Later this week, I’ll be in San Francisco for
Real
Estate Connect. A huge conference for the real estate industry where the big
wigs come together to discuss where the industry is heading.
Each year, the conference has a theme used to tie together what’s happening in
the real estate industry. This year the theme is: Open Source, Open
Data, Open Debate
Which will be explained in the
welcoming
address:
out as data, social commentary and simple APIs overhaul the arcane process of
buying and selling real estate. Learn what is hot and what is not from the
leading real estate observer, Bradley Inman, Publisher of Inman News.
A year ago, Zillow was the
hot topic as their automatic home valuation tool had been on the web for a few
months and was drawing tons of attention and interest. How were real estate
agents who’ve traditionally generated leads through personal home valuations
going to adjust to the reality of publicly available home valuations? While it’s
still not clear, it does seem clear that the genie is out of the bottle on that
type of data.
A year later, the industry seems to understand that the web will continue to be
the a source of new forms of easily consumable data by agents and consumers. In
some cases, this will be data that’s always been available becoming presentable
in more palatable formats. In other cases, it will be the creating of new types
of data.
Blogging is one case where agents are starting to see the positive PR and
marketing benefits of presenting oneself as a neighborhood or city expert in the
field of real estate. However, this is still very immature. For example, I live
in a metropolitan area of 2,000,000 people and know of
four
real
estate
bloggers. I
wouldn’t exactly call that crowded. Perhaps
Hugh MacLeod
will connect with more than a few bloggers at Connect about the power of
blogging for business.
One issue I haven’t seen addressed at Real Estate Connect, but may see someone
mention this year is: “What happens if
Digg
gets into real estate?”
How would the real estate industry change if every home consumer could vote up
or down every listing in their market? If they could comment on every listing?
If they could easily blog every listing?
Would the quality of the average listing improve? Would home sellers freak out
to their agents if their homes received little or no Diggs while comparable
properties with more photos and better descriptions rose in popularity? How
would the industry respond to such an open marketplace like this? Is this good
or bad? Preventable? Inevitable?
Also, I’m considering sticking around SFO through the weekend. If you’re in the area, send me an email so we can meet up.
Whenever I’m at a real estate conference, I suggest to agents that they should
consider starting a blog as a marketing tool. And there are usually a handful of
businesses on hand who specialize in managing blogs for real estate
professionals, so getting started is just a matter of signing up at one of the
booths.
However, what’s often missed is what to blog about. The impression I get is that
inexperienced real estate bloggers think they need to write marketing-type
content on their yet-to-launch blog, much like they’d write for a brochure,
postcard, or other form of print advertising.
When it comes to blogging, this would be a terrible mistake. A successful blog
generates loyal readers who subscribe to your content. A successful blog’s
content is quoted by other bloggers. Neither of those will happen with content
that’s making a pitch about how great the real estate agent is.
So, what works? Providing valuable information that demonstrates your expertise.
Don’t market yourself. Helpful posts written by content experts prove that
you’re an expert without coming out and directly saying it.
Here is an example of this type of writing from a mortgage broker based in
Minneapolis named Alex Stenback. He runs a blog called Behind The Mortgage where
he writes about the Minneapolis / St. Paul real estate market, interest rate
fluctuations, and other things real estate finance related that may be of
interest to his readers. In the post quoted below, he explains the dangers of
option-ARMs for people with poor credit:
Despite
Concern, Lenders Still Pushing Option ARMS
These loans, in
our view, are suitable for a only very small slice of the borrowing public;
specifically, those of very high credit quality with high net worth, who use it
as a tool to manage cash flow. An option-ARM should NEVER be used simply to be
able to afford a mortgage that under normal circumstances would be out of reach;
that is just stupid and asking for disaster.
Options-ARMs is a
topic he clearly knows something about, being in the industry. His post provides
valuable information to his readers, and he shares his professional opinion
about who this type of financing may be appropriate for. What he doesn’t do is
directly pitch his readers on why he’s the guy to call for your next home
finance transaction. And why should he? The content of the post speaks for
itself without blatant self-promotion.
In the case of real estate agents, things like market reports, updates on local
developments, real estate finance and opinions on other local real estate news
would set you apart from other agents in your market. By proving your expertise
on a blog, you’ll get more phone calls from highly qualified buyers and sellers,
more referrals from agents who get to know and trust you through your blog, and
possibly more media mentions from local reports who know they can turn to you
for a quote when writing on a subject you’ve previously shown an interest in.
Picking a blogging platform is the easy part. Picking appropriate content to
write about and actually doing it is the challenge.
Roald Marth gave a technology presentation at the Toronto Real Estate
Board’s annual meeting, REALTOR QUEST, on Tuesday, April 24, 2007.
Here are a few links to topics discussed.
-
Buy your domain name. Register it at
GoDaddy.com or
other domain registrar. -
Build a website at that domain that proves your expertise. This is your
online resume. -
Set up a Google
AdWords account and buy your own name. -
Use video to prove your expertise. Here is the example video we shot on
stage using a
Canon
SD800 point and shoot camera and played from a
2GB
SanDisk USB enabled SDCard. This video has been published to the web
using Blip.tv, and embedded
into this blog post for free:
-
Make your site’s interface user-friendly. It should be easy for people to
find what they’re looking for. -
Give them them information they’re looking for. Consumers want information.
Give away the basic information. Charge for expertise. -
Try subscribing to a podcast using iTunes.
Download
iTunes for free if it isn’t already on your computer. Click on the
iTunes Store link on the left margin, then podcasts, then search for a topic
that interests you or subscribe to a popular feed on the homepage.
Technology Evangelist’s
video
and
audio
podcasts are two worth checking out.
-
Sign up for a
Google
Reader account. Once signed up, try
subscribing
to Technology Evangelist’s blog feed to get a feel for the program. -
Download sign up for Skype.
This allows you to make audio and video calls to anywhere in the world for
as cheap as free. -
We had a short period for the presentation. If you have questions regarding
the content presented or related subjects, send me an email. I’ll try to
answer the questions in future blog posts.
Point2Agent agent’s listings getting bumped from Craigslist, according to St. Paul / Minneapolis REALTOR, Bonnie Erickson, who wrote about here recent experiences on her Real Estate Snippers blog:
Real Estate Snippets: Real Estate Advertising
Craig’s List and I duked it out this last week and I lost! My website has a wonderful system of sending the listing information I input to lots of different aggregators including Oodle, Trulia, Edgeio, Yahoo classifieds, and others. The very last step taken on my website listing input is to “manually” add my listing to Craig’s List and Backpage.com. Unbeknownst to me the consumes who use Craig’s List have the right to zap your listing if they don’t like it.
What’s interesting about this to me is that listings are basically getting bumped for being too professionally produced. Point2Agent, along with classifieds syndication companies like Vflyer, have taken the approach of producing higher production value listings using colorful templates, photos, and links to more information. Apparently, there are some in the Craigslist community who don’t see the benefit.
Are Craigslist users interested in searching ALL of the homes for sale in their city, or only homes listed with amateurish looking postings? If it’s the latter, I imagine Point2Agent will simply start providing more amateurish looking templates for agents to choose from.
Here’s a link to a Point2agent published to Craigslist, Minneapolis. I have no idea how long it will last. In case it goes down, it looks like this, and has links to Yahoo and Google Maps of the property below the fold:
Is that really what’s getting the Craigslist crowd worked up? It seems pretty benign to me.
It makes me wonder if this could actually be a case of agents flagging each other’s listings.
It’s hard to illustrate the significance of data by presenting it in table form. This is why we have graphs. However, graphs have their limitations too, since even accurately plotted data can fall short of the message a presenter is trying to get across to their audience.
Enter graph riding, where users traverse the graph’s data on a virtual roller coaster:
The above example, created by Speculative Bubble, takes a ride on a graph of inflation adjusted housing prices from 1890 to today to illustrate how prices have fluctuated over time.
via Ben’s Place
The following outline is from a seminar I conducted yesterday on Blogging for Real Estate to a group in Minneapolis, Minnesota. Blogging is a great marketing strategy for real estate since it allows agents to prove their expertise through market commentaries and neighborhood updates.
Prospective clients, local press, friendly competitors, and professionals from complementary industries who read your blog will generate new business, press mentions, and referrals for you over time, assuming your blog’s content portrays you as a credible professional and local expert.
Blogging:
- Conversational
- Time Stamped
- Categories
- Individual page for each entry
- Proves Expertise in the field
Benefits:
- Builds relationships with prospects
- And other agents
- And complementary professionals
- and keep in touch with current clients
Real Estate Blogs:
Other Benefits:
- Generates Press
- Generates more content for search engines
- Generates linkable content
How are blogs found:
- Found through Google
- Posts on other blogs (links)
- Blogrolls
How are blogs read:
- Direct
- Bookmarks
- RSS Readers - (Google Reader, Bloglines)
Next Steps:
- Create a Google Reader or Bloglines account
- Subscribe to a few blogs
- Comment on someone’s blog
Robbie Paplan posted an interesting article over on Rain City Guide last week proposing new fields in real estate MLS (Multiple Listing Service) systems that cover the interests of today’s home buyers. While it comes from a tech perspective, there are plenty of non-techies who would be just as interested in Paplan’s suggestions, including home based employees, consultants, and anyone else with a need for tech productivity from their home.
Here are three suggested by Paplan:
1. Broadband Internet Access: I wouldn’t consider buying a house without access to broadband today. Having the ability to filter out homes without access or noting the estimated date of broadband arrival would make my day.
2. Cell Phone Reception: Couldn’t agree more. I’ve been to friend’s houses right in the middle of Minneapolis where I can barely get a signal from Sprint. That makes the home unlivable from my perspective. Sure, I could switch to a different provider but where would that leave visiting friends?
3. Include Richer Media: Absolutely. Any form of communication that helps me learn about the property, from photos, to audio descriptions, to video helps me better understand the property and decide whether it’s worth investing time to visit. It also saves my agent time showing me properties I could have scrubbed from my list before visiting had I received more information about them.
Here are a few more I’d like to see:
1. Locations of nearby WiFi hotspots. Coffee shops, restaurants, libraries, etc. Anywhere I could hold a meeting with a laptop, or get out of the house for a while.
2. Locations of computer stores. How far to the nearest Best Buy, Apple Store, or MicroCenter?
3. Kinko’s Locations. Occasionally, I need to fax something or run a large print job, but not often enough to get carried away with a land line or fancy printer.
What other tech specs would you like to see in the MLS system?
I’ve previously written that real estate agents need to take more photos of their listings since photos play such a large role in telling the story of a property and save home buyers time.
My two theories on why we don’t see more photos of homes are:
1. Some agents are lazy
2. Some agents don’t think their client’s less-than-stellar homes will benefit from photos, which is ridiculous since buyers will obviously walk through the house before making an offer.
While it’s easy to blame the agents who are being paid to market homes on behalf of their clients, what happens when the agents are taken out of the marketing equation?
Enter Zillow’s new Make Me Move feature where home owners can create a listing for their own home with a “Make Me Move” price that they’ll supposedly take for their home if offered that price. In this situation, home owners are marketing their own properties. Do we see more photos when listings are in the hands of home owners?
Here is a map of a few Minneapolis and St. Paul, Minnesota neighborhoods. Minneapolis to the West of the Mississippi River and St. Paul to the East. This area has just over 1000 residential properties. Of those, twenty home owners have configured “Make Me Move” offers for their properties (blue flags). How many of the twenty properties have at least one photo of the property? Only two.
Eight home owners are using Zillow’s for sale by owner feature. Of those eight homes, four have photos.
While the sample size here is small, it makes sense that people more actively trying to sell their homes (for sale vs. make me move) are going to work a bit harder to create compelling listings.
Home owners appear to be just as lazy, if not more, than agents when it comes to taking property photos, which may explain why more agents don’t take photos of homes they represent: Home owners who won’t take pictures of their own properties probably don’t expect their agents to either.
How far has adoption of blogging and other conversational marketing tools come? Not nearly far enough based on my one industry: real estate. And here’s why:
I live in a neighborhood of Minneapolis, MN called Longfellow that has around 20,000 residents. Here is how real estate agents market themselves:
2. Advertise on billboards saying, “I know Longfellow” or a similar message.
3. Sending “Just Listed” and “Just Sold” cards to my home.
4. Sending calendars to my house.
5. Sending magnets to my house.
6. Sending flower seeds to my house.
7. Sending key chains to my house.
8. Sending events calendars to my house.
9. Email me about properties outside my price range or geography.
10. Advertise listings in a paper I don’t read.
Out of those ten marketing strategies, the only one that proves to me that they know something about my neighborhood is #3: just listed and just sold cards. This proves they’re actively working in the neighborhood.
Here’s none of them do:
2. Tell me about homes for sale and what makes them so special. It may help me understand what types of home improvements I could be making and inspire me to make them (which would lead to a larger commission for the agent when I sell).
3. Tell me about cool open houses. Is there a home with an awesome renovated kitchen? Tell me about it. I don’t care if it’s not your listing. This is the kind of thing that interests me and I’d appreciate hearing about.
4. Stats. tell me about how long homes are sitting on the market and in which price ranges. Help me set realistic expectations for when I get around to selling.
5. Pictures. supplement MLS listings with additional pictures of of homes you visit on your blog. Just because the listing agent does a crappy job listing a property doesn’t mean your potential customers should have to suffer.
6. Use video. Drive around the neighborhood and PROVE to me that you really know the area. Have someone ride shotgun and film you while you point out neighborhood features and landmarks, parks and schools. Hang out at the local coffee shop with the camera person and have them film you until someone recognizes you and interrupts to say hello. That’s the kind of thing that builds credibility and expertise.
An agent who follows those six steps can go from being an agent who works in Longfellow to “The Longfellow Real Estate Agent.”
The sad thing is, there probably already is an agent that’s the “The” agent in Longfellow, but based on their current marketing strategies, I just don’t know about them.
Resources cited during the Metro Brokers Technology Seminar
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