ActiveRain Success Stories

"In northern Virginia Beach especially, those with rental properties often seek tenants who are foreign military personnel sent here to work at the NATO headquarters in Norfolk. They typically enter into 3 year leases and might pay rent in advance in 3 or 6 month intervals. I received a phone call from a gentleman in Tennessee who owns a luxury bayfront condo about a mile from where I live. I discuss my services with him and, after a few discussions, we end up entering into a property management agreement. He sends me the keys and I preview the home. The home photographs so well that I am able to create a beautiful post on my Shore Drive Blog, created via ActiveRain. I am able to get the home rented in 8 days for just under $3,000 / month. I ask each person that contacts me how they found me. This gentleman had typed "Virginia Beach NATO Rental" as a Google search, and my information was prominent on page one of that search. I had mentioned in one post that I had experience working with NATO tenants."

"Mil PCS, Inc. is owned and operated by Veterans with over 20 years of real estate experience, dedicated to helping fellow service members and their families - whether selling, buying, or renting, you need a real estate professional you can trust- let us serve you. http://militarypcs.org/"

"I've made contacts all over the country, and have been booked for several seminars through my postings on AR. Have received good referrals as well!"

"A few months ago, my manager asked if I knew anything about blogging. I more or less told her what it was and explained that it wasn't something I was into. I have enough trouble keeping up with my sphere of influence on Facebook! I told her to talk to Amber Noble-Garland, because Amber sent me a link to join Active Rain a loooooooong time ago, so she must be into blogging. About a week later, Amber held an office training session on blogging. I thought it was interesting, but I also knew I had no time to invest in another avenue. I had enough on my plate. I also felt I didn't have the commitment or creativity to write like some of the posts she showed us. Being the good friend that I am and with gratitude for Amber spending her time enlightening us, I thought I would join... just to give Amber the points. FAST FORWARD 3 MONTHS... WOW. I don't know where to begin. I've already had success by getting a fabulous new listing from blogging at Active Rain, but that doesn't compare to the mental success I've achieved by completely changing my business plan! By reading the step by step how-to articles and picking up tips on converting leads or landing a listing or overcoming objections or where to put my listings to be found by consumers to SEO and google juice... etc., I have become rejuvenated, invigorated and most of all motivated. My confidence is through the roof. I'm much more proactive now. I'm positioned for buyers and sellers to find ME! I'm back to generously investing in my internet presence and it is paying me back... NOW. Not like the farming I was doing. I cannot think of any venture in my life where I made a commitment and within 3 months can have such meaningful, life changing results. Now if only I could figure out how to get a few more hours in the day! And by the way... I'M teaching a training session on blogging next week!"

"Once I made the decision to jump to 'rainmaker' status I saw immediate changes in the traffic that my blogs were getting. Especially after I took advantage of the Active Rain University classes! Now when I do a Google search for my blog topics I am seeing them consistently on the first page of Google, and we all know what that means - it means that more people are seeing my name associated with mortgages and being ranked high on google means more traffic to my website, and that means more traffic in my front door! Thank you Active Rain!"

"Since 2008 when I started in December, I have been an active blogger. I write about real estate, about our barrier island, about situations in my own life, and other funny situations that always seem to come up. I tend to have a good following of bog readers who keep up with my activity. I also in 2013 started to reach out to some of the social media areas to spread my blog contacts just a bit further. It has also helped me to find rental tenants, buyers, and owners which has enabled me to do a better job as a real estate agent."

"ActiveRain has been a great source of learning the “virtual world”. As a result my web presence has increased dramatically allowing me to help considerably more people."

"ActiveRain is a great forum for discussion and the exchange of ideas. It is particularly useful to new agents, giving them access to literally thousands of agents with many years' experience. It also provides a platform for blogging...one of the best ways to promote your business. The practice gained in writing for the ActiveRain blog also allows people to feel more confident about blogging on their own website-an invaluable resource for new business."

"http://activerain.com/blogsview/1227811/below-appraisal-lawrence-kansas-real-estate was a blog that I just wrote and within minutes when I went to search for below appraisal homes BAM!!! there was my blog as #5 across the nation!!!! On a local level I searched for below appraisal homes lawrence kansas and found my Localism.com blog as #1 and my ActiveRain.com blog as #2 and Localism.com for the city of Lawrence as #4!!! Thank you Active Rain for making me a success by getting my information out there at the top of search engines and putting Lawrence Kansas Real Estate and Lawrence Kansas Homes for Sale "on the map". Rob Lang www.AskRobLang.com"

"I just started using ActiveRain...it looks like it is going to be very productive."

"My success has come from ActiveRains fantastic Blogging Platform! It has allowed me to reach out to home buyers across the country relocating to my area and allowed local home owners to find a great Home Listing Specialist. Last buy not least, blogging through ActiveRain has helped my website gain rankings in the Google search engines."

"February 2013 in Austin Texas at Family Reunion for Keller Williams. We attended a break out session that changed how we went about "Blogging". It got us thinking- when we 1st starting using video. We over thought it, over prepared & in the end being ourselves worked just fine. Here on ActiveRain you will get us just being us :) We can't wait to share our knowledge of Real Estate with you. We'll even get to know each other. Stay tuned..."

"<a href="http://www.linkedin.com/in/inspectorholmes" style="text-decoration:none;"><span style="font: 80% Arial,sans-serif; color:#0783B6;"><img src="http://www.linkedin.com/img/webpromo/btn_in_20x15.png" width="20" height="15" alt="View Inspector Holmes Home Inspections (631) 805-6006's LinkedIn profile" style="vertical-align:middle" border="0">View Inspector Holmes Home Inspections (631) 805-6006's profile</span></a>"

"ActiveRain is a source of real life experiences. Every day when I read a blog, I learn something new. It gives you so much from the real life that you can't learn from reading books. I wished I had started this earlier."

"In 2003 we (my husband and I) purchased a business whose value left with the original owner. In the first year we lost nearly 90% of our client base, and found out that a partner in a different business had embezzled $50k. Feeling a bit overwhelmed by this costly decision, and the betrayal of a business partner, we needed to take some time to reflect and make some decisions about what to do next. Since we are gluttons for punishment, we decided to stick it out and put our creative juices to work. One key thing that we realized loud and clear was we had made many decisions in haste and on our own. If we had thought to discuss our plans with peers that could provide us some guidance or ask some thought-provoking questions, we would have probably made some different choices. It wasn't that we weren't smart enough, although we sure felt like we were walking around with a neon dunce hat; it was just that we were too close to it, and couldn't see the forest for the trees. So we turned lemons into lemonade, we decided that we couldn’t in good conscience allow other business owners to fall into the same rut that we had. We could help them by providing a service that allowed them to meet monthly and discuss the challenges, opportunities, and decisions of running a business. Today we are 8 years old, helping businesses face difficult situations, look at opportunities from all angles, and provide them a place to come and be heard. I like to say we are Entrepreneurs helping Entrepreneurs. We have walked in your shoes, and will never ask anything of you that we haven’t asked of ourselves."

"I have had several of my Buyer leads and also my Short Sale leads every single year since I started blogging on AR, come via not only my own blog postings, but also my comments on other Agents' BLogs. I think it really gives potential Clients an inside view of how I work, my beliefs, and my integrity. Thank you AR and all the Agents who take the time to contribute here."

"I started in ActiveRain on the recommendation of a colleague in my office. I ventured forth timidly at first, gaining familiarity with the site and blogging as I went along. After attending Raincamp, I'm inspired to put a much greater effort forward to build my identity in cyberspace and stake a claim for my business."

"After several years of submitting blogs and participating in the Active Rain community, we now have a regular featured article in the Examiner. It can be reached by copying and pasting this link http://www.examiner.com/real-estate-in-washington-dc/john-macarthur into your web browser. If you contact us, we will gladly share the stories of clients that have contacted us via Active Rain that are now home owners."

""I'm all about resale", this is what I tell all my clients. This was never truer than when my university athletic administrator client was offered a new position in De. She just bought her home 10 months before. We looked at over 30 homes while I helped her “clean-up” her credit. Then we bought her dream home which was a great home at an even greater price. She had to sell. Explained to her there might be a financial hit because she had been in the home such a short time. We had 3 offers after being on the market for 1 week. We were able to sell her home with a 10 % increase in value. This enabled her to be able to accept a new higher level position while paying closing out of her modest relo package. RESELL MATTERS even if it's the client's "forever" home.!"