Online Real Estate Technology

Mike Andrew's Real Estate Podcast Series

I’ve had a number of people ask me about my podcast series over the past few weeks and where they can download them from, so I’ve included in this post the URL link to download the entire series of 25 podcasts. These are designed as a series for you and you can download and keep them as a reference source on technology and marketing tips.

I’ll continue to update the series on a regular basis so to make sure you get each new episode, subscribe to the RSS feed at www.mikeandrew.podomatic.com, grab the feed from my blog or get them via ITunes by searching podcasts and entering Mike Andrew Real Estate Podcasts.

Let me know if you have any problems with downloading the series.

A Rating Site for Blogs

For those of you that have just created your blog  or would like to start to get readers and traffic to your articles, I thought it worth a mention of a site that I’ve just added my blog too. There are a number of directories on the web that you can add your blog to to start to get readers and this one is quite a good one as it also allows users to provide ratings of your blog and/or topic.

This is a great tool for getting feedback on your articles and researching what they like or don’t like about what you write.

It’s called Scribnia and whilst it’s only in public beta testing at the moment, which means it’s under going changes and tweaks regularly, I found it quite easy to navigate, and to find authors and blogs on all types of topics that were of interest to me.

Scribnia is a social community, based on the premise that everyone has a favourite author, blogger or even publication, and it’s goal is to help you discover new writers based on analyzing user ratings and your preferences.

You can rate my blog and articles here if you would like to see how it works and give me some valuable feedback at the same time. 

Any blogger can claim a profile on the site and to verify the claim you just add a small piece of code to either a widget on your side bar or add it to the bottom of one of your posts. The code is invisible so your readers won’t see it. Once you’ve claimed your blog you can use your profile to interact with interested readers and another great section to the site is the ability to search by publication, so if you have a favourite topic and like to just search through the available blogs you can. 

It’s well worth a try, so here’s a shot of the front screen to give you a heads up on what it looks like.

Front Screen Shot

It’s been a little while since I last wrote about the worst property videos on the net, so given that they are very popular with you the readers of this blog, lets have a look at another little gem sitting on the web.

This one is not strictly a property video tour, this is actually a demo from a company offering to do a video of your house for sale. This one shows you how “good” a property video can be.

There’s no soundtrack, no voice over and the opening shot is of a car, so ladies and gentlemen, rollup, because this is how “not” to film a property video demo. 

Just a reminder that my real estate technology seminar series continues next week in NSW. The location and timing for the seminar is as follows:

Maximising Your On Line Marketing for Real Estate Professionals, Tuesday 17th March at Parkside Ballroom A – Sydney Convention Centre NSW.

If you would like to attend, please contact me here, we already have close to a full house but some seats are still available.

Look forward to speaking with you on the day.

Have you ever wondered how far we have come with technology? Do you think that today we can communicate faster than we did 100 years ago? well this little gem may get you thinking about how far we really have come. 

Please enjoy

I’ve been chatting to real estate offices lately about including social media into their long term communication and web strategy and as I’ve mentioned in my previous post on SEO How Important is An Effective SEO Strategy to Your Real Estate Business  you can use social media to build traffic to your web site instead of paying Google to do so.

Given that you may have the best real estate web site in the country, how do you use social media to drive lots of traffic to it. Here are a few tips and suggestions to help you, as long as you have great content and your site is up to date. There are more social media sites out there than you can possibly use in a lifetime, so lets look at the ones that will have a major impact for you.

Social Bookmarking sites: There are lots of social bookmarking sites for you to use on the web, so bookmark and tag all your content. Sites such as  delicious.com and Mr Wong are a great start to expose your content to other web readers, Mr Wong also allows do follow links which will help with SEO for your blog.  Stumbleupon.com is another great site to use, you should also leave a review of your content. Make your tags as broad as possible to allow users to find your site.

Blogs:Do they really work? Integrating a blog into your web site is a great way of bringing new content and visitors to your site or blog. The trick to blogging is to always provide good quality content in a consistent manner. Once you start cranking out consistent quality content, you can then start to submit your posts to news sites such as Digg, Reddit and Mixx.com, which will open up new audiences and web traffic for you. These are really good sites for exposing your content and will generate backlinks for your web site.

Facebook, Myspace,Linkedin and other networking sites are all smart places to submit your  blog to, all your connections will be able to see your content and blog. Twitter.com is another great resource to share your posts, for both business and pleasure just check out my profile at http://twitter.com/mikeandrewre to see how Twitter works.

Make sure you set up RSS feeds and email subscription links to allow readers to continue to recieve your posts and content once they leave your site. 

Hopefully this may answer some of your questions on how to set up an effective social media strategy for your office. A good social media strategy will help you build good quality backlinks to your web site that will also help your Google ranking. 

Good luck with your planning and let me know if I can help

We’ve had Walkscore.com and I’ve talked about the fantastic amount of information you can get from this great site,well now, and it had to happen, we have Drive Score.

I checked the site out earlier and got a screen grab for you which is displayed below. I then went and checked the site again and got a message saying that Google were blocking traffic because of the high traffic volumes searching the site, just goes to show the popularity of this type of information.

With all the emphasis now being placed on local search and local suburbs and neighborhoods, it is no wonder the site is very popular. Walkscore gives you the environmentally friendly version,but if you want to live out in the country areas or some of the outer suburbs you need to know where the local utilities are and how far away from your property they are. So this web site is just the score, pardon the pun!!

When you type in the address of the property, you’ll get a Google map displaying the house and the properties drive score out of 100. The greater the number of businesses and amenities nearby, the higher the Drive Score. You’ll also find on the map the locations of parks,restaurants,hospitals,libraries & other amenities. If you click on the icons on the map, you’ll then get directions to the location based on it’s driving distance from the house. It shows the distance in miles, but remember this is meant for the US market, to me though, that’s only a minor issue, given the great information the site gives you.

Users can also turn off some of the search results, so you can fine tune it to your requirements.

 The site is attached to US For Sale by Owner site Fizber.com and you can click on the link here if you’d like to check it out: http://drivescore.fizber.com/

Drive Score Screen Shot

Ever wondered when visiting a new city how safe you were, or when you’re looking for your dream home and find one in what looks like a great suburb, but you don’t know how safe that suburb really is? If this is you, then here’s an Iphone application that is just made for you.

Lethal is a new Iphone & Ipod touch application available through Itunes. The application draws on information in various data bases which has been compiled from government and academic sources. The app uses a lethal index system which tells the user how dangerous that area is. There’s a “Wildlife” index, a “Crime” index as well as “Disease” and “Disaster” indexs.

This application is ideal if you want to know what strange animals, or “beasties” might be lurking near you when you go out walking or if you want to check out how safe you are in your current suburb, this little beauty will give you the score. If you are travelling or sightseeing and start wondering how safe you are, this unit uses GPS to find you and then let you know how safe you are in your current location.

Unfortunately, this application will only work in the US at the moment, but if you are planning a trip to the states, this would be an absolute must have before you leave.

Just imagine the impact this would have if launched in Australia on property searches or suburb choice.

The application is available at a small cost from Itunes and I’ve included a screen shot for you below:

New Iphone & Ipod Touch Application

Just announced from the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas is the technology to provide Myspace on your TV.  You’ll be able to exchange messages with your friends whilst watching your favourite TV show thanks to a new widget that has been developed by Myspace,Intel and Yahoo.

Networkworld has reported the development of the the widget although no date has yet been given for it’s release, with the widget, users won’t have to rely on a browser to access MySpace.com. They can receive instant updates of friends’ activities directly on their TV screen, without having to refresh a browser. The widget will also let them view their friends’ profiles. Users can access the widget using a remote and type messages for friends with an on-screen keyboard, a MySpace spokeswoman said.

The widgets are designed to work with Intel’s Intel Media Processor CE3100 system-on-a-chip platform for consumer electronics devices. Here’s the full story if you would like to read more about this: http://www.networkworld.com/news/2009/010809-myspace-comes-to-tv-with.html

My personal opinion on this is that it will go nowhere, with traditional mediums such as TV you are really stuck in one place and given the development of mobile platforms and the direction that the internet is moving in, in the future. I can’t help but think this is just a gimmick.

My guess is that most users of social media sites will more than likely continue to use their Iphones and other mobile tools to access these sites.  Anyway, I can never get the remote off my wife, so that’s me done!!!  

It seems though from reading the responses on the Networkworld blog that I may be in the minority on this. Only time will tell!!

Last Monday I flew Jetstar to Newcastle and I was motivated to write this post after seeing an add on TV for Jetstar last night, the TV commercial portrays them as the fun airline with smiling staff and offering great service etc, I’m sure you’ve all seen commercials like this one, with companies all pretending to be something in reality, they are not. On the way back from Newcastle, I flew VirginBlue and in the inflight magazine, there is a article from Brett Godfrey their CEO talking about their new service to LA being delayed by a strike at Boeing in Seattle, and then he goes on to to mention how we will soon be able to experience their great service on long haul flights, well, as a very frequent flyer with both VirginBlue and Jetstar, I’d have to say, “What Service”, at best most of their staff are pleasant, there is the odd one who really doesn’t want to be there, the cabin service is adequate at best, and with my company having just paid over $300 for the return fare, I still had to buy my coffee and wait an eternity for my baggage. I’veencountered Jetstar refusing to take a passenger who turned up 5 minutes late for her flight from Tasmania, because she was late checking in, and then the flight was delayed by 30 minutes, so who then compensates us for their non on time performance? Now if you flew each airline once or twice a year you probably wouldn’t notice these little niggles, but as a frequent flyer I notice, and really the fares aren’t that cheap and the service, is almost non existent, especially for what I pay for that service.

So what’s the point to this post?     

Over the years I’ve encountered real estate agents who have advertised how they use the latest technology to market properties, and work with buyers and sellers. There is in fact, one agent in the South of Brisbane, who advertises himself as Mr Technology and his marketing is all based on how he uses the latest technology to market on behalf of his vendors and respond to buyers enquires. well, I have to tell you that over the past 3 years I’ve sent him numerous emails about his properties advertised on the net, and I’ve never had a response yet from him, in fact it has become my lifes mission to get him to respond. Sadly I have to report, I’ve still been unable to get him to do so, and if you look at the number of email enquiries that still go unanswered today, about 30% of emails sent to agents go unanswered, we still have some way to go in eductating agents on how to deal with the internet consumer and their changing communication needs.

So again, “What’s the Point of this post?” It’s to raise with you the point, that if you advertise you, your agency or your service, then be true to that advertising. If you are marketing yourself as an agent who uses technology then make sure you use that technology correctly.

Have a best practice policy in place that ensures response times to emails is immediate, make sure your listings are complete and contain all the information that today’s internet consumer is looking for, and make sure your agency is what you say you are.  

This is most important when marketing on the net, because the internet consumers first experience with you will be what they see on the net. Are you using technology in your agency to it’s best potential?  Are you offering your vendors/clients all the newest technology to market properties?, are you using social media networks effectively?

If not, then rethink your strategy, be what you say you are, because when times are really tough, the consumer will look more closely at you and your service.

Don’t let them down!!!