For the budding real estate pro, if you’re seeking direction – emulate these perhaps…

Joe Kadaf and the Top of the Heap

I always tell clients; “It’s easy to make it to the top, what’s hard is staying there.” Evidently somebody told Joe (left courtesy Remaxknows) about this saying, he’s been on top a long time. Even from the start, the now legendary Remax broker showed a phenomenal gift for moving property, his first year he sold $4 million worth. What’s even more meaningful here though, is the fact that Kadaf has proven a teacher and leader of these same sales-rific traits. His agents continually lead all others, and in an area of the country not exactly teaming with good news.

Dearborn Heights, Michigan, not exactly what anyone would call property or economic boom territory. Yet despite one of the worst unemployment rates of any area in the US (11.4% as of now), somehow Kadaf and his team manage to move properties. It think the follow quote from Kadaf via Real Trends, is perhaps the best way for the reader to learn about this pro’s excellent record:

“I have passion for real estate. Although no one likes to work for free, it isn’t the monetary factor that drives me. I reinvest a lot into my office to help others succeed.” Kadaf also takes pride in his charity work. “Our office is involved in several charitable endeavors, but I do my own projects. For example, there was an elderly woman who was being kicked out of her home because of the deplorable conditions. We rehabbed the property to allow her to stay in the home and it helps the neighborhood as well. I’m not attached to one charity. I look for stories and emails from people to find ways to help.”

And all that despite the fact Kadaf is all but unplugged from the web. Just finding an image of the real estate pro proved difficult for this web guru. I can only imagine him taking over all of real estate with more leverage via digital channels. Wow.

Kevin Tomlinson – The  South’s Luxury Condo Guru

I won’t lie to you, ever. Kevin is now a friend of mine on Facebook. Two years ago I found Tomlinson‘s One Sotheby’s International Realty via our ongoing series of evaluations of real estate people for their relative digital involvement. Kevin was and is, proving to be one of the best online, as well as showing off Miami’s best luxury pads in person. That said, no mention of Miami high end properties could be complete, so to speak.

A long time Sotheby’s sales dynamo, Tomlinson practices what he preaches. In the know, if you read about his philosophies on sales, he prescribes for the 70 percent of condo sales that begin in the digital world. That’s right, over two thirds of Tomlinson’s luxury transactions start on the web or mobile.

So NOT featuring Tomlinson, friend or foe, would simply be ignoring the truth of his expertise. Readers may read his bio here. Despite my constant constructive criticisms of real estate players online, I actually do love saying nice things about excellent people.

Larry W. Strother – Just East of a Vast Experience

Where I come from, maybe where you’re from too, the say “there’s no substitute for experience” is a time tested truism. I am sure there is a lot more that can be said for Larry Strother, one of the nation’s leading real estate agents for some decades now, but maybe his wealth of knowledge is enough?

Fayetteville, North Carolina is a popular market, but certainly not San Francisco or New York. And within that metric a bit of Larry’s excellence as an agent is revealed. You see he is listed in the top 20 agents nationwide by the Wall Street Journal. Ahead of everyone in New England, basically up the eastern seaboard and down to Florida. Of course the WSJ is not the end all, is it? So, ERA Strother Real Estate also has Larry’s wife, Denise Strother’s award winning talents to fall back on once the nation’s leading business publication is proved wrong.

Excuse the tongue in cheek here, but in reality top agents are really always parts of a greater team. As you can see in the video above from Strother ERA, a pretty vast team has been assembled by the founders.

Go West and Call Debbie Craig-Banducci

It is pretty easy to pick whoever is best in the West. All one has to do really is find California’s top anything, and there you are. Not to put down other states out there, but California is its own little country, and Debbie is tops there. Her RE/MAX Magic team helps Debbie maintain here number one rating in California, and her number six position nationwide compared with ALL real estate agents.

Buying, selling, commercial, residential, luxury, Debbie is one of those super multi-talented people whose energy is reflected in how accessible she is. How many top notch real estate moguls do you know who paste their email addy and cell phone number all over the web? And Debbie does not operate 50 cheesy websites to get this done either.

Bakersfield has its own breed of hyper excellent property professionals, and Debbie Banducci sits at the pinnacle of those. Maybe your own assessments, but this lady has friendly written all over her, Facebook to the Wall Street Journal. She’s got “West” covered for this roundup.

Image credit: Cardinal Points – courtesy © Daniel Wiedemann – Fotolia.com

Given below are five suggestions, which will hopefully make your task a lot easier.

1.Don’t Let Emotions Sway Your Business Decisions – Many times,  people commit the cardinal mistake of hiring a realtor, simply because      he/she relates to them on an emotional ground. It might be that your  nephew has just entered the real estate market and would want you to be      his first customer. Some other times, you might come across particular real estate agents who request you to give them a chance even though they      lack the qualification or essential experience of making great sales in the past.

At these times, try to keep a calm mind and only hire somebody who has a good history of making sales. Always remember that there is no place in business for leniency and your first priority should be your own gains.

2. Get references, before you hire somebody – So, you have met a  certain realtor who has made a great impression on you. In fact, he is  also the only realtor who agrees with your irrationally high selling price. You can’t wait to hire him and set the ball of sale rolling. Have you, however, got a second opinion? A common mistake that many people make, when they hire a realtor, is that they go by appearances.

The real estate market is very competitive and a realtor would pull out all the stops to get hired by you. Therefore, it is essential for you to do a bit of background research and find out what past clients have to say about a realtor. In fact, you are also legitimate in demanding a profile of most recent sales that a realtor has made. In this way, you can avoid getting duped by your faulty judgment.

3. Don’t rely on promises of low commissions – Many amateur realtors work with very low commissions. Yet, they lack the skill or expertise for making a great sale for you. On the other hand, a truly outstanding realtor may charge a high fee for his services but the profits that he will generate for you will definitely balance out such high commissions.

4. Hire your realtors from a reputed company – There are many  prestigious real estate companies operating in miami beach. So, rather hire such companies to make a sale for you. With the assistance of these companies,  you can be sure to get a great deal for your property, including those sunny isles condos that you are hoping to sell at a great price.

The industry is thriving with many real estate agents each of whom claims to be the best at his game. In such a situation, it might be difficult for you to hire the right person to sell your real estate assets, by a high margin of profit. If you follow the above suggestions, however, you will surely end up hiring a great realtor.

Brenda Lyttle is an enthusiastic custom home builder. She loves her job as she helps people frame out their dream homes from their imaginary canvas into reality.

Realtors Property Resource (RPR) – courtesy their Facebook

Realcomp, a Farmington Hills company with some eleven thousand plus members in Detroit, will now now feed RPR listings in exchange for advanced analytics for Realcomp subscibers. Realcomp II Ltd. CEO Karen S. Kage offered comment on the announcement:

“Realcomp II Ltd. is very pleased to make Realcomp MLS data available through the RPR product in order to ensure that our REALTOR® subscribers have full use of all of the technology tools and features that the product offers. Our Board of Governors approved moving forward with RPR for the benefit of its MLS Subscribers, and in line with the company’s mission to deliver first-rate data services, support, and instruction to the real estate industry.”

A subsidiary of the National Association of Realtors, RPR has MLS and commercial info exchanges reflective of NAR’s over one million members. So basically Realcomp II Ltd. has just plugged into a much more powerful network of listing and sales potential, when all is said and done. Despite criticisms RPR has not produced for the NAR revenue wise so far, it seems clear that the uptake of tech for Realtors is a slow go anyhow. Most agencies cannot even figure out Twitter let alone study advanced analytics, while it’s also clear the RPR people are tuned to SM looking at their Facebook.

Having only recently launched to support some one million Realtors nationwide, RPR is targeting monetization via their analytics. Rather than go into the specifics of RPR offerings, the video below from them explains in some detail how their historical data can fast forward agent effectiveness.

Welcome to Phoenix, or Mediocrity?

For the reader, our methodology here is no nonsense and simplified. Just like any home buyer or seller looking for info on the web, the most logical place will always be Google. Searching for keywords or phrases such as “homes in Phoenix” or “Phoenix real estate” mimics what your everyday buyer or seller might do. These searches, modified to exclude huge aggregator sites like Trulia and others, can really show what the local professionals are up to, at least online. So, without further explanation, let’s look at Phoenix’s top real estate gurus.

Phoenix Real Estate (by Phoenixhomes.com)

Just under the paid positioning of Trulia, Phoenix Real Estate sits at the top position for the search “Phoenix homes for sale.” About the best that can be said for Matt Pellerin’s website is that it is “adequate” for finding some houses in the area. As before, we tend to put some emphasis on social media engagement, site design and navigation, and whether or not the key Realtor shows an effort toward interacting and informing people. As you can see by the screen shot below, even searching for a home results in the visitor being asked to “opt in” for the lead.

For those unfamiliar, opting in means you give permission to be SPAMMED to pieces generally, even called via phone. So far, so bad, for Phoenix home search. (Note: no SM buttons of any kind, let along a prevalent pic of the Broker) RBiz rating of Phoenix Real Estate: 3 on a scale of 10.

Dorathey Duffield

Wow. If Phoenix Real Estate up there is woefully Web 1.0, this Realtor’s big move to take over the Internet for clients and is tantamount to Stone Age marketing madness. In cases like this, I hate to say my I am torn asunder between feeling bad for the agent, and wanting to get glossy photos up of the inconsistency.

This top ten Google SERP wanna be offers not only hard sales techniques like opt in cues, but less than admirable functionality. One thing is clear to this writer, Dorathey Duffield wants you to email or call her, it’s prompted at every turn. The image below of a property search says it all for me. Excuse the lack of SM presence, a one way conversation, even hard sell tactics, the hazy images of a house worth nearly a third of a million dollars? Rating: 2 of 10.

Stone House Realty

Justin A. Lombard should not have chosen a domain name like trust-in-justin.com, but other than this he has his two competitors up there beat hands down where online credibility is concerned. His website is nothing to write to Time Magazine over, it won’t make any web covers, but the Realtor has done some SEO, SM, and marketing classes somewhere. Or else is smart enough (not so cheap as to) to hire somebody who does have a clue. Sorry Justin, I can’t give a glowing review here, but you honestly did what was necessary.

Okay, Stone House does not have a massive engagement quotient, but what is displayed openly is the Broker’s email, picture, phone, and a little tiny “g +” at page top, indicating someone there understands SEO and the social trend. Stone House does venture into the “opt in” space where it seems appropriate, such as the testimonial pages as the company’s competitors do. The difference in this case being there are actual reviews of the services offered next to one call to action to get mail from the Realtor. No Twitter and Facbook, no valid link to the g + profile, an ugly site, and some other missing elements take Stone House’s ratings down tho. Rating: 5 of 10.

Historic Phoenix Dot Com?

If ever there were a smart move (I think) calling your real estate entity by a dual purpose name might be (or might have been) one of the slickest I’ve seen. The owners of Historic Phoenix, Don Mertes and Maureen Rooney, got themselves into the top ten search listings with a lot of content, and what looks like some SEO and linking juice. The site seems very new, Alexa only shows a brief history dating back to three months.

The nicest of the Phoenix real estate sites we visited today, and replete with pics of the principals, some decent tools, and a ton of resources. However, beyond a snappy and effective internal and external linking build (study link building and SEO), and some cool facts and figures about the surrounding Arizona architecture etc, “slick” is about what the online home searcher gets via this portal. Bottom line is, are the agents doing their best to sell and show? No social engagement for their clients, some info loosely scattered about the site, and a Yelp connection of little relevance (save some visibility), none of this spells “BROKER” for me. Of course, the agents are free to argue. Rating: 5 of 10.

Is this enough to sell? Or to make you want to buy or call?

The Drummond Group

Interestingly, or sadly perhaps, Phoenix’s real estate presence online is so poor as to have driven this writer to Zillow to find our next entry. The Drummond Group appears not in our Google SERPs, but at the top of the list of Phoenix Realtors on the Zillow Real Estate Agent Reviews & REALTORS®. Okay, after spitting and coughing like Daffy Duck over this dispicable happenstance, it matters not. Evaluating Ed Drummond’s digital presence for his constituents will do. Oh, but wait? Ed Drummond is all about commercial offerings. Or is he? The Zillow listing shows homes and review about buying homes, yet the company site offers industrial, land, office, and so on?

Wait, Ed has his Drummond Group at Capstone Realty identity on Facebook! But somehow all these presences rebuke the Google search, even the Zillow one? Confused? So am I. There’s a Capstone Realty site, an Ed Drummond one that is exactly the same with Ed’s domain, and at least one domain that no longer exits. While Ed Drummond does sure seem to get around, and his agency(s) show the earmarks of being successful (lots of employees) Ed himself is a bit hard to track down. I did manage to find one pic of him on the company Facebook, with Santa Claus no less. (Evidently he only shows up for Christmas?). Anyhow, Ed and his team will have to excuse me for A – having to hunt them down, and B – being very confused about their offerings for web searching real estate peeps. Rating (just cuz Ed is so tall) 4 of 10.

Summary Judgement: Pitiful

No doubt the reader (and some Phoenix Realtors) are suffering at this point. In all honesty it is no fun revealing such mediocrity, particularly for an area of the US one would think might recover sooner, rather than later. One thing is cemented with this latest review of digital Realty, not many agents spend even a thought considering how people on the web might engage with them.

Maybe all you iPhone toting people out there, you Facebook fans, had better get in your cars and drive to Arizona? Just look for the big ass sign that says; “Home For Sale” by the lazy agent too busy and important to do more than take your money.

Sorry, but this search is getting ridiculous. Next up Dallas.

Photo credit: Mediocrity image courtesy Andy Dean – Fotolia.com

© Fotolia

Many sellers also find themselves interested in making some home improvements in order to raise the value of their home. But before you go knocking out walls or pouring concrete consider the following information about seller home improvements.

It’s a common misconception amongst sellers that because they’ve spent money (and sometimes a large amount of it) in improving their property that they will realize a full return on their investment. The fact of the matter is that there are certain improvements which yield a good return in your home value and others that probably won’t net you an extra dime.

For instance, adding a pool is one of the most costly improvements that sellers enter into with the expectation of seeing that money returned when they sell. It’s also a factor that has little influence on your actual property value in most markets. So if you’re considering a pool for its equity improvement in your property don’t bother. But if you’d like a place to cool down in the summer time and don’t mind that you’ll never see the full amount of that investment returned to you jump in!

So what are some home improvements that do net an increase in the value of your home?

Cosmetic changes such as removing wall paper and painting as well as kitchen and bathroom improvements are often safe bets for increasing value and yield the greatest return for your investment in the project. But sellers beware: take note of the improvements of other homes in your neighborhood. Over-improving your property hurts more than it helps as buyers won’t pay an exaggerated amount of money for a property when they can purchase something comparable in the same neighborhood for less money.

For instance, if you live in a median income neighborhood with small homes adding a large family room which increases your property’s square footage well above those in the neighborhood might have a negative effect on improvement return when you go to sell. It’s not often advantageous to have the largest home in the neighborhood. Likewise adding granite countertops to a home in an area where most of the surrounding property has formica doesn’t bode well for seeing a good return on that investment.

It’s also important to remember that home maintenance and home improvement is not the same thing. Adding a new air conditioning unit because yours kicked off is a great selling feature and might make your home more appealing to buyers but it probably won’t impact your home’s value at all. Neglecting improvements and allowing your home to slip into disrepair, however, will affect its value. So keep up with your maintenance, but don’t expect to necessarily reap financial gains from them.

With the right improvements you can both make your home more appealing on the market and increase your value. If you’re confused about what improvements are netting the greatest gains in your area contact a local REALTOR®.

Image by FreeDigitalPhotos.net

Making a good first impression to viewers is important and a quick glance at poor quality photos or images that don’t belong on a page can get people to click off your site before they’ve really even given it a shot.

So with that in mind the next question often becomes, “what pictures should I include that will keep people searching for real estate coming back to my website?” Well, depending on the flow of your real estate website, the answer can definitely vary.

For all your neighborhood or community pages, I like to recommend images of the property types buyers will most likely find in that particular area. More often than not, I tend to see real estate agents posting lifestyle shots on these pages, or pictures of local restaurants and businesses. While these sorts of pictures are great and certainly give buyers a nice visual of the surrounding neighborhood, it’s important to keep in mind why they’re on your website in the first place-which is to hopefully find a new home or condo.

So give them what they want to see. If a neighborhood is known for vintage brownstones or classic brick single-family homes, include photos of brownstones or brick single-family homes. The picture of Joe Cool and his buddies living it up at a local upscale restaurant really isn’t needed.

If don’t already have a great collection of photos of real estate in your local market, plenty of royalty-free stock photo websites are out there with thousands of pictures for you to use at a very low cost. iStockphoto.com and Shuttershock.com are two of the more popular sites, but dozens of others are out there as well. Photographs can make or break your real estate website. So make sure to use quality pictures that make sense to the viewers. It may seem like a small detail, but it can really pay off in terms of referral and repeat visits from home buyers in your market.

Joe Heath is a graduate of Indiana University and also holds a Graduate Certificate in Real Estate Development from Drexel University. After working in the market research sector and authoring published Market Snapshots for Hanley Wood Market Intelligence, Joe now works as a Web Marketing Specialist and co-owns Real Estate Web Creation with his partner, Ted Guarnero, a 25+ year real estate veteran.

Craigslist

If you have been in real estate sales for any length of time, chances are you’ve probably used Craigslist at one point to market your home or condo listings. And if you live in a major market such as Chicago for example, you’re also probably aware of the horrible over-saturation of apartment finding ads that make local home buyers and renters want to scream –  but that’s another topic for another day.

As a free service, posting ads on Craigslist can be an extremely effective and affordable way to reach home buyers in your area; but only if you follow the right steps. More often than not, real estate agents who post Craigslist ads fail to follow the basic guidelines that will make their property listing stand-out. So how exactly can you avoid this little problem? Well let’s take a look at some of the most common mistakes made when posting a real estate advertisement to Craigslist:

The Headline Fails to Give Viewers Adequate Information

Example Post: “Two Bedroom Condo w/ Stainless Steel & Hardwood”

When it comes to purchasing or renting a home, most home buyers want location, location, location. Once they’ve narrowed down a search radius, they will likely choose from the inventory in this designated region. So instead of including details such as stainless steel or hardwood, mention the size (in bedrooms), the location (neighborhood), and the price.

An example of an effective, eye-catching headline on Craigslist

New Post: “Downtown 2 Bdrm Condo at $1,900/month”

Once viewers know your post fits their qualifications in terms of size, location, and price, then they can learn more about the property once they click on your post to see more information.

ALWAYS Include Pictures

Of course the headline text is what will draw home buyers or potential tenants to your post, but once they click on your link to find out more information, they’re also going to want to see as many pictures as possible.

Not only will providing lots of great photos help people understand if your place works for them, but it will ultimately save you time in the long-run. Say you don’t include pictures and only provide a “detailed” description.  The next thing you know, you’re scheduling multiple showings to people who actually had something completely different in mind and your listing isn’t at all what people are looking for. If this happens, now you have wasted both your time and theirs. Not a great start to getting your listing rented or sold as soon as possible.

Professional, well-taken photos and even a floor plan can make an overwhelming difference on Craigslist

Correctly Format Your Template

If your real estate website has a template that will automatically generate Craigslist ads (and if it doesn’t, invest in a Real Estate Web Creation site!), make sure the dimensions are formatted correctly and the ad appears clean, once posted. Nothing looks worse than a real estate ad that is arranged crooked with none of the links lining up where they should.

Oddly formed Craigslist ads can absolutely take away from the property you’re advertising, so make sure this doesn’t happen to you. While it doesn’t make your listing any better or  any worse, it can sometimes prompt users to move on to another listing without even giving yours a second glance.

Joe Heath is a graduate of Indiana University and possesses a Graduate Certificate in Real Estate Development from Drexel University. After working in the market research sector and authoring published Market Snapshots for Hanley Wood Market Intelligence, Joe now works as a Web Marketing Specialist and co-owns Real Estate Web Creation with his partner, Ted Guarnero, a 25+ year real estate veteran.

All too often I see real estate agents and brokers with a boring, bland e-mail signature. Even worse, it isn’t all that uncommon for agents to have no e-mail signature at all. I understand that in today’s tech-savvy world, many responses you send via e-mail are on-the-go and from your iPhone or Blackberry, but that certainly doesn’t account for each and every e-mail message you’re sending.

If you’re a Realtor with a business website, you need to make more of an effort to send out e-mails that include a personalized, linkable e-mail signature whenever possible. Not taking advantage of this FREE form of advertising is only doing yourself an extreme disservice, as this can be one of the best effective, low-cost ways to promote your site. Sure, there may be an initial cost in having a graphic e-mail signature designed specifically for your real estate business, but this expense should be minimal, and once you pay for it, the signature is yours to use for as long as you want at no additional cost (depending on what type of signature you get).

Generating website traffic is a key component to maximizing your revenue stream in the real estate business. As you find more ways to drive visitors to your site, you’ll undoubtedly start to see better results in your website investment by receiving more quality web leads that lead to home sales. So why settle for a simple e-mail signature in Times New Roman font that only list your name, business address, phone and fax numbers, and e-mail address when I can have clickable, interactive call-to-action buttons that are linked directly to my real estate website?

Not only will a customized e-mail signature appear more modern and professional, but it will automatically give buyer’s a new and direct way to find and search homes available in your local area without even having to do a Google search. And unless your real estate site is ranking #1 in an organic search result [which it’s not], that’s not something I’d want to overlook when it’s so easy and affordable to put in place.

Joe Heath is a graduate of Indiana University and possesses a Graduate Certificate in Real Estate Development from Drexel University. After working in the market research sector and authoring published Market Snapshots for Hanley Wood Market Intelligence, Joe now works as a Web Marketing Specialist and co-owns Real Estate Web Creation with his partner, Ted Guarnero, a 25+ year real estate veteran.

Make sure your home is secured. Image by wvhomes

The majority of people coming through your house will likely be legitimate attendees – either potential buyers or nosy neighbours. Unfortunately, there will always be a criminal element in society and there are people who view real estate open houses as an opportunity for criminal activity. One area where home sellers can be vulnerable is identity theft.

Here are some ways you can protect yourself:

1. Put Your Mail Away – How many of us leave mail, especially bills, out in plain view on a hall table or in a kitchen cupboard? If you are hosting an open house, these items should be out of sight and, ideally, under lock and key. Identity thieves can get a lot of personal information about you with just a few utility bills.
2. Computer Security – Some criminals attend open houses with the goal of trying to get sensitive data from computers. In a matter of seconds, these individuals can gain access to your computer through a variety of means, including hardware keyloggers. Ideally, computers should be removed during an open house, but given that so many people work from home that may seem impractical. At the very least, turn computers off, unplug them and cover them up. All of these steps will make it more difficult for people to quickly access the personal information you have stored on your computer.
3. Pack Up Your Personal Items – It’s currently tax season in Canada and I recently showed a house in which the seller had left her tax return paperwork on her kitchen table. Not good! Think further, though, and even consider removing items that reveal personal details, such as college diplomas. With your name and graduation details, the identity thief already has small details that can be used to gather additional information.

When it comes to open house security, common sense is emphasized and it’s important to discuss these issues with your real estate agent. Find out how he or she screens visitors (some agents request identification and formal sign-ins for anyone coming into an open house,) and make sure that security is on your agent’s mind – as well as yours.

______________________________________________________

Kelly Caldwell is a Canadian real estate agent living and working in Guelph, Ontario.

© arrow - Fotolia.com

If you are a real estate agent and are not actively using social media as a way to find and contact potential homebuyers, there is a 100% chance you’re missing out on generating more business that can eventually lead to more home sales. Below, I’ve compiled a short list of the top social media platforms for real estate agents, and how I would use each if I were a professional Realtor:

1)    Facebook -Widely known as perhaps the most popular social media service, Facebook is perfect for posting your real estate listings on a regular basis. Along with back-linking each listing to your real estate website, Facebook users should also post all the property’s photos, neighborhood info, and other home statistics homebuyers want to know before making an offer. In addition, Realtors can also post local real estate home values, median sales prices, and other important real estate statistics with various add-ons and plugins designed specifically for the real estate professional.

2)    Twitter -When using Twitter in the real estate business, I would recommend only tweeting out quick tid-bits about your specific real estate business. Whether it’s a price reduction of a home or condominium for sale or a new residential property that just came onto the market, Twitter’s 140 character limit restrict users from including an overload of information with each post. However, backlinking listings or real estate information to your site is also a great strategy when using Twitter because of the link shrinking feature that’s automatically applied to a web address when inputting it into a Twitter post.

3)    Pinterest -As mentioned in a previous RealtyBizNews.com story, Pinterest is an excellent service to display fabulous high-end, luxury real estate. Because of its largely photo-based structure, real estate property that takes beautiful photographs and is “easy on the eyes” so-to-speak, works extremely well with the Pinterest platform. It also adds great exposure to your real estate business and is a creative way to share those high-end listings that make agents the most money possible!

4)    Reddit - The reddit social media platform is designed to share links and content from various sources from all over the internet. Posting links to real estate news and realty company information is perfect for reddit, but before you start sharing away, make sure every web link you post if relevant and interesting content. Other reddit users vote on each user post, which ultimately determines where it will rank on reddit’s front page. And while this may seem like a bit of a deterrent, real estate agents should definitely use this unique aspect to their advantage. Having other reddit users dictate page rankings actually allows agents to understand what homebuyers are reading and how to better position you to post the real estate information people are looking for. If one particular real estate subject isn’t ranking well among reddit users, try something else until you finally find what the people want!

5)   Linkedin -Though most homebuyers won’t be searching for real estate property on Linkedin, it’s very important to have a detailed, well-organized profile on this professional networking site. Today’s tech-savvy homebuyers may not find a home for sale or new apartment rental on Linkedin, but the odds they find and research local Realtors here are quite high. So the more information about your qualifications and expertise in the real estate market you can provide to consumers, the more likely you’ll get a phone call to give a new listing presentation or the opportunity to show that brand new home for sale that just hit the market.

Joe Heath is a graduate of Indiana University and possesses a Graduate Certificate in Real Estate Development from Drexel University. After working in the market research sector and authoring published Market Snapshots for Hanley Wood Market Intelligence, Joe now works as a Web Marketing Specialist and co-owns Real Estate Web Creation with his partner, Ted Guarnero, a 25+ year real estate veteran.