Create Quality Content to become the Neighbourhood Expert

The legendary real estate blogger Teresa Boardman of Saint Paul, Minnesota gives us the goods on the power of content in developing community connections.

Posted on ‘The Real Estate Tomato – Juicy Blogging Advice for Realtors’ blog, Boardman highlights the multiplier effect that creating unique and interesting content can have on your business as a real estate professional.

We all know that measuring the actual return on investment for social networking is difficult, if not impossible.

However, anecdotal evidence from ‘veteran’ real estate bloggers, such as Ms. Boardman (4 years!), are a great motivator to get out there and own your niche!

New to real estate blogging? Check out the Saint Paul blog and do what they do….seriously.

Higher Levels of ‘Walkability’ Linked to Higher Home Values

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!

Reinforce your real estate expertise with free educational handouts from NAR

Real estate professionals looking for content to add to their marketing material should check out this comprehensive list of informative handouts for buyers and sellers, courtesy of the National Association of Realtors).

According to the NAR website, anyone is free to print copies of the handouts or customize them with their own branding. These handouts are perfect for newsletters, Web sites, and promotional kits.

For Canadian real estate professionals, keep in mind that the information is from an American perspective and may need to be modified slightly to reflect the Canadian marketplace.

Nonetheless, this is a great resource!

If you are a Canadian realtor in need of a website for your business, give us a call or email and ask about our UniqueHomeSites website product and services.

1-866-9UNIQUE or sales@uniquehomesites.com

Get Ready for Homeownership
10 Ways to Prepare for Homeownership
5 Common First-Time Home Buyer Mistakes
Why You Should Work With a REALTOR®
Questions to Ask When Choosing a REALTOR®
7 Reasons to Own Your Home
Tax Benefits of Homeownership
Take the Stress Out of Homebuying

Finance Your Home
Specialty Mortgages: Risks and Rewards
Loan Types to Consider
6 Creative Ways to Afford a Home
Lender Checklist: What You Need for a Mortgage
Get Your Finances in Order: To-Do List
Budget Basics Worksheet
What You Can Do to Improve Your Credit
5 Factors That Decide Your Credit Score
How Big of a Mortgage Can I Afford?

Buyers: Find the Right Property
8 Tips to Guide for Your Home Search
How High Tech is Your Home?
5 Property Tax Questions You Need to Ask
10 Questions to Ask the Condo Board
Your Property Wish List
Tips for Finding the Perfect Neighborhood
Tips for Buying in a Tight Market
Pros and Cons of Going Condo
10 Questions to Ask Home Inspectors
What a Home Inspection Should Cover

Buyers: Prepare for Closing and Beyond
5 Things to Know About Homeowner’s Insurance
Tips for Lowering Homeowner’s Insurance Costs
5 Things to Know About Title Insurance
What’s a Home Warranty?
What Not to Overlook on a Final Walk-through
Common Closing Costs for Buyers
Moving With Pets
Closing Documents You Should Keep
17 Tips for Packing Like a Pro

Sellers: Before You Sell
Does Moving Up Make Sense?
8 Reasons Why You Should Work With a REALTOR®
12 Questions to Ask When Choosing Your REALTOR®
5 Things to do Before Putting Your Home on the Market
Understand Agency Relationships
What is Appraised Value?

Sellers: Get Ready for Showings
Simple Tips for Better Home Showings
How to Improve the Odds of an Offer
How to Hold a Successful Garage Sale
Prepare Your Home for a Virtual Tour
Low-Cost Ways to Spruce Up Your Home’s Exterior
12 Tips for Hiring a Remodeling Contractor
5 Feng Shui Concepts to Help a Home Sell

Sellers: Prepare for Closing and Beyond
Understanding Capital Gains in Real Estate
What to Leave for the New Owners
10 Tips for Moving With Pets
Moving Checklist for Sellers
Forms You’ll Need to Sell Your Home
Checklist: 17 Service Providers You’ll Need When You Sell
Open House Safety Tips
How to Prepare for the Open House
Is Your Buyer Qualified?
Tips for Pricing Your Home

Sears Canada Launches ‘Certified Agent’ benefits

According to a press release last week from Sears Canada, the company has launched a Certified Real Estate Services program in the Greater Toronto Area.

Certification allows qualified sales agents to provide their buying and/or selling customers with 0.6% of the home’s selling price in Sears gift cards.

For example, a $250,000 sale price will get the home buyer or seller a $1,500 Sear gift card.

Sears Certified Agents are from leading brokerages, and are thoroughly reviewed for their sales abilities, licensing and professional achievements. They possess at least three years experience, and are knowledgeable and dedicated in the complete real estate process including: listing, home searches, negotiations and closing.

Currently servicing the GTA bordered by Oakville, Newmarket and Oshawa, they have expertise in their markets and know property values for the area, understanding unique benefits and issues of their communities.”

We’re not exactly sure how one becomes a certified agent. However, the services is operated by QV Realty Inc. in Toronto:

Phone:       647.728.4817

Toll-Free:     1.877.SEARS.51

Web:         www.searsrealestate.ca

Email:       contact@qvcanada.com

Web forms as Lead Generators

In this month’s edition of Michael Russer’s ‘Ask Mr. Internet‘ column in the National Association of Realtor’s online magazine, he discusses how to generate leads from your web forms.

In fact, this is not the first time he has discussed the value of web forms in generating leads.

Back in August of 2007, he wrote an article entitled ‘Make an Offer They Can’t Refuse’, which offered techniques to get prospects to interact with your Web site by crafting appealing incentives that will set you apart from the competition.

To get consumers’ attention nowadays you need to step it up with an “irresistible offer” — the term I use for a special package, piece of information, document, or item that will be viewed as extremely valuable by your customers.

Examples of an irrestistable offer include:

• Local real estate market report
• Free home price evaluation (i.e. What’s my home worth?)
• Neighborhood discount coupon book
• First-time buyer teleseminar

This month, he offers three strategies to help get your web visitors to interact with you. 

The forms on your Web site shouldn’t be an intimidating barrier to having online consumers engage with you. Instead, make them your welcome mat, a friendly inviting threshold that will help turn casual visitors into serious clients.

Strategy 1: Tell them they don’t have to complete it.

Strategy 2: Reassure them of their privacy

Strategy 3: Give them visual cues to complete your form fields 

Century 21 reaches out to Consumers with Web 2.0

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.

Facebook Marketing for Real Estate Professionals

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?
 

Real Estate Agencies in Canada Need a Competitive Edge in 2008

In a recent poll conducted by Royal Bank of Canada, home buying intentions among Canadian consumers have slipped to their lowest level in years, as reported on GlobeandMail.com.

Across Canada, home buying intentions slipped by 5 percentage points year over year to 23 per cent, according to the Ipsos Reid poll. The number of respondents who said they were “very likely” to buy dropped from 9 per cent last year to 7 per cent in 2008, the lowest level since the poll was started 15 years ago.

When asked how likely they are to purchase a home within the next two years, here is how Canadian’s responded:

Very likely: 7%

Somewhat likely: 16%

Not very likely: 28%

Not likely at all: 49%

Total vote: 3,022

With fewer home buyers, sales representatives will not only have greater difficulties in selling their existing listings in 2008, but there will also be greater competition among agents for new listings as people stay put in their homes.

At Base 10 Web Solutions, we offer real estate sales representative in Canada a ‘unique’ way to stay competitive with our single property website solution – www.UniqueHomeSites.com. Our web-based site building wizard simplifies the process of building a professional-looking website within minutes.

Not only do single property websites tell clients that selling their home is a priority, they are packed with useful information for consumers, including photos, video, maps, a school locator, neighbourhood demographics, as well as an easy-to-remember domain name.    

Recent Survey Profiles Canadian First-Time Homebuyers

A recent report by Genworth Financial profiles the first-time homebuyers market in Canada using results from a survey it conducted in December 2007 among 963 Canadians who recently purchased their first home, or were intending to do so.

Here are some highlights:

• Canadian first-time home buyers remain confident in the stability of the housing market and are not overly concerned about the potential for declining home values.
• The top concerns identified by respondents are high monthly payments (63%), rising interest rates (59%) and increasing property taxes (56%).
• 68% of first-time buyers would prefer a newer home, and 65% want a modern, open floor plan
• Roughly half of respondents (52%) sought 5-year mortgage terms, with almost one-quarter (23%) preferring terms of seven years or more.
• Roughly 48% of respondents were very likely to use the Internet to research the homebuying process or to search for the neighbourhood that meets their needs and lifestyle

For complete details, check out the Genworth Financial Canada website or click here to access the report directly.