This morning Homes.com & Zillow.com announced a new listing partnership in a joint press release to the media. Over 105,000 Homes.com property listings were fed directly to Zillow.com, the first of many hand-entered listings from Homes.com, expanding the listing distribution options currently available to real estate agents and brokers.

This means many potential benefits to both the agent and consumer- something that has not gone unnoticed at either Zillow or Homes.com. “This partnership is just one example of our ongoing efforts to provide Homes.com customers with the most effective means of marketing their listings to multiple consumer destinations while providing the convenience of managing their distribution from one central location,” explains Jason Doyle, vice president of Homes.com.

Zillow joins Vast, Google Base, Oodle.com, HarmonHomes.com, Trulia, Propbot.com, Yahoo Real Estate and Bargain Network at the newest listing export channel for Homes.com customers.

For more information on this listing partnership, visit: Homes.com’s Press Room or Zillow’s Blog.

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Yes, I firmly believe in the positive story of real estate. No matter what happens cyclically, real estate bounces back.

I also believe that we are facing some difficult times, and to believe that all is rosy would be denying a massive amount of evidence.

On that note, I have collected a few articles and posts from other real estate websites and blogs. Some deal with the current issues and others were just a good read.

Great article on the Inman blog about the bright side vs the dark side of real estate.

A Brief History of Real Estate

Is Manhattan immune from the current Real Estate Crisis?

Starbucks hit by housing slowdown? Yikes!

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I need reminders of appointments and tasks that need to be completed. Since I am rarely at my desk, I need these reminders to come to where I am. Since my phone is always with me this is the perfect tool. As a tech guy I would setup email reminders to my phone using some scripting language. This helped but it was not enough. Sometimes the email would be held up on some email server somewhere. The reminder would be late getting to my phone and I would be late to the appointment or the task would not be done in time.

I started using the Google calendar. The main reason I use it is for the SMS paging capabilities. SMS is text messaging. If I want to get paged I want it right away. The SMS paging does this without having to worry about whether my email server is slow. I can also use the Google Calendar to keep my schedule. I can share my calendar with other people. I have some security in it to prevent people from knowing my exact schedule but they can see when I am busy and when I am available. I can even have a separate calendar for my co-workers to see what my schedule is like that week or month.

Most of this can be done with competitors but what I appreciate most, no ads. I do not have an ad flashing at me. The layout is clean and simple. I can also see what my schedule is from my phone’s web browser. In all, Google calendar gives me a simple and easy interface to keep my schedule and sends me text messages on time when I have an appointment. Best of all it is free with no ads.

http://www.google.com/intl/en/googlecalendar/overview.html

Posted in Gadgets Real Estate Technology Web 2.0 | 10 Comments » | Share This!

If you are looking to design a new logo and you don’t have the benefit of a franchise brand, the prospect of coming up with your own identity can be challenging. Pricing for logo design varies greatly. The original “swoosh” for Nike was designed in 1971 by a college student named Carolyn Davidson for $35. The new London 2012 Olympics logo is rumored to have cost around $800,000. Setting aside these extremes, many small design studios are willing to create a custom logo for under $1,000. And if your budget is extremely tight, there are online tools that will help you get started for under $100.

Inexpensive Logo Tools & Services:
LogoMaker ($49) - http://www.logomaker.com/
LogoYes ($69) - http://www.logoyes.com/
MySiteLogo ($89) - http://www.mysitelogo.com/
Logo Loft ($99 starting) - http://www.thelogoloft.com/

Learn More About Logo Design:
Step-by-step Logo (Chuck Green)
Logo Design Basics: The Five Types of Marks

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You may rewrite the body of an email two or three times before sending, but how much time do you spend on your subject lines? Here are a few suggestions:

Keep your subject lines short and sweet. Many email providers (Hotmail, Yahoo!, AOL, Earthlink, etc.) will truncate long subject lines, so keep your subject lines under 50 characters including spaces. Be sure to indicate the most important information at the beginning.

Keep your subject lines professional. Avoid using "smileys" and punctuation marks. These will fall easily to spam filters.

Use capitalization sparingly! Typing in all caps can be construed as the equivalent of yelling at someone face-to-face. This also applies to the text in the body of your email. Using caps to draw attention to a single word is acceptable, but frequent use of all caps is likely to annoy the reader and will ultimately cause your emails to be deleted.

Do not use vague or general words alone. Using general words all alone trigger spam filters. Words like urgent, new, hi, etc are prime examples. Tip: look through your spam or junk folder for examples of what not to use. Use specific information, such as the property address and the consumer's name. "Jan here is the info for 123 Center Street". This validates the email as current, cites importance, and personalizes the message.
Always be sure to check your spelling and grammar!

Remember, the subject line is the first thing the consumer reads and in could determine whether the email is deleted or read based on those few words. Those first seconds are critical, you need to engage the consumer and let them know what you have to say is important.

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Traditionally, spring cleaning is the time you beat the rugs, flip the mattresses and clean the cob webs from corners. These cleaning chores are not only limited to your house. Springtime is also a good time to "clean" or "refresh" your website. Here are some key areas to tidy up this spring:

• Check your website “keywords.” Keep in mind anything new that you or your area may have added since the last time these were updated. What about that new neighborhood you want to highlight? Add it as a keyword.
• Refresh your content. Is there anything new and exciting in your territory like a new mall, interesting store, new neighborhood?
• Double check your site for spelling errors. You dunt want to sound selly doo you?
• Check to make sure all of your photos are displaying properly.
• Click on all of your links to make sure there are no broken links (usually this happens when a website address has changed).
• Go through your leads and reconnect past clients with a quick email. You never know where your next referral may come from.
• Consider how user-friendly your site is for a new contact; it may be time to think of a new design.

These are just a few tips to get you started. Not only do search engines like refreshed content, your customers will appreciate the updated information as well!

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Tech-Up for Y’ers: Four must have tools to help you get in sync with Generation Y.

They’re calling across borders, emailing bosses, and arriving to their next appointment thanks to advances from Palm, RIM and Windows Mobile. It’s Generation Y, a new market for realtors and brokers alike.

No matter who your next client may be, success means staying at the forefront of emerging technology. So get ready because Generation Y makes up 35% of all first-time homebuyers. And they’re not just smart and independent, but a new breed of young multi-taskers who have been immersed in the world of advanced technology since birth.

Knowing this, we’ve compiled a list of the top must-have tools for you to tech-up for the Y’ers.

1. Smartphone
Never before has there been a more seamless integration of web, email, maps, GPS and business tools quite like the Smartphone. As an owner of a Blackberry 8830, part of Blackberry’s 8800 series, I’ve found that it has a large screen, full keyboard and superb email capabilities. Other Smartphone makers include Palm and Windows Mobile. Which ever device you choose, these phones help to put you on track to communicating more efficiently with your next client.

2. Mobile GPS
The mobile GPS device has proved useful for the active real estate agent[5]. Top devices by Garmin, TomTom and Magellan, come with features such as a touch screen and integrated traffic tuner. This device will help keep you on track to your next destination while keeping you on time for your next appointment.


3. Tablet PC
The tablet PC brings together handwriting and computing technology into one innovative, versatile design. It’s great for the Realtor on the go! The Tablet PC stores written information as “digital ink” using Windows Journal. HP, Dell and Lenovo top the list of companies using the Tablet PC[6]. This device works seamlessly with the VREO Real Estate Dashboard and is a must-have for the ultimate mobile realtor.


4. VREO Real Estate Dashboard
Really want to wow your clients? Skip the paper work altogether with the VREO Real Estate Dashboard. This software allows agents to sign forms and contacts electronically when used with the pen feature available with a Tablet PC. Create a superb experience for your client; with one program, you can provide faster service that will save you both time and money.


What's your opinion?

References:
[1] Forbes.com
[2] Inman News
[3] Black Enterprise Magazine
[4] www.cnet.com
[5] www.mytechopinion.com
[6] www.tabletpcreviews.com

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Sending photos to prospects or to fellow agents? Take a look at the following guidelines to insure prospects are able to view your pictures and more importantly able to receive them in their inboxes. Even with the recent increases of inbox size for email programs such as Hotmail, Gmail, Yahoo!, etc, many consumers still use their ISP’s email accounts that generally have a 2-10 MB capacity. Large images also may not fit the viewer’s computer screen resulting in difficult viewing.

Resize your images - Large files (2+MB) take longer to download, longer to send and will often fill up your prospect’s inbox quickly…so be user friendly to your prospect's Inbox! If you do not have a way to resize or crop your photos, check out Picasa by Google. Picasa is free to download, use and will work with Microsoft Outlook or a Gmail account; allowing you to email your images as soon as you edit them. Picasa will also search your computer for photos and categorize them automatically so you can find them easily. XnView is another free photo editing program that offers a few more editing capabilities than Picasa, but can be less user-friendly.

Send a link to the photo instead of an actual photo attachment – Avoid the hassle altogether. Add a link in your email so your prospect can link directly to your listing photos. Go to the specific listing on your website as a consumer would and copy the URL in your browser’s address field for a direct link to that page.

Let your prospect know you are sending an email with an attachment – If you are sending actual photo attachments, let the prospect know. With the prevalence of computer viruses, consumers may see any attachment as a potential threat and may delete your email before reading it!

Reduce picture quality setting on your digital camera – Most digitial cameras will have the highest quality setting on by default resulting in multi megabyte images. Lower the picture quality on your camera and you will not only reduce the photo file size, but you will free up more space in your camera’s memory for more pictures!

Zip the photos – Zipping a file creates a compressed version of the file that is much smaller than the original file. If you have several large photos that you want to send via email, your best bet is to send them to a compressed folder. To do this, simply select the photo files that you want to Zip. (You can select the entire contents of a folder by choosing the "Edit" menu and then "Select All".) After selecting the images, Right Click on any of the selected images. This will prompt an options menu. Choose "Send to: " and then "Compressed (zipped) File". This will create a single file containing all the images you selected. When you want to email it, add the file as an attachment by simply clicking "Browse" and selecting the newly created .zip file. One thing to note, even .zip files can be too big to email. So make sure you don’t put too many photos in a single .zip file.

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