Real Estate Technology Toolkit

by Rich Schiffer, e-PRO

(This article is part of a training series presented for real estate professionals, whether new to the industry or experienced, to help them discover, understand, and benefit from the tools that are available on-line.  For access to the full series, join the ActiveRain Technology Toolkit Training group.  If you have not yet joined the ActiveRain Real Estate Network, you may do so here.)

One of my goals with this training series has been to help real estate agents understand the tools available on-line to help them market their business using cost-effective methods, to increase the return on investment (ROI) of marketing budgets.  This article contains an introduction to one website that can conceivably provide an infinite ROI, because the investment is $0.  Free.  Zip.  Nada.  Bupkis.  Qurokna.  (Ok, I made up that last word...but I wonder what a google search for "Qurokna" will turn up now...) 

The Swanepoel Real Estate Trends Report (an annual report on residential real estate trends) talks about the evolution of the Internet as a resource for connecting with your community.

Real estate-oriented on-line social networking sites can be used as a tool to improve your internet presence - without new technology, just a new way of using the existing technology.  Here is an excerpt:

"So to remain relevant, real estate websites will eventually need to facilitate conversations between consumers and practitioners, create meaningful leads and support all facets of the homeownership experience. Agents are going to have to engage home buyers and sellers in a manner that builds trust, intimacy and long term value. This won't necessarily require new technology, but rather a different business motivation and mindset about relationships.

So start laying your trail of virtual online crumbs, remembering that whatever you post on the internet is archived for the entire world to see. Here are some examples of virtual worlds to visit and crumbs to consider leaving:

• Communities - Participate in discussions on various online community sites such as ActiveRain.com, RealTown.com, Zillow Discussions and Trulia Voices.
• Blogs - Read and comment on blogs that are of interest to you or create and host your own blog and discuss events that occur in your neighborhood."

In this article, I want to introduce you to one of the community sites Mr. Swanepoel mentioned:  www.Trulia.com

Trulia, in their own words, is "obsessed with revolutionizing the real estate experience."

They have created many dynamic ways for consumers to get real estate information at the local level to help them in their decision-making process.  Consumers have flocked to their site for real estate searches, not only because of what they are (a real estate search engine that helps people find homes for sale) but also because of what they are not (In their own words:  "We ARE NOT brokers or agents. We are not looking to make a commission on your real estate transaction. We will not sell your personal information. We will not force you to become a lead.") Today's consumers want that sort of approach.

Trulia's philosophy is, "Looking for a home shouldn't be a miserable experience, and Information should be made freely and easily available to everyone."  I for one, agree with that pholosophy. 

Mr. Swanepoel referred to "leaving a trail of vitual crumbs," that will serve to help build a relationship of trust and long-term value.  Trulia has created several ways for real estate professionals to do just that: 

• Submit Your Listings - you can enter the data yourself, provide an xml data feed, let Trulia crawl your website, or upload them through a third-party syndication source
• Trulia Voices - This is a "Q&A" type of service.  The consumers post their questions, and local experts post replies.  The reply includes a link to the agents profile, and from there to their website. (bread crumbs was a good analogy, I think!)
• Brand Your Listings - not only can you submit your listings, you can have your own contact information be displayed with every one of your listings, as well.  (With 70% of their visitors planning to buy a home in the next year, 70% of whom don't have an agent yet, and 42% of whom are already pre-qualified for a mortgage, this is a great way to begin the bread crumb trail...)
• Website Tools (a.k.a. - "widgets") - these are easy tools which allow you to deliver custom content on your website or blog, without sending the user to another site.  Some of these tools will help you track the user's searches, so that you are better able to attract their business.

All of these features are completely free for real estate agents.  If the virtual bread-crumb trail leads a consumer to contact you, you then have the opportunity to exercise your skills, and fulfill their needs.  You will have begun a relationship that will hopefully lead to repeat and referral business. 

If you were the one providing the information they were seeking, and provided consistently reliable expert opinions, you increase your credibility in the eyes of the consumer and increase the likelihood of them calling you when the time comes to buy or sell a home.

All you have to do to get the ball rolling is lay a few virtual crumbs ...

And then lay some more...

And some more...

And so on.  

(Lather. Rinse. Repeat.)

Rich Schiffer is a Licensed Real Estate Agent, a REALTOR, and a certified e-PRO, and a private consultant for real estate agents that need help catching up with today's technology.  Additional Technology ToolKit Training is also available in an Active Rain Group by that name.  Check it out.

by Rich Schiffer, e-PRO

(This article is part of a training series presented for real estate professionals, whether new to the industry or experienced, to help them discover, understand, and benefit from the tools that are available on-line.  For access to the full series, join the ActiveRain Technology Toolkit Training group.  If you have not yet joined the ActiveRain Real Estate Network, you may do so here.).

With nearly 84% of home buyers looking for their next home on the internet, there has been a big shift in what is considered effective use of advertising dollars.  (Remember, there is a difference between marketing and advertising) 

Today, internet advertising is often seen as much more effective than print advertising, for a few reasons: 

• The ad is distributed only to a targeted audience (Only people who want to see real estate ads, for example, as opposed to everyone who subscribes to the local paper)
• The cost to place an Internet ad is lower (often free),
• The content of the ad is more flexible (often including pictures, even video

 Newspapers across the nation are struggling with diminishing ad revenues, and a recent Journalism.org article had a paragraph titled,  "Advertising Woes--Real Estate is the Bleeding Edge"  (The article is all about the Economics of Newspapers in 2008, and is a very interesting read.)

Now, the question is this: 

How do I, as a Real Estate Agent,
with the limited budget and limited technical know-how that I have,
use this thing called "on-line advertising", and what will it cost me?

 
There are two methods you can promote your listings through online classifieds.

1. You can go to individual websites that offer a classified section, and enter the information directly through their website.
2. You can "syndicate" your listing to multiple sites at once through various vendors that provide the syndication service.

Each method has its place in your marketing plan, and should fit any marketing budget.

Individual websites can be a great source for very tightly targeted audiences, either targeted geographically, or needs-based.  Some examples include:

1. Craigs List (The "granddaddy" of community-specific classified ads.  Simple, free, and used by many, many consumers.  I once got a call on a property 20 minutes after I posted it on Craigslist.)
2. OnlyOpenHouses.com - (targeting homebuyers by advertising your open houses -
   Create a free account and begin listing unlimited open homes! Create a Free Account now.)
3. http://www.military.com  - (targeting relocating military families, for example)
4. http://www.4horseproperty.com  (targeting buyers of horse properties -- $30 for three months)
5. http://www.historicproperties.com   (Targeting older home lovers -- $50 for 3 months)
6. Social Networking sites (like Facebook, Myspace, and others).  Many of these networks offer a "marketplace" feature where you can post your listings at no charge, and have them "featured" for a nominal fee.  (More on social networks in a future post)

(As you can see, the more narrow your target audience, the more likely it is that the price will go up for the ad.)

How do I select which sites to advertise on?

1. Go to any search engine (www.google.com, www.yahoo.com, www.ask.com etc.)
2. Use the same search terms that your prospective buyer might use.  (Example, Golf Course Homes for Sale)
3. Visit the top sites and see if they offer a "place an ad" or "post a listing" link.
   (In the sample search, the #1 position site, www.golfcourserealty.com, says, "Placing ads on GolfCourseRealty.com is FREE & EASY. You can post as many ads as you want, and we encourage you to do so."
4. Do this for as many sites and search terms as you are inclined.  (Keep records of what sites you advertise on, because you will need to modify the ads if you have any price changes, or if the property sells.)

This can be a very time consuming process.

Services that "syndicate" your ad to multiple sites can save you a lot of time.  Here are a few of the ones I recommend:

• http://www.vflyer.com/ - great resource for creating property flyers. Very easy to use.  The flyers get syndicated to multiple sites, and can be distributed to your prospective buyers via email, as well.  (free for up to 5 active listings)
• http://www.backpage.com/ - post your classified here, and it will be fed to the online classified section of many newspapers.  (Free, with some paid upgrade features available)
• http://www.ubadoo.com/   Ubadoo.com is a new syndication service.  Like vflyer.com, above, they will syndicate your listings to multiple partner sites.  (Free till End of June, then $30 per month for 4 listings)  (If you sign up with Ubadoo.com, please email: rodfiore@comcast.net and let him know you found out about it in this article)
• Some website providers, like the point2agent system automatically syndicate your listings for you, and provide you with the cut-and-paste html code to post the ad onto sites like craigslist or into your own blog.  This is free for the first 6 months, then $9.99 per month after that for standard service, with premium levels available.  Check out my standard version for an idea of how the site functions.  (More about the point2agent system in a future post)

What sites do "syndication" services send the listing to?

The syndication services vary in what sites they export to, but for the most part, they will be sites with a lot of consumer traffic.  Zillow, Trulia, Google Base, Oodle, Backpage, Lycos, Vast, Hotpads, Olx, Geebo, Yahoo and DotHomes are among the most popular sites.

Here's one more creative place to post your listings:

http://www.ebay.com/ - if you haven't checked out the real estate auctions on ebay, you should. They have a very creative way to auction a property. (buyers bid on the amount of the earnest money - the winner of the auction agrees to enter into an agreement of sale for the property, with that amount of earnest money.)

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Rich Schiffer is a Licensed Real Estate Agent, a REALTOR, and a certified e-PRO, and a private consultant for real estate agents that need help catching up with today's technology.  Additional Technology ToolKit Training is also available in an Active Rain Group by that name.  Check it out.

by Rich Schiffer, e-PRO

(This article is part of a training series presented for real estate professionals, whether new to the industry or experienced, to help them discover, understand, and benefit from the tools that are available on-line.  For access to the full series, join the ActiveRain Technology Toolkit Training group.  If you have not yet joined the ActiveRain Real Estate Network, you may do so here.).

In 1981, the world was introduced to music videos, courtesy of MTV.

Ever since then, the music video format has risen in popularity, and has crossed over into many genres of entertainment media -- even many political ads seem like nothing more than music videos with a purpose.  Even video games sometimes seem to emphasise the music just as much as the images and the action.

Q.  Why are they so popular?  Why do music videos seem to pop up in so many aspects of our lives? 

A.  There is a simple concept in education that goes something like this:  By engaging multiple senses in the education process, we can increase the ability to recall the subject matter.  Sesame Street, and other children's programming have used this technique for decades.  Professional speakers have long known that audio-visual aids, can serve to increase the attentiveness of the audience, and thereby increase the chances of the message getting conveyed effectively.

Q.  What does this have to do with Real Estate?

A.  Consumers want multi media.  According to sources at realtor.com, the button that gets the most clicks is the one that essentially says "show me only listings with virtual tours"  Combined with the fact that multi-media is a more effective way to communicate a message, this should be a "no-brainer."  We need to be marketing our products and services in a multi-media format.

Authors Note -- There are many providers of virtual tour services, some that are expensive, and some that are quite affordable.  Some of these are not much more than a slide-show, with music and a voice-over.  In a future post I will review several of these services.  What I want to introduce you to in this post is a different type of service:  Animoto.

Animoto is in essence, a music video production tool.  Anyone with access to a PC and some digital images can produce a professional quality music video.  Here is a sample of one of mine:

The site is unbelievably easy to use, and even more unbelievably affordable:

• 30-second videos can be made completely free of charge.
• "full-length" (i.e. longer than 30 seconds) cost $3.
• An all-access pass (ability to make unlimited full-length videos) costs $30 per year.

If you sign up for Animoto through one of the links in this post, you will receive a $5 discount toward your all-access pass, so that already low cost is even lower!

The process of creating Animoto videos is simple. 

1. Upload your photos (or import them from sites like flickr.com)
2. Select your music (an uploaded mp3 file, or select from their library)
3. Write a description of the video (include your required contact info, if you are advertising a listing!)
4. The Animoto software does the rest  --  actually matching the speed, effects and movement of the video to the tempo of the music!

The 30 second videos are viewable only on Animoto's site, but the "full-length" videos come complete with the "embed code" for posting to blogs (as I did above), a Quicktime download, and the ability to automatically export to youtube.com.  Additional features are in the works, as well!

These videos can be used in a number of ways.  Here are some that I have used:

• take snapshots while previewing a listing.  Compile a video to send to your potential buyers.
• take snapshots during your first visit to a potential sellers home.  Compile a video, and show it to them on your laptop during your listing presentation.
• take snapshots of the neighborhood, and send it to relocation customers, or include the video in your blog about the neighborhood.
• Send a copy of a listing's video to agents that show the property, when you request their property feedback.
• Send a copy of a listing's video to all the open house guests.
• Give a copy of the listing's video to the new owners at or shortly after settlement.

Use your imagination!