Information is power, and that couldn’t be more true when it comes to real estate. Catering to savvy buyers and sellers who crave Web 2.0 tools, Fizber, a for-sale-by-owner Website, aims to connect buyers and sellers. Despite pricing uncertainty in the current market, the site’s traffic continues its upward trend, landing the site at 41,318 on the WebReport 100k - up almost 84% over the past 60 days.

What sets this “homes for sale by owner site” apart are a myriad of helpful tools. Some are available on similar sites, but it’s nice to have them all assembled under one tent.

Among the offerings:

Drive Score - Find the perfect neighborhood with a Google map mashup that displays regional events. All you do is put in an address and local events will populate.

As a seller, this tool is useful if there are local attractions that you want to flaunt. As a buyer, Drive Score helps you get a better idea of neighborhoods you might not be too familiar with.
A widget to help sellers and agents promote for-sale properties is available as well.

Climate Watch - Particularly useful if you are looking to relocate, climate look up reveals annual weather information about towns and cities. Aside from quality-of-life issues, weather is also a major factor when it comes to insurance. Avoid potential problems and learn about the locale you are researching versus the rest of the United States with a series weather-related graphs and charts.

Home Staging - Ever look at a property online and decide not to visit it because of the displayed pictures? That’s because you assume that only the best pictures will be used to promote a property. Despite everyone and their mother owning a digital camera, simply put, many of us are not good photographers. That’s where home staging comes in. Designed to put the best face on your home so that it sells quickly, Fizber lets you search the nation for home-staging providers in your area. A rapidly growing trend thanks to all of those cable TV real estate shows, the expense, more often than not, pays for itself.

Street View - There’s nothing like seeing a neighborhood and property in person, but when I’m stuck at my day job, hitting the road isn’t an option. Folks in the market for a house will appreciate Street View, a Google map that allows you to explore city neighborhoods. Virtually strolling an area around a property’s address can help buyers evaluate a neighborhood - before deciding if it’s worth making a physical visit.

The technology of Silicon Valley comes to Main Street on Fizber. The site’s clean design, litany of useful tools and over 70 partner sites are keeping people coming back for more.

Source: Real Estate Search Engine