Jason Bramell | Realty World Northern CA & NV

Posted By susanne On January 11, 2012 @ 5:12 pm In Best Practices,Business Development,Marketing,Real Estate,Real Estate Information,Real Estate News,Real Estate Trends

In support of Google’s Go Mo initiative, Mobile Real Estate (MRE), a leading mobile solutions provider, has launched a free online tool that allows REALTORS® to test their website to ensure it is optimized for mobile. When Google launched its initiative there was an estimated 89% of fortune 100 companies who did not have websites that are optimized for the mobile phone. It is expected to be slightly higher than that in the real estate industry.

The goal of Mobile Real Estate’s new initiative is to ensure that every REALTOR® is mobilized in 2012. The first step in achieving that goal is to give REALTORS® a place to go to test their site. You can now go to www.testmysitenow.com [1] to find out if your site is optimized for the mobile phone. At this site you will be able to see what your buyers see, and in addition to that you will receive a free custom report on your site and tips from Google on how to fix it.

Today’s mobile devices are rapidly becoming the go-to devices to access information. However, the abundance of information not being formatted correctly only frustrates consumers, turning a potential lead into a missed opportunity. Real estate websites, specifically are known to be all informational.

“I believe the initiative started by Google is extremely important to the two industries I love – mobile and real estate,” said John Lim, president and CEO of Mobile Real Estate. “It is crucial to the growth of the entire real estate industry to ensure every URL works on a mobile device. Buyers are accessing information more and more from their mobile device, each time they attempt this and have a bad experience it does not only reflect on the REALTOR® who owns that URL, but on the industry as a whole. “

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Companies will integrate offerings in upcoming quarters, company says

BY INMAN NEWS, THURSDAY, DECEMBER 15, 2011.

Inman News™

VerticalResponse, a provider of Web-based self-service marketing tools for small businesses, hasacquired social network marketing technology company Roost, the companies announced today.

Financial terms of the deal were not disclosed. Both companies are based in San Francisco, which helped the two “get to know each other” and realize they had similar audiences, Roost said in an announcement to users.

Roost was founded in 2007 as a property search portal. In September 2010, the company changed its business model to focus on helping real estate agents and brokers gain referral business through social networking on Facebook.

In late March 2011, Roost unveiled its social marketing platform and simultaneously expanded its business model beyond real estate professionals to other small-business owners, such as lawyers, accountants and restaurateurs.

VerticalResponse’s offerings include email marketing, online surveys, event marketing, and direct-mail marketing. This is the company’s first acquisition in the nearly 11 years it’s been in business, said Janine Popick, the company’s CEO, in a statement.

“The number of our customers who share their email marketing campaigns with their social networks has increased over 1,400 percent since the beginning of 2011, so it’s clear that small businesses understand the power of social media. Now with Roost’s social media marketing tools, they can take their customer engagement efforts to the next level,” Popick said.

Click here to read full article

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Remember what it felt like to receive that birthday card in the mail from your grandparent or long distance relative? That five or ten dollar bill was a joy to receive as a kid, and you knew it was coming every year and the excitement would build throughout the weeks prior to your big day.

It seems like anymore the anticipation of your birthday has actually been diminished by the social media movement. Sure it’s always nice to receive the birthday wishes on your Facebook page, though somehow not quite the same. The creators of BLOQSY have introduced a new, innovative way to reignite those fond feelings of anticipation and will allow all of your FB friends and family to play a role in your next birthday, anniversary, graduation, the purchase of your first home and much more. Click here for beta access now!

As if it isn’t amazing enough that Realty World Northern CA provides it’s network with one the most extensive property listing syndication available in the industry, now topping over 800 web portals! Reaching consumers on their tech saavy turf has become essential to remain relevant in today’s competitive market place. As of December 1st, Realty World Northern CA & NV will be introducing one more innovative way for agents and brokers to meet consumers on the tech savvy front through our newest support system – “Mobile Connect”!

This system will include Open House Syndication and Mobile Lead Generation tools giving our agents a powerful toolbox to provide an even bigger advantage over their competition to gain more listings, and meet new buyers.

To learn more about how you too can gain the benefit of this innovative system, contact me today!

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Realty World Northern CA proudly introduces another innovative system to bring the most exposure of current open houses to a greater audience of active home buyers…

Our network Brokers and Agents now have the ability to broadcast their upcoming open house events through our coveted National Listings Distribution program which will syndicate the listing information through more than 30 of the most heavily trafficked consumer real estate web portals. As an added benefit this will also accommodate the more tech savvy home shopper through compatibility with mobile applications like Trulia.com which will pin point the consumers location through the GPS on their smart phone and provide turn by turn directions to the most hyper local open houses in the area.

Did I mention this service is offered to all of our network agents and brokers for FREE? To learn more about the innovative agent platform Realty World Northern CA provides, visit us online at www.RWNC.com or contact me today!

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You may have seen lately on some of your favorite consumer products a strange looking UPC code that doesn’t quite look right.

This type of marketing is a great way to remain relevant to consumers with a lot of the data you would normally need to print. Many consumers today use smart phones on the fly to access information as they need it. QR coding will help you to deliver that information from your property listing yard sign, marking flyers, postcard mailers, and/or email campaigns in a conducive format for today’s smart phone users.

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The San Francisco based social media company Roost, has been developing tools and programs designed to increase customer engagement for individual professionals and businesses through platforms like Facebook and Twitter since 2007.

In the real estate industry it’s no mystery that your ability to gain referrals from past, current clients is integral to maintaining an active pipeline of potential buyers and sellers. As a professional myself, I employ multiple marketing platforms to remain relevant to my client base, and you must be able to mix up your media to attain consistent results. Email campaign programs are a fantastic way to stay in front of folks on a regular basis, though as a rule of thumb you shouldn’t be bombarding your database of contacts everyday or even every week with emails explaining the benefits of working with you. In fact you are more likely to lose potential customers due to spam filtering, and/or by the recipient simply unsubscribe from future communications because you have become an annoyance.

Social media platforms have provided professionals a way to remain visible more often without the risk of becoming white noise, or being shuffled to the “Trash” folder. With more than 800 million users on Facebook alone, it goes without saying that you must be able to leverage social media.

Roost.com has introduced a solution to create powerful marketing campaigns that will help the average professional to seem like a pro with their content.

Roost Campaign Creator Overview from Roost on Vimeo.

Real Estate Connect is always a whirlwind, and this year was no exception. There are always fantastic speakers and tons of great content, and it’s impossible to attend every workshop and session. However, I always make a point at the conference to grab a good seat for Brad Inman’s keynote. I was particularly interested in Brad’s keynote this year. He discussed the post-PC era, and how tablets and smartphones are reshaping our lives and how we consume content.

The post-PC era and mobile technologies are the leading catalysts for the open Web and cross-platform applications.

I participated in a session at a Real Estate Connect technology workshop titled “HTML5 vs. Flash: Is Flash Dead?” Ori Staub, the technology director at Active Website, also joined me on stage as we discussed many topics, including the current HTML standards, video, CSS3, JavaScript, app development, and more.

During the Q-and-A portion, I learned that many website owners in the audience still utilized Adobe Flash on their real estate websites and did not have a mobile version.

Investors bid up shares to nearly twice offering price
BY MATT CARTER, WEDNESDAY, JULY 20, 2011.
Inman News™

Five years after shaking up the real estate industry by making public property records and automated home valuations available to consumers online, Zillow Inc. today became a publicly traded company valued at nearly $1 billion.

Zillow said it raised $75.7 million in the IPO and private placement of 3.7 million shares priced at $20 each. Investors promptly bid the shares up to more than double that price after trading commenced this morning on the Nasdaq.

By early afternoon, Zillow’s share price had settled down into the $35 range — which would put the company’s market capitalization at about $962 million, if underwriters exercise an over-allotment option to bring shares outstanding to a total of 27.5 million in coming weeks.

By Brad Froelich

RISMEDIA, July 12, 2011—Executives within the default Industry are required to make decisions on a variety of dispositions that vary from loss mitigation to REO pricing strategies. The Broker Pricing Opinion (BPO) is an integral component of the decision making process, and as the industry has grown exponentially over the past five years, the need for greater accountability has grown with it.

Real estate agents that provide BPOs have been asked to provide that accountability with a level of detail not previously asked for, and document their valuations with transparent, non-biased reporting reflective of their local market expertise.

The culmination of this request for greater detail has seen the BPO evolve from a one-page summary of current sales and listings, into a two-page document requiring the agent to detail and comment on those forces that affect marketability. Furthermore, every BPO is now reviewed by an audit staff to ensure that the BPO meets client specified requirements.

Click here to read the full article

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