August 25, 2009
As reported on BuzzBuzzHome blog (weird name, great blog!), a new study shows that higher levels of ‘walkability’ are directly linked to higher home values.
The report, “Walking the Walk: How Walkability Raises Housing Values in U.S. Cities,” looked at 94,000 real-estate transactions in 15 markets across the U.S.
The report was commissioned by a group called CEO’s for Cities and uses the Walkscore web service that we have integrated within all of our UniqueHomeSites.
WalkScore allows you to view the ‘walkability’ of any known location, drawing in community points of interest from Google’s vast directory of local stores, restaurants, schools, parks, etc. to calculate a walking distance score.
You can even interact with Walkscore to improve the walkability of your listings.
To improve your listings’ Walk Score, you can easily add and delete amenities yourself.
1. From the local amenities link on your UniqueHomeSite click on the “bigger map” link in the top right corner of the Walkscore box.
2. On the right, above the list of amenities is a link titled “missing something“. Click on this and follow the instructions to add the missing amenity to Google maps.
For any point of interest, you only have to add it once. It will be available for all your future listings for that neighbourhood.
Its a great way to provide potential homebuyers with valuable information and perhaps fetch a higher price for your listings!
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Advertising, Canada, Google, Homebuying, Internet Marketing, Listings, Mapping, Marketing, Realtors, Single Property Websites, Virtual Tours, real estate marketing | 
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Posted by uniquehomesites
May 4, 2009
The folks over at 1000 Watt Consulting placed an interesting post on their blog the other day, which we believe hits the mark for real estate brokerages operating in today’s Internet age.
The post discusses 5 things that brokers should do to improve their marketing.
Here is a summary:
- Start thinking like a media company
Listings and Market Knowledge = Content… Start broadcasting them!
- Perform a vendor audit
Costs for things like bandwidth and online storage have dropped significantly in recent years, and new web-based applications are increasingly available at a fraction of the cost.
Have a look at new technologies and services and compare them to those offered by your existing vendors.
- User Testing
Conduct live user testing on your website to discover what they like and dislike.
Also, use free analytics software to analyze and track the performance of the content and design of your website.
- Perform a website makeover
Do some research and you will find that many of your competitors have poorly designed websites.
Stay ahead of the curve – Consider a redesign or cosmetic upgrade to your brokerage website.
- Differentiate!
Stay abreast of new applications or tools (i.e. Twitter, Facebook) and give consumers something to talk about!
Try to set yourself apart from the competition by offering something different.
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Advertising, Internet Marketing, Lead Generation, Marketing, Realtors, real estate marketing | 
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Posted by uniquehomesites
December 14, 2008
1 Comment | Advertising, Blogging, Brampton, Calgary, Canada, Edmonton, Internet Marketing, London, Montreal, Ottawa, Realtors, Toronto, Victoria, real estate marketing, web 2.0 | Tagged: wikipedia | Permalink
Posted by uniquehomesites
March 19, 2008
With many real estate agencies stuck in the Internet dark ages, it is refreshing to see how companies like Century 21 have enhanced their web presence with consumer-friendly initiatives.
Take Century21.ca, for example. Their website was recently recognized by Joel Burslem, founder of Future of Real Estate Marketing, as one of his favorite real estate search experiences on line today.
It includes a blog and an awesome new Google map search functionality, which displays the locations of their listings.
Meanwhile, Century21.com just launched its own YouTube channel. Aimed at sellers, buyers and enthusiasts, the Channel will provide the opportunity for customers and agents to create and submit user-generated content.
“The CENTURY 21 System understands that in order to serve our clients and meet the demands of today’s market, we must lead the industry with the most current home buying and selling platforms,” said Robert Schwartz , vice president of national marketing for Century 21 Real Estate LLC. “During the next year we will continue to build on this momentum with additional Web-based innovations to help our agents and our clients navigate the world of real estate in a digital era.”
At Base10, we promote the use of web 2.0 and thats why we have an integrated set of features in our UniqueHomeSites.com product, which allow Canadian real estate professionals to better serve consumers through compelling web content.
1 Comment | 
Advertising, Canada, Homebuying, Internet, Internet Marketing, Lead Generation, Mapping, Single Property Websites, Video, YouTube, real estate marketing, web 2.0 | 
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Posted by uniquehomesites
March 13, 2008
Joel Burslem, on his the Future of Real Estate Marketing blog, recently describes how Facebook does not allow real estate professionals to post their listings on its free marketplace.
However, Facebook does permit the display of listings on their pay-per-click Social Ad network.
Social ads are basically small advertisments that are visible to users as they browse Facebook to connect with their friends.
Each ad consists of a small photo, a brief text, and a hyperlink to more details – ideal for a property listing!
The good thing about a Social Ad is that you specify how much you want to pay when people click on your ad.
It also allows you to target Facebook users by age, gender, location, and interests, which means your ad will only be displayed to those most likely interested in what you are selling.
You could even try targetting your selling clients’ social network so that they (or their friends) will see their home on Facebook!
With Facebook, you can also build a customized ’Page’ for your business, where you can post photos, video, announcements, etc..
Benjamin Bach, a commentator from Kichener-Waterloo on the agentgenius.com blog, provides some advice to real estate professionals on how to enhance their social networks and generate more leads via Facebook.
He suggests building a profile with your target client or market in mind and warns of the negative impact a bad profile can have in today’s information age.
Bach explains, “There is one Broker / Manager of a real estate company here who currently has this up on his profile: “Dieter is a High School Stoner.””
Dieter could be the best agent in town, but would you really want to list with him if this was all you knew about him?
2 Comments | Advertising, Canada, Domain Names, Facebook, Homebuying, Internet, Internet Marketing, Lead Generation, Listings | Permalink
Posted by uniquehomesites
February 21, 2008
Lloyd Frink, president of Zillow.com, posted an interesting article on RISMedia.com, entitled ‘For Tech-Savvy Consumers, Real Estate Agents are Still the Experts’.
The article discusses the recent phenomenon of websites (including Zillow.com) offering consumers easy access to a wealth of information on local housing market conditions, neighbourhood information, and other homebuying tips.
This is a drastic change from the pre-Internet days when real estate agents were the gate-keepers of this type of information.
Should real estate professionals be concerned?
Not so, explains Mr. Frink:
“A recent study by the California Association of Realtors reported that home buyers who used the Internet as a significant portion of their home-buying experience spent an average of two weeks with a Realtor looking at homes, compared to those who did not use the Internet, who spent an average of seven weeks looking for their home.
The wealth of tools and information available online takes away a lot of the “hand holding” traditionally expected of real estate agents, which allows them to take on a higher volume of clients, and ultimately, make more money.”
In fact, single property websites from UniqueHomeSites.com offer Canadian real estate professionals the ability to harness the power of the Internet by automatically ‘pulling’ together relevant information from a variety of sources into a neatly packaged website, dedicated to a single listing.
With a UniqueHomeSite, consumers can browse everything related to a specific property, including photos, property descriptions, video, local schools, neighbourhood demographics, plus much more.
Not only do consumers benefit from the wealth of information available on the site, recipricol links back to the agents website makes it easy for them to make contact when they are ready to engage the agent to start a transaction.
2 Comments | Advertising, Canada, Internet, Internet Marketing, Lead Generation, Listings, Realtors, Single Listing Websites, Single Property Websites, Virtual Tours, real estate | Permalink
Posted by uniquehomesites
February 18, 2008
Real estate professionals who produce video for their property listings can now benefit from a FREE video podcasting service offered by TubeMogul.com.
For those who don’t know, a podcast is a collection of digital files which are distributed over the Internet, often using syndication feeds, for playback on portable media players and personal computers.
The TubeMogul web service provides its user with a single point for deploying uploads to the top video sharing sites such as YouTube.com, Google Video, and Yahoo Video.
TubeMogul’s analytic technology also aggregates video-viewing data from multiple sources to give publishers improved understanding of when, where and how often videos are watched to effectively measure the impact of their marketing campaigns.
According to a recent RISMedia.com article, video has moved online in a big way and it’s use can be a huge differentiator for real estate professionals, helping build trust among existing and future clientele, as well as create a strong brand impression.
“Video can make a big impact on your marketing program, and of course, the Internet is where the buyers are. A big advantage of video over fixed content is that video involves more of the senses; it sells you and your service using sight, sound and emotion. When you communicate with your prospects through more of their senses, they become more engaged, and therefore, more likely to understand your message.”
Another popular video podcasting service is available at MLBroadcast.com, which is designed specifically for real estate professionals.
Michael Price, Co-Founder and President of MLBroadcast.com, was quoted as saying;
“Our service was designed to help real estate professionals take advantage of syndication technologies to distribute their listings and community content. Video sharing sites have matured into syndication destinations that provide not only additional traffic, but vast improvements in the ability for listings to be found in organic searches.”
Leave a Comment » | Advertising, Canada, Google Video, Internet Marketing, Lead Generation, Listings, Photography, Podcasting, Realtors, Video, Virtual Tours, YouTube, real estate marketing, web 2.0 | Permalink
Posted by uniquehomesites
February 7, 2008
As further evidence that print advertising is not dead, real estate media company Homes & Land announced this week that it grew its magazine franchise division by 7.5 percent to 340 franchises in 2007.
While most agents will agree that placing their listings in these types of magazines likely won’t sell a home any faster, they will certainly agree that selling clients love to see their home showcased in high-gloss print.
Furthermore, prospective homebuyers (and the general population) love to browse through magazines like Homes and Land to see what’s on the market, which raises the profile of advertising agents within the community.
To help leverage their investment in print advertising, some of our clients have found that the unique domain names (i.e. www.123UniqueStreet.com) that come with our single property websites are a great way to ‘drive’ traffic to their presence on the web.
When readers see the easy-to-remember domain name, they are more likely to visit the property online, where they can access more photos, video, school information, and neighbourhood demographics.
Additional Homes and Lands franchises can now be found in Red Deer and central Alberta; Muskoka, Haliburton and Parry Sound, Ontario; London, St. Thomas and Woodstock, Ontario; Mississauga, Brampton and Caledon, Ontario; York Region, Ontario; Niagara Region, Ontario and Montreal to Mont-Tremblant, Quebec.
Leave a Comment » | Advertising, Brampton, Canada, Domain Names, Lead Generation, Listings, London, Montreal, News, Photography, Print Advertising, Realtors, Single Listing Websites, Single Property Websites, Toronto, real estate marketing | Permalink
Posted by uniquehomesites
The Internet quietly turned 40 years old last month, as Leonard Kleinrock and others at the University of California celebrated the first time they (or anyone) got computers to ’speak’ to one another.
We’ve discussed on this blog before about 
