Its Been Awhile

Well I am back from a long hiatus from Activerain. The weird thing is is that I am still getting contacts through this great network. Just yesterday I had a gentleman from Canada call me inquiring about my choice of cell phones. I enjoyed speaking with him about the phone I had chosen.

The moral of this story is that this blog really works.

Consider me back in full force.

 

Franchise vs Independent

I had a request to do an entry on the differences between owning a franchise and being an independent. First of all I think if I was going to own a franchise I would go with the one I was with. Century 21 is a well recognized name and They offer an array of great services.

I think the biggest part of my decision to be an independent is control. I want to be able to control the direction my company goes. Now Franchises do give you leeway to run your business the way you want to an extent. However, I see a drastic change in the real estate business over the next few years. I believe the days of the huge franchise offices are coming to a close. I see the industry moving toward technology more than big fancy offices. I think that unless you are running a lean office you will not make it. As a independent I am free to adjust my commissions to compete with anyone. I am free to build my website anyway I want and offer any service I chose from that website. I believe the web is going to be the market place very soon.

Just look at the numbers. 70% of home buyers are beginning their search on line. The actual riding clients around and showing them homes is shrinking. We can look at homes on-line now and only go see the ones the client likes.

Another reason is I don't have to pay those franchise fees keeping my over head to a minimum. If I can keep that over head down I can negotiate my fees. If I don't want to charge 6% or 7% on a home I don't have to.

I think most people like to work with local companies. Being pretty much the only independent real estate company in town I believe I can attract people who wish to do business with a small local business. 

I have found that people from out of town really don't care about franchises. If they find my website first they will use it to look for their home. If they are finding my site I capture them. If I ever get to talk with that client I do not lose them. Most of my business has been from the web and I have done a good bit of that business.

I hope I didn't ramble too much here.  

T.U.P. Realty

T.U.P. Realty is back and better than ever. We merged with Century 21 for a short time to explore the option of being a national franchise. After diligent study we decided we could better serve our clients as an independent brokerage. We can continue to bring great savings to our clients as well as providing the exact same service as a big name franchise. We thank Sue Gardner and Century 21 for allowing us the opportunity and regret that the merger did not work but we had to do what was best for our clients.

The I Phone the good and bad.

Well I finally did it. I broke down and bought the i-phone. I was skeptical but I jumped in both feet first and took the plunge into the world of apple.

 

There are some things I love some I like and some I wish were better.

The email function is perfect. It automatically checks email and I can easily type and send email from the phone.

The sms text is great works just as it should.

I love the calander. It seemlessly syncs with Outlook calander and both update each other.

The camera is great and takes very good pics for a cell phone.

You tube is good. I like you tube as well as the next guy. The weather option is a nice plus as is the maps with google earth. The clock works great and the calculater is awsome just like a regular calculater.

The phone works as good as any other phone I have had.

The Inter net is awesome. It is the full internet no blacked out unfunctioning pages. The ipod is good. With ear phones it rocks but the speakers in the phone leave something to be desired.

THE BAD

No games.

Nope none nada. I can't sit in a closing attorneys lobby playing solitaire. You also can't use your music as a ring tone.

Great Idea from Stephanie Musa

I was reading one of my regular blogs this week. It was by Stephanie from the woodlands TX. She was telling about an idea she had to place the virtual tour shows at a web address specific for that home. I did that. www.829indianoak.com. i think this was a fantastic idea. I am going to continue to do this on my listings. It is a great idea that further seperated my from my competition. Steph is a great agent dealing in real estate in The Woodlands, TX. 

Thanks Stephanie. 

Trip to vegas

I recently took a trip to Las Vegas to a Cartus relocation group workshop and we went exploring the day before. I ran across this sign in the Arizona Desert. God bless you Angie how in the world do you sell real estate out here. This was a good 10 miles from the closest home and about 3 mile from the closest paved road.
The great story behind us find this sign will have you rolling. We rented a car in Las Vegas and decided to go to the West Rim of the Grand Canyon to see the new sky walk. Well we were smart and brought along our TomTom to help with the directions. My co pilot had set the TomTom on shortest route rather than quickest so we get off the paved road and here we go.
Did I mention we were in an Impala.

Any way being from Mississippi I really didn't think much about having to take a dirt road. We knew there were going to be some dirtroads anyway. OH BROtHER was that a mistake. If it were not for growing up driving in dirt we would have still been out there in the desert.

Here is the road we were on at one of the better locations were I could actual slow down.

All the while we were going through here we got slightly off the track the TomTom said to take so the British lady in the TomTom was saying at your first available opportunity turn around.

Needless to say on the way out we did not turn on TomTom or JoeJoe or anything else but went by the good oldfashion map.

All in all it was worth it though. we did get to see this

Thats an eagle flying over the grand canyon.

Patience with SEO is a vertue

When you make changes to your website for the better give them time to work. The biggest mistake I see when people talk about making changes to their site is that they do not give Google time to catch up. Google is very slow when seeing changes. You might even make a change and drop completely out of the search engines. If this is the case don't panic. If you are confident that the change you made was for the better relax and let google have time to catch up. You can watch MSN to see if your changes made a difference. MSN is much faster at realizing changes. If you are doing good in MSN and Yahoo just relax. Google will catch up with them and then you will be fine in google.

Just use patience when trying to tackle seo.

Website Out-of-Box vs Custom

Is your website a custom built site or is it an out of the box website bought from an on-line source that has predesigned sites available?

If it is an out of the box site there are some things you need to be aware of. These sites normal do not score as high in the www.websitegrader.com tool and normally do not rank as high for your particular search phrases.

One reason for this that can be easily checked as that the out of box sites tend to place information about themselves in your H1 or H2 tags. This gives them the benifits in the search engines rather than you. You can check this at the web site grader page. If this is the case for you ask your website builder to change this. It might just be the one thing holding you back in the search rankings.

There are some other benifits of having a site custom built. The biggest thing is the very nature of custom. You can customize things easier on a custom built site. 1 thing you can easily do is create a customize search format from you MLS. Rather than the standard search page you can have the searches look like a page inside your website. Our site at www.tuprealty.com will have this feature up and running in a short while. We will also have information there that brings people back to the site even when they are not looking for a house.

 

Chiropractic Care

After siting at my desk working on my website for 2 weeks I evidently hurt my neck. Well let me tell you this went on for over a month. I went to the MD and she gave me an anti-inflamatory (did nothing). Went back she gave me a muscle relaxer (did nothing except make me sleep). She was going to send me to physical therapy but I decded to go see a chiropractor friend and see if he could help. I saw him 2 times and I am now pain free. 2 times pain free. I am going to continue to see him because I am convinced they do help some situations. Now if your chiropractor says he can cure cancer run away. Most are pretty straight foward about what they can and can't do. If you have never been to one and are experiencing back or neck pain go give it a shot. It just might work for you.

Exciting Times in Tupelo

Just this week we have had news of another supplier for the future Toyota Plant here in tupelo. The particular supplier will be Toyota Auto Body. It will locate its 200 million dollar plant in Baldwyn just 10 miles north of Tupleo. This plant will employ another 400 people and bring a much needed boost to North Lee County. These suppliers are boosting wages and employment. This is just one in a long line of suppliers that will be locating in our area due to the highlander plant that will be located in Blue Springs just 15 miles northwest of Tupelo. The Toyota plant will bring 2000 jobs by itself but will indirectly bring in about 6000 jobs. That means many home sales and lots of growth for our area.

Thanks Toyota.

www.tuprealty.com