Auction.com has launched a new portion of its website designed to promote an online community among real estate professionals.
Simply called "Community," the new feature allows real estate professionals to discuss events, strategies, and other topics related to real estate in a public forum. The navigation options presented—connecting with investors or home buyers, suggesting improvements to Auction.com, and educational links, among others— highlight the company's stated purpose for the forum: providing employees of the industry with "a trusted resource for broadening their knowledge of the buying and selling opportunities available to them though our platform,” according to Auction.com's CEO and co-founder, Jeff Frieden.
The new web community allows for customer service and support that is willingly outsourced to the user-base, which the company says increases its ability to scale. While the company is touting this expanded customer support as a step toward the modern age, the increased visibility of user suggestions and complaints may potentially allow Auction.com to gather feedback and improve itself faster than competing business models, such as the traditional real estate methods employed by agents and brokers.
In the meantime, the site provides ample resources for learning more about real estate, from glossaries of realty terms and phrases to records of frequently-asked questions.