PERTH-based real estate portal buildingworld.com.au has received recognition from building and real estate-related Internet websites in the US.
Buildingworld.com.au director Ron Forlee said the company had been awarded the Gold Award by the Vandema organisation.
“The Vandema Gold Award is submitted to real estate websites that demonstrate excellence in providing really useful real estate-related information, effectiveness, design and presentation,” Mr Forlee said.
“Buildingworld.com.au has also featured as website of the week on the popular www.Realityimages.com website. In addition, it has been accepted for ranking in the Top 100 real estate websites at www.realestateabc.com”
The site features 240,000 directory exchange listings in 370 categories ranging from plumbers to arbitrators plus news and information about the building and construction industry.
“In developing the concept of the portal 12 months ago, we deliberately took an inter-national approach because we wanted to develop a research portal that would attract the maximum number of consumers who want to purchase products related to the building industry to our site,” he said.
“Since it was launched in August, we have had more than 200,000 hits.”
Mr Forlee said the portal featured advanced virtual tours “that are not the old standard” and video streaming.
“There is no downloading involved or media players needed because it uses a Java applet,” he said.
“News and information is updated weekly along with statistics and surveys that draw users back.
“We are also starting an e-commerce centre within the site and already have half a dozen hardware stores involved along with sellers of CAD software”.
