Thank you for the opportunity to comment on this subject.
As a designated Realtor and head of our company, I investigate new technologies and advise our agents reference both their feasibility and cost of application. My analysis is oriented toward determining the commercial application of the technology or in other words “will it sell real property?”.
Blogs or blogging have been on my plate for some time. Blogs are obviously popular and have already evolved into profitable business for Google and Yahoo. I have reviewed several blogs created by real estate people. Thus far they are uniformly boring and nothing much more than flawed interpretations of local statistics. The problem seems to be one of time and audience. Much of what the public needs is someone to correct misperceptions and provide insight as to how business is being conducted today and tomorrow as opposed to yesterday or last year. There is an old Texas saying (there always is), “Advice is worth about what you paid for it”. Thus far I have not come up with a way to establish sufficient credibility in the blog environment. If the blogger has a following and can get a dialog started, that traffic should generate a following that will ultimately result in business for the blogger simply because people prefer to do business with persons that they know and trust at least by reputation. In my mind, that means that a successful real estate blogger will operate much as we did in the early ninties with bulletin boards. You will read postings and respond to those related to your profession. Next comes the time issue. When a real estate professional has sufficient experience to be credible, that person is usually in demand and blogging just isn’t the highest priority and best use of time. For example, I currently supervise 47 agents and we close over 300 transactions per year.
In summary. If a credible and documented expert, consistently addresses real estate issues in any forum then it is reasonable to expect that a certain number of dialogs will result in business transactions.
I know almost nothing about the newer forms of data streaming such as pod casting, but at this point I believe that subscriber issues are a major problem with creating any effective marketing.
Jim Jackson President Capitol Area Realty, Inc. jimj@CapitolAreaRealty.com "Selling Austin Since 1976"
As a 40 year resident of Austin, daughter of a sucessful Austin realtor (my dad sold real estate for 30 years here) and a Realtor myself for 16, I have see the face of Austin change dramatically, and the style of the Real Estate industry with it.
Where we once were mostly a college town, and the realtors knew each other and all the homes, we are now a global center for technology, one of the most wired cities in the country, with over 6,000 licensed real estate agents, and suburban sprawl. Our clients used to look at flyers, go to open houses, and spend weekends with their agents looking at possible homes. Now our clients want to "tour" homes on the internet via virtual tours, they want to see neighborhood amenities and schools, and they want their weekends for relaxation. They expect technology to do much of the leg work in searching for a home so that by the time they do look at homes with their agent, they are viewing homes that will actually work for them.
This is why I believe Podcasts should be added to the real estate agent's "arsenal" of tools. It's a way to give a prospective buyer a tour of a neighborhood, a shopping area near by or even the schools. For a home that is being marketed by the agent it's a mini virtual tour that becomes available to a huge audience when loaded on iTunes or one of the many other sites that catalogue podcasts. I think the mis-conception by most realtors is that you can only download the podcasts to an ipod, but the vast majority of viewers simply view these on their computer. I have begun to use podcasts. I believe I am simply using another technology my clients will come to expect in the near future much as virtual tours, floorplans, and multiple photos are expected now.
Lori Galloway, ABR, SRES Mary Nell Garrison, REALTORS lori@lorigalloway.com
Will blogs and podcasts prove helpful to agents? It depends on how realtors use the technology. If they try to force this new medium into a lead generation tool, it will not likely be very productive because consumers are in control of this flow of information, and they will simply ignore it. These same "rules" apply to the internet--a medium in which consumers control. Buyers want helpful information, yet most agents clog their website with their personal photos and me-too self-promotion pitches. Prior to real estate I had an advertising background so I try to think in terms of what transpires in professional advertising circles. For example, when you see an ad for a Mercedes-Benz is there a photo of the salesman? Of course not. Why? Because no one cares, and it has nothing to do with the product being sold. Every bit of research from Madison Avenue shows that the best ads clearly telegraph information that appeals to the reader's self-interest. The lesson is--don't tell the consumer about you--tell them how they will benefit. This means provide helpful information. A recent survey of real estate ads shows that just over fifty percent of newspaper ads intentionally withhold the price or address. The wisdom is that this forces the consumer to call which gives the agent a chance to pry for the caller's name, phone number, etc. But, consumers quickly learn this and ignore such ads. Podcasts and blogs may hold huge potential for one reason--you can uncork lots of interesting information. One of the direct mail industry's "rules" is "the more you tell, the more you sell".
As the CEO of a Zooven.com, an Austin real estate/tech start-up and real estate consumer I have seen first hand how technology is changing the real estate landscape. I was reading a blog the other night and I'm sorry that I can't remember the site, but the guy made a really good point that I agree with. Real estate will always be a transaction that needs people, technology will only make those who adopt it more successful, and the one's that don't adopt it will be left behind.
Blogs will play a large roll in education buyers about the real estate transaction process and hopefully result in a more educated and informed buyer. This should make the job of real estate professionals easier as buyers will have done more homework up front and have a better idea of what they are looking for.
5 comments:
Thank you for the opportunity to comment on this subject.
As a designated Realtor and head of our company, I investigate new technologies and advise our agents reference both their feasibility and cost of application. My analysis is oriented toward determining the commercial application of the technology or in other words “will it sell real property?”.
Blogs or blogging have been on my plate for some time. Blogs are obviously popular and have already evolved into profitable business for Google and Yahoo. I have reviewed several blogs created by real estate people. Thus far they are uniformly boring and nothing much more than flawed interpretations of local statistics. The problem seems to be one of time and audience. Much of what the public needs is someone to correct misperceptions and provide insight as to how business is being conducted today and tomorrow as opposed to yesterday or last year. There is an old Texas saying (there always is), “Advice is worth about what you paid for it”. Thus far I have not come up with a way to establish sufficient credibility in the blog environment. If the blogger has a following and can get a dialog started, that traffic should generate a following that will ultimately result in business for the blogger simply because people prefer to do business with persons that they know and trust at least by reputation. In my mind, that means that a successful real estate blogger will operate much as we did in the early ninties with bulletin boards. You will read postings and respond to those related to your profession. Next comes the time issue. When a real estate professional has sufficient experience to be credible, that person is usually in demand and blogging just isn’t the highest priority and best use of time. For example, I currently supervise 47 agents and we close over 300 transactions per year.
In summary. If a credible and documented expert, consistently addresses real estate issues in any forum then it is reasonable to expect that a certain number of dialogs will result in business transactions.
I know almost nothing about the newer forms of data streaming such as pod casting, but at this point I believe that subscriber issues are a major problem with creating any effective marketing.
Jim Jackson
President
Capitol Area Realty, Inc.
jimj@CapitolAreaRealty.com
"Selling Austin Since 1976"
As a 40 year resident of Austin, daughter of a sucessful Austin realtor (my dad sold real estate for 30 years here) and a Realtor myself for 16, I have see the face of Austin change dramatically, and the style of the Real Estate industry with it.
Where we once were mostly a college town, and the realtors knew each other and all the homes, we are now a global center for technology, one of the most wired cities in the country, with over 6,000 licensed real estate agents, and suburban sprawl. Our clients used to look at flyers, go to open houses, and spend weekends with their agents looking at possible homes. Now our clients want to "tour" homes on the internet via virtual tours, they want to see neighborhood amenities and schools, and they want their weekends for relaxation. They expect technology to do much of the leg work in searching for a home so that by the time they do look at homes with their agent, they are viewing homes that will actually work for them.
This is why I believe Podcasts should be added to the real estate agent's "arsenal" of tools. It's a way to give a prospective buyer a tour of a neighborhood, a shopping area near by or even the schools. For a home that is being marketed by the agent it's a mini virtual tour that becomes available to a huge audience when loaded on iTunes or one of the many other sites that catalogue podcasts.
I think the mis-conception by most realtors is that you can only download the podcasts to an ipod, but the vast majority of viewers simply view these on their computer. I have begun to use podcasts. I believe I am simply using another technology my clients will come to expect in the near future much as virtual tours, floorplans, and multiple photos are expected now.
Lori Galloway, ABR, SRES
Mary Nell Garrison, REALTORS
lori@lorigalloway.com
Will blogs and podcasts prove helpful to agents? It depends on how realtors use the technology. If they try to force this new medium into a lead generation tool, it will not likely be very productive because consumers are in control of this flow of information, and they will simply ignore it.
These same "rules" apply to the internet--a medium in which consumers control. Buyers want helpful information, yet most agents clog their website with their personal photos and me-too self-promotion pitches.
Prior to real estate I had an advertising background so I try to think in terms of what transpires in professional advertising circles. For example, when you see an ad for a Mercedes-Benz is there a photo of the salesman? Of course not. Why? Because no one cares, and it has nothing to do with the product being sold.
Every bit of research from Madison Avenue shows that the best ads clearly telegraph information that appeals to the reader's self-interest. The lesson is--don't tell the consumer about you--tell them how they will benefit. This means provide helpful information. A recent survey of real estate ads shows that just over fifty percent of newspaper ads intentionally withhold the price or address. The wisdom is that this forces the consumer to call which gives the agent a chance to pry for the caller's name, phone number, etc. But, consumers quickly learn this and ignore such ads.
Podcasts and blogs may hold huge potential for one reason--you can uncork lots of interesting information. One of the direct mail industry's "rules" is "the more you tell, the more you sell".
Stan Barron,
Stan Barron Properties
As the CEO of a Zooven.com, an Austin real estate/tech start-up and real estate consumer I have seen first hand how technology is changing the real estate landscape. I was reading a blog the other night and I'm sorry that I can't remember the site, but the guy made a really good point that I agree with. Real estate will always be a transaction that needs people, technology will only make those who adopt it more successful, and the one's that don't adopt it will be left behind.
Blogs will play a large roll in education buyers about the real estate transaction process and hopefully result in a more educated and informed buyer. This should make the job of real estate professionals easier as buyers will have done more homework up front and have a better idea of what they are looking for.
Austin Real Estate Search
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