Vaca commented on her new office saying:

“I have visualized his office for five years. Back in 2007, during the banking crisis, I stuck with my strategic plan, which included more agents, more transactions, and growth in all areas. In fact during the economic downturn, my business doubled.”

The office occupies 5081 ft.² which is quite different from Monica’s first offices that totals 800 ft.². The new space includes a training room where staff and agents will have access to cutting-edge technology and industry resources. The supply room is well stocked and agents have access to every gadget they might need, enabling them to focus on their bottom lines. In addition to the beat technology, Vaca has ensured her staff has ergonomic work spaces and new furniture.

Vaca went on to say:

“I have been in the business for more than 25 years. I’ve seen it all. I have been in the agent’s shoes and I have numerous battles cause. I want these agents to feel at home and feel valued. Without my support team, we wouldn’t be standing here!”

The current marketing campaign of the Century 21® System is Smarter, Bolder, Faster. Monica’s personal mantra is “Tell us what you need and consider it done!” Vaca served as the 2012 President of the National Association of Hispanic Real Estate Professionals Houston Chapter.

© Elenathewise – Fotolia.com

Bland says “In the Houston Inner Loop area, townhouses are hot. My buyers this year have settled on townhomes 58% of the time, and half of those were new construction.”

Apparently many are attracted by the townhomes locations, as they tend to be close to the city and are ideal for people who want to live close to work or to their social life. The fact that they no longer have to struggle with highway traffic is an added bonus. Townhomes are more affordable than single family homes, especially in the Inner Loop when the cost of land is driving up the price of homes. Bland pointed out that whereas a typical single-family home lot is 5000 ft.² or even more, builders can place at least two townhomes on the same amount of land.

Bland went on to say “The cost of that land is half of what it would be for the single-family home. Consequently, the home has a smaller footprint and has to build up rather than out to achieve the desired living space. If there’s a yard at all, it’s a fairly small-just what city dwellers want. Maybe they’ve had a house in the suburbs and realized they had an unintended second job taking care of the lawn and landscaping.”

In spite of the smaller yard space, Bland does believe most townhomes have adequate outdoor space pointing out they may have multiple patios or huge deck. In addition most have been built in a more sophisticated and contemporary style with a floor plan that tends to work for couples with no children or just one child. However he does concede that most of the floor plans the townhomes would not be so great if you had two children and wanted them to have their own room. However just recently he has seen a lot more traditional floor plans with three bedrooms on the second floor while the garage and public rooms are on the first floor.

Anyone thinking about buying a townhome can contact Steve Bland on the 832-350-9556 or can call by his office at 1939 W. Gray in Houston’s Inner Loop Area.

The Southern Living Showcase Home

The Tuscan styled four-bedroom home features a study, formal dining room, mom’s office, games room and downstairs media room, and numerous architectural features such as a brick barrel vaulted ceiling in the kitchen and a mosaic tiled barrel vault in the master bath. The home has been built to incorporate the green building principles of the Greater Houston Builders Association Green Built Gulf Coast Initiative and technology includes iPad applications to control security, heating and cooling and lighting. The home embraces outdoor living, as there is a drop-down screen projector for movie watching while entertaining guests on the veranda.

The property is located at 15026 Hidden Valley Waters Drive in the Hidden Falls Subdivision in Cyprus, Texas. From October 6 to the 23rd the home will be open on Thursdays from noon till 8 PM and from Friday through to Sunday from noon to 6 PM, and will be benefiting HomeAid Houston. From November 3 through to the 20th the home will be open for the same hours, but will be benefiting the charity Be An Angel, and will be decorated for the holidays. Donations of $10 for each tour are accepted online at homesbymorningstar.com  or at the door.

Morning Star Builders Ltd has received numerous awards including an award for Houston’s Best Custom Home Design Award from $1.2 million to $1.8 million by the Greater Houston Builders Association. Southern Living selects custom home builders who have extensive knowledge and experience, and an excellent reputation in the marketplace, and the Showcase Home incorporates emerging design trends, and technology updates and green building techniques.

HomeAid Houston is a local charity sponsored by the Greater Houston Builders Association, and the charity identifies long-term, stable homeless care providers who need additional capacity, pairing them with builders, vendors and suppliers who donate their time, materials and labour to help build transitional homeless shelters.

Be An Angel Fund was created in 1986 by concerned parent upon realising the overwhelming needs of the moderately handicapped and profoundly deaf students at TH Rogers Elementary School. Twenty five years on the charity serves thousands of children in the local area providing services, specialized programs and equipment.

Prudential Gary Greene Realtors is the top listing and selling real estate firm in Houston, and was established in 1963 by Gary Greene before growing to multiple offices and later becoming a franchise brand of Better Homes and Gardens in the 1970s. In 2000 Gary Green Realtors affiliated with Prudential Real Estate Services, and partners Marilyn Eiland and Mark Woodroof manage day-to-day operations of the firm.

We have done several stories now about key cities and the manner in which Realtors engage the digital world compared to their “brick and mortar” business operations. For most that we have discovered, there is honestly not much real interest in using social media or even their own websites as conduits to reach clients. Let’s take a look at the top companies in Houston for a simple search query like “real estate Houston.”

At the top of the Google result and Houston’s online realty effort, Houston Association of Realtors offers up a minimalist design tied to YouTube (as above from HAR Chairman Carlos Bujosa), Facebook, even an iPhone app. 6,000 plus FB pals, atop  a “right side up” Twitter show as digitally aware a real estate company as any we have seen.

Okay, HAR is not technically a traditional real estate shop, but its positioning and end result (selling houses) represent a big digital interjection atop all other listings in Google. C. Robert Hale, III, CEO of Houston’s largest trade organization, presides over an organization of Texas proportions with over 25,000 members. As for reach? HAR is one of the few online US eal estate players we have seen offering superb International listings.

The image below is from HAR’s International listing directory which also affords site visitors an excellent combination of textual and historical information, but a rich media gallery as nice as any. If what I call “being there” means anything, the way HAR presents their agents and properties is top notch.

A Medieval Villa in Chianti in the Tuscany region - Courtesy HAR

Sitting in the fourth position (second in terms of area Realtors), underneath the cookie cutters of homes.com and realtor.com, MyHomeHouston professes their passion for all things real estate, right up front. So let’s see if they are?

First and foremost, there is no “face” of MHH. The about page does not even name the place where the proverbial buck stops. Passion cannot be weighed like so many horse feathers, but the folks who run this outfit seem to care less about Facebook, Twitter, even their own blog – the last post there was in August of 2010! To add insult to injury for Internet peeps, you cannot even see the listings without “opting in” and signing up to be spammed silly. I did manage to find someone tied to the site, Steve Castaneda a Houston agent with a Twitter account (he is passionate too). Steve must have been the principle agent at MHH at one point, all the testimonials point to him?

I signed up just for this report thinking something magical would happen if I did. To my dismay no faces of agents appeared, not Facebook engagement, and even the form fill contact remained in tact. The verdict on MyHomeHouston dot com? Guilty of digital treason – these guys need a world wide web marketing course. As you can see below, there appears to be no one home at MHH.

MyHomeHouston - A veritable ghost town in Texas

And, beneath the ever present Trulia and Yahoo Real Estate offerings on Google, Houston Properties dot com is another online real estate place holder basically. For a city with a metro area population of nearly 6 million, Houston’s real estate companies are not near “tough enough” – in fact, only one so far could beat their way out of a wet paper marketing bag.

Houston Properties’ effort is so ugly I won’t waste yours or my time. Paige Martin may have been featured on Fox News, in Houston Magazine, Keller Williams may even offer PRWeb press releases about her success, but if I were her I would erase my name from the Houston Properties site. What’s worse, Paige is no ignorant of social media, she has a personal Facebook contingent here. She graduated from Baylor for crying out loud!

Web 1.0 never looked better - Paige's site needs a makeover

Okay, Houston real estate offerings online has just become too painful to write about. I never would have suspected Realtors in this region could ever be so obtuse about using online tools. Rounding out the top 10 Google results are John Daugherty Realtors (not an ugly landing), and the Houston, Texas government’s real estate pages!

The compete graphic below projects the pitiful state of Houston’s digital awareness where selling homes is concerned. Houston Realtors appear to be content letting HAR run the show in Houston? Whatever happened to that old Texas competitive nature? The bottom line being, anyone who wants to take over completely the Houston area digital landscape, gimme a call. Astounding.

One thing that accounts for Houston's lack of online competition - HAR owns the traffic