Homes.com, a division of Dominion Enterprises, announced today record-setting traffic and data results for 2009. In the face of the worst housing market in generations, Homes.com received nearly 700 million page views in 2009 and increased visitor traffic 36 percent over the previous year, setting all-time records in annual page views and traffic. Homes.com ranks #2 among all real estate Web sites for the search term “Homes for sale” across all major search engines according to Hitwise, and it ranks in the top 5 real estate search portal Web sites according to ComScore.

Powering this increase in traffic is a dramatic improvement to Homes.com listing searches, reducing the average search time in half, providing homebuyers an expedient yet content-rich method of finding agents through an enhanced agent directory and homes for sale in a nationwide listing inventory that grew by more than 2 million listings in 2009.

Read the Press Release here!

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Although many agents dread sitting at an open house on the weekend, the power of a strong open house as a marketing opportunity is hard to deny. The primary goal is to bring attention to the property, but open houses also attract fresh buyers (who probably need an agent) and other sellers who will be impressed by your marketing efforts. Here are some creative ideas for holding a classy open house without breaking the bank.

1. Use online and offline marketing to draw attention. In addition to sending out postcards, posting signs, and placing classified ads be sure to include free online marketing like Facebook events, LinkedIn events, Twitter, and Craigslist.

2. Staging. Leave plenty of time before the event to hide clutter, clear walkways, and dust if needed. For an extra touch, add some sheer curtains and artificial plants to add interest (these can be purchased at a discount store and reused each week!).

3. Appeal to more senses. While making the home visually attractive, you can also appeal to prospects’ other senses to slow them down and spark conversation. Bake (or reheat) cookies in the oven to fill the home with tantalizing scents, and play some soft music to break an awkward silence. Be sure to advertise that refreshments will be served! If you serve liquids, make sure they are light colored or clear like ginger ale, lemonade, or sparkling water.

4. Bring take-a-ways. Don’t just bring a listing book to put on the dining room table! Bring brochures and flyers that explain the services you offer, your specialties, current market information, etc. Win buyers over with sample loan information on the property provided by your favorite local lender so they will have an idea of what the payment schedule will look like.

5. Optimize your schedule. Ask the home owners when they notice the most traffic passing in front of their home and plan your open house accordingly. Do yard sales bring a boost of traffic on Saturday mornings? Are there churches nearby that draw visitors on Sundays? Don’t schedule an open house when the neighborhood is a ghost town!

All of these finishing touches will make your open house feel more like an event and less like an impersonal meeting or a yard sale with strangers. Making prospects feel comfortable will show your professionalism and make you harder to forget after a long day of house hunting. Add a sign up sheet to collect contact information and you have a lead-generating machine!

What do you like to include in your open houses?

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Now more than ever home sellers need to be convinced that you have the tools to properly market their home. Most importantly, sellers need to see that your technology is cutting-edge and you can get maximum exposure for their listing, in addition to having the knowledge and expertise to negotiate the best deal. The following AgentAdvantage tools are sure to impress any seller:

• “Your Listing Goes Everywhere” Flyer:
  This handy flyer includes your AgentAdvantage website address and all the places the seller’s listing will appear when they list with you. All of our listing partners are included with monthly visitors listed for the most popular sites. This flyer can be found under Marketing Tools on the Leads and Marketing tab of your Control Panel.


• Marketing Design Center:
  The Marketing Design Center allows you to easily create professional looking, brochures, postcards, and virtual tours from within your AgentAdvantage Control Panel. If a property photo is available in advance, you can bring a customized flyer, brochure, or virtual tour with you to your listing appointment to dazzle sellers instantly.


• Single Property Websites:
  Single Property Websites are a flexible way to market individual properties on the web, in print ads, and on your sign riders. Show sellers their listing will get special attention with a website designed just for them! To create a Single Property Website, visit the Listings tab of your Control Panel.


• Click-to-Call:
  Show sellers that you can connect to consumers faster than ever before with Click to Call! This new Premier-level feature allows you to place a “Call Me Now” button on both your listings, as well as email signatures or anywhere else you can place HTML code. Please contact Member Services at 1-800-889-3726 or email support@agentadvantage.com to add the Click-to-Call feature to your website.

For more information about using these tools, please contact Member Services at 1-900-889-3726 or send an email to support@agentadvantage.com.

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So you’ve been out all day taking photos of your real estate listings. After downloading them from your camera, you see that they’re good, but they’re just not perfect. You know that with just a few tweaks they’d be perfect. You're not the most tech-savvy and you don’t have the budget to purchase super fancy photo-editing software, so what do you do?

Don’t worry!

I found some web-based photo-editing tools that are not only easy to use, but FREE. Did I say FREE? Many of these tools will give you comparable results to brand-name software, but without the steep learning curve and hefty price tag!

One of my favorites is www.picnik.com. This site has all the basics you need to modify your photos. After registering for a free account, you can upload and modify photos in a flash.

The basic tool set allows you to:

· Rotate

· Crop

· Resize

· Fix exposure

· Change colors

· Sharpen

· Convert to new file type (png, gif, tif, bmp)

Should you feel a little adventuresome and want to test out the advanced tools, you can do the following:

· Convert to black and white or sepia

· Add borders

· Add drop shadow

· Add text

· Touch up

Picnik has all the editing tools that the professionals use, just without the high price tag. Best of all, this site is available to you from any computer connected to the internet—for FREE!

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Here are just a few of the FREE or low cost tools available online to make your life and business simpler:

• Electronic Fax Programs - http://www.efax.com, http://www.packetel.com, http://maxemail.com, https://www.callwave.com/landing/VirtualFax_L1.aspx Receive important fax documents directly to your email! All charge a minimal monthly fee.
• http://www.primopdf.com and http://www.cutepdf.com - Free software to convert any printable document to a .pdf format.
• http://www.slide.com/ - Create a free slide show with your photos. Great for Website, Listings, Family and Friends etc.
• http://www.blogbackuponline.com/ BlogBackupOnline provides an effortless FREE way to backup, restore, and export your blog.
• To repeat my earlier post, try http://www.jott.com. I use it everyday!
• http://tinyurl.com/ - Sending an email with an extra long URL? Use this tool to convert the URL to a much shorter one!
• http://picasa.google.com - Free Photo editing software... organize, retouch and resize photos.
• http://www.google.com/talk/service/badge/New Free Google Talk Back - Add a "Chat with me now!" link on your website so visitors can contact you when you are online! (must have a Gmail login/pw)
• https://www.wufoo.com/ - Create free forms for your website to get feedback from clients and more!
• http://www.Meebo.com - Log into your Instant Messaging accounts all at once, from anywhere!
• http://earth.google.com/ - Google Earth lets you fly anywhere on Earth to view satellite imagery, maps, terrain, 3D buildings and even explore galaxies in the Sky.
• http://www.zipcodestats.com/ - type in any US Zip Code and receive valuable information about that area.
• http://www.birthdayalarm.com/ - Great to track clients, friends and family birthdays.
• http://www.joggle.com/ Enjoy all your pics, flix and tunes from one single page, no matter where you keep them. Share it all, from anywhere, with a single click.
• http://www.annualcreditreport.com/cra/index.jsp This central site allows you to request a free credit file disclosure, commonly called a credit report, once every 12 months from each of the nationwide consumer credit reporting companies: Equifax, Experian and TransUnion.
• 411 for FREE! Looking for an address or phone number? Weather? Movie times? Simply text what you are looking for to 46645. For example, I can text “tallahassee fl weather” and I receive a response with the conditions for the next 3 days! (standard text charges may apply)

Free Computer Protection Software
• http://free.avg.com/ - AVG Free provides you with basic antivirus and antispyware protection for Windows and is available to download for free.
• http://www.threatfire.com/ - ThreatFire continually protects your PC against attacks by detecting malicious behavior, such as capturing your keystrokes or stealing your data, instead of only looking for known threats like normal antivirus software.
Is there something missing from this list? Feel free to add any tools you’ve found useful by commenting below! Enjoy!

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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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My guess is that you’ve heard about the new iPhone release – twice as fast and half the price.

But the aspect that I’m just as interested in is the built-in GPS. As mobile devices like the iPhone and Dash become more sophisticated, the possibilities for agents and home shoppers get pretty exciting.

For example, how nice would it be to drive through a neighborhood, stop your car, click the “show-me-homes- that-match-my-preferences-near-where-I-am” button and magically see a map with listings pinned.

Then maybe you could press the “speak-the-driving-directions-to-me” button, and have a voice-automated tour of the homes on your list.

When you got within reach of your home’s wireless network, you could click the “print-my-favorites” button.

It’s just a matter of time.

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Is your email inbox more of a dumping ground for the long list of tasks that seem to continuously grow? Have you even tried to find that specific email regarding the issue you know was resolved, but seems to have popped up again? Are you constantly digging through emails from your colleagues to find a signature with their phone numbers on it? I have to share my favorite organizational tool with you, and it is FREE!

This savior of my Outlook Inbox is Xobni! Funny name for a great tool (it is inbox spelled backwards) but it truly works! Some of the features are:

--Easy to navigate, right side tool bar that instantly shows connections between you, the highlighted sender and the people you both communicate with
--Document/attachment history from each contact
--Email conversation “threads”
--Super fast email search through all of your Outlook
--Easy and quick appointment scheduling
--Automatic phone number extraction for each contact
--Editable contact profiles

One feature I love is that you can search by people—and it will search your entire Outlook, not just one folder! This free product has really made my email much easier to use. Honestly, after using Xobni for the last 3 weeks, I don’t think I can go back to not having it!

To download your own free Outlook inbox miracle, visit the Xobni website:

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Homes.com has added another new partner to their expanding listing exposure network.

Hotpads.com, a valuable, free property listing resource of 2 million homes for sale most recently recognized for strides in heat mapping & foreclosure trend analysis, is the latest site to receive a property listing feed from Homes.com.

Through this partnership, Homes.com clients can choose to export their hand-entered listings directly to Hotpads. This addition to the partner network was recently announced by both Homes.com & Hotpads.com to their respective clients and is an exciting new option for Homes.com agents and brokers.

Hotpads.com joins Zillow, Vast, Google Base, Oodle.com, HarmonHomes.com, Trulia, Propbot.com, Yahoo Real Estate and Bargain Network as the latest choice for property distribution for Homes.com customers.

Stay tuned for even more export partners coming on board!

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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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Exposure, exposure, exposure…
In this day and age, where do you start?
Print, online or direct marketing?
How does it work?
Where do I put my marketing money?
These are all important questions to ask yourself, especially in today’s market. Our world is changing day by day shrinking every second right in front of our eyes with the invention of the internet. These changes may not be tangible, but they are nevertheless revolutionary.
Like any type of marketing, it all comes down to your return and the amount of buyers who make it to you and your properties.
In today’s society we get instant information from our personal computers, our PDAs, our internet connections and even our cell phones.
And buyers are more educated than ever.
With that education and instant access to information, today’s buyers purchase homes dramatically faster.
Like any business, it comes down to the numbers. For every ten prospects, four will be lookers and one or maybe two will be qualified clients. There is no silver bullet to marketing, but there are smart and efficient marketing solutions.
Find places that give you the maximum exposure.
At Homes.com use our free directories.
Trulia, Google Home Base, Harmon Homes, and Yahoo are just a few.
Get that exposure that your clients and the property deserve.
It could take as little as five minutes a day to cut and paste information about your properties, and we will export them to our partners. It’s a small effort on your part and it could bring big returns in form of a commission check.

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What is a domain name? A domain name, also know as a web address, is the name you type into the address bar of your internet browser (such as Internet Explorer or Firefox) to visit a site on the internet.

You can register a domain name through the registrar or registrar re-seller of your choice. A registrar is a company that is accredited by Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN) to register Internet domain names. TIP: Always be sure to keep a record of your registrar and the login information. You will need this information to access your domain name in the future.

When you register a domain name, you own the right to use that name for a defined period of time. Many domains are initially registered for a 2-year period, but can be registered for a total of 10 years at a time. After a domain is registered, you will have to pay a renewal fee once your initial registration period expires. If you do not renew in time, you risk losing control of the domain name and causing your website to be offline. However, as long as you continue to renew the registration of your domain it is essentially yours to do what you want with!

What's the status of your domain name? Does it need to be renewed? Not sure? Visit a “whois” search like www.BetterWhois.com and enter your web address to find out. TIP: When you search a whois for your domain, always be sure the contact information associated with your domain name is correct. The “admin email” is typically where your registrar will send domain name renewal notifications.

Owning a domain name also gives you the ability to have a more personalized email address. So, if you own the domain janesmith.com, instead of using janesmith@hotmail.com, you can now have the email address jane@janesmith.com!

If you are a Homes.com member, our Customer Service department can answer any questions you might have regarding your domain name or assist you in setting up personalized email at your domain name as well.

So, on your own – or with the assistance of your website hosting company, stay on top of the renewal of your valuable domain name and setup your personalized email address today!

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