Wednesday, October 26, 2005

Antitrust Hearing on Competition in the Industry

Questions over competition within the real estate industry have prompted Justice Department and Federal Trade Commission officials to take action on a range of matters this year, including suing the National Association of Realtors trade group over its policies for sharing and displaying property information on the Internet and investigating state laws that effectively ban real estate rebates for consumers.

Yesterday the Federal Trade Commission (in the US) held a workshop called "Competition Policy and the Real Estate Industry" in Washington. According to Inman News, the trade commission used an interesting parallel between the travel and real estate industries:

Airline ticket prices have generally dropped in price over the years, thanks to greater price competition in that industry. And it's no accident, said Michael A. Salinger, director of the Bureau of Economics for the U.S. Federal Trade Commission.

"Prices were particularly high on long distance routes," he said, though, "We deregulated prices and eliminated restrictions on entry and prices came down dramatically."

Salinger said that while some travelers may say that aspects of quality have dropped, such as the quality of food on some discount airlines, "economists who have looked at this have concluded that we are by far better off with the lower prices than we were with the higher service levels designed to attract the higher prices."

Industry leaders rebutted the charges, saying the real estate market is highly competitive, with many new people entering the field. They said average real estate commissions have dipped, to a bit above 5 percent nationally, because of new kinds of brokerage services and price negotiation.


More on this from the Washington Post
.


Overview of the workshop from the D.O.J. website.

Tuesday, October 25, 2005

Google Sitemaps

There is a new tool from Google that you should be aware of if you are trying to naturally optimize your website for the search engines. (If all of that was Greek to you then talk to your webmaster or get one ;). It is called Google Sitemaps.

According to Google it "is an easy way for you to help improve your coverage in the Google index. It's a collaborative crawling system that enables you to communicate directly with Google to keep us informed of all your web pages, and when you make changes to these pages. "

Basically, instead of waiting for Google to "crawl" your site when you make changes, using Sitemaps you let Google know of any changes directly.

It's free, and my guess is if you don't start using it, your competition will, and you will fall behind.

More info: http://www.google.com/webmasters/sitemaps/docs/en/about.html

Visit the Network News Archive to read the articles you've missed.

Thursday, October 20, 2005

Top 5 Real Estate Blogs

Thanks for reading! Because of the traffic the blog has received we are now ranked the 5th real estate related blog in North America! This ranking changes on a daily basis so I'm sure it won't last long, but I'm glad to see you're enjoying!

Wednesday, October 19, 2005

Broker Meeting Update #1

I'm here, sitting in the Calgary broker meeting right now. Thank God for wireless Internet or I'd have fallen asleep an hour ago. Looks like this one is going to go into overtime...we'll post our thoughts on the meeting a bit later today.

Tuesday, October 11, 2005

HouseValues launches new national Web site

HomePages maps real estate listings, neighborhood amenities
Tuesday, October 11, 2005
By Glenn Roberts Jr.
Inman News

You think you've found your dream home online. The photo on the Web site looks great – it has the proper amount of bedrooms and bathrooms, and the price is right.

But how close is it to the local pizza place, the city library, the post office, a cocktail lounge or a high-performing elementary school?

Mixing mapping with detailed property, neighborhood and community data, HouseValues has launched HomePages, a Web site that is designed to drum up more business for agents while supplying consumers with new house-hunting tools.

HouseValues is well known in the industry for its lead-generation and lead-management systems for real estate agents and brokers. The HomePages site will supply a huge database of online property listings through the company's network of agents while seeking to supply a new stream of leads to these agents.

Prospective buyers and sellers can search for-sale homes by city and state, address, intersection, ZIP code, school district, and neighborhood features. Information for recently sold homes also will be accessible.

When consumers want more information related to buying or selling a home, they are connected to a HomePages agent in their market area. Agents pay to have the HomePages site personally branded when site users enter search parameters in their market area. Consumers can choose to receive e-mail updates on new property listings.

Participating agents' listings are also featured more prominently than other listings displayed in consumers' searches.

The site's maps will allow views of school district boundaries, and users can find detailed information about schools, including test scores, student-to-teacher ratio and graduation rates.
"It's built around peoples' lifestyles," said Ian Morris, HouseValues CEO. "It is totally integrated, with thousands of data points – I think this is the site that consumers want delivered on behalf of real estate agents."

Assorted map icons help users to differentiate between various points of interest, and users can customize the map displays.

Morris, during a demonstration of the HomePages mapping technology, said the site engineers enjoyed creating a flyover map display that zooms out, scrolls the map and then zooms back in when users switch their search location.

Matt Heinz, senior director of marketing for HouseValues, said that most major markets are covered by HomePages, and consumers will have access to about two-thirds of all property listings nationwide. Most property listing sources will be updated twice daily.

Other real estate industry players, too, have embraced the "more is better" approach to supplying online property listings to consumers. Help-U-Sell, RE/MAX and Cendant Corp. are among the major real estate companies that are pooling national listings to give consumers access to a larger sample of online property listings.

Visual displays of property listings – in the form of rich, interactive maps, also are catching on like wildfire on the Web. Some of the new innovations in online real estate mapping are based on the popularity of mapping platforms launched by Google, Mapquest and other online mapping specialists.

HouseValues officials point to industry research that shows increasing consumer interest in online real estate tools, including interactive maps. And there is momentum building in online advertising. The Borrell Associates research firm has said that online media should become the main advertising expenditure for the real estate industry before 2009.

Also, there is a long window of opportunity to reach real estate consumers before they enter into a transaction, say HouseValues executives.

Agents who subscribe to HomePages can purchase marketing packages that will feature lawn signs and other marketing materials carrying the HomePages logo, and each for-sale home featured by a HomePages subscriber is assigned a unique number to ease online lookup. Heinz said HomePages helps agents build their own personal brand while guiding consumers to the information they are seeking.

HomePages relies on aerial imagery snapped by airplanes rather than satellites. Morris said the end result is higher resolution map images – you can see cars in driveways and greenbelts rather than blurry neighborhood images, he said.

HouseValues has an extensive ad campaign planned to support the launch of the HomePages destination. Morris said, "We think that HomePages is going to be the killer (application) in this space."

Lisa Lundt, a real estate agent since February 2004, was among the first group of HouseValues agents to sign up for HomePages. Lundt, a Realtor for Custom Realty and Marketing in Henderson, Nev., said she has built her business around leads from HouseValues, and she was drawn to the potential for new leads from the HomePages site. "The simplicity, the clean design, the actual visual mapping – I think it is just going to be extremely appealing," she said.

Information on schools and neighborhood amenities should be useful in drawing consumers to view the HomePages site, she added. "I think they're going to be amazed by the amount of information they can get in one place."

And Maureen Morell, a Realtor for RE/MAX 200 Realty's Winter Park office in Florida who is also an early adopter of HomePages, said she hopes the new Web service will increase the number of property listings she handles while driving more buyers to work with her directly. By working with both sellers and buyers directly, she can reduce her listing commission while saving money for buyers, too, she said.

"There are a lot more buyers floating around now who are not interested in representation. I see HomePages as increases more direct buyer contact and another way to reach them," she said. Also, Morell said that any tool that can add value to her services – and drive more traffic to her listings – is important.

"Sellers these days are pretty sophisticated. The only thing they want to know is how I bring buyers to my listings," she said. "I see this as an opportunity to demonstrate more service to listings. Having a strong online presence for me is also a marketable advantage."

There are a lot of out-of-town buyers in the local real estate market, Morell also said, and HomePages provides tools for prospective buyers that can save her and her clients a lot of time.

"When they are only here for a couple of days I don't have time to drive them in my car, getting them familiar with neighborhoods. HomePages, she said, should get prospective buyers comfortable with neighborhoods even before they can visit them in person.

"They get a good feel for the neighborhood without leaving their desktop," she said.

Friday, October 07, 2005

Best Ways to Market Your Real Estate Biz

If you don't subscribe to the Inman News daily newsletter....you should. It is sent by email daily and includes news and articles about the real estate industry. (It's a far cry from the quality content you get in Network News, but it's still worth checking out.) Here is an article from today's newsletter that I thought was a good read:

Best ways to market your real estate biz
A little creativity goes a long way

Friday, October 07, 2005
By Bernice Ross
Inman News
Word-of-mouth marketing is a powerful tool to spread the word about your real estate business.
According to the Word of Mouth Marketing Association, WOMMA.org, there are 11 primary ways to spread the word about your business. How many of these strategies are you using in your business?

1. Buzz marketing
According to WOMMA.org, buzz marketing refers to "using high-profile entertainment or news to get people to talk about your brand." The Prudential agent who had the listing on convicted murderer Scott Peterson's house in Modesto, Calif., found a knife in the backyard. Is this knife the murder weapon that killed Lacy? This created a huge, national buzz. To create a positive buzz about your business, host a special event for people in your referral database. Rent a bus and take your guests to the most important away game for your local high school or college. Provide plenty of food, ice cream, souvenirs and other goodies. Arrange for a photographer and post the pictures to your Web site. Send out the link to everyone who attended as well as to any alumni you happen to know. Whether your team wins or loses, hopefully everyone will be "buzzing" about the great time they had.

2. Viral Marketing
Viral marketing is "creating entertaining or informative messages that are designed to be passed along in an exponential fashion, often electronically or by e-mail." For marketing to be considered "viral," it must motivate receivers of the marketing piece to tell other people about it. For example, if you sign up for a Realtor's newsletter that has money-saving tips, e-coupons, and how-to-avoid-scams tips, and you like the newsletter so well that you encourage your friends to sign up, this is viral marketing.

3. Community Marketing
According to WOMMA.org, community marketing is based upon "creating niche communities that are likely to share interests about the brand." It also references "providing tools, content and information to support those communities." One agent created a community Web site for his homeowner's association. On the site, the association can announce upcoming events, post election information, provide warnings for neighborhood watch groups, etc. He also lets the association use his toll-free 800 number. Visitors to the community who may have real estate questions can leave a message, and he returns the call. Since he hosts the site at no charge to the association, he is now perceived as "our Realtor."

4. Grassroots Marketing
WOMMA defines grassroots marketing as "organizing and motivating volunteers to engage in personal or local outreach." This can take a number of different forms. For example, if you hold a charity fundraiser where you go to the community to collect items for needy families, you are using a grassroots marketing approach. By being of service, you are simultaneously marketing your services.

5. Evangelist Marketing
This is the term that references working with referrals. Your goal is to develop a group of angels who will actively spread the word about the services you provide. An angel is anyone who sends you two or more referrals per year.

6. Product Seeding
Product seeding refers to placing the right product into the right hands at the right time, or providing information or samples to influential individuals. Clearly, you can't give out samples of houses. What you can do, however, is to prospect by letting people experience your level of service. For example, if property owners in your area can qualify for a property tax reduction, you can offer them information on how to lower their taxes.

7. Influencer Marketing
According to WOMMA, influencer marketing refers to having key opinion leaders talk about your services. This is slightly different from the "angel" approach referenced in evangelist marketing. A good example would be representing the mayor of your city on the sale of his or her home and receiving a strong testimonial from them about how well you handled the transaction.

8. Cause Marketing
Many real estate agents are actively involved in supporting Habitat for Humanity, women's shelters, medical research, and a host of other important causes. Being involved in a cause is an important way to give back to your community. It also attracts higher quality of clients as well.

9. Conversation Creation
In the fall of 2005, the Inventables began distributing "squishy magnets." These magnets feel like a piece of foam rubber and can be used to close doors without the doors slamming. Distributing these to your geographical farm or on your open houses will make a great conversation starter. According to WOMMA, you can stimulate conversation creation through fun advertising, e-mails, catch phrases, entertainment or promotions.

10. Referral programs
Many agents use the term "referral program" to reference that they ask people to refer leads to them. A full-blown referral program does more than just asking for leads. Instead, it uses a systematic approach that allows satisfied customers to refer their friends. The best programs usually offer some sort of reward for participating in the program. For example, if you contribute $20 to a client's favorite charity when they make a referral to you, they are much more likely to send you business than if you did not.

11. Blogging
Blogs are one of the hottest trends for the real estate industry. A blog is a series of quick observations that the blogger posts to a Web site. The primary goal of blogging is to share fun and useful information with the blogger's readers. For a great example, See Brad Inman's blog at http://www.inman.com/blogger/bradinman.aspx.

Want to know more? See next week's column, "Unleashing the Power of Testimonials."

Wednesday, October 05, 2005

Vancouver Island Manager Needed




Selling/Managing Broker wanted for Coldwell Banker Comox Valley office. This is a great opportunity to live in a year round playground and work in one of B.C.'s fastest growing communities. Please reply with your enquiries to wayne@dumbrell.ca.