Consumers looking here. Realtors advertising there?

77% of consumers searched the Internet for information regarding real estate. That is compared to 33% for print. Not surprising, right? What is surprising is that the biggest share of a Realtor’s advertising spend at 40% is print.

A titanic disconnect of where consumers look for real estate and where Realtors advertise.

Based upon a recent study by Yahoo! Inc., here are the results:

• Home buyers and sellers consider approximately two agents on average before making a final decision.
• The Internet impacts consumer trust. Forty percent of respondents credited a site in increasing their trust in the agent.
• 74 percent of people who accessed an agent Web site got there with the help of a search engine.
• The online research process is quick and intense: consumers spent an average of 12 hours online researching agents and 75 percent selected an agent within one week of starting their search.
• 45 percent of respondents used the Internet to learn about agents they didn’t know existed.
• 41 percent discovered special deals and promotions offered from an agent through the Internet.

What is clear is that home buyers, and consumers in general, are moving toward the Internet, not away from it. Shouldn't the savvy Realtor be moving their dollars there as well?

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I want to thank the Future of Real Estate Marketing blog for giving us good info on these social networking sites.

Most know by now that Web 2.0 is not going away and it is here to stay. We humans are naturally social, and so even with the advent of theInternet where we can cloister ourselves away and order everything we need to live online, we still want that interaction with other humans. We want to feel the human touch.

Enter online communities.

According to Wikipedia, "a virtual community, e-community or online community is a group of people that primarily interact via communication media such as letters, telephone, email or Usenet rather than face to face, for social, professional, educational or other purposes."

Online communities have been around since the late 1980s (BBS anyone?), but they have proliferated in the last five years, and more continue to pop up on the horizon with the advent of the latest ideas and technologies.

Below are a few of the most popular communities online:

* Linkedin.com - This is a professional social networking site that is gaining ground fast. According to their website, "Linkedin is an online network of more than 20 million experienced professionals from around the world, representing 150 industries."
o How can I use this in my business? Contacts, baby!
* Ning.com - This is a do-it-yourself social networking site. According to their website, "Our passion is putting new social networks in the hands of anyone with a good idea. With Ning, your social network can be anything and for anyone."
o Again with the contacts, but you can also be known as that genius on the specific topic of townhouses in Hoboken, NJ. Or wherever else.
* Facebook.com - Facebook seems to be the slightly grown-up version of myspace.com. According to the Facebook website, "Users can join networks organized by city, workplace, school, and region to connect and interact with other people. People can also add friends and send them messages, and update their personal profile to notify friends about themselves."
o Making contacts is key to any business, isn't it? Just slap up your information, make some friends, and you just might sell property for someone you meet through the site.
* Squidoo.com - This is a bit different from the above three site. According to their website, Squidoo is a site "...designed to make it easy for anyone, for free, to set up a single page on a topic he or she knows or cares a lot about. Advertising revenue is shared with these content creators, and some of it is given to charity."
o Become the expert writer-slash-real estate guru when people begin to discover your squidoo page.

Why bother with online communities at all? We are all busy, so what is the importance of these sites? One word: eyeballs. Millions upon millions of people all over the world reside within these sites. They spend lots of time in them. If you had the chance to reach out and touch that many people, would you take the opportunity?

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Beware and be careful!

Ah yes Baja California or “Under” California as it’s known, is a gorgeous strip of land stretching 700 miles from Tijuana, Mexico to Cabo San Lucas with golden beaches, five star resorts, golf courses, world-class fishing and of course affordable beach front real estate. It’s easy to get sucked into the vapors of owning land on this pristine peninsula so please do your homework.

Many investors who have not done their due diligence will be paying the price much like many of us who have purchased real estate the past four years in the United States. The recent downturn in the national U.S. real estate market accompanied by a real estate boom in Baja California leads me to believe that we are jumping in with both feet again before testing the international waters.

U.S. lenders entered the Mexican market a few years ago resulting in a burst of real estate investment coupled with an influx of buyers who used their home equity in their primary residences to secure property in Mexico. What a great time to invest, right? Not exactly. Many factors like vanishing home equity, dropping home prices and the disappearance of the U.S. sub-prime market have led to many key U.S. banks and lenders to exit the Baja real estate market.

Also, keep in mind that Baja is one of Mexico’s “Prohibited Zones” meaning foreign investors are not allowed from owning property titles in these areas.

However, there are still ways to purchase property legally there. Below is a link to more detailed information that explains foreign ownership, specifically with regard to Baja, California.

Foreign Ownership in Baja, California

Good luck!

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Where will you be this week?

Thousands of real estate agents & brokers will be heading to Washington, DC May 14-16, to join in the 2008 National Association of Realtors Mid-Year Legislative Meetings & Trade Expo.

As the National Association of Realtors celebrates its 100th birthday celebration during this year’s expo, the agenda promises to be the best yet.

Homes.com is exhibiting as part of the Dominion Pavilion, Booth #320, along with eNeighborhoods, Advanced Access and #1Expert.

All agents & brokers are welcome to stop by and register for your chance to win a FREE iPod, and various show specials.

Hope to see you there!

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Going green, becoming eco-friendly and conservation are the hot topic these days. Whether you want to save the planet, save a few bucks or just get with the times, we're here to help!
Green Living 101 is a profile piece on Green Living with the help of Jessica and Jason Pelletier. They started their business, Lowimpactliving.com in 2006, and they have some great tips on how to live fully without a trouble non-green conscience.

Here is a slightly contrary view on buying eco-friendly housing and the cost it entails.

And finally, from the website, Thegoodhuman.com, comes ten things that can make a home eco-friendly.

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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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With the competitive real estate market of today, replying first to a client inquiry sometimes means the difference in getting a new listing, closing a sale, or beginning a relationship with a potential buyer.

Many technology savvy agents and brokers are already taking advantage of text message add-on services with their internet products to assure they get their messages first, while others are providing their text message email addresses associated with their cellular phone.

If you do not currently have text messaging built into your internet presence, we recommend adding your cell phone email address as a secondary option to assure you stay connected with your client’s communications.

To help you track down your cell phone email address, we’ve listed below a great link which compiles all current phone carriers.

http://www.notepage.net/smtp.htm

As with any service, please send test emails before adding as an additional email option and always review your phone service plan for additional charges that could apply.

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What is the advantage of hiring a professional Realtor? A realtor can help sell or buy your new home, a tract of land or a piece of commercial property, but anyone can do that on their own if they are so inclined, so what are the benefits to hiring help?
Here are some reasons why you should hire a pro:

* Realtors do this for a living, so they have a great deal of experience selling homes (more than most of us do).
* You open yourself up to a greater volume of exposure to prospective buyers, since Realtors find homes for buyers for a living. This exposure increases
your chances of finding a buyer that matches your needs and subsequently speeds up the selling process.
* A Realtor is required to be familiar with up-to-date market values and will work with you to set a competitive asking price.
* Window shoppers will be deterred from wasting your time; the Realtor will be predominantly dealing with serious prospective buyers.
* Realtors are skilled in reading contracts and will be sensitive to any fine print that you may have dismissed as unimportant.

This is a short list, but it gets right to the point. Realtors make your life easier, help to increase the potential price, help to decrease the price you may pay and assist you with a wealth of information along the way.

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Do-it-yourself listing showcase videos can be easy and fun to make. If you are not careful though, your final product could be a bouncy “Blair Witch style” tour of the home’s interior and exterior, more closely resembling a blooper’s reel than serious marketing material.

There are several tips and tricks you can use in your production:

Tripod – Using a tripod stabilizes the camera, getting rid of the “Blair Witch” effect for a more professional appearance.

Staging - Staging focuses on improving the appearance of a property. Staging a home can transform it into a welcoming, appealing, and attractive environment to potential buyers. Staging deemphasizes a home’s flaws and spotlights the attractive aspects.

Audio –Ever watch a video and see the person’s mouth moving, but can’t hear a word because of the background noise? People want to be able to hear what is being said. By creating your video early in the day or later in the afternoon, you minimize the risk of capturing unwanted sounds. This will allow you to focus on your subject.

Lighting – Is the property you’re filming dark and dreary or bright and sunny? Make sure you put it in the best light possible. Consider filming your property the early morning or late afternoon. Photographers refer to the first hour after dawn and the last hour before dusk as the “Golden Hour”. This is the time when the outside lighting is at its best. The sunlight is defused and does away with harsh shadows and highlights.

These days, just about every cell phone and digital camera can take a video. Just because you have a gadget that can take a video, unfortunately, doesn’t make you a Spielberg or a Coppola. By following the basic steps listed above, you’ll be well on your way.

Just remember… unless you want to emphasize the fact that the property you’re selling is in a seismically active location, use a tripod. Also, do not forget to stage your property. This helps when trying to hide that crime scene outline or showing off that outstanding mountain view.

If after following some of these basic steps you find yourself not winning a Best Director’s award or even being nominated, you can always leave it to the professionals. There are many companies out there that can help you showcase your property effortlessly.

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Brian Copeland is a prominent realtor in the Nashville, TN area, and if there is one thing he does well, it is video. He has been a real estate agent since June 2005 and was voted Rookie of the Year for 2006. He was booming right out of the gate. He finished his first year of real estate with 62 ½ transactions. Wow!
Brian comes from the music industry and taken a number of ideas from his prior career. One of those ideas is the creative use of video. It has propelled his business into a different stratosphere.
You can also check him out on The Learning Channel television show, "Flip That House".

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Facebook recently rolled out its plans for a new advertising network that uses the information of its subscribers. Each Facebook user opts in to allow Facebook to use their personal information, but does that allow using that information to advertise without written consent by the subscribers? Does checking an "opt-in" button act as a proper substitute for having written permission to use someone's pictures and content?
The state of New York may not think so. Read more here.

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November is here and all of us in the real estate industry know that can only mean one thing: NAR!

Just in case there’s someone out there that hasn’t heard, NAR is the National Association of REALTORS and they throw the biggest and best party, um, I mean, conference, of them all!

This year’s extravaganza is being held next week (November 13-16) in Las Vegas.

Homes.com and AgentAdvantage have packed up shop and are heading west to take part in the festivities. I don’t mean to brag or anything, but we pulled out the all the stops this year.

We have partnered with our sister companies, Advanced Access, eNeighborhoods and Number 1 Expert, under our parent company Dominion Enterprises.

And we are offering REALTORS a chance to win ONE MILLION DOLLARS!!!

You’re eyes do not deceive, that’s ONE MILLION DOLLARS.

We have a life-size slot machine just waiting for you to take a spin.

If you’re at NAR, come by the Dominion Pavilion (booth 926) and take a spin!

See you in Vegas (I’ll be the one by the slot machine)!

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Anyone can get a website these days.
Blogs have proliferated and many are free, so getting a presence online is not an issue.
But getting traffic to your website, that is the key to this whole online thing.
Here are some of the basics every realtor needs to generate traffic on their website:

• Social Networking. This is as basic as it used to be back before the world was "online". Get yourself known out in the online world. Myspace, Facebook and Linkedin are just a few of the social networking sites. Get a presence on them and get known.


• Article Writing. Sites like ezinearticles.com are an excellent way of gaining credibility and interest. Choose your niche and go for it! Set up a calendar of topics on which to write, and you can gain a loyal readership that will spread the news that you are the authority in your area of expertise.

Next I will add to this list of things to do to generate traffic to your website.

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Search Engine Optimization

Join Homes.com & AgentAdvantage.com November 8th for a FREE online training session on Search Engine Optimization. This class covers basic principles of search engine optimization, quick reference tips, examples of good website optimization and a few tricks of the trade. This class is for any agent looking to develop a solid foundation or wanting to maximize their current SEO efforts.

To register, Click Here. Hurry! Space is limited!

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At 1pm today, my Outlook calendar reminder popped up to tell me that I had a Webex on Social Media, led by Paul Gillin. Now, my post-lunch, slightly comatose brain did not register that this was Paul Gillin, the Social Media industry blogging expert – oh no. Instead, after deciding that I would attend the webex (it’s after lunch, remember?), I signed on and quickly realized two things:

1. There are some people who “get” everything about Social Media—the industry, those influencing it now, those influencing it tomorrow, the future path of social marketing on marketers (such as myself), B2B & B2C efforts and even print (yes, you read that right—print!)
2. It IS possible to calculate that mystery ROI from your social media efforts.

I won’t give away all the good stuff, because you can go and check it out for yourself. When 65% of a website’s members are logging on daily (as they are on Facebook), and this is just one example of the strong population trend, there is something very right in Social Media.

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