There may be a landslide shake up happening in the search engine industry which could form a company to rival Google’s 50% marketshare of search. This consolidation could lead to disapated competition in pay per click, and drive up costs for real estate online marketing. […]
Today’s announcement by Point2 Technologies may be a signal of what is to come next under the new leadership at Point2. Saul Klein is well known through his efforts in delivering agent products and services under the e-Pro program and via REAL TOWN. Now with Walt Baczkowski on board (pun intended), I would suspect that Point2 will begin to roll out a plan to deliver thier products and services to agents through MLS and REALTOR Associations agreements Walt Baczkowski is a popular and well known industry executive, having held CEO and EO positions across the country. Regardless of any change [...]
As a student of philosophy I often found value in considering the extremes of an issue before trying to understand the balance. An article published this week in The New York Times gave an extreme example of an International real estate market that provides valuable consideration of where we are today in our real estate market. In Havana, Cuba, 100% of the real property is owned by the socialist state. Hence, in theory, there is no real estate economic market, right? Seriously, if you need a house, the government provides you one. Simple. Add the human element and then what [...]
ClarisResources.com - Valuable tools for providing real estate market logic to consumers During the California Association of REALTORS meetings this week, Real Estate Business Services, Inc. (REBS) announced a partnership with Terradatum to offer two terrific new services for agents to help them better serve the information needs of their clients. “Consumers are exposed to constant housing market chatter, and these tools provide meaningful information, specific and relevant to the consumer’s situation,” said REBS Chairman of the Board Gary Thomas. “Clarus REsourceTM enhances the position of REALTORS® as trusted, skilled advisors by providing them with tools to easily interpret raw [...]
One Simple Method for Improving MLS Listing Data Accuracy For many MLSs around the country, missing photos consistently rank as one of the most prevalent problems with MLS listings. Not only does it create the potential for a subscriber to receive a fine, it significantly limits the ability to market a property. Now that digital cameras are included in just about every cell phone and digital cameras cost as little as $29.95, it does seem like the time has come for all MLSs to require a photo before the listing can go live. In a soon to be released study [...]
Smartphones in Real Estate Off The Charts Smartphones are becoming extremely popular, especially now that AT&T, the largest mobile phone service provider in the United States is heavily promoting $99 smartphones. Growth of the smartphone market is being driven by adoption of BlackBerry and other brands, but NOT by phones with the Palm operating system. The market is projected to have 30% compounded annual growth for the next five years. According to In-Stat, a leading technology company identified the following: All Smartphone OSs (other than the Palm OS) will grow at double digits over the next five years. A smartphone [...]
One of my favorite jokes goes something like this. What happens when you play a country music song backwards? Your wife moves back in, your dog is revived, you get a new truck.. I had a very interesting conversation last night with Bill French, one of the brightest minds in the world of Blogging. We discussed what happens when someone turns off a blog that they have had for a year or two with weekly posting. His answer was shocking One customer who recently truned off thier blog and replaced it with nothing removed 93% of the content from thier [...]
It's time for Plain Language in Real Estate Property Search I was reminiscing this weekend about the fun of my childhood which largely centered on Western New York lakes and lake cottages. It inspired to do some research around Buffalo and neighboring waterfront areas on the Canadian shores as well. I know the area pretty well, but I was not sure of waterfront home values so I began to do a web search. After completing the process, it reminded me again that property search still has a long way to go. When I typed in "waterfront homes for sale in [...]
Lather, Rinse, Repeat - the secret to clean hair and real estate success I attended the Inman Connect conference in New York last week. I attended several of the sessions and spoke on a panel about productivity tools. Throughout the couple of days, I got the distinct impression that many of the agents were there to get "the secret" about how to survive and thrive in a down market. In my session on productivity tools, for example, I was asked the question, "What are the three tools that you would recommend to help me grow my business?" While there were [...]
There is little doubt that Listingbook is a must-have for MLSs today. To begin with - it provides a member benefit for free! Imagine if an MLS gave Top Producer to every agent for free, or a flyer software program for free, or an e-mail marketing product for free, or showingtime for free. Listingbook is a little bit of all of these products. It alows agents to communicate with buyers and sellers in the best possible way within a secure Virtual Office Website environment. Property searches are easy to set up for clients by agents and they give clients the [...]
Inman ran a story today about foreclosures across the United States. California led the nation with 39,992 filings acording to data collected by Realtytrac. California is home to 12% of the U.S. Population with 37,700,000 people. Only 1 in 325 homes went into foreclosure. Considering the median priced home at $497,110, 1 in 325 homes is very reasonable. Home ownership is well beond the reach of most people living in the state, so foreclosures can, and will happen - and should happen in a healthy, well balanced economy. I think the media has blown things a bit out of control [...]
Ok, you gotta check this out. I am not sure real estate agents really understand where thier listings may go when they are advertised in magazines or newspapers. Frontdoor.com has launched a property search website and they source their listings from media companies like homesandland.com and realestatebook.com. In advertising, all press is good press, right? Well - maybe, maybe not. Monthly magazines update their listings every month and some leave the listings up for multiple months without updating the listing. If you want to see something really interesting - read the property descriptions. These are the descriptions that the agents [...]