square footage.

"urbandigs, I respectfully disagree. For the enormous compensation they are receiving from the seller, they can set or adopt reasonable standards (from the target audience's perspective; the buyer's perspective) for calculating square footage, hire a professional to calculate it, and include it (with the usual and unhelpful disclaimer). They can do work for their money, rather than just gather and repeat incorrect information provided by others, or omitting critical information."

Hey, I do NOT disagree with this alanhart! I've actually posted on this forum or mine, cant recall, about exactly this! In my opinion, besides professional photos, for coops I think one of the best features the firm can offer is to hire a professional floorplan that also measures every inch of the property. OLR has this and Ive done 3D floorplans before and they have models for calculating total interior size - and the measurement of the unit takes about 90-120 minutes. It costs about $300 for standard 2BR apt, higher for larger units..It cost me about $700 for the townhouse I had. But the firms will no way pay for this and the agent usually will not spend this out of their declining ad budgets..instead they will use that for proactive marketing, not better floorplans and calculating int sft..

My point was that in the real world, it DOES NOT work this way and because of that, why should a firm put a sft number that is estimated and grossly inflated that can lead to upset buyers and lawsuits?

I wish they had done something to address the usability of the price drop-downs in the property search. Someone searching for an apartment in the $2 million range (give or take 10%) has to select $3 million on the upper end and $1.5 million on the lower end and wade through a lot of useless listings. Same goes for rentals--the ranges are in $1000 increments, which is ridiculous.

The NY Times website has its own issues, but the increments they use are more realistic, plus they also have sliders that allow the user to fine-tune the range search.

Ord. I disagree. In this mkt when ppl will take 2/3 bids.... Me thinks bhs gets props for actually saying if your budget is $1.5mm, $2.25mm is fair game.

WTF do I know except a $4mm listing at 600 days is, hmmmm. Hmmmm, how do I say it? It's ripe for a lownutz bid.

>Me thinks

I had to look that up: http://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=methinks
1. methinks
A really pretentious and annoying way to say "I think."
Methinks me shall skippeth off to the Ethan of Allen in order that I may find an alternative to this late 90s kitsch.

+1 ord - I agree, price increments should be more "incremental" :)

The new web site looks great on 13" MacBook Pro (1280 x 800) without having to maximize browser window. To make it fit better on varying monitors, you could use dynamic tables, rather than fixed. This would allow the thumbnails to span all the way horizontally, regardless of screen resolution. Screens with smaller resolutions would get two listings per row, and those of us running at full HD would get anywhere from 3-5 listings per row. (Basically imagine the way Windows 7 / Explorer behaves when you're browsing through files in icon view)

Other than than, I really like the NYT style map on the right of the search page, highlighting neighborhoods as you select them - very user-friendly.