Brooke Wolford
By Brooke Wolford
It could just be me, but are you questioning why we still run into bad photos and poor property descriptions? It seems like a slight epidemic in my world lately. Every single time I run into this I always get a little frustrated and wonder how this happens.
A few examples:
1. A listing description that said, “Great starter home, just needs a little loving care.” When I arrived at the property, there was extensive fire damage and I would assume it was unlivable. The pictures shown were obviously taken prior to the fire, but when I spoke to the agent to schedule the showing, there was absolutely no mention of it.
2. A showing note: “Small/friendly dog (Tinkerbell) on the property.” When my clients and I walked in, the dog was not even close to small, it was a large Rottweiler and we were not able to view the property at all because the dog was in attack mode.
3. I once saw an agent do a drive-by to take a photo in my neighborhood. Get out of your car, people!
4. Some really great listing photos…
This was the main photo on the MLS. Not positive what this is.
Note to self...remember to turn the TV off prior to taking photos.
This needs some TLC...minor issues...notice the Febreze?
It’s frustrating to me that this still happens. How does this serve your seller? Nonetheless, how does any of this help the listing sell and get you paid? I provide the same basic services to all of my sellers regardless of price or condition. How does this help you get buyers? I just don’t get it! Take some time and do some work. It really shouldn’t be this difficult.
Brooke Wolford is a real estate practitioner with Coldwell Banker Burnet in Woodbury, Minn. Follow her blog at adventuresinrookierealestate.com.
Ryan Gervais
By Ryan Gervais
Do you suffer from ugly website syndrome? Does your website have a twin?
If you answered yes to either question, it is time to “get real,” as Dr. Phil would say, and develop a better brand image for your website. In my last article, I gave a bold statement: to try and help every reader get one more sale this year. Here is the first step in that process.
First, load up your current website. Now count the number of unique articles or stories you personally have written. If the answer is zero, that is probably the same amount of traffic you are getting from Google. If you are getting zero traffic from the largest search engine in the world, you are probably not converting too many online leads to clients.
Now, count how many calls to action you have on your website. A call to action is asking the visitor to do something specific on your site, such as sign up for a newsletter, give their personal information to receive listings, etc. If you do not give the visitor several different options to give up their personal information, you will not get many leads. Website users need to see variations, such as text links, banners, buttons, etc. If you are lacking calls to action, you will need to think about ways of adding them in so you can direct traffic to your conversion page.
Do you have a conversion page? This is the page that makes you money. If you do not have a conversion page, you should drop everything you are doing and create one. A conversion page is where buyers or sellers give you there personal information and allow you to call or email them.
If you have made yourself look like an expert by writing articles, you will be surprised at how many people will make an initial contact through your website. The main conversion page that most agents use is a “sign up for MLS listings to be emailed to you” page. Every person who signs up for this service should immediately be put into your contact system to start receiving emailed listings. These are the cream of the crop for leads, and it need to be harvested carefully (I will speak more about that in a future article).
Now that you know a few of the main things to look out for on your website, I will address how to create a unique website using a content management system in my next article, so stay tuned!
Ryan Gervais is a sales representative in Sarnia, Ontario with RE/MAX Sarnia. Connect with Ryan on Facebook: www.facebook.com/SarniaRealEstate LinkedIn: www.linkedin.com/pub/ryan-gervais/a/222/3b or on the Web at www.sarnialistings.com.
Stefanie Hahn
By Stefanie Hahn
Realtors Property Resource® was recently introduced to my market and I am pleasantly surprised by how much I love this tool. For those of you not familiar with RPR, it is a database of 116 million homes nationwide that (once your MLS allows), you can access to search, compare, create reports with data from a myriad of sources (something like 330 pieces of data are parsed) and establish yourself as a subject-area expert for housing in the market where you do business.
While this tool is not available to all REALTORS® yet, by learning all you can about RPR now you will have a great “leg up” on your colleagues. Sound good? Trust me, it is. I’ve spent a significant amount of time sharing this tool with my agents and I believe that it is truly worth your time.
One thing to note – this tool is for REALTORS®. The only thing your consumers will have access to are the reports that you decide to share.
Why should you love it too? Let me share the ways …
1. Accessibility/Assistance The folks are RPR have made this system user-friendly. Help is around every corner and live chat is available at the bottom of every page. Additionally, they want you to make the system better – use the “Log a Bug” feature to let RPR know you had an issue with something on the site OR to just to make a suggestion.
If you haven’t already, check out: http://blog.narrpr.com for general information and then select – agents, brokers, commercial, association, appraisers or MLS for more detail. The agent section gives you the basics – what it is and how to use it, agent resources and news and information. The information is presented in printable PDF’s or video. You can also sign up for training here if you are ready to learn more.
2. Changes/Updates I love any tool that changes and improves to better suit my needs. Continue reading »
Stefanie Hahn
By Stefanie Hahn
At the recent REtechSouth conference in Atlanta I had the chance to see Robert Hahn of 7DS Associates speak on a subject he titled, “A Time for Greatness.” This presentation was geared to association execs and REALTORS® who are leaders within their organizations – a group well represented in the RETSO crowd. Since YPN has given me the opportunity to be a leader in my own state I felt compelled to attend and scribbled mad notes throughout the two-part session.
Let me say two things right away…
1.) Rob and I are not related.
2.) This is my interpretation of the presentation based solely on my notes. If you want a deeper look, read Rob’s post-event blog post or talk to him directly – he likes to engage with others in this field.
The first thing I noticed is that Rob has little hope for our generation if things don’t change – not fatalistic, but just not hopeful. The other thing I noticed is that Rob is really smart. Combine those two things (little hope and big brains) and I knew this was something that had to be shared and something we could work on.
Rather than focus on the industry issues many of us already know exist (and during his talk he covered all the favorites including low industry standards, high turn-over rates, and public perception) I think we should use Rob’s talk as a clarion call to think about possible solutions. That is what I have chosen to do. I know others are too – in fact many associations are already considering new directions – but in this case perhaps doing it from a YPN perspective makes sense.
One of the first suggestions Rob made was to reform governance within the REALTOR® associations. Perhaps organizations don’t need all these people to make decisions. This one hits close to home, of course, since I just managed to earn a seat on my state board of directors. I must agree with Rob though that many associations should consider whether longer terms are necessary (after all, just how much can you accomplish knowing you have just 365 days to get it done) and should give more thought to whether direct elections are the way to go. Certainly from a YPN perspective, knowing you can “be a part of the process” from the outset may encourage more direct involvement. Continue reading »
Nobu Hata
By Nobu Hata
I’ve been lucky enough to be a Realtors Property Resource™ beta tester for the last couple months, and MLS controversy aside, it’s an elegant site that belies a very powerful information resource, packed with potential, underneath it all. I’ve devised its place in my marketing plan (as a monthly client touchpoint) once live, but I’d never had the opportunity to talk about it with a consumer… until today, with the last set of clients I’d ever think of chatting about it with.
I’m working with a couple – a retired teacher and a very non-retired medical researcher – who are an absolute dream client. They don’t care about my website/Facebook Like-Page/Twitter stream, they don’t want MLS auto-emails, and they trust my judgment that the homes I’m emailing them for showings match their needs. They’re old school, and I love it.
Their home search has narrowed to two upscale condo developments in two very different parts of the Minneapolis market; one in a very established and stable neighborhood, the other in an area smacked upside the head by the overdevelopment/distressed property crow bar. Naturally, they love the latter.
Today, we had a showing at what ended up being a dud property, but it gave us an opportunity to talk about the “research” hubby had been doing on the condo building he and his wife love. Out flies the (circa 1990) MacBook and a spreadsheet that featured complete owner, tax record, previous sold dollar amount, city assessment, and price per-square-foot numbers for the whole building, to go along with average utility costs for the city, linked to very snazzy bar charts.
No joke, it was RPR – if my OCD grandpa had developed it. An hour of conversation followed: Continue reading »
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