News Feature
Originally published in
Island Ad-Vantages, July 23, 2015
Window shopping for realty is a reality in downtown Stonington
The Island Agency recently installed an interactive touch screen display to an office front window. It allows people to view up-to-date information on local real estate for sale and for rent at all times during the day.
by Tevlin Schuetz
Window shopping took on a new meaning recently at The Island Agency; the real estate business has installed a large touch screen system that makes home perusing possible from Main Street.
The portal, called a WindowAgent, is mounted directly onto the existing office window and allows passers-by to scroll through home and property offerings in the area, including sales and rentals, as agency broker and owner Morgan Eaton explained. Best of all, it is hooked into the IDX (Maine Internet Data Exchange) feed in real time, Eaton said, so the listings are up-to-date.
The advantages to the display are many. The program incorporates all of the features available online through The Island Agency’s website, such as customized searches, a mortgage calculator, interactive maps and plenty of pictures of properties, but it is available for anyone to use. People can browse listings and email The Island Agency with questions or even to inform the agency of properties they would like to sell or rent out, regardless of the company’s office hours. And while The Island Agency still uses traditional print marketing, Eaton said, the window portal can feature more pictures for each property than what can be included in brochures, and less overall window space will be sacrificed to displaying printed material.
Things are going well so far. “We have had a great reaction to this,” Eaton said, and she added that a number of people who began casually looking through properties at the window have dropped in the office for more information.
The WindowAgent system is created by a company of the same name in California, and The Island Agency is one of the first brokers in New England—second only to a real estate firm in Boston, Eaton said—to install such a device.
“This unique feature sets us apart,” she said.
The Island Agency moved to its current location at 26 West Main Street earlier this year, and the change has been a good one. “This is a great space,” Eaton said of the building next to the Stonington Town Hall. “Walk-in traffic is outstanding here.”
