Embroidered Logo

Does anyone have a version of the Coldwell Banker logo for embroidery? There is a specific file format required to embroider a logo on fabric, and if anyone out there has the digital file (should end in .exp or .dst) then we could post it here on the blog for all to use. It's not available from head office.

Designing Top-Notch Real Estate Sites

I found this article and was pleased to see that I'm not the only person who thinks that forcing people to sign into your site to view listings is a bad idea. The article outlines some of the things a real estate web site should have, as well as some of the pitfalls to avoid:
http://www.bellaonline.com/articles/art23726.asp

More information on what to avoid in your website is available here:
http://www.blitzdevelopment.com/real-estate-marketing-06.php

It seems many people feel that the best way to generate leads on a real estate website is to force people to register for just about everything. We're generating 1-2 leads a day from our website, where visitors can search all Edmonton MLS listings without having to register.

According to Point2Agent "Requiring registration is a way to capture prospects. However, it is generally recommended to make listings public because only a small percentage of visitors will register, especially with listings available on large, well known websites such as national listings portals. Publicly visible listings will keep visitors on your website longer, increase return visits and the number of leads from listing inquiries."

I've mentioned it before... the three keys to generating business from your website are:

1. Drive traffic to your site
2. Give people what they want so they contact you for more (generate leads)
3. Stay in touch with the leads and convert to transactions

Check out our new site at www.alledmontonhomes.ca.

New Words Every Agent Should Know

Just for fun today...Ok, so I stole these from one of those e-mails that circulate the web...but they're pretty funny. I've pulled out the top 10:

1. Cashtration (n.):The act of buying a house, which renders the subject financially impotent for an indefinite period.

2. Ignoranus: A person who's both stupid and an a$$hole.

3. Intaxication:Euphoria at getting a tax refund, which lasts until you realize it was your money to start with.

4. Bozone (n.):The substance surrounding stupid people that stops bright ideas from penetrating. The bozone layer, unfortunately, shows little sign of breaking down in the near future.

5. Foreploy:Any misrepresentation about yourself for the purpose of getting laid.

6. Sarchasm:The gulf between the author of sarcastic wit and the person who doesn't get it.

7. Inoculatte:To take coffee intravenously when you are running late.

8. Osteopornosis:A degenerate disease.

9. Decafalon (n.):The grueling event of getting through the day consuming only things that are good for you.

10. Dopeler effect:The tendency of stupid ideas to seem smarter when they come at you rapidly.

Mancini's Moves

In our most recent issue of Network News we featured Harry Mancini and his 16-minute workout. For those of you who want more info, you can download his workout by clicking here.
It's an Excel SpreadSheet, so you'll need MS Excel to view it.

No New Posts...

Due to excellent ski conditions at Banff...be back in a day or two :)

Get to Know: Point2 Technologies Inc.

Once upon a time (1996 to be precise), two brothers made software that made reselling heavy equipment easier, faster, better, and more profitable by using the Internet’s full potential. This software attracted a lot of attention from major companies like Microsoft and Caterpillar, and built Point2 Technologies into a successful international company.

Five years later, Point2 realized that there was something else out there that needed help – something else that is big, expensive, complicated to sell, and difficult to move – real estate. Point2 realized that its software, that revolutionized the heavy equipment industry, could help Realtors® as well. Point2 Agent was born.

Point2 Agent gives Realtors® their own web marketing and advertising software package that includes a very cool website. Far more than just a web solution though, Point2 Agent is set to change how real estate is bought and sold online – very much for the better.

Point2 Agent is beginner-friendly – because it’s very easy to set up your website, but also because it’s free! The trial version of Point2 Agent doesn’t cost anything, and doesn’t expire, allowing members to upgrade to the pay version when their business growth requires it.

With the upgraded version of Point2 Agent, a heap of listing advertising is included. Through Agent Handshake™ you can set up your own private MLS for your brokerage, and all of your listings are automatically advertised on Point2 Homes. These options do not cost extra, and are not available anywhere else, from any other company.

You may know how well Point2 Agent sites do in search engines, but if you want to see for yourself just do a search for homes for sale in your area and take a note of how many of the top Realtor® sites are Point2 Agent sites. This alone is plenty of proof that big results don’t always take big bucks.

All of these advantages drive traffic to Point2 Agent sites, but in the end, as you know, better listings move homes faster. This is why brokers can set up their office on Point2 Agent, establish a brokerage MLS, and create incredible listings that include things like automatic listing brochures, Google™ Earth satellite mapping, audio attachments, and dozens of high-quality photos. Buyers are wowed by Point2 Agent listings, especially compared to the alternatives.

Point2 knows how to get inventory sold online, a fact to which its over 66,000 members can attest. In fact, Point2 is so confident about Point2 Agent, they’re willing to give it away free and help you establish a solid, profitable online presence without risking anything. Hard to argue against that.

See www.Point2Agent.com for further details.
Coldwell Banker Johnston invites you to sign up for a free Point2 Agent site today.

The Paperless Office

When I worked at the Coldwell Banker Canada head office, I was always amazed at how brokers and agents wanted to print everything - CB Weekly, Virtual Assistant client lists, listing reports, articles etc. etc. etc. My thinking was - it's on your computer, why do you want a paper copy that you now have to store, throw out, or carry with you? People handed me paper all the time and I'd turn around and ask for the digital version, because I had no files to put it in. My computer is much more organized than I am and the Google Desktop allows me to search this hard drive in seconds and find what I need. Perhaps it comes from my background in Ecology, perhaps because I've grown up with computers, whatever it is I don't see a need for so much paper in this world. When personal computers made their way to the workplace, "the experts" thought our paper usage would drop, but in fact paper consumption drastically increased because of the ease of printing. This article from today's Inman News gives a great reason for offices to consider going paperless...

Mississippi real estate firm learns value of paperless office
Katrina shreds paper documents, spares electronic data
Friday, November 04, 2005
By Janis MaraInman News

Hurricane Katrina tore the roof off Sawyer Real Estate's Gulfport, Miss., office, threw giant filing cabinets across the room and shredded all of the 104-year-old brokerage firm's paper documents.

A tidal wave buried the firm's 10 hard computer drives under 6 feet of water. But, to co-owner Lenwood "Lenny" Sawyer Jr.'s amazement, all the data on nine of the hard drives was recovered – including some 6,000 scanned-in documents.

"We are now firm believers in the paperless transaction," said Sawyer, whose grandfather Roy Anderson founded the business in 1901. "We've learned our lesson."

Sawyer Real Estate, one of the major commercial real estate brokerages in the area, has 16 agents and boasts many local casinos, banks and retail stores such as Wal-Mart and Kmart among its clients. It survived the Great Depression, the 17-to-20-percent interest rates of the 1980s and Hurricane Camille. But Katrina was quite another matter.

"When I first saw the building (after Katrina), I couldn't believe my eyes," said Sawyer, who inherited the family business from his father Lenwood Sawyer Sr. in 1986. "The windows and doors are gone, the ceiling was blown out, all our cubicles were blown apart."

But Sawyer, who runs the company with his son, Lenwood "Lenny" Sawyer III, was able to salvage from the hard drives the software from Sawyer's property management division – "the software that keeps up with the rent rolls, tenants, billing and accounting data was on there," he said. His e-mail, his personal records and the data of nine other agents in the office was also saved.

"We Federal Expressed the hard drives to a company in California and within two days they were able to save the information," Lenny Sawyer Jr., said.

"Whereas the paper records we had in the vault are gone," he said. "Some of them were completely washed away. The ones remaining in the building were shredded into tiny pieces.

"If we had had a paperless office, we would have been able to save the plats, records, contracts, history on old properties that we had," Lenny Sawyer Jr., said.

The company set to work immediately to get the office back up and running, according to Lenny Sawyer III, the "son" half of the father-and-son team.

"We were lucky enough to find a company that handles construction trailers and they got us one within a couple weeks after the storm," Lenny Sawyer III said.

"The power company was very responsive. The day we called them, they were out here that afternoon to turn the power on. The telephone company, too. They had us back up and running with phones and fax within a few days after we tog the trailer delivered," Lenny Sawyer III said.

Almost the instant the phones were connected, they began ringing off the hook, Lenny Sawyer III said.

"We do mostly commercial real estate and companies were looking for warehouses for items they had been able to salvage, and also people were looking for undamaged office space," he said.

"In the last month, companies coming in to build have been looking for warehouse and office space. The construction companies are looking for pieces of property called 'construction yards,' staging areas for the workers and their materials," Lenny Sawyer III said.

At first, the company and its 16 agents, all of whom survived the storm, did things "the old-fashioned way: hit the road, look for it, depend on word of mouth, call property owners," Lenny Sawyer III said. Now, he said, the MLS is back up and running and the company is able to access it to see what other agents have available.

The storm hit Sawyer Real Estate's building around 10 a.m., Sept. 29. Now, less than two months later, "as far as systems and processes go, we are probably back to close to where we were before the storm," Lenny Sawyer III said. "We now have two trailers onsite for our agents to work from."

The brokerage has a tough row to hoe, with major clients such as Grand Casinos and Casino Magic suffering hurricane damage. "The storm wiped out the whole Mississippi Gulf Coast," said Lenny Sawyer Jr. "It's like you take a big iron rake and go 2,000 miles back from the beach. It flattened everything."

The company is not yet up to its former volume, Lenny Sawyer III noted.

"We don’t have the population back to do the amount of volume we did before Katrina, but it is slowly coming back," he said. "A lot of people left because the schools were closed, but we are seeing people come back gradually as the schools reopen.

"We are going to make it. We'll get there for sure."

www.edmonton-homes.ca

Times Have Changed for Real Estate

This article is from Inman News. It is written by an agent from Coldwell Banker Bain Associates in Seattle. The article is in response to the anti-trust hearings currently going on the US about competition and commission rates in the industry. (See article below). She has an interesting take on the task force's comparison of the airline and real estate industries...

Increasingly difficult to protect consumers from unintended outcomes
By, Joy Canova

Times have changed for the real estate market; it has become increasingly difficult to protect clients from unintended consequences of a real estate transaction. If changes to commissions are overdue, it is to increase rates, not lower them.

In real estate transactions, one needs only to look at the volume of pages in a typical purchase and sale agreement to see the changes in the industry. As greater protections are needed for clients, full-service brokerages have sought the assistance of their attorneys to design contract addendums to close risky loopholes. Full-service sales agents have the skill and knowledge to put these protections in place when and where it is appropriate.

While it is true that every real estate transaction does not require the full spectrum of abilities that full-service agents and their companies provide, the consumer will not have the expertise to determine when his or her personal situation calls for it. It is better to depend on an agent who will know when such conditions arise and employ necessary actions on the consumer's behalf.

The comparison of the real estate industry to airline competition is an interesting choice since so many airline companies are struggling to stay in business. Some may wish to blame all the woes on events after Sept. 11, but the trouble started long before that. Consumers of airlines are suffering as services and routes are cut in an effort to stay in business. A cheap ticket to nowhere is hardly a bargain.

If the federal antitrust agencies' intent is to break the real estate industry to pieces in the same manner as the airline industry, real estate consumers will suffer as well. Agent expertise will leave the industry when consumers need an advocate most desperately.

Home buyers today are faced with affordability issues and predatory lending practices. Home sellers in the marketplace are falling prey to selling-schemes that provide no assistance in negotiations and pricing suggestions that cost money as properties linger on the market.

With personal savings down and debt up for many Americans, homes are often the greatest savings a family has. To shortcut protections for consumers with this critical financial asset is unconscionable. Lowering costs without considering value is the poorest form of business in America today.