Despite the massive reduction in classifieds hosted by traditional media companies, posting real estate listings online is still a big part of many media organizations’ strategies. And with the move to online publication, newspapers turn to tech pros to bring those listings online.
One of the original online listing sites is HomeFinder, which hosted listings for the Los Angeles Times, Chicago Tribune, Arizona Republic and the Miami Herald among others as part of Chicago’s Classified Ventures.
But back in March, the company was purchased by Boston-based Placester, a marketing platform for real estate agents. Now, the company is looking to revamp its tech team here in Chicago, using HomeFinder’s 15 years of history and Placester’s startup sensibilities to improve the products both companies created.
The company is expanding 10 positions in Chicago, doubling the size of the engineering team and moving to a new office to handle that growth. Right now, the team is still located in the old HomeFinder space, but it’s now sharing the office with G2Crowd after non-engineering roles were downsized.
The new office is an 8,600-square-foot at 230 W Monroe, where the team will continue to keep HomeFinder’s website and its Open Home Pro product up to date in addition to innovating on Placester’s platform, building a full toolset for real estate agents. The new office will feature a similar design aesthetic as the Boston headquarters, helping the two teams feel more united despite their separation.
The development team is split between Chicago and Boston offices, working very closely across time zones thanks to tools like Slack and Google Hangouts. But merging the teams required some work, according to SVP of engineering Ryan Maguire.
"Collaboration is really important on our teams,” he said. “Finding that opportunity to find that sense of team and culture is vital."
Maguire also said that understanding no one is perfect helps teams assimilate. When first merging teams, egos can be highly guarded, but he said that it’s important to air and share debts and imperfections so team member can support each other. It also helps team members learn from each other.
“There are a lot of different facets to the real estate software-as-a-service industry,” Maguire said. “I worked for HomeFinder for over a year and in the last six months I've probably learned more about the real estate market just because of Placester's depth and exposure inside of that market.”
Image via Placester
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