Online Real Estate Technology

US internet titan Google is readying its own ‘Google Price Index’ based on a vast database of online purchases, providing a daily measure of inflation, said a top company official quoted in the Financial Times.

Google has not yet decided whether it will publish the index (GPI), which is still in development, the group’s chief economist Hal Varian said at the National Association of Business Economists conference in Denver, Colorado.

Varian said the GPI indicates a ‘very clear deflationary trend’ for goods purchased online in just under a year of data gathering, a potentially worrying prospect for US officials.

The GPI, calculated differently from official statistics of consumption — a key indicator of US economic growth — as it only accounts for products sold on the internet, but can be a much faster tool as results could be modelled at real-time speed.

The most recent official data from the Commerce Department was released at the beginning of October and showed consumer spending in August. Those figures showed spending rose 0.4 per cent in August as consumers spent slightly more than expected for the second straight month.

Story from www.ninemsn.com.au

The Baby Boom Generation is still responsible for a substantial portion of consumer spending and is technologically sophisticated, according to new data from The Nielsen Company.

Boomers Spend 38% of CPG Dollars
An estimated 78 million Baby Boomers, defined as those born between 1946 and 1964, currently reside in the US. This population segment spends 38.5% of CPG dollars. Yet it is estimated that less than 5% of advertising dollars are currently targeted towards adults 35-64 years old (which includes the latter half of Generation X, those born between 1965 and 1976, in addition to Boomers).

With most marketers generally targeting 18-49 year olds, more than half of the affluent Boomer demographic is ignored entirely. It is worth noting that Nielsen data shows Boomers dominate 1,023 out of 1,083 consumer packaged goods categories.

Boomers Watch TV, Employ Technology
Boomers watch one-third of all TV content consumed in the US. In addition, defying stereotypes of older people being out of touch with technology, Boomers:

• Watch the most video: 9:34 hours per day.
• Comprise one-third of all online users, social media users and Twitter users.
• Time-shift TV more than 18-24-year-olds (two hours and 32 minutes a month compared to one hour and 32 minutes a month).
• Are significantly more likely to own a DVD player.
• More likely to have broadband internet access at home.

Boomers Have Similar Web Tastes to Younger Adults
Baby Boomers have similar tastes in internet sites to adults aged 18-34. Of the top 10 sites favoured by 18-to-34-year-olds, eight are shared by Baby Boomers. Both demographics rank Google and Yahoo as their top and second-favourite sites, respectively. Baby Boomers rank Bing third and Facebook fourth, while 18-to-34-year-old reverse this order of favouritism.

The two sites Baby Boomers rank in their top 10 which 18-to-34-year-olds do not are Ask.com (ninth) and Amazon.com (10th). In comparison, 18-to-34-year-olds differ in their preference for Fox Interactive Media (eighth) and Apple (ninth).

Pat McDonough, SVP, insights, analysis and policy at the Nielsen Company, said Baby Boomers should be as desirable for marketers as Millennials (ages 15-32) and Gen-Xers (ages 33-44). “As the US continues to age, reaching this group will continue to be critical for advertisers,” said McDonough.

Boomers like Savings Tied to Spending
In previous analysis, Nielsen advised that Baby Boomers tend to be big spenders who like monthly or quarterly cash-back savings programs that reflect spending levels. The upsell can be pursued into prescription medications, insurance, gifts for grandkids and kids, entertainment, travel, even discount wines by the case.

In addition, Boomers are big online shoppers, comfortable using email and messaging to stay in touch. Twitter is a huge untapped outlet for reaching Boomers, who increased utilization 469% during 2009. Reach one and you can reach their entire follower base with product info and special offers.

More Realtors are stepping up their use of technology in their work, according to the National Association of Realtors’ 2010 Member Profile.

The 93-question survey profile is based on 6,830 responses from NAR members. Statistics for compensation, earnings, sales volume and number of transactions correspond to calendar year 2009; the rest are from early 2010.

Realtors’ median gross income fell 3 percent in 2009 to $35,700, according to the survey report, while net income rose 0.9 percent, to $23,400. NAR attributed the increase to a drop in total expenses, to $5,480 from $5,810 in 2008.

Most Realtors (59 percent) were licensed as sales agents, while 42 percent were licensed as brokers or broker associates. In 2009, brokers and broker associates had a median gross income of $49,100 and sales agents had a median gross income of $26,600, the survey found.

That compares to a median income of $49,300 for brokers in the previous annual study, and a median income of $28,400 for sales associates.

More than half of Realtors (56 percent) reported using a smartphone daily or nearly every day, compared with 42 percent in last year’s survey.

The less experienced the Realtor, the more likely he or she was to use a smartphone daily: 66 percent for those with two years of experience or less, compared with 48 percent for those with 16 years of experience or more.

Social media use also shot up: 51 percent of Realtors actively use social or professional networking websites, compared with 35 percent in the 2009 Member Profile. All age groups except those 60 or older reported at least a 52 percent rate of social media use.

Ten percent of Realtors reported having a blog, up from 7 percent last year, while 63 percent reported having a website, up from 60 percent last year. Realtors reported a median 3 percent of their business came from their website. Those who spent $1,000 or more to maintain their site said the site generated a median 19 percent of their business. Realtors spent a median of $220 to maintain their sites.

More Realtors also used digital cameras (30 percent vs. 27 percent), instant messaging (28 percent vs. 22 percent), and GPS (28 percent vs. 22 percent) daily in early 2010 compared to last year.

This year, the typical Realtor remained a 54-year-old white female with a median 10 years of experience who has at least some college education and owns her own home, according to the profile.

Realtors typically got 18 percent of their business from past clients — the same as last year. They got 20 percent of their business from referrals of past clients, up from 19 percent last year. Real estate was the sole occupation for 77 percent of Realtors, though in only 45 percent of households was real estate the primary source of income. Gross median real estate household income dipped to $89,100 in 2009, compared with $91,500 in 2008.

Brokerage sales volume remained at a median $1.2 million. Realtors completed a median seven transactions in 2009, the same as the year before. About 12 percent, also the same share as in the previous survey, did not complete a single transaction in 2009.

The median size of a real estate firm rose to 29 agents and brokers, compared with 23 last year.

Of all survey respondents, 74 percent were very certain they would stay in real estate for the next two years, while 18 percent were somewhat certain. These figures are largely unchanged from last year.

Original story from Inman News

I first wrote about Augmented Reality applications back in October after I had returned from the Inman Technology conference in San Francisco, if you’d like to read that article, here’s the link to refresh your memory Augmented Reality What is it? 

I’ve been patiently waiting for the technology to start to be implemented here in Australia and now its finally arriving with news the Commonwealth Bank have announced the release of their new Augmented Reality iPhone application.

Here’s the media release from the bank:

“Building on Commonwealth Bank’s vision of banking in 2013, the Group is announcing its next digital innovation with the release of its iPhone augmented reality application for anyone buying or selling a home, or simply looking to keep on top of the property market.

The new iPhone application will take property search to a new level, revolutionising the way home buyers search for a home allowing them to make smarter property decisions with virtual reality insight in to any Australian home anywhere, anytime. 

The technology is supported by two industry leaders realestate.com.au, the nation’s number one property portal and rpdata.com, Australia’s leading property information and analytics company.

The core functionality of the application utilises ‘augmented reality’ where rich data including past sales history (on more than 95 per cent of properties in Australia), current property listings and recent sales, is mapped on to a real world view through the iPhone’s camera.

Users can also switch to a list or bird’s eye view to pull in insights on properties matching their search criteria. Home hunters can then track their ‘dream house’ in their favourites, send to a friend and make informed decisions with access to detailed suburb profiles revealing demographics, median price, property hotspots and capital growth trends.

According to Mark Murray, General Manager Consumer Marketing, “We are leveraging new technology and continually innovating to deliver convenient, relevant and real-time services to make buying a home easier.

“As Australia’s biggest home lender we have teamed up with rpdata.com and realestate.com.au, to help Australians make an informed decision when it comes to making their biggest financial commitment.

“The new iPhone application will be an industry first in Australia.  Home buyers and sellers can easily access a host of customised information, tools and insights on every home in Australia – for free.

“The application is a significant milestone in our 2013 vision of banking, bringing virtual reality property search to customers right here, right now,” added Mr Murray.

A video demo of the iPhone augmented reality application will be available next week with the application available for download from the Apple App Store, coming soon.”

If you can’t wait to see how the application will work, you can take a look at the video here.

As I mentioned in the opening paragraph I can’t wait to be able to download this application and start playing with it, this hopefully will be the start of more Augmented Reality applications like this, and I’d also like to see the use of GEO Fencing technology and location based applications being employed by business here as well, the use of this technology has many benefits to the end consumer.

Whilst this application is aimed at the real estate buyer, this opens up the potential of this technology to all types of businesses, imagine the impact this type of technology has for restaurants and tourism.

Being able to access prices, menus, consumer reviews and book a table or a room directly from your phone opens up a new world of opportunities for business in this country.   

Well done Commonwealth Bank and I hope this is the start of more of these applications being widely adopted by both business and consumers.

I recently received an email from the author of this post Chris Thorman about the potential that Geofencing technology has for the marketing of real estate in the future, and after reading his article I totally agree with him. This technology has huge potential in this country as we are mostly car bound and mobile, so you can imagine the impact of technology that reaches out to prospective buyers and virtually taps them on the shoulder. I hope you enjoy the article and if you’d like to read more on this you can visit Chris’s blog here

It’s Saturday morning. Joel and Rebecca are walking their dog through a neighborhood in Austin, TX. As they walk, they chat about the movie they saw last night, what they’re going to make for dinner, and the big trip they have planned for next weekend. You wouldn’t know it by listening to their conversation, but the couple is also house hunting.
They cross Brodie Lane when Joel’s cell phone buzzes in his pocket. It’s a text message that reads:

Joel says to Rebecca, “We’ve got a match from our real estate company. It’s only four blocks away. Let’s go see what the house looks like.”

Within minutes, the couple is outside the 714 Longview Rd. home. It happens to be exactly the type of home they wanted, in the exact neighborhood they wanted to live in. They call their real estate agent to set up a viewing.

How did this happen? How was the couple instantly notified of the opportunity, perfectly merging buyer requirements, location and timing? The answer involves a combination of “geo-fencing,” mobile phones and GPS technology.

If you’re a tech savvy real estate agent or property manager, this powerful combination of technology represents a great opportunity to gain new clientele. Many real estate buyers do not have the time to review new listings online, travel to viewings or patrol their desired neighborhoods for opportunities. But the vast majority of real estate buyers do have mobile phones they carry with them nearly all the time.

This technology would help real estate and property management companies capitalize on business that may otherwise slip through the cracks. Software Advice would like to see this type of mobile marketing become a permanent feature in today’s property management software systems to help advertise real estate and rental properties.

Let’s see how that could be done.

Geo-Fencing + Mobile Phones = Powerful Real Estate Marketing
What if a buyer looking for a place to live didn’t have to do anything beyond choosing what features they wanted in a home? What if a buyer was automatically alerted to nearby properties that matched their needs?

This is what we’re talking about with the next generation of mobile real estate marketing.

The use of “geo-fences” surrounding properties really drives the location-based marketing engine. A geo-fence is a virtual boundary surrounding a geographic region. When a person with a mobile phone crosses a geo-fence boundary, a notification is automatically issued to that mobile phone. Traditionally, geo-fencing has been used to send alerts when users exit a certain area, instead of entering one.

Geo-fencing has been used in conjunction with GPS technology for a while now and for a variety of uses:

• Tracking senior citizens with Alzheimer’s;
• Ensuring mobile employees don’t travel outside of certain areas; and,
• Monitoring hazardous cargo, to name a few examples.

We’re confident that someday, we’ll be able to add “Market real estate” to that list. Here’s how we see this new form of mobile marketing working in the real estate industry:

Create geo-fences. Before real estate and property management companies set up their online portals, they’ll need to create geo-fences around all of their properties. This will ensure that if a qualified user crosses the geo-fence with their mobile phone, that user will be notified about that property.

We’d like to see geo-fencing modules built into today’s property management software, allowing companies to quickly create geo-fences around their properties by drawing them on a digital map.

Collect buyer needs online. Real estate and property management companies can create online portals on their web sites, where prospective tenants and buyers set up notifications tailored to what they want in a property.

For example, a user could create an alert based on square footage, number of bedrooms, pet friendliness, special amenities, and zip code, to name just a few of the myriad of options available. Once they’ve entered their cell phone number and submitted those housing preferences, all they have to do is carry their phone with them to receive notifications.

We’d also like to see today’s property management software vendors integrate these online portals into their systems. Many property management software vendors offer web site design and hosting packages to their customers. A geo-fencing module could be another module that’s presented as an option to a management company when they purchase the software.

Let the notifications begin. The notifications are where this entire concept of location-based mobile marketing comes together. The geo-fences have been set up. Users have entered their housing preferences online to receive notifications. All that is left is for the users to go about their normal lives, with their GPS-enabled mobile phones, of course.

When they get close to a property that matches their wants, they’ll be automatically notified on their mobile phone. Property management software can then integrate all of these contact points with customers into their CRM system, to track the effectiveness of the messages and review properties with clients.

House hunting couldn’t get much easier than that, could it?

The Benefits
Hopefully by now, the benefits of this unique marketing method are clear.

First, since the user opts in to receive these marketing notifications, there is no feeling of intrusiveness or annoyance as with unsolicited messages. This type of marketing is perceived as a service, not an intrusion.

Second, from a marketing standpoint, notifying the right person, at the right place, at the right time about your product is powerful.

It’s the holy grail of marketing:

• You have a desirable product;
• You have identified the person that wants your product; and,
• You can automatically tell that person that your product is nearby.

Finally, this marketing method is scalable. A real estate or property management company could theoretically have dozens (or more) of users taking advantage of this service at any given time. Beyond taking calls to schedule viewings, it wouldn’t require any extra labor on the part of the management company.

Conclusion
We don’t expect this spin on mobile marketing to be installed in every real estate and property management office tomorrow. But whether through geo-fence triggers or other GPS-centric methods, the real estate industry will undoubtedly continue to make a huge effort over the next few years to connect with buyers and renters through their mobile phones.

The technology is too compelling to ignore.

Hello everyone, I hope your Christmas and new year celebrations were enjoyable and you had time to spend with your family and friends, I know I did and I’m now paying for it with an ever expanding waist line, however some exercise and sensible eating and I should be back to my pre-christmas weight.

I’m now back on deck and will be updating this blog as well as my others, so I look forward to hopefully providing you with some good quality content, tips and technology thru out 2010.

Optus brand reputation management non existent

I recently invested in the new iPhone and have really enjoyed exploring the technology, however just recently I’ve noticed a recurring problem and that is my iPhone will drop out during both received and dialed phone calls.  So you can imagine my frustration when on a call and the call drops out, this happens at least 2 out of every 10 calls. So like most people today, I decided to search for the problem or I should say solution on Google, and what did i find? loads of information on the problems the iPhone network, in particular the Optus 3G network is having, and why there are drop outs. This information ironically, being provided by forum sites and other disgruntled consumers experiencing the same problem, nothing from the network that I’m with, which is Optus.

The number one result on my search query on Google is a forum site and contained within this site are numerous complaints about the drop outs, all citing the Optus 3G network not being up to spec as the cause of the problem, there are also complaints about Optus customer service and the lack of responce by Optus to customer complaints, some taking up to 2 weeks just to get a return phone call. But the interesting thing to me is the total lack of input from Optus on this site, now surely you’d think that a service company would be either monitoring this site or at least have a strategy to deal with all this negativity about their product and service, and don’t think that Telstra is any better at dealing with complaints, because they are not.

This brings me to the impact that social media has on brand building, consumers now have the ability to complain publicly about issues they are having with any company, and a simple search on Google will usually brings these forum and blog sites up at the top of the search, making them easily accessible to anyone wanting information or to complain about the service or lack of it from any company.

Business today needs to be very aware of the impact these sites can have on generating business from the web, and an effective web based brand monitoring strategy needs to be implemented and service related industries including real estate offices and agents really need to make sure they have both a monitoring and response strategy in place… Now I don’t know if Optus monitors or is even aware that these sites are on the web, but they should, the comments, complaints and opinions of current customers should be a prime concern, because if I’d read this forum before getting my iPhone, i would never have used Optus, and to allow the comments found on the forum site to continue without company moderation or input is just plain stupid.

So beware, take your on line reputation very seriously, you don’t want your brand or reputation destroyed on the web, imagine if you did a Google search on a prospective employee and found complaints and comments about them, complaints about their lack of service and response or their rudeness in dealing with clients, would you then hire that person? No I didn’t think so, well it works both ways.

You can no longer take your reputation for granted, you need to set up your strategy and a good place to start is by using this 3 phase process:

• Monitor

• Manage

• Repair

Start by monitoring what is being said about you or your brand on line, and you can do this by simply creating a Google alert for your brand name or keyword, if your brand is mentioned on the web then Google will notify you via email once a day of who,what and where you were mentioned.

This is the easiest and cheapest way to keep track of your reputation.

When I was at the Inman technology conference in August, the subject of Augmented Reality was being bandied around during the technology sessions and I thought it time to have a look at how it will impact not only the working real estate agent but also the consumer.

Firstly, what is Augmented Reality?  The concept has been around since the early 90′s, but it’s really only been in the last 12 months that the technical world has gone ga ga over it and if not for the onslaught of Twitter, you’d probably have heard a lot more about it by now.  So here is the technical explanation for what it is:

Augmented reality (AR) is a term for a live direct or indirect view of a physical real-world environment whose elements are merged with (or augmented by) virtual computer-generated imagery – creating a mixed reality. The augmentation is conventionally in real-time and in semantic context with environmental elements, like for example sports scores on TV during a match. With the help of advanced AR technology (e.g. adding computer vision and object recognition) the information about the surrounding real world of the user becomes interactive and digitally usable. Artificial information about the environment and the objects in it can be stored and retrieved as an information layer on top of the real world view.

Ok, there it is, simple really, but what does it do and how can you use it in your real estate business. The easiest way to explain how the technology will work is this, Imagine a consumer being able to stop in front of a house for sale and simply point their smart phone at the house and within seconds being able to view as well as save all the information about the listing. From there the consumer can look at the pictures, watch a video, email the information and even contact the agent direct.

To watch the technology in action here’s a video from Layer, an Android-based application that uses your handset’s GPS location, digital compass and accelerometer to call up geotagged information and superimpose it on the world around you.

The iPhone application for this technology is now available for download from the Itunes store, so  you can imagine the potential this has for the future, and it’s not just real estate that will benefit.

Any business can and will benefit from this technology, lets imagine you’re walking down a street looking for a good place to eat, you hold up your mobile phone so the screen shows what’s in front of you. What you see are things you couldn’t see before, brightly coloured makers that show restaurants and bars, turn the corner and you’ll see the new view on your screen, click on any of the markers and you’ll see customer reviews, menu and price information.

This is just a small part of what this technology can do, so I hope I’ve opened the door just a little for you.

There’s one lesson in this for the real estate industry, don’t get left behind, make sure you keep up with developments and new technology such as this as it emerges. Your very future may well depend on it.

I’d suggest also reading the post on using QR codes for real estate

Just thought I’d let you know that this weekend I’m heading off to the US to attend the Inman technology conference in San Francisco, the event starts on Wednesday and runs until Friday, so hopefully I’ll have some great new ideas to post on technology for you once the conference is over. So if I’m a little quiet in posting this week, you’ll know why.

Feedback on Content

I’ve had this blog running now for over 12 months and what started as a bit of fun for me has developed into a great passion. The blog has been more successful than I would have imagined, when I started it in June of last year.

Successful, at least in the number of people who read my posts and visit the blog on a daily basis, so I thought I would ask the question of you, what information do you find the most helpful? What content would you like to see me feature or write about on this blog that helps you the most in your business in the next 12 months?

In checking out the popularity of my posts over the past year, some articles that I thought would be popular were not, whereas other posts on Blogging and SEO were very popular, so it’s clear to me that you prefer certain topics over others.  Articles on Social Media for example, have been amongst my lowest read posts.

So the question I put to you is, which of the following topics would you like more information on:

SEO

Technology

Internet Marketing

Social Media

Blogging & Podcasting

Copywriting

Video

Even if the topic is not listed above, let me know what content you would like and I’ll do my best to provide the information you find most useful.