Marketing SEO Blog

Thank You For Your Information

As Online Marketers it is crucial to understand that nature of the internet search. By its nature the internet searcher will research online and buy offline. Read that again. By its nature the internet searcher will research online and buy offline. This is evidenced by recent studies showing that 87.3% ...... Read more →

Real Estate Commissions

Brad Inman recently told CNNMoney, 'You`re now doing 90 percent of the buy side work yourself....That should reduce the 3 percent of the commission that goes to the buyer`s agent.' It seems to me that there is a real leadership gap in this industry. All... Read more →

Zillow Overdose

I just found the source for all Zillow, all the time.The guys at Real Town have a whole blog page set up with reader feedback on everything wrong (in their opinion) with Zillow. Read more →

On Zillow.com

Wow! I have started to comment on this great marketing campaign, but I actually deleted the post yesterday. I didn't want to beat a dead horse. But it is a story that won't die as they eclipse 63 stories on Google news. I was going... Read more →

Real Estate Commissions

Real Estate Market Goes Up Commissions Down, Criticism up

In a recent Real Estate Journal they comment on the paradoxical growth of commissions per sale, the huge influx of new agents, ripping off the public, and  the relative low overall earnings per agent. I comment here, filed under real estate licensees.

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Earth Real Estate

There has been a big push lately where new web companies are building real estate search sites with Satellite Mapping Technologies. The technology of overhead imagery mixed into search has been a hot topic of late being mentioned in Inman, Search Engine Watch and others.... Read more →

Real Estate Agents Graded

The annual Gallup Poll asking Americans to rate, on a scale of one to five, the honesty and ethical standards of those in 21 professions again placed nurses at the very top with an 82% favorate score. Journalists, U.S. senators and congressmen trailed badly.

Here are the rankings, with the percentage giving each group a high or very high ranking:

Nurses 82
Druggists/Pharmacists 67
Medical doctors 65
High school teachers 64
Policemen 61
Clergy 54
Funeral directors 44
Bankers 41
Accountants 39
Journalists 28
Real estate agents 20
Building contractors 20
Lawyers 18
Labor union leaders 16
Senators 16
Business executives 16
Stockbrokers 16
Congressmen 14
Advertising practitioners 11
Car salesmen 8
Telemarketers 7

Well this look like an improvement. when I sold real estate, I was told we were just above car salesmen and lawyers!

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Home Sellers

The 2005 Survey of California Home Sellers, which was conducted in the second quarter of 2005, provides insights at the individual consumer level on the experiences of recent sellers during the home selling process. The study includes findings on the growing use of the Internet during the home selling process, as well as the role household circumstances and market conditions played in the decision to sell a home. Differences between key market segments among home sellers are also described.

A better economy, great interest rates, and despite higher inventory levels, the California housing market continued on its impressive record-setting run in the first half of the year.

Detached homes were 3.3 percent ahead of the record level of 2004, and the median price pushed  reached $543,100 in June 2005.

The report found an obvious link between effective communications, a satisfactory home selling experience, and client loyalty.

Key Findings

• The share of sellers using the Internet rose to 57 percent in 2005.
• Sellers used the Internet mainly to research comparable prices, get current information on the neighborhood, and to find an agent. However, 97 percent of all sellers used an agent to assist them in the home selling process.
• Sellers sold their home primarily because they wanted a larger home or a better location.
• While sellers increasingly obtained information about the market from the Internet, they continued to rely on the experience and expertise of real estate agents who guided them through the home transaction.
• 50% of all sellers was a repeat client, while a fifth of the sellers found their agent from agent mailings. Smaller numbers of sellers found their agent via referrals and the Internet.
  It would appear offline direct marketing is more important than ever.
• Sellers primarily selected their agent because he/she was the best prepared (31 percent) or most qualified (30 percent), or offered the lowest commission (27 percent). Agents were also chosen because the seller expected the agent to work most aggressively on their behalf, or because they appeared to be most responsive.
• Seller concerns were mostly on the home selling process & the pricing of their home and the time it would take to sell.
• Seller dissatisfaction with agents typically resulted from communications problems between the seller and agent.
• Seventy-seven percent of home sellers indicated that they would use the same agent again in a future transaction.

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Internet Real Estate Sales

The California Association of Realtors released its "2005 Use of Technology Survey" Tuesday during the "Tech Tuesday" opening session of their Centennial Realtor Expo in San Diego. The survey found that 33 percent of realtors' business is coming from the Internet.

While just 33 percent of their business comes from the Internet, 67 percent of realtors reported that the Internet extremely or very important in the marketing and promotion of their business and 61 percent of realtors post listings to their own Web site. Other results of the "2005 Use of Technology Survey" found that 90 percent of realtors have a high-speed Internet connection at home, an increase from 82 percent a year ago and 71 percent in 2003; and 46 percent of realtors use e-mail as their primary form of communication with their client.

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The Inman Conference in San Francisco

Just got in from the Inman Conference which in my opinion is a must for todays online real estate agent.

The most important aspect was the networking. There were plenty of elbows to rub and lots of relationships to make.

If they gave at an award for conference networker, the statue would go to Michael Stark of PostYourProperty.com for sure. I bet that guy picked up a hundred link exchanges as well as future referrals. He is a testament at what you can do at a conference of this magnitude.

I guess I just added a one way link to his site :-)

Realty Blogs, Websites and Economists

One featured guest was a representative from Curbed.com. It was interesting, but I wish Inman would have had an actual Realtor talking about how he or she makes money from their blog.

I mean isn't this just an exercise in futility if no one make any money? It reminds me of the early net boom years when agents got a website for a websites sake.

I harken to my Golden Real Estate Rule: always ask "where is the money?"  What is the path to the dollar? That is why we all do this right? (Get the Ten Commandments of Succesful Online Real Estate )

In my mind, a blog can help an agent: get more traffic, more leads, and more authority over his or her marketplace. Blogging is easy. The aforementioned is hard. This is what we do for our clients here at Spider Juice Technologies.

Later my friend Mike Kehoe of Birdview Technologies spoke about their "4 Step System".

I really liked the fact that he actually took the time to analyze and report client results. He illustrated a results chain for conversion. From traffic --> to lead --> to sale. So in other words x% will register as a lead, y % will become a sale. He even gave average cost per click.

If you like, I can ask him to post his outline of his talk as it was most informative. Let me know thru the comments below. I am a big fan of these guys such that I now can sell their products. If you are interested, give us a call for a Free Demo. 310-533-9145

Another aspect that I liked about the show were the forecasts. Of course, the question everyone was asking was "how long can this market sustain itself?" You had an A list of major industry influentials: Earl Lee,President,Prudential Real Estate Affiliates, Inc.,  Steve Ozonian,National Homeownership Executive,Bank of America, Stu Siegel,CEO,eNeighborhoods, Parker Kennedy,CEO,The First American Corporation,  Thomas Kunz, President and CEO, Century 21 Real Estate LLC, & Joel Singer Executive Vice President, California Assn of Realtors.  Most of the players seemed to agree that there is no reason to see a slowdown other than in heated areas such as here in California.

I think it was Parkert Kennedy who said that he believes that it was a matter of supply and demand. As long as interest rates stay favorable, at worse we will see a soft landing. Of course I have been saying this for three years now that we have real low supply in California, and an ever growing demand. But I am just an SEO/Lead Conversion strategist. He is an economist!

Overall my one day at the show made me wish I had spent all three days there in gorgeous San Francisco.

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