Go Beyond MLS » Real Estate

In The Spotlight: Josh Dorkin and BiggerPockets.com

Vlad Zablotskyy — Sat, 20 Nov 2010 16:39:04 +0000

I am not a real estate investor. I managed only to last as a real estate agent for about 3 or months back in 2005. But you do not need to bee a real estate investor or real estate professional to know about BiggerPockets – an online community of real estate investors. All you need is a slight interest in real estate investment and Google. Chances are that if you have ever researched something related to real estate investing, you have stumbled across BiggerPockets.com.

I am always fascinated by a good website but more so by its founder(s). Every time I visit one, I immediately start to research who was behind it. So was the case with BiggerPockets a few years back. As soon as I visited the website for the first time I wanted to know who was behind it. It is extremely inspiring to learn from people like Josh Dorkin, the founder of BiggerPockets.com.

Josh started the the website in 2004 and today BiggerPockets is an extremely vibrant community of real estate investors with over 60,000 active members.

If you are like me, wondering why did Josh start such a website, watch the video bellow:

In addition to being a great learning place for beginner investors BiggerPockets features hundreds investment properties.

And here is another short video in which Josh tells you how you can benefit from being a part of BiggerPockets- the community of real estate investors:

I am not sure if I ever venture into real estate investing myself. If I do, BiggerPockets will be the first place I will turn to and not the “real-estate-”gurus”-who-sell-their-books-on-TV”. BiggerPockets is a community of real investors many of whom are more experienced and more successful that any given “guru” you see selling their books on TV.

I understand that Josh is planing to make plenty of new videos for BiggerPockets- so I might be posting few of those in the future.

Now go and explore this wonderful resource of real estate investing!Similar Posts:

The Basics Again: USP

Matt — Tue, 18 May 2010 15:23:22 +0000

I’d like to kick off what I hope will be a short series on the basics of selling anything at all. Of course this applies to selling real estate but it equally applies to selling cakes, CDs or cars.

I am going to start with USP – Unique Selling Point. Now if you know even 1% of what you need to succeed online this should be like teaching grandmother how to suck eggs. However, we all, even me, need to be reminded of the basics.

What is it about the real estate (or necklaces, watches, computer cases or greeting cards) that you are promoting that no one else offers? Why would Mr Joe Public choose you over the other six or seven thousand people in the country offering the same or similar services?

If you don’t know the answer to this question then your business in in trouble.

Let me illustrate this with a story of real estate in the UK. In a small corner of the UK there are three towns. The area they are in has about 120,000 people in it. One real estate agency that has been doing very well opened a branch less than five miles away in a second of the towns. It did not do very well.

Why?

Well, for starters they did not advertise the business but also they offered the same commission rate as everyone else. They did offer a slightly more comprehensive service than many competitors but without something exciting to cause word of this service to be spread the slightly better service was a well kept secret.

So what did they do?

They dropped the commission rate to make it the lowest in the town, they started to offer not just a better set of reports but a guarantee of specific actions at no cost if the property fails to sell within a time period,. They did not tie people into an exclusive contract and they offered free professional photo shoots. All that in a down turn economy.

What they did was change the USP so no the question is not why would Joe Public use this agency but why would Joe Public want to use any other agency.

When the economy is grey then a USP that is a shade of grey different tot he next guys does not stand out.

What will you offer to make your services stand out?

It does not need to be the lowest price (although if you can afford to compete like that good luck to you). Offer the customer more bang for his or her buck and suddenly you have a reason to be chosen.

Stand out. Go further. Be seen.Similar Posts:

Real Bird Introduces New Feature: RealBird Virtual Tour

Vlad Zablotskyy — Tue, 19 Aug 2008 19:48:18 +0000

The RealBird Blog just announced new feature called RealBird Virtual Tour. I have written in the pas about RealBirds nifty widget that allows real estate agents create a “mini-showcase” of their listings while offering an opportunity for viral marketing, and allowing bloggers or any webmasters to grab the code and feature the listings on their websites or blogs.

The new feature ads Google Maps Street view to the lower par of the widget and comes at $9.99 per listing or $14.99 when purchased with a property domain name:

The Google Maps of this version is unique in itself as it offers map view, satellite view, hybrid view, terrain view as well as Google Earth.

Just taking a look at few of the featured listings, they need to be more optimized. The images are downloading rather slow even though I have a cable connection. The slow load may be caused by the scripts as well.

Overall it is a nice addition to their product. The “branded virtual tours” offer users an opportunity to share the tours on variety of social networking websites as well as easy way to publish information to their blogs. Personally I would prefer to grab the code via “copy and paste” as it was the case with their former widget, since I do not like to give away the user name and the password to my blog.

Hope to hear from some of my readers what they think about this new feature.Similar Posts:

Guest Blogging On Go Beyond MLS

Vlad Zablotskyy — Wed, 09 Jul 2008 14:51:54 +0000

photo credit: TankiJust a few days ago I have welcomed first guest blog post on Go Beyond MLS. I have been asking in private few of my colleagues bloggers to contribute to this blog at their spare time, but today I open my invitation to all my readers.

There are a few conflicting opinions about guest blogging in general. And it may not be something every one should consider. I will write about my stand on quest blogging at a later time. If you think you can benefit from a guest post on my blog please contact me through the contact form on About Page.

Every guest post on this blog will be formated in a similar way as was Wayne Harriman’s post. You are completely free to choose the subject of your post as long as it is related to real estate or real estate marketing. Ans yes, you are most welcomed to write about your listings and link to them from your guest posts.Similar Posts:

Things That Really P*** Me Off

Vlad Zablotskyy — Thu, 03 Jul 2008 16:25:25 +0000

Vlad has generously allowed me to contribute to his blog, and I thank him for the opportunity. I’ve been in a really foul mood lately, and I’m gonna tell you why. Other than Vlad’s ongoing troubles, I really get annoyed by some things I’ve encountered in my short time as a Realtor®. Some of them occur often, others not so much, but they all qualify as PITA’s. Here’s the “short list”:

I am annoyed by…

…agents who purport to be the best thing since sliced bread, but can’t be bothered to confirm my showing requests. Come on people, your client wants to sell their house, don’t they? You want to sell your client’s house don’t you? Then how’s about calling me back to confirm a damn showing before the listing expires, OK? And don’t make me drive 100 miles out of my way to pick up the damn keys. Use a frakkin lockbox or meet me at the property. It’s literally the least you can do.
...agents who can’t take a picture if their life depended on it, but slap any old pic up on the MLS and call it good. Oh my God, leave that awful picture of the basement being used as a trash dump on the flash card and take a real picture, if you don’t mind. No shirtless relatives, no pets puking on the floor, no kitchens with sinks full of unwashed dishes, no front yards full of toys, trash cans or junk cars, OK? Can you handle that? Good.
...agents who, even though their listing has been up for a month or longer, can’t be bothered to even take a picture of it, let alone a bad one. Can you take a picture? Do you even have a camera? No? Borrow one, or better yet, buy one. Get your teenage son to take the pictures if you can’t. Or ask Athol Kay to take them for you. You can’t get much better than that.
…agents who take it upon themselves to speak for their clients when you present an offer. Please, DO NOT tell me that your client will not accept my full price, cash offer. DO NOT tell me that they won’t fix an inspection issue or grant an extension. Present the offer! Ask them if they’ll fix the problem or grant an extension. DO YOUR JOB!
…agents who place ads in the paper for a listing, but the picture accompanying the ad is of the agent, not the house. What are you trying to sell, a house or you?? Get your ugly mug outta the ad and show the house, will ya? That’s what buyers want to see!
...agents who, the closer to closing you get, make themselves as hard to contact as possible. After 10 voicemails, 16 emails and a dozen notes sent by carrier pigeon, do you think you could call me to set up a walk-through?? HUH??
…agents who “buy” listings. The house has no curb appeal, it’s outdated, the seller wants to price it so far above market value that The Donald himself wouldn’t touch it. Your mouth makes promises your performance can’t keep, but you’ve baffled the seller with enough BS to fertilize the Sahara. Puh-lease. If you can’t be honest with the seller and tell him his house will never sell at that price and in that condition, at least be true to yourself and have the decency to pass. Or are you really that hard up for business?
…agents who get emotionally involved in the transaction. OMG, don’t get me started. The next time you call me and yell at me so loud the phone cracks, you call me names and tell me what a jerk you think I am because I told you the truth, you and I are gonna throw down. After I’ve had a cool, calm and collected conversation with your broker…
…agents who expect you to do all the work, theirs included. Um, you want me to what? Set up your inspection for you? Contact a lender to see if they’ll pre-approve your client? Get your client’s signature on a contract because they live closer to me?? Pay for your client’s credit check?? Let an appraiser into your listing because you’re on vacation?? Show your client my listing because you’re at your real job?? Why sure, anything else? Shine your shoes? Wash the car? I’ll do anything…just sign over that commission check to ME on closing day. (And we have done some pretty strange things, because if we didn’t the deal would have fallen apart.)
…agents who think asking my clients questions is OK. You’re asking MY clients why they’re selling? How much of a down payment they can make? Even if they’ve considered using another agent?? In FRONT of me??? Are you NUTS??
…agents who delay putting their listings in the MLS so they can try to sell it themselves first. You know who you are. You take that primo listing because you know the perfect buyer for it, so you sort of forget to enter the listing in the MLS and call them to come see it TONIGHT. No sense in letting any other agents horn in on YOUR commission, right?
…agents who use professional sounding email addresses like, realtor4U@aol.com. Like that has an air of professionalism about it. More like an air of cheapness and laziness, because you can’t be bothered to buy a $10 domain, set up a decent web site and actually use it for your email address. Even johndoe@johndoe.com would be better than your Mickey Mouse address. Sorry, Mickey.
…agents who whine about having no business instead of trying to make business. You know who you are, too. The ones who sit at the office and play Solitaire all day or chit chat with the other whiners. The ones who always watch as we put together deal after deal and then have the audacity to say, “You’re so lucky that so much business falls in your lap. I wish I was as lucky as you are.” The ones who never volunteer for floor time or open houses, have no SOI, never prospect, never do any of the things that would make business for you. No, you’d rather wait for something to “fall in your lap.” Well, good luck. In this case, it’s NOT better to be lucky than good.
…agents who send me flyers about their listings, even though they’re 1000 miles away. I swear these guys have access to the entire NAR email database and they’re not afraid to abuse it. Sorry guys, I do not have any clients chomping at the bit to buy a million dollar condo on the beach, or a 50 acre horse farm in the Rockies, or the Georgian mansion on the 18th green of the golf course. Nor am I myself interested in any of those properties. All you’re doing, as this entire post implies, is pissing me off! I unsubscribe but it does NO GOOD! What do I have to do to make you understand, I don’t want your “spamarketing”, so STOP IT!

Ok. There you have it. Are these legitimate beefs? To me, yes. Are they petty? Maybe. I could have added a few more, but I’ve already hijacked Vlad’s blog long enough. Maybe there are some that I forgot that really get under your skin. If so, drop in a comment and vent. You’ll feel much better. Oh, and before I forget, there are a few things that clients do that annoy me, too. But that’s another post…

Similar Posts:

AgentRank- Keep Your Clients Happy To Rank High!

Vlad Zablotskyy — Thu, 01 May 2008 16:24:49 +0000

AgentRank is attempting to rank real estate agents based on professional experience, home sales, endorsement from former clients and other variables.

The founders of the AgentRank are very clear that rankings can not be manipulated and if you want to rank well in their system all you need to do is to sell homes and keep your clients happy. One of the factors that will affect agent’s rankings is based on whether or not the agent publishes a blog. Hopefully it will encourage agents using the system to start their own blog.

Out of curiosity I used the system to search for the real estate agents in my area. I found 7 agents, whose rank varied from 8 to 1. I presuming that 10 is the most an agent can be ranked at.

While I did not find any familiar faces, few things about AgentRank system jumped at me. While claiming to rank real estate agents based on endorsements from former clients, there is no mechanism for that if you would like to endorse an agent you worked with in the past. Since some of the agents do have endorsements at AgentRank, it leaves me to think that these endorsements are completely under control of individual agents.

While one agent on the list is in the real estate for 230 years- a clear advantage as far as rankings are concerned based on professional experience.

To provide unbiased ranking can be a difficult task. I learning that from my attempt of ranking real estate blogs. So I am sure AgentRank is working hard to improve their website and it’s features.

At the end of the day you have nothing to loose when you decide to join AgentRank. The membership is free and you will get some extra exposure and a link to your blog. You can also follow AgentRank Blog for further news and developments. Feel free to come back and share your experience with AgentRank.Similar Posts:

New Website Claims To Bring Real Estate Industry Into 21st Century

Vlad Zablotskyy — Wed, 16 Apr 2008 21:33:31 +0000

BidEup, a newly launched website, claims to bring innovation to real estate industry, through “patent-pending methodology” (or did they mean technology?). Only real estate agents are welcomed to list properties on the website- at a minimum rate of $120 per 30 day listing. If you would like to list your property with all possible bells and whistles, it will set you back by about $300.

The innovation apparently lies in, as claimed by the website, being “first legally binding virtual market place”. However it is not clear what exactly this “legally binding virtual marketplace” is.

It may very well be that bidEup.com has some outstanding marketing plan in place. However, from a quick glimpse it looks like another “lead generating” website.Similar Posts:

New Jersey Association of Realtors: No To Rebates

Vlad Zablotskyy — Wed, 16 Apr 2008 20:25:34 +0000

Is New Jersey Association of Realtors behind the times? Or is trying to protect both customers and real estate agents? The Inman News had a story today about possible legislation by the New Jersey Real Estate Commission:

The New Jersey Association of Realtors is opposing legislation that would allow real estate brokers and agents to provide cash rebates or other gifts to buyers and sellers.
Members of the state’s Real Estate Commission, a regulatory agency that enforces licensing law in the state, has considered the legislation but hasn’t yet announced a position….
….While officials at the U.S. Department of Justice’s Antitrust Division have taken action to oppose bans on rebates in several states, New Jersey Association of Realtors officials contend that the offer of rebates can actually be harmful to consumers.

As of now, cash rebates by real estate brokers is against the law in NJ. But New Jersey is not the only state prohibiting cash rebates. There are 10 other states that do not allow real estate brokers to offer cash rebates to customers.Similar Posts:

Real Estate Blogs Top 100

Vlad Zablotskyy — Thu, 14 Feb 2008 05:34:12 +0000

UPDATE: Click here for the “up to date” version of the “top 100 Real Estate Blogs”.
The idea to compile such a list was born a few months ago. Just as other similar top lists where appearing. After talking to Mark from 45n5- who is an outstanding programmer and internet marketer, a decision was made to bring the idea to fruition. Mark was in charge of programing the list, while my job was to find the blogs to be placed in the list- an easy job I should say for a former real estate agent.

So I present you today with GeerRealtors Top 100 Real Estate Blogs. It is a must bookmark page for many reasons. Not only will you be able to see who is who among real estate bloggers. You can also see the latest posts from the blogs featured on the list. If you are on the list this will give you an opportunity to see how your blog compares to your colleagues and/or competitors. Visit those blogs and see what are they doing that makes them more popular than yours.

If you visit the list, you will notice that there are actually more than 100 blogs.This means that you also can submit your blog, and then work your way to the top. If I have missed your blog feel free to submit your blog, and depending to the rankings elsewhere (Google Page Rank, Alexa Rankings, Technorati Rank) you may very well end up in the top 100. If not, you have some work to do.

The list will be updated once a week, so if you see N/A next to your blog, it means it was added after the last update. Just bookmark the Top 100 Real Estate Blogs and come to look at it one week from now. Finally I hope the list itself will bring you a visitor or two.

And now, without further ado, I present you with the first edition of Top 100 Real Estate Blogs:

Real Estate Blogs Top 100

GR Rank*	Blog Name
1	Apartment Therapy	4	461	20724
2	Curbed	5	2749	32155
3	Inman News Blog	6	12130	34870
4	Brownstoner	6	8447	137136
5	Lansner on Real Estate	5	42090	52158
6	Zillow® Blog	6	17501	148023
7	Future of Real Estate Marketing	3	11756	80208
8	BiggerPockets Blog	3	29692	42467
9	Realtor Blogging Service	5	39041	101093
10	Dr. Housing Bubble	5	34802	118248
11	Sellsius Real Estate Blog	3	11591	94468
12	Nubricks	6	33456	198039
13	Rain City Guide	5	13963	215255
14	The Real Estate Tomato	5	13165	260972
15	Housing Panic	3	18779	150367
16	Agent Genius	4	28253	243589
17	Trulia Blog	5	53658	302100
18	The Real Estate Bloggers	3	23628	221092
19	Overseas Property Blog	5	137774	159636
20	Condo Blog	5	129395	272191
21	Mortgage Fraud Blog	5	72941	418080
22	HisMove	4	103170	241729
23	Miami Condo Investments	4	112625	250963
24	360Digest	5	62410	505650
25	Consumer Mortgage Reports	4	82932	348748
26	Charles and Hudson	5	81766	515494
27	LAS VEGAS REAL ESTATE	4	124139	292310
28	YoChicago	5	57124	618539
29	Piggington Econo-Almanac	3	92012	316173
30	Real Central VA	5	41092	803329
31	Altos Research Real Estate Insights	4	189138	311768
32	Luxury Home Digest	4	110648	492205
33	Technology for Real Estate	4	50119	633386
34	Ubertor Real Estate Blog	4	170597	377857
35	Carnival of Real Estate	4	71974	656356
36	EWM Realtors	4	211248	344229
37	True Gotham	5	103170	810330
38	Bubble Meter	5	162356	683259
39	Mike’s Corner	4	78235	700319
40	New Condos Online	4	360865	56421
41	The Real Estate Zebra	4	59623	786853
42	Sacramento Real Estate Voice	4	129395	727335
43	BlueRoof	4	119246	847456
44	Real Estate Sizzle	4	129395	894749
45	Realty Blogging	4	179530	797181
46	Pine Needle Lawn	5	415686	672779
47	Realty Thoughts	4	140824	990254
48	Arizona Real Estate Notebook	4	166367	952243
49	Triple Mint	5	297907	1532776
50	miOaklandCounty.com	3	89301	1420123
51	Naples Real Estate Blog	3	629416	256388
52	Pittsburgh Homes Daily	5	87977	2672551
53	St Louis Real Estate Voice	4	179530	2252476
54	Texas Realty Blog	3	317977	1530995
55	Real Estate Cafe Weblog	4	517455	2528654
56	BlogArizona.com	4	437475	3061824
57	Go Beyond MLS	2	731678	419104
58	Blue Collar Agents	3	395824	2246269
59	PropertyMaps Corporate Blog	4	1644723	463262
60	Lake Martin Voice	4	437475	3419729
61	Minneapolis Real Estate Blog	3	331293	2597171
62	nyc BLOG estate	3	587893	3043864
63	Property Monger	4	674367	4536111
64	Cobb Real Estate Blog	3	1212405	2617730
65	Edmonton Real Estate Blog	3	2124856	4493571
66	Fliperati	3	1948248	5043858
67	The Silver Bee	4	795643	11709774
68	Vancouver Real Estate Blog	N/A	N/A	N/A
69	Laguna Niguel Real Estate Blog	N/A	N/A	N/A
70	Thoughts about Real Estate	N/A	N/A	N/A
71	The Trump Blog	N/A	N/A	N/A
72	Connecticut Real Estate Blog	N/A	N/A	N/A
73	The Silver Fern	N/A	N/A	N/A
74	Calgary Real Estate Market Blog	N/A	N/A	N/A
75	Dothan Home Search	N/A	N/A	N/A
76	Tucson Real Estate In The News	N/A	N/A	N/A
77	Tampa Florida Real Estate Blog	N/A	N/A	N/A
78	Toronto Real Estate Blog	N/A	N/A	N/A
79	Ian Marshall	N/A	N/A	N/A
80	Long Beach Real Estate	N/A	N/A	N/A
81	Atlanta Intown Lofts	N/A	N/A	N/A
82	Smyrna Vinings	N/A	N/A	N/A
83	South Beach Condo Blog	N/A	N/A	N/A
84	St. Paul Real Estate	N/A	N/A	N/A
85	The Phoenix Real Estate Guy	N/A	N/A	N/A
86	ProHabber	N/A	N/A	N/A
87	Kuna Real Estate	N/A	N/A	N/A
88	Real Life Real Estate	N/A	N/A	N/A
89	Housing Doom	N/A	N/A	N/A
90	Blown Mortgage	N/A	N/A	N/A
91	RealEstateFacts.org	N/A	N/A	N/A
92	The Real Estate Post	N/A	N/A	N/A
93	House Hunting 101	N/A	N/A	N/A
94	Wilmington NC Real Estate Blog	N/A	N/A	N/A
95	ExpertRealEstateTalk.com	N/A	N/A	N/A
96	Arcadia Housing Blog	N/A	N/A	N/A
97	Outer Banks Real Estate	3	N/A	4213042
98	Reese’s Pieces of Real Estate	4	N/A	N/A
99	LendingClarity.com	4	N/A	4293234
100	Appraisal Scoop	4	N/A	771018
Almost
101	The Real Deal	6	N/A	552922
102	Housing Bubble Casualty	4	N/A	1644324
103	Matrix	7	N/A	545538
104	The Housing Bubble	3	N/A	88748

* GeekReltors RankSimilar Posts:

Poll: Hourly Realtor Fee Agreement?

Vlad Zablotskyy — Mon, 28 Jan 2008 21:09:50 +0000

Most of the real estate agents in the United States work for a commission- which means they do not get paid unless a property is sold. This of course can translate in endless hours of showing properties to clients who are not serious in purchasing a house. The work that real estate agents perform, in other industries can translate into $100 per hour or more. How do you think real estate industry would look if there was some sort of “hourly fee agreement” for using your services? People have no problem paying their doctors, accountants, lawyers and other professionals hourly fee. Why is real estate different?

I personally think an hourly fee agreement would accomplish two very important things:

It would change the attitude of clients. People tend to value more the services they pay for.
It would filter out serious buyers or sellers from those who are “just shopping around”.

What do you think? Feel free to leave comments as well as participating in the poll:

[poll=5]

If you are not an real estate agent, you are welcomed to participate in the above poll as well. It would be great to know your feedback.

Similar Posts:

PPC In Real Estate: You May Be Wasting Your Money

Vlad Zablotskyy — Thu, 13 Dec 2007 07:01:28 +0000

Pay per click advertising for real estate website may be the quickest way to bring visitors. It also maybe the quickest way to loose money. Bidding on keywords in real estate can be very competitive and may cost you $20 or more . If you think you are spending way to much money on the pay per click campaigns, this article may just give you some useful tips.

One of the major reason why the prices for particular keywords are so high has nothing to do with the actual “demand” for that keyword. Rather it has to do with website design itself. If we were to look what kind of websites occupying top positions for some of the most desirable keywords in the Google sponsored search results, you may notice that many of those websites are designed in flash. It is hard to imagine that such a website can pass Google’s scrutiny when it comes to the “landing page” quality.

Whenever you start a pay per click campaign, Google releases a bot that checks your page. As part of of that check up Google looks whether or not your lading page contains the keywords on which you are about to bid.

If you are a real estate agent or broker and have outsourced the maintenance of your website to some one, ask them if your website is created in flash or if there is extensive use of java-scripts in your website. If the answer is yes, you probably need to look for some one else to manage your website.

Another obstacle that you as advertiser can face is that in real estate transaction do not take place right on your website. Therefore there is no simple way to calculate your ROI (return on investment). If you have to way to capture your visitors by offering the a sign up for your newsletter.

Well, you might say, I am not sending any newsletters via e-mail. If it is true you maybe giving away leads to some one else. Most Realtors get into a habit of sending out quarterly or monthly newsletters. It is not so difficult these days to turn those newsletters into a format deliverable via e-mail. If you think that is a good idea, then you should incorporate some sort of sign up form on your website, and even place that form on every single landing page that you are driving traffic to via pay per click campaigns.

However managing big e-mail lists can be a task on its own, but that is a subject for another post.

Some times paying a higher price for the keywords is a “necessary evil” and there may not be a way around it. However if you pay the price without attempting to capture your visitors, you indeed maybe spending your money foolishly.Similar Posts:

Which Listings Do You Sell?

Vlad Zablotskyy — Thu, 18 Oct 2007 15:42:32 +0000

This is a second post in, what I envision to be, a series of posts and articles on real estate and internet marking. I did not expect to have any reaction to my write up about pay per click advertising. To my surprise I received one request from a read who would like to stay anonymous, to take a look at his PPC campaigns and to offer some suggestion. I agreed under condition to use my findings in my upcoming posts here and the trade off was that I will not reveal his name. All that I am allowed to say is that he is a real estate agent from Philadelphia.

For someone that is not in the online marketing business he has done an outstanding job with his PPC campaigns. However there was something about his landing pages which immediately caught my eye. I think it will strike home with many other Realtors who are currently running PPC campaigns – but unfortunately that will be the subject of my next post.

For now I would like to ask you this question- Which listings do you generally sell? Let me explain this a little further. Lets presume you have are on the floor and a call comes through about a particular listing. Do you always sell that same listing to that same person? Just use the poll below to answer this question and do not forget to subscribe to my blog for the future posts:

[poll=4]

Similar Posts:

Your Website Is Useless If It Has No Visitors: PPC Advertising and Real Estate

Vlad Zablotskyy — Thu, 11 Oct 2007 16:15:11 +0000

To make sure that this article is not overwhelmingly long, I am making few assumptions. However I do not want you to get intimidated by what I am writing and would hope to hear from you in the comment area if you need me to clarify anything about this article. Here are my assumptions:

You have your own website and not just you profile along with other 100+ real estate agents in your company.
You have at least heard what Pay Per Click (PPC from now on) Advertising is.

As an owner of a real estate website, or any website for that matter, you already know that just by having a website out there does not mean your website will be visited by potential buyers or sellers. Any webmaster will tell you that it takes time to build up your website’s reputation and authority on the internet in order for it to come up on the top in search results across major search engines. Some times it takes weeks or even months to see any decent “traffic” to your website. But in real estate sometimes weeks and months means “unsold listing”. So how do you bring visitors to your website? One of the fastest ways to bring visitors to your website is through PPC advertising. Today there are variety of products and system available to run a successful PPC campaign, and I will write about those in the future posts. Today I will just discuss the advantages and disadvantages of PPC, specifically when it comes to real estate websites.

Disadvantages Of PPC Advertising in Real Estate

One of the biggest disadvantage of running a successful PPC campaign for a real estate website is that real estate website are what is know as e-commerce websites, thus making it more difficult to calculate your ROI (return on investment) . You do not have a shopping chart on your website, even if you do it is unlikely to be used to purchase a piece of lend or a condo. When running a PPC campaign on any given system you should be able to have level a reporting that would show your visitor’s behavior from the moment they enter your website to the time they complete an order and are served a “thank you page”. Knowing how much you paid for that click that brought this buyer to your website and knowing what products were purchased you can very easy calculate your ROI. But as I mentioned already, real estate websites generally do not have shopping charts and even if in the future it will be possible to complete a real estate transaction online, we are not anywhere close to that time. There is a way to calculate ROI even on the websites without a shopping chart but it will be covered in one of my future posts.

When it comes to disadvantages what I have described above real is the only disadvantage when it comes to PPC advertising and real estate website, or any non e-commerce websites for that matter. However I was hesitant to even list it as a disadvantage, because if you know how to confront it- it becomes an advantage.

Advantages Of PPC Advertising in Real Estate

There are numerous advantages of PPC, but I will list only those which I consider to be the most important ones.

PPC is inexpensive. Even if you compare it to that monthly or quarterly mailings you are doing regularly. Presuming your are sending out a newsletter at cost of .49 cents per envelope. $100 will allow you to send out about 204 newsletters. How many of those letters are going to end up int the garbage without even being opened? Now with PCC advertising this kind of loss is virtually eliminated. Once you paid your “postage” (one you have purchased a click) you “newsletter” is opened (your website is looked at by some one).
PPC is much faster. You can create a PPC and almost instantly begin to receive visitors to your website as oppose to regular mail where it takes at least two or three days for the people to act on it, if not longer.
PPC can be very efficient. Some one who receives your monthly newsletter, may be removed by a year or two from buying or selling home. Visitors that come to your website through your PPC campaign are likely to be already considering the purchase or sale of their home.
Last but not least, most PPC providers will allow you to geographically target your potential clients, so that you don’t waste you efforts on some one who is looking for a home in California while your are a New York based real estate agent.

While Pay Per Click advertising can be very successful tool in your hands, you should not abandon other proven methods to grow your business. However if you do not have presence on the Internet or if you are not utilizing your presence on the Internet to the fullest, you may be “leaving money on the table”.

If you have any questions about this post or need advise about your ongoing PPC campaign please do not hesitate to ask them in the comments or e-mail me privately. If do not want to miss future articles about Internet Marketing in Real Estate feel free to subscribe to this blog or simply bookmark this blog and visit often.Similar Posts: