Online Real Estate Technology

Interesting the little gems that you find in doing research on the web, particularly the way the web is able to provide information to consumers searching on line for real estate, surburb or lifestyle impact of the home they are researching to purchase. This web site has been around for awhile now and I originally did not write a blog piece on it as it contained US information only, but just recently, thanks to Google base, it now contains information on the walkability of Australian suburbs. What do I mean by this?, essentially if you as a real estate agent quote in your listings that the beach is a 5 minute walk, or that the local shopping centre or public transport is just around the corner, this web site will allow on line real estate searchers to actually check your estimates. The site is called walkscore.com and when you load the site, you can input the street address of the property or suburb and the site will give you a walkability score. I checked my own house and suburb on this site and it gave me a very low score, meaning that I need to use my car to get to any of the conveniences, shopping centres or restaurants etc in the suburb. Whilst the web site still quotes US suburbs on it’s front page, it will give you Australian suburbs via Google maps, now wouldn’t that be a great tool to add to your property or suburb information. Provding this type of information to buyers will really brand you as the local expert, give it a try, I’ve included the link below for you to try it out.   There’s a screen grab of an address and suburb I’ve used as an example,for you to see how the site provides this information.

On the left of the screen is the information regarding distances to shopping centres and other amenities, measured from the address of the property, the centre map shows the location of these. You can then click on the street level view to see the street and property.

How Walkable is Your Suburb or House?

And here’s the link for you to try this out for yourself:

http://www.walkscore.com/

In writing this blog, I test out new syndication sites so that I can show you in my training presentations, the tools to distribute your blog or podcast and I’m always on the hunt for new sites to add my blog or podcast. Well this is just to let you know that my series of podcasts has now been added to podcastblaster.com and you can get them by clicking on the link below:

http://www.podcastblaster.com/directory/podcast-49183.html

Ever thought about posting videos to youtube? maybe putting your corporate office video and property videos on youtube? well check out Century21′s US based youtube channel, I’ve spoken about this in an earlier post, for some interesting ideas and thought starters on using the social network sites to distribute and promote you, your brand and product. Youtube is not just for the backyard video though, it is now becoming a very powerful tool in the distribution of educational videos, music videos etc. Even University’s are using it, companies are promoting on it and you should too. Why not start vlogging, the video version of a blog,and then promoting this on youtube. Start promoting yourself in the digital age and by uploading to youtube you will start to market yourself to the new generation of on line researchers.

I’m about to start looking at vlogging and I’ll start to create video versions of my podcasts as well as look at including interviews with industry professionals as part of my strategy. But I thought today I’d show you some very interesting uses of video…. So don’t say you weren’t warned!!!

First up is Century21′s “Agent of the Year”, now here is a very interesting approach to marketing a home:    

And if you really liked that!!! Here’s a more conservative use of the medium:

As I’ve mentioned before, video is portable content and you can use youtube to distribute your little gems.

Quite simple really, so why not start today? Why do you think Google paid $1.65 Billion for it

I’ve just spent the last three days on the road with the Kaplan Real Estate seminars and spending time with two amazing and inspirational presenters in Ian Grace and Grant Thorpe. The theme of the seminars was “How To Profit in Tough Times” and after the feedback we recieved on the day,I know that all the attendees certainly enjoyed the information that was presented by Ian, Grant and Myself. One very interesting concept that Grant presented and talked about was Fire The Seller, Now if you as a working real estate agent have ever come across the situation where you believe the seller has become a liability, you need to read and listen to Grant’s take on how to fire your seller.

I’ve included below a link to Grants blog and an audio grab of him talking with saleperson Malcolm Taylor about fire the seller. I hope you enjoy this.

I’ll post more about this seminar series in the next day or so including some ideas that were discussed and presented over the 3 days.

http://grantthorpe.typepad.com/life_coach_and_business_m/2008/04/fire-the-seller.html

I do like to provide follow up on my posts when I find that another blogger, has taken the theme and added more information or has voiced an opinion on the subject.

Joel Burslem from the Future of Real Estate Marketing has just added a post and his thoughts on Zillow Add Network.

You can read Joel’s comment by clicking on the link, and as always, let me know your thoughts or comments on this post.

http://www.futureofrealestatemarketing.com/is-real-estate-20-a-thing-of-the-past

Remember my recent post about traditional media and the big disconnect regarding real estate agents marketing budgets? coming out of the US today is the news that Zillow.com is expanding its relationship with key newspapers to give national advertisers in the US news ways to reach local markets.

Zillow’s new offering will target advertising from real estate agents and industries looking to serve new homeowners. This could include teleco’s wanting to pitch new phone and Internet services and retailers wishing to sell new furniture as well as tradespeople wanting to advertise to a very targeted market.

The way the new system will work is that Zillow.com will use targeting technology, so that real-estate and related ads can appear anywhere on a newspaper’s site, not just within the real-estate section.

Zillow will identify an Internet user as a likely home buyer based on visits to its site. At Zillow, on line real estate searchers can list a home for sale or see what it might sell for. Once a home is sold, traffic to that listing tends to come mostly from its new owner, letting Zillow flag the visiting computer as belonging to a recent home buyer.

This new relationship also allows newspapers to charge more for their on line adds by directly targeting on line readers more likely to buy the products.

Both companies are calling this a one stop shop style of solution for advertisers.

I’ll watch this with interest over the next few months.

I spent Thursday and Friday last week chatting to some real estate agents in Sydney about blogging, and on a number of occasions they mentioned to me the potential for readers to leave nasty messages or disparaging comments on their blogs, and this was the reason why some of them did not want to start blogging.

Well lets clear up the confusion on this, a blog is not a forum. Forums are where people are encouraged to leave comments on a business or service, and we know that in most cases these comments can be negative. I’ve even been driven to add my comments to these sites on occasions. As an example, I’ve been searching tripadvisor.com, planning my holiday, and because of user comments on service or standards of hotels, I’ve changed my choice of hotel. Blogging is not a forum, blogs allow you to publish information on any issue you feel relevant or to add advice about real estate etc, it is your personal communication tool. Your readers can add comments on your posts and request information on any issue that they feel is relevant to their area, their life or business. If you get comments from readers, which you should encourage, these are captured in the backend system of your blogging program and you get to vet or moderate these comments first, so no comment hits your blog without you approving it. If you don’t like the comment delete it, simple!!!   

Set up your blog as a tool to communicate with prospective buyers or vendors and make sure you provide good quality information on your blog. The other roadblocks put forward are, “I don’t have time” or ”I don’t have time to commit to this, I’m already very busy”. Well one word of advice, ”MAKE THE TIME”. You commit as much or as little time to blogging as your schedule allows, but remember, blogging will allow you to publish information that can be accessed from anywhere in the world, by your clients or readers. Publish your blog address on all your listings on realestate.com.au and domain.com.au, promote it on your own web site and emails and publish on all printed material that leaves your office.

That means you will have as part of your on line strategy a digital communication tool, that allows you to instantly update your clients or prospects with information that might just lead to you being the chosen professional against your competition, now wouldn’t that be nice.

I’ll cover in the next post, On Line Reputation Management, this will cover how you protect yourself from unwanted or negative comments from consumers, this is a slient business killer, and you need to know how to protect yourself and your business.

I was chatting today to a number of real estate agents in Mackay in Qld and in discussions after my presentation, up came the old chestnut of press vs on line and how much is or should be, invested by real estate agents in either medium. Well it got me thinking about a recent Yahoo survey of on line real estate users in the US and a snapshot of that survey is outlined here for you: