Spoken Gently's Blog: For Realtors

I received my weekly copy of the Washington REALTORS® Newsletter and usually there is a good article or two inside. This week's edition was no exception. Bill Miles posts an article on The End Of The Line For Real Estate Agents and discusses the current market and the shift towards home owners' self reliance in selling/buying their own home without the use of a real estate agent. Miles illustrates the need for real estate agents to make adjustments factoring in the changing marketplace by specializing in an area(s) of expertise to accommodate the changing market climate. I would recommend the article, as the article addresses a concern I have had for some time that real estate agents are slowly being replaced by the internet, FSBO information and…

I found a pretty darn good list of 47 points to consider for building a website or blog. The article is written by Miles Galliford and titled 47 Simple Ways to Build Trust in Your Website or Blog. A lot of points to consider, however, the good news is your competitor will most likely not consider these points.

While on the subject of lists, here are a few favorite SEO list I've used from time to time for our real estate website: 101 Ways to Build Link Popularity | 106 Content Idea For Real Estate Agents | 24 On-Site SEO Checkups | 10 Tips For The Ultimate Landing Page

Using Google's mapping features, as well as other recognized company's mapping features is considered fair use and taken for granted by most real estate agents. Well, think again. There has been a case working it's way through the courts whereby an Ambler Pennsylvania real estate agent, Diane Sarkisian, is being sued by Real Estate Alliance, Ltd. REALS (for short) is seeking unspecified damages for Sarkisian's alleged illegal use of its patented property locator method. This lawsuit was filed back in July of 2005 and reported by Inman News. Fast forward a few years to this Inman News article. National Association of REALTORS® has pledged close to $850,000 to help defend Sarkisian. Apparently, this case is still alive and may have an impact for those of us…

That's right, 40 links to your Squidoo lens. Most folks do not take advantage of Squidoo's tagging feature. Each lens is allotted 40 tags, and used wisely, a lens can rise through the Squidoo ranks, provide high quality links to your real estate website, garner traffic, create sales, or all of the aforementioned. I will present a short primer on Squidoo tagging tricks for those interested in creating inbound links to your Squidoo lens.

Anatomy Of A Tag

Whenever a tag is created, a link is placed on the page named with your tag and points back at your lens. For example, on our Flipping Real Estate lens, you'll notice a tag for 'agent estate flipping real (it is the first tag).' That tag is on this page. How did I come up with 'agent estate flipping…

Increasing competition in the real estate industry and a large number of net-friendly users, make it important for every business to have a web presence. A website will help you reach out to potential clients 24x7x365—i.e. even when you are asleep! But it is not enough to host a website and wait for clients to come knocking on your door. A lot goes into ensuring that a website gets you ‘real’ business. If you are spending time and money on designing a website, make sure you do it sensibly.

Here are some points to consider when creating an efficient website that will earn you business:

Fancy first letters are an easy way to add the effect of an image to your blog. I'll show you how to include a fancy first letter like the one I've have done to start this blog off. Let's start with some Lorem Ipsum text, then I will show you the code. Here's our example:

Maecenas convallis tristique erat. Suspendisse potenti. Aenean eu erat. Nulla facilisi. Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetuer adipiscing elit. Cum sociis natoque penatibus et magnis dis parturient montes, nascetur ridiculus mus. Pellentesque massa. Proin non ipsum. Etiam semper interdum massa. Vivamus ut sem at nisl bibendum consectetuer. Quisque pharetra, nulla in pretium consequat, augue dolor imperdiet leo, eu sodales nunc justo vitae eros. Suspendisse potenti. Morbi auctor…

My wife and I have had rental properties for 20 years and have yet to go to small claims court, and/or go through the eviction process. We currently have several rental properties and will have a vacancy in October. Since we are in the process of finding a qualified tenant, I thought I would pass along our tips we employ in finding a qualified renter.

First, you need a bunch of folks interested. It is a numbers game. The more prospects you have to pick from, the better your chances are in finding a great tenant. We do this by renting our properties for slightly below market value (creating a demand), and second, by being the first ad in the section we are advertising in. All classified sections have their own criteria, and in our local classified…

There are probably scores of mistakes real estate agents can make, however, there are 7 mistakes, or bad habits, that bother me the most. Probably because I see them more that I would prefer to. Here is my list of 7 Habits of Highly Ineffective REALTORS®:

1. Tardiness, or being late for appointments. When a real estate agent shows up late for an appointment, it communicates the message that "my time is more important than your time," or "I'm too irresponsible or careless to provide a courtesy call communicating an unforeseen event," and/or "I simply do not care enough." Enough said on that.

2. Not returning calls promptly. We've had listing agents simply not return calls. The agent lists the property, then does not return calls on the listing. Not…