Category Archives: Communication

What do you currently use to handle your voicemail? I’m guessing it’s either Google Voice, your standard voicemail that comes with your mobile phone, or some other add on service you’ve randomly stumbled upon along the way. Sure, regular voicemail works. But we all know it can, and should, be better for real estate agents. For starters, when someone leaves you a voicemail, you’d like to know what property that person is inquiring about so that when you follow up (within minutes) you’ll already be … Read More »

Real Estate Social “Notworking?” It was getting close to Inman Connect NY, and I could feel the urgency in a text message from Matt Beall, ”did you get my email regarding the social media case study for Inman?” I’m sure somewhere—in the ether that is my inbox—sat an email from Mr. Beall. Knee deep in a Hawaii Life interface redesign, however, my Gmail account was left unmanaged and overflowing its 200G limit. Since integrating social media into our real estate search in September 2011, I hadn’t really thought … Read More »

For real estate agents, helping clients buy and sell homes is arguably more difficult than ever before. Competition is higher and tighter for a smaller number of clients who, understandably, fear the impact of a down real estate market and are reluctant to take the leap to owning a home or buying a new one. For these reasons, finding any leverage to use when building and growing a network is a must. Fortunately, the power of the Internet remains as strong as ever. In fact, … Read More »

Katie Lance at Inman Next put together a great video showing you how to uncover your “hidden” inbox in Facebook. In addition to messages directed at only you, there may be “hidden” messages posted on your business pages to uncover as well. For agents, hidden messages mean potential leads that you are missing out on. I checked my own hidden inbox and found a few legitimate messages that I just responded to, in addition to a whole bunch of other messages that were indeed SPAM. … Read More »

Social media networks such as Facebook and LinkedIn have truly changed the way we do business across the world, including real estate. When it comes to everything from shopping to buying a house, many people first turn to the internet before spending time in the field. Therefore, if you want to attract buyers (especially of the most recent generations) then social media networking is essential. The Key to Social Media Networking Now that you know the importance of utilizing social media networking for everything from … Read More »

I have been using a VA (Virtual assistant) in my business since about 2000. It started out with just needing a little extra help for Christmas cards and then a database mail out. It wasn’t until 2003 that it started to become a normal addition to my business life. Since I work from home like most “Geeky Real Estate Agents”, going into the office to delegate duties to my full time assistant would be like creating a full time job for myself. I didn’t really … Read More »

Social media networking (or social networking, or social media, or a plethora of alternative descriptions) has taken the business world by storm over the past few years. With the advent of Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn, and a host of other social media applications, tools, and websites, social networking has become a major component of marketing campaigns for a wide variety of businesses, fields, and industries. Real estate is no exception. In fact, some could argue that the unique role of buying and selling real estate is … Read More »

The topic of real estate not being a relationship business has come up twice now in the past week — in the comments on Ines’ post about social objects and it was also the subject of Chris Smith’s post on Inman Next (and Rob Hahn’s rebuttal). I wanted to address it here in more detail since it’s a topic I feel strongly about. Before we dive into this topic, the thing we all must absolutely understand is that it takes all types to make the world … Read More »

I’ve been using the Roost App to pre-plan my Facebook business page posts for a few weeks and I must say that I’m impressed with the ease, convenience and supplied content. My personal real estate fan page has been around for about a year, and while engagement is still a little slow, my goal is to post frequently in an attempt to stay “top of mind” with those in my circles. The Roost app makes this simple. Their claim that you can spend only 20 … Read More »

Just about every real estate professional I know has used direct mail at some point in his or her career. The reasons are obvious: Direct mail can be infinitely personalized; is relatively affordable; is low-tech enough for mass consumption; and delivers a pretty decent return on investment. (Especially if the direct mail campaign is used to target specific neighborhoods in which the real estate agent is a specialist.) There are ways to make this marketing strategy even better, though, and that incorporates using some of … Read More »