Technology

You've seen MLS photos shot with a wide angle lens like (like the ones below). It's probably a good photo, but, not in the form it gets uploaded to in the MLS. Typically, they get mashed (technical term) in from the left and the right until the picture looks stretched tall. Very bad image from a consumer perspective to say the least and wide angle photos really do make for better shots of rooms than a regular width photo. There is a simple way to avoid this, get your full width and not worry ... Read Full Post

In a previous post, I talked about the how and why I think that good single property websites can help to market our listings. At that time, I had really just implemented them for all of my listings and wanted to get back to something that I said I would do about what some best practices might be for reusing them. Before I get that far, I do want to say that I can in fact say that it was one of the single property websites that sold a listing that we closed on this past week. The story, as re... Read Full Post

A $60 investment is all that is needed to make your listings shine. For the last year or so I have struggled with how to improve the photos that I take for my listings and to be honest, I always considered it one of my weaker points. Unfortunately, it's one of, if not the most important aspect in marketing a listing. After all, no matter how many eyeballs you get to view a home online, if the photos are terrible or even average, it's difficult to get a buyer excited about the home. I went thr... Read Full Post

About two months ago, I posted about a new single property website using WordPress that I developed for added exposure to our listings. I had several people email and call me to see if they could use the WordPress theme for their listings. It took a while, but, I finally got the theme in a condition that would be easy enough for anyone who is familiar with hosting their own WordPress blog to use. For reference, here is an example of one that I created for a listing in Sandy Springs. Be forewa... Read Full Post

Unbelievable would be what I thought when I first saw it. Poor business decision, if that's what it is would be the reality. You see, MSN has some very unusual search results here in Atlanta. Typically, the most frequently searched term by consumers looking for real estate will be "city real estate" and in Atlanta, MSN returns the same website something on the order of 498 out of the first 500 search results! Here's a screen shot: O.K. So I guess it's not exactly the same result - they are al... Read Full Post

What? That's right! I have joined Team Eric - and I have thrown all the weight of my entry behind it. I found out where I stacked up so now it's time to give back to those who have the most to gain from a victory - Eric Blackwell. Besides, what would I do with another REW website with a custom IDX? I already have one. And one more thing - I want to help prevent some other people from attempting to sneak in the back door just before the contest ends to claim victory. This will mean that my ent... Read Full Post

Recently there was a big bloggers conference here in Atlanta and I missed it. For good reason, but, missed it none the less. Anyway, seems a big topic at the event dealt with "web 2.0". A search for web 2.0 from wikipedia suggests that what it is more than anything is the idea that we should be creating more interactive websites. Sort of take some of the anonymity away and get users involved. I'm not sure as to its effectiveness in general, but, it seems like something that we should all be t... Read Full Post

In an effort to improve marketing for all of our listings, I've finally decided to add single property websites as an additional marketing tool. These single property sites have been around for a long time and agents have been using them during listing presentations to woo their prey into listings, but, the truth is that these sites do little more than garble up the internet with more junk as none of them (at least none that I have seen) do anything except inflate the agent and seller while n... Read Full Post

No Joke! I received a phone call late last week and I answered it in the typical way and the man responded by saying that he found me online and that I was supposedly the greatest real estate agent in the world. Certainly I thought that this was a joke, but, as it turns out he had a serious question and was seeking advice from the greatest real estate agent in the world. He turned to Google and that's how he found me. funny as it were, the man had a question that the greatest real estate agen... Read Full Post

This one is short, but, squidoo has a really nice interface and a good deal of authority that might play well into this contest on its own or as an additional page to help your contest entry. I created a page here for the contest. What you will notice is that I actually added something of value in the form of the video to wards the bottom of the page. It's a youtube video that I had made for something else, but, it works quite well and adds a little fun to the contest. So if you need a little... Read Full Post