Marketplace

When the Brownstoner Marketplace launched back in July, we were optimistic but had no idea what to expect. The listing platform’s performance in January, though, was a big inflection point. After attracting buy-in from the likes of Fillmore, Apartmentsandlofts.com, Warren Lewis and Ideal Properties back in the Fall, Brown Harris Stevens and Halstead came on board last month and the section’s pageviews continued their upward trend, topping out at over 400,000 impressions for the month. (Traffic is split pretty evenly between rentals and sales.)

Having the listings in place also allows us to start generating some interesting data on what readers are interested in. Below, for example, is a list of the ten most popular neighborhoods based on the number of times properties were viewed.

1. Park Slope
2. Carroll Gardens
3. Brooklyn Heights
4. Fort Greene
5. Cobble Hill
6. Williamsburg
7. Windsor Terrace
8. Prospect Heights
9. Bedford Stuyvesant
10. Clinton Hill

Thanks to all the firms and brokers who have supported the Marketplace to date. We look forward to continuing to improve the functionality of the platform and to raise the visibility of the properties on it. If you are interested in having your firm set up a direct feed, please send an email to marketplace@brownstoner.com.

We are very pleased to announce that Brown Harris Stevens and Halstead, two of the city’s top residential brokers, have joined the Brownstoner Marketplace. The two Terra-owned companies will be adding almost 500 sales listings and over 130 rental listings to the mix, including this $12 million single-family house in Bay Ridge (photo) and this $2.8 million penthouse in Williamsburg. The addition of the two firms brings the total number of listings in the Marketplace to roughly 2,200.

We’ve got some more big developments (no pun intended) on the Brownstoner Marketplace. Ideal Properties, which recently opened an office in Cobble Hill (its third in Brooklyn), has joined the Brownstoner Marketplace, further deepening our selection of Brooklyn sales and rentals listings. (Look out New York Times!) Today we also launch a commercial listings section, including commercial lofts, offices and retail spaces, including this cute storefront in Gowanus.

We are thrilled to announce that Fillmore Real Estate, the large Brooklyn-based broker, has joined the Brownstoner Marketplace. The addition strengthens the selection of properties on Brownstoner in core brownstone and downtown neighborhoods (like this one-bedroom on South Portland Avenue) and adds significant depth in South Brooklyn neighborhoods like Sheepshead Bay, Marine Park, and East Flatbush. Fillmore has twenty offices around Brooklyn and more than 300 brokers in its employ.

The breadth and reach of the listings in the Brownstoner Marketplace continues to expand: Recently both Aguayo & Huebener and BOND New York have come on board. Aguayo has been a long-time advertiser on Brownstoner (most recently for its South Third Lofts) and we are very pleased to have them participating in the Marketplace. BOND NY has been aggressively expanding its presence in Brooklyn and we are flattered that the folks there recognized the importance of reaching the Brownstoner audience.

It’s been a couple of weeks since we’ve given a progress report on the Brownstoner Marketplace. August was a big month, with the Marketplace generating close to 200,000 pageviews. That number should continue to grow with the addition of some important new brokers: we’re happy to announce that both Warren Lewis and Brooklyn Properties have signed on to contribute a significant number of their listings. In related news, we’ve also added a monthly pricing option for companies that want to advertise in the Directory so now, instead of having to commit to a full year, you can go month-to-month for the low, low price of $25.

More good news for the Brownstoner Marketplace: We’re pleased to announce that Aptsandlofts.com has added close to 250 of its sales and rental listings to the mix. The range of product includes properties in its home turf of Williamsburg like the condos at Warehouse 11 and rentals at 184 Kent Avenue as well as other nabes like Park Slope, where they’re handling sales at 255 1st Street, for example. Of potential interest to brokerage firms out there is the fact that we’ve set up an automated feed so that the company’s listings are automatically kept current. If you’re interested in learning how to set your firm up with something similar, please email marketplace@brownstoner.com or get more information here.

In case you haven’t checked out the Brownstoner Marketplace recently, we’ve gotten a batch of new listings in over the last few days. Out in Victorian Flatbush, Alexandra Reddish at Mary Kay Gallagher has added three handsome single-family houses to the mix—47 Waldorf Court, 220 Rugby Road and 555 East 23rd Street—and in Dumbo Ann Zemaitis of Charles Rutenberg’s got a high-floor three-bedroom at Jay Condo and Karen Heyman of Sotheby’s put up a 1,550-square-foot two-bedroom at 70 Washington. Stay tuned for some big announcements in the coming days.

The Brownstoner Listings Marketplace has only been around for a couple of weeks but we’ve got an interesting innovation to announce: We’re starting to syndicate local listings to neighborhood blogs. In the last few days, both the Cobble Hill Blog and Dumbo NYC have added a widget to their homepages that enables geographically-targeted listings from the Brownstoner Marketplace to appear. It’s still a work in progress but we think this approach will be a nice value-added for brokers and others listing their properties with Brownstoner and, down the line, has the potential to generate some revenue for local blogs. If you’re thinking of putting your house or apartment on Brownstoner, hopefully we’ve just given you another reason to do so (in addition to all these!); if you run a hyperlocal blog in Brooklyn and would like to learn more about adding a Marketplace to your site, please send an email to marketplace@brownstoner.com.

We just launched the Brownstoner Marketplace and are looking for a seasoned sales pro to be the first onboard. If you know your way around Brooklyn, around real estate, around the web, and have the ability to maintain long-term sales relationships then we want to talk to you.

Now in addition to all the housing-related service providers in the Directory, we have Brooklyn-based real estate listings. Brownstoner is the most targeted way to reach Brooklyn buyers and renters: Over 15,000 people a day and 200,000 a month visit Brownstoner.com. The Brownstoner Marketplace is going to become the most targeted way to get listings in front of Brooklyn buyers.

So, if you are capable of working with everyone from seasoned brokers to neighborhood rental agents to first time FSBO’ers then tell us about yourself by sending an email to directory@brownstoner.com.

For years, we’ve received inquiries from brokers and property owners wanting to be able to advertise individual listings on Brownstoner but we haven’t had a platform to make such a thing feasible on a widespread scale at a price that made sense. Now we do. With the help of software company Blank Slate, we are launching a new listings site called the Brownstoner Marketplace. Owners and brokers, now you can create your own sales listing for $25 per month or rental listing for $10 per month. (If you are an individual broker or firm, you can submit bulk listings by spreadsheet or company data feed as well.) The Marketplace also incorporates the Directory we launched last fall. So now you can look for an apartment and find a lawyer to do the closing, a painter to spiff the place up and mover to do all your heavy lifting—all in one place.

A big thanks to all the brokers who stepped up pre-launch. Some of the initial listings on the site include this huge loft at 1 Main Street listed by Karen Heyman of Sotheby’s, this one-bedroom at 101 Lafayette Avenue listed by Louis Belisario of Fillmore, and this loft at 1311 Pacific Street listed by Fouad Rahme of Triumph. We’re also really hoping that the Marketplace becomes the go-to spot for For Sale By Owner listings like this one at 60 Oxford Street.

There are already several places to list a property, but none of them are focused on Brooklyn and none of them have all the marketing features of the Brownstoner Marketplace. (For more detail on things like search optimization and analytics, check out Blank Slate’s blog.) We hope this will prove useful to buyers and sellers alike and grow into a Brooklyn institution!

Thanks,

Mr. B