Ubertor Real Estate Blog

There was an article in yesterday’s Vancouver Sun about which words in a listing description help and which hurt. It was an interesting article about the use of specific words and how they can impact the sale of a home. You can read the full article here (c/o LA Times via the Houston Chronicle - not the Vancouver Sun).

I have spoken about agents providing value and not just data…. this is a great example of the value of a real estate agent. Anyone can write a description of a house. But a real estate agent should provide value in writing a description of a house that is using stats and facts like the ones in this article so that the home sells faster and for its full value.

Those that help
•Handyman special
•Curb appeal
•Move-in condition
•Landscaping
•Granite
•Gourmet
•Golf

Those that hurt
•Motivated seller
•Good value
•As-is
•Clean
•Quiet
•New paint

On a side note and I think a good example of having information available on the internet for all to see. I was trying to find this article on VancouverSun.com but for some reason it is not there. (I’m not sure why, maybe they only have the rights to use it in the newspaper and not on the internet.) Either way, it took me less than 2 seconds to Google the authors name and find the exact same article but on the LA Times website. So I linked this blog post there.

Why does this matter to you? Well, I run into agents all the time that want to limit the information they put on the internet thinking it will bring them a “lead” when that person has to call or email to get the details they want. I suggest to you that you are actually losing that lead by doing this. A simple Google search for the address, building name, mls#, etc will most likely provide the information that the searcher is looking for - and it won’t be your website they end up on!

The other day I was talking about an agent that listed a home for $1.00 and was getting a ton of exposure on the internet for this simple tactic. Today, I see a similar story where a real estate agent in Texas gives guns to homebuyers. Costs her $500.00 per gun but has gained some extraordinary exposure to her and her business.

What can you do to gain exposure like this?

Here is the story from Reuters:

HOUSTON (Reuters) - A Texas real estate agent looking to add more bang to her business is offering clients in law enforcement a free Glock pistol if they buy a home from her.

Julie Upton, a Houston-area real estate agent, spurned traditional buyer incentives like free gasoline cards or home improvement store gift certificates.

Instead, she placed an advertisement offering a pistol with the purchase of any home worth at least $150,000 in the city police department’s monthly publication, “Badge & Gun.”

The free guns are only for those in law enforcement, said Upton, who is married to a police officer.

“We thought it would be a good way to entice other police officers,” Upton said. “And whether people want the gun or not, it has stirred up a lot of attention.”

Upton has given away two pistols to police officers who purchased homes from her. The guns cost about $500.

And so far the advertisement has not generated negative attention from the anti-gun lobby, she said.

In Texas, no license is required to own a rifle, shotgun or handgun, but a permit is needed to carry a concealed weapon, according to the National Rifle Association.

More here, here, here and here

Are you looking for an interesting way to gain exposure for your listing?

Evan Kane a Chicago Realtor posted a listing to his MLS for $1.00 - According to Sellsius he is getting some grief from the real estate board there but he has definitely gained some exposure for his listing.

What simple thing could you do to make your listing stand out from the crowd and gain some remarkable exposure?

(this small, unique listing technique I’m sure has brought significant exposure to his listing…. some exposure that you can’t buy)

I see so many emails that have poor or non-existent email signatures. Your email signature is a very important marketing tool and there are so many agents who do not use it correctly, or even at all. Now, there is no right or wrong, but here is what I think…

Here is a bad example:

Stephen P. Jagger
Founding Partner
Combustion Labs Media Inc.
www.ubertor.com
email: steve@ubertor.com

Direct Line: 604-537-4548
Fax: 604-608-3418

Here is a better example:

Stephen P. Jagger
Founding Partner
Combustion Labs Media Inc.
http://www.ubertor.com
email: steve@ubertor.com

Direct Line: 604-537-4548
Fax: 604-608-3418

Our Real Estate Blog: http://ubertor.com/blog/
Customer Service Website: http://support.ubertor.com
Live Chat: http://www.livehelp.ubertor.com/

Notice that at the very least the links are linked. There is nothing worse than thinking you want to go to the email senders website and then having to cut and paste the link from their email. It should be as simple as a click. Make sure you put the http:// in front of your web address. (this is especially annoying to see in craigslist when you want to see more photos and the website is not a link)

Other ideas to add to your email signature:
- your website
- your direct phone number
- your blog
- brief info about your newest listing
- a quote (not my favorite, but sometimes can be effective)

Similar to the very popular digg.com, RealEstateVoices.com is a real estate social news site designed to help you discover the most interesting real estate related articles of the day, as voted and suggested by your fellow users. Niki Scevak, the founder sent me an email this morning about the new site. I have just started playing with it, but it looks interesting.

RealEstateVoices.com is a side project for Niki as their main site is HomeThinking.com which helps users find real estate agents by showing them what each real estate agent has done in the past and what customers have said about the job they did. Both sites are interesting and worth checking out.

I receive quite a few questions in my email inbox most of which I answer quickly back to the person that asked. Sometimes, I post that response here in my blog but not often enough. Adam Smith, a Realtor in White Rock commented in another post about my blog and what he likes about it. Here is what he had to say:

“I thought this was probably the most useful blog I have seen published in some time. Thank
you. I have already added the google analytics feature and signed up with activerain.com .
I look forward to more useful information like this to come. Adam.” - www.adamdsmith.ca

I emailed Adam back thanking him for his comments and asked if he had any specific questions. Well, as you can see, he did, and this post is about one of them. Adam emailed back asking “what is squidoo…?” and suggested an “Ask Ubertor” section might be a good way to communicate these types of questions.

So, here we go:

What is Squidoo.com?
Squidoo.com is an online software platform that allows you to create a simple blog type web page that focuses on a specific topic. It is a single page that you can dedicate to anything and setup is easy and free. The best part of having a Squidoo page (or lens as they call it) is that you can earn royalties from the traffic that the lens generates. If you choose to, you can forfeit your royalties to a charity of your choice. Squidoo claims that “Lenses have huge credibility with search engines, so your lens can help your other sites rise to the top of Google searches.” So far for us, it has brought some traffic, mostly from Yahoo, but we will see how it progresses. Its free to setup and very easy.

Squidoo.com is the creation of Seth Godin, a master marketer who has written many books, all of which are worth picking up as there is so much good information in them.

Related Sites:
Squidoo.com FAQ
About Squidoo.com from their site
Seth Godin’s Blog
Seth’s Books

I hope this helps…. if you have questions that you want answered, email me as I would be pleased to help.

UPDATE - - Seth Godin adds his thoughts in the comments

Marketing Guru Seth Godin posted a list in his blog tonight titled - The 8 Free Things Every Site Should Do. (he also made a Squidoo lens for it) He includes 3 rules:

Rule #1: If you have a site, you want more traffic.
Rule #2: You don’t have enough money to buy as much traffic as you need.
Rule #3: You’ve already made your site as compelling as you know how to.

His list is a little technical for the average real estate professional so I figured I would post my own.

The 8 Free Things Every Site Should Do (in no particular order)
1. Post listing to Craigslist.org with a hyperlink back to your website
2. Build a Squidoo lens (here’s mine)
3. Issue a Press Release
4. Google Analytics - signup, monitor your sites progress
5. Comment on other blogs with a link back to your site (good quality comments, don’t comment just to do it)
6. Write a blog
7. Add a signature to your email that contains your web address (emails tend to get forwarded all over the place)
8. Signup for and participate in ActiveRain.com

Just got back from the Vancouver Real Estate Board Trade Show at the Westin Bayshore in downtown Vancouver. Bit of a rainy day for the event so the view that the Bayshore has was nowhere to be seen. Here is what it should have looked like:

The event seemed to go well for everyone involved. We had a booth at the show. It was great to chat with many of our existing clients as well as meet many new Realtors. Dara from RealtySupport.ca and Darryl from MyHomeTours.ca were at our booth for a while showcasing their products and services. All in all, a great day.

Greg over at Blood Hound Realty has been discussing the way he creates a unique web page for each of his listings so that he can promote a specific URL for the home that he is selling. He and the FreetheDrones blog talk about the reasons he does this as well as the costs involved. FreetheDrones talks about it as “only $10 to do it” but I would suggest that it is significantly more than that. The time required to build the site, even quickly, is also part of the costs of doing this. I applaud Greg for doing this.

I do want to take this opportunity to point out how our Ubertor software does something similar and helps real estate agents with no design/html/seo knowledge achieve similar goals.

For starters:
1. Every listing added into the Ubertor system automatically assigns a number to that listing. So when you want to promote a listing you don’t have to put this ( http://www.andrewhasman.com/Properties.php/Details/115/ ) on your signs, flyers, etc you can just put this - www.andrewhasman.com/115 . We did this so that agents have a quick, short, simple address to promote their listings. This unique web address will take the users/potential buyer directly to that listing within the real estate agents website. Thus getting the user right to the information that they are looking for.

2. The other thing that our system does well (in my biased opinion) is automatically incorporate some search engine optimization techniques within ever listings page. Here are a few of them:

a. The Ubertor software automatically creates the title tag based on the listings details. Here is a screen shot of what I mean:

b. Plus, the real estate agent can quickly update the title tags further by clicking the box next to the available features within the home. Here is an example of that:

c. Above the photos for each listing we place the most important content about the home for sale. Things like area, building name, etc are right above the photos. Example:

d. Normally at the top of a single listing you have buttons that allow you to click to see the next listing or click to see the previous listing. We have made these buttons dynamic. What I mean is, if the next property for sale is a condo the button won’t say “Next Property” it will say “Next Condo” or “Next Single Family Property”. We try to utilize as much good quality content as possible within the page.

3. When the Realtor moves the listing from Active to Sold the unique URL stays with the listing so it will always work.

** Watch this blog for more features coming soon to the listings portion of of our software… there are some great new tools coming soon.

Are you interested in trying out our website software? Drop me an email or give me a call and I would be please to setup a site with you and waive the setup fee. Remember, we have no contract and no obligation. The monthly cost is $57.00/month. Here are a few links to new sites on our system - Ottawa, San Diego, Vancouver, San Francisco, Toronto and Long Island.

Google is making some changes to how its system “can” work so that the searches you do give you more accurate results. From their site:

Personalized Search orders your search results based on what you’ve searched for in the past.

Now, the reason I say “can” is because every time I talk about this with anyone their first though is that Google is watching what they do. To use the Personalized Search function of their system you must have a Google account. Thus agreeing to them tracking your searches so that they can provide you with more accurate results to your personal taste. From their site:

Early on, you may not notice a huge impact on your search results, but they will continue to improve over time as you use Google.

The best way to really explain what this means to your average user is to pass on a simple example that someone told me:

Lets say Steve likes fishing and Mike likes music.
If they both search for “bass” in Google

Steve will see fishing results
Mike will see music results

In the non stop effort to provide more accurate results to search engine users this looks to be a step in the right direction. The only downside I can see is that people will not want Google tracking their searches.

For more information check out Google Personal Search - http://www.google.com/psearch