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Is your Realtor using the latest technology to give your home an edge?
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The real estate industry is changing!
No longer can a Realtor sign a listing, update information on the MLS (Multiple Listing Service) and sit back and wait for buyers. When I first started selling homes, I used to go into the real estate office early each day to be the first one to look at the big (and I mean big - yellow page size) MLS book which held all the new and existing home listings. That was the only way for a real estate agent to know what was going on in the real estate market. Review the MLS book daily, visit broker's open houses's and network with other agents.
Boy, how things changed - thank goodness! Today, Los Angeles real estate agents and their clients get automated home notices via email as soon as new properties are listed. Of course we still visit other broker's open houses and network with agents. But, what is new and exciting is the advent of the internet and how the internet is changing the LA real estate market.
Most of my real estate business personally has come from referrals and repeat clients. Recently, I've been getting a lot of phone calls and emails from people that have been referred to me by google, yahoo and msn. What does this mean?
Home buyers start their search for Pasadena homes on-line by searching the internet. They put key terms like "Pasadena homes for sale" or "Pasadena real estate" or "Pasadena home listings" into the search engine of their choice and then surf the web. Once they see something they like, they email or call the real estate agent.
Personally, I have been preparing for this change for the last several years and have built a multitude of websites and blogs providing home buyers access to the information they crave like market reports and free home search tools. I have featured homes on realtor.com for Pasadena and San Marino amongst a few others so that the buyers will see my seller's homes immediately - exposure = more money for the seller.
I also participate extensively in social networks like twitter, facebook, plaxo, utterly, friendfeed, linkedin and many more.
Why is internet presence important to you as a home seller?
It's simple... this is the new face of real estate. Real estate is not about putting your house in a local newspaper anymore! Any real estate agent worth their salt will tell you that newspaper ads do not bring in home buyers, but they sure pacify the home sellers. I say that home sellers are very savvy these days and understand the power of exposure via the web, of getting as many "eye balls" on their home as possible - that's how you sell homes!
So if you are thinking of selling your home, please ask your real estate agent the following questions:
1. Does your real estate agent have a website that provides timely buyer information and MLS home search tools?
2. Does your real estate agent have a real estate blog? A blog is simply an interactive website. A Pasadena real estate blog like this one allows consumers to interact with a real estate agent in a non-threatening atmosphere, learn and search for homes. Blogs are the Web 2.0 version of a website.
3. What kind of traffic does your realtor get on their website or real estate blog? Remember, traffic = exposure to your home for sale which in turn creates more money for the seller and a quicker home sale. A good real estate site should drive about 100 unique visitors a day and about 500 - 800 hits.
4. Does your real estate agent create a personal home website for each and every home that they are listing? Where do they market these websites? Will they provide you with weekly statistics on how many home buyers visit these personalized home websites.
5. Which social networks do they belong to and how do they use them to your "seller's" advantage to market your home for sale? How active are they on these networks?
6. Most importantly GOOGLE your real estate agent. Do they have a presence on the internet. For example - see google results for Irina Netchaev. As you can see, there were close to 8,000 internet pages for Irina Netchaev. That's a lot of internet presence! Of course, my name is pretty unique. If your realtor's name is John Smith, you'll get a lot more pages! But, for the most part you'll get a pretty good idea of how active your real estate agent is on-line.
Another cool tool to use is www.searchme.com It is a great site that allows you to put anyone's names and actually see some of their internet presence. For an example see Irina Netchaev's "search me" results. Try putting your name in the search and see what comes up.
This post is not to brag about how many social networks I am on or how many websites I sponsor. It is to bring light to the fact that real estate indeed is changing. Demand the best of your realtor. The real estate market is changing and the way the real estate is being marketed has already changed. It's just that some real estate agents haven't figured it out yet.
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