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WikiRealty Launches in Chicago

by James F. McClister

WikiRealty brings a fresh perspective to the real estate industry.

WikiRealty - Launch - website

Capitalizing on the growing infusion of technology into the real estate market, the recent official launch of WikiRealty in Chicago marks the culmination of years of hard work from the company’s founder, CEO and president, Sanjay Kuttemperoor.

WikiRealty stands as the first wiki-style website that aggregates insights from people directly in the company’s market cities along a singular real estate vertical.

“My vision for WikiRealty is to create the first platform for everyone in the real estate ecosystem to share their collective ‘hyper-local’ knowledge…both consumers and professionals,” Kuttemperoor says.

Following his vision, WikiRealty successfully launched a Beta version in Naples, Fl., last March, and has since made the website available in Milwaukee, Miami, and, of course, Chicago.

How does it work?

WikiRealty, for all its complicated backend code, offers a very user-intuitive interface, allowing visitors to share and explore knowledge with relative ease. It should be said that while all are welcome on WikiRealty and have the option to post tips and ask questions, the website hopes all submissions will follow the guidelines it has laid out. WikiRealty asks that posts are honest and based off first-hand local knowledge. Off-topic or inappropriate posts will be removed.

The site itself offers three primary features:

  • Questions: Community members can post questions regarding specific professional categories, such as building trades or real estate services. Once submitted, registered community professionals and/or “neighborhood gurus” are automatically alerted to the question and are given the opportunity to share their answers and advice.
  • Tips and Articles: WikiRealty Gurus act as the more prolific contributors to the online neighborhood, adding content specific to news and market insights, but, as the name suggests, any community member may post a tip or an article. The idea is that community members will post unique insights specific to their immediate location.
  • Property Listings: Currently, WikiRealty has tens of thousands of residential listings filling out its site, but the Kuttemperoor hopes to soon fold in commercial listings, builder developer communities and rentals. If successful, WikiRealty would be the only site offer such inclusive listings. All listings are accompanied by community content specific to the listing’s location.

The Future

Kuttemperoor sees WikiRealty as a new style of town square where people can gather and contribute exclusive local insights.

“I am creating a product that currently does not exist in our industry,” he says, adding that it’s a product that our industry desperately needs.

While WikiRealty’s competitors focus heavily on complicated algorithms and supposedly objective data, like square footage, Kuttemperoor says his site captures a much broader spectrum of information that represents the market in its entirety – professionals and consumers, commercial and residential.

As a testament to the WikiRealty’s warm reception into the industry, several high profile parties, including national builders, local governments and myriad top residential and commercial brokerages, have already come on as early adopters. Chicago Agent has also become an active user on the site – check out our page! (for Miami: http://wikirealty.com/MiamiAgentMagazine/)

WikiRealty is currently in operation in four cities – Naples, Milwaukee, Miami and Chicago – but Kuttemperoor says he won’t be satisfied until they’re an internationally recognized name in the industry, not to mention the go-to source for local real estate knowledge.

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Comments

  • Frank Yang says:

    Maybe I’m missing something but i went to this website and didn’t really see any difference than any other 3rd party syndication website.

  • Martin A says:

    frank – i don’t think it’s a 3rd party syndication website. seems to be mostly original content submitted by users. major difference is that the content is tagged to specific locations and shows up next to relevant listings.

  • Al says:

    The website offers both objective data by way of real estate listings along with subjective commentary from individuals across the real estate spectrum regarding a particular area tagged to particular locations as Martin indicates. On the ground, real-time neighborhood information from local professionals.

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