Category Archives: Marketing

How to make your customers fall in love with your website In the court of online real estate, your customers are judge and jury, but the testimony that you hear will take place out of earshot. The rules are unwritten but they are set in stone. Give your customers a really good reason to trust you, like you and feel like you can serve their needs and they will toss aside their inhibitions, along with their reluctance to part with their business. That’s because they … Read More »

Here is a video response by Fred Glick to the Abbott Realty Group’s decision to pull their listings. This is going to be an ongoing discussion for most of 2012 I would guess, as brokerages and agents around the country decide whether or not listing syndication makes sense for their businesses (I think it does). [via AGBeat]

Every home has a story — some long, some short. The history of a home includes a lot of things, depending on the age of both the home and the community it resides in. In the case of my parents home in Sammamish, that includes but is not limited to: Photos of the outhouse from 50 years ago Photos of the hideous red carpet that used to be in my bedroom The transaction date and price from the 1920′s when my great great grandparents bought … Read More »

If you want to know what consumers (aka your clients) think about ARG’s decision to pull their listings (Geek Estate coverage here, here, and here), look no further than the comment thread of this article in UT San Diego. A few comments from buyers/sellers/home owners: Andrew M Why Does Abbott view it as the intellectual property of the real estate company when it’s a series of picture of MY house and details of MY house (which are all publicly available) that I’m trying to sell to … Read More »

[Pre-emption of syndication flack:  I syndicate.  Most brokers do.  Many value the additional exposure in the current situation.  This isn't a blanket condemnation of syndication.  It's merely an analysis of the SEO byproduct of that action.] The real estate industry is buzzing about Edina Realty and ARG pulling their listings from syndicators.  The announcement, one strong view, and a different response. Most of the arguments about syndication are ignoring the elephant in the room. Real estate brokers and syndication sites are battling for SEO. 9 … Read More »

[Note from the Editor: This article was originally posted on SanDiegoCastles.com. I reposted it here because it's relevant to this audience of geeky real estate professionals looking to figure out what to do about listing syndication in 2012. I haven't been able to figure out how to share the same comment thread on both blogs via Disqus - please let me know if you know how to do that] As reported by Inman News (“Premium” content – sorry), Abbott Realty Group (ARG) recently announced that they will … Read More »

Well, here we go again — add one more brokerage, ARG, to the list of brokerages abandoning listing syndication in 2012. Since regular readers already know what I think on this topic given the Edina article I wrote, just head over to Jay’s blog and read his take. It’s spot on. Who’s next?

We all need to make money from the activities we spend our time on. Social media is no different. Every so often, there is talk about social media being a waste of time and the ROI not being there since most agents can’t directly attribute transactions back to clients they received from social media. But, make no mistake about it — there are agents and brokers making money from social media. But not in the way that you think. You want to know how agents … 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 »

I was impressed and inspired by watching this video of Ben Kinney speak about lead generation and creating sales. Paraphrasing Ben, he says that if you aren’t successful as a real estate agent .. You – Aren’t Saying the Right Things … or You Aren’t Saying Them Enough … or You Don’t Have Enough People to Say Them To I was really struck by the simplicity of this idea and agree that if you are talking about lead generation or creating sales from buyers, it … Read More »