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I am hopeful that this blog is coming to you at the best part of your day!
I got a report from Data Quick one of the Nations largest data recorders in Country, representing the housing industry and movement. It appears Southern California is starting to gain some momentum in housing sales, confirmed closings bith Realtor driven and For Sale by owners. The data is alot more precise regarding housing than the Realtor.com site as this represents ALL sales not just Realtor driven.
Single Family Homes Condominiums SFR Only, April 2009
Community Name
LOS ANGELES COUNTY
Sales Price Median SFR ($1,000) Home Price/ Sq. Ft
of Single Family Homes
4,808 $295 $214
ORANGE COUNTY
1,553 $430 $269
RIVERSIDE COUNTY
3,757 $171 $90
SAN BERNARDINO COUNTY
2,839 $135 $85
SAN DIEGO COUNTY
2,207 $325 $185
If anyone would like the numbers broken down into each city let me know and I can email you the data. Its very cumbersome for AR.
Thank you!
Jeff Vandermate 909-520-2410/760-403-6220
jeff@catreb.com
This post is the second of a series of six posts dedicated to the results of The Real Estate Agents study conducted by Network Communications, Inc., The Real Estate Book and The OSR Group. The scope of the series is outlined in this post.
The key driver of marketing investment by top agents is the length of time they’ve been an agent and the amount of money that they earn in commissions, according to analysis of The Real Estate Agents Study that we conducted.
The net effect of this observation is that top agents are able to use their marketing clout to increase their impact on the market. Consumers looking for homes are more likely to encounter a top agent’s marketing message more frequently, in more different media than another agent. This consistency and repetition of marketing messages is a basic foundation of successful marketing programs, and top agents benefit from this consistency in terms of higher lead volume and higher earnings.
 One wrinkle we noted in the research was that agents relatively early in their careers invested a higher percentage of their commissions in marketing than any of the other top agents. One reason for this may be that the emerging agents understand the importance of establishing a strong marketing presence in their local community, and are willing to bear the cost of that incremental investment in order to increase the odds of their building a strong real estate practice.
Top Agents Spend $7464 A Year on Marketing
The average top agent spent $622 per month on marketing, or a total of $7464 in a year. The agents were asked to quantify how much they spent on all forms of marketing: advertising, personal sales collateral, web marketing, web sites, direct mail and e-mail marketing.
Overall, top agents spent 8.4% of their commission revenue on marketing.
Of the total, 43% spent less than $500 per month, or less than $6000 a year. 73% of the agents surveyed spent less than $1000 per month.
The difference in marketing spend in relation to commission revenue was notable. Agents making more than $200,000 a year spent $19,764 on marketing: 148% more than agents who earned between $75,000 and $200,000 a year and 262% more than agents earning under $75,000 a year.
It is in analyzing the spend by agents according to the number of years of experience that we see the more significant commitment newer agents make to marketing compared to more experienced agents. Agents with less than 5 years of experience spent 9.3% of their earnings on marketing, while agents with more than 20 years of experience invested only 8.0%. This relationship speaks to the higher earning power of the more established agent, but it also points out the investment newer agents make to establish themselves in the market.
Internet Marketing Accounts for 31% of Total Marketing Spend
In the survey, we also asked agents to quantify how much they spent on internet marketing, including their personal web sites, internet listing services and other forms of internet marketing.
The average top agent spent $2,352 a year on internet marketing, or 2.7% of their annual commissions. The total was approximately 1/3 of their overall marketing spending. (We see in a later section of this series that agents believe they allocate a higher percentage of their budget to their interactive marketing activities, suggesting that the absolute dollars on internet marketing will increase.)
Of the total respondents, 30% spent less than $100 per month on internet marketing, while another 32% spent between $100 and $250 each month.
Brokers Continue to Support Their Agents Marketing Activities
Given the difficult conditions of the housing market, we were interested whether the level at which real estate brokers supported marketing activities by their agents had changed at all. We’ve witnessed anecdotal instances of brokers trying to generate more incremental revenue from their agents in these tough times by introducing proprietary marketing programs, such as broker-specific magazines and internet marketing packages.
In general, the top agents we surveyed reported very little change in the support they are getting from their brokers. Of the total, 63% said support had not changed at all, while 13% said the brokers had increased support in response to the difficult market conditions.
Agents cited three primary kinds of support they received from their brokers:
- 67% said that their brokers provided a name that customers trust;
- 60% said that their brokers provided a web site and online support;
- 52% said that their brokers provided basic marketing materials that they could customize.
As foreclosures and short-sales remain a viable portion of the homes for sale in many parts of the US, many home shoppers are turning towards them as potential real estate investments or as low-cost primary homes.
The RealEstateBook.com has incorporated a new search feature allowing home shoppers to view listings for thousands of pre-foreclosed, foreclosed, auction and REO homes. By partnering with RealtyTrack, The RealEstateBook.com now includes a simple and effective feature, allowing users to immediately narrow or to broaden their search by market, price, or location.
Just enter the city and search. For instance, San Francisco Foreclosures brings up over eight hundred listings.
Buying into this market can be a great way to purchase a home at a greatly reduced price. But those who jump in without any additional information may learn some very valuable lessons the hard way. Just like anything else in life, buying a foreclosed home has its pros and cons. They present wonderful, profitable investment opportunities, but they can just as easily become money pits if you don't know what you're doing.
The Real Estate Book allows you to better understand the foreclosure market by spending time learning about the homes, their locations, and the steps necessary to acquire them. With listings, images, maps and vast amounts of other information, The RealEstateBook.com gives home shoppers the most comprehensive foreclosure coverage.
Other advantages to purchasing a foreclosed home include low prices, lower closing costs, flexible financing, and profitability. There is no waiting to move in, as foreclosed homes are often vacant. And many of them are homes in need of repair, which can ultimately bring back money on your investment.
The new search enhancement adds diversity and flexibility to the existing property search features on RealEstateBook.com -- now with over 900,000 current foreclosure listings, and more added daily. To learn more, take advantage of the real estate foreclosure feature today.
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New Home Sales, Traffic and Optimism on the Rise
wknd-home-webRISMEDIA, April 18, 2009-New home sales, traffic and expectations all lifted meaningfully in March. Findings that support this news are detailed in the John Burns Real Estate Consulting April survey of builders across the country. According to the survey, while the improvement can be partially attributed to seasonality, we can also point to a shift in builders’ optimism in many metros. The rating of future sales improved substantially, and expectations rose in every single region except the Northwest.
This month, 233 public and private builder executive representatives from over 160 companies around the country provided market ratings that represent conditions at 1,984 new home communities in 82 unique metros.
“We think the improvement is attributable primarily to improved affordability,” said John Burns, CEO of Irvine, Calif.-based John Burns Real Estate Consulting. “The new home tax credit in California is also helping.”
“Earlier in the year, the gains in traffic and sales were mostly limited to builders at the affordable end, but in April we began to see some gains for move-up builders as well,” said Jody Kahn, vice president. “This trend is still spotty, and limited to a handful of markets, including Raleigh, Atlanta and Nashville.”
Results also showed that builders in a handful of locations have recently purchased land, and that more plan to purchase in the near-term. “We know from prior housing downturns that the resetting of land prices is an important step in the process of clearing the market,” said Kahn.
Survey Highlights:
Land Buying is Increasing: Already this year, 18% of survey participants have purchased land and 29% indicate they will buy land in 2Q09. By 2010, 47% expect to be buying.
Builders are targeting Washington D.C., Charlotte, Dallas and Tampa for near-term land buys. There was a pronounced message that buying would not be occurring in Phoenix, Atlanta, Austin, Chicago, Denver, Las Vegas, Orlando and Orange County for quite some time. There were mixed messages in California markets of Riverside-San Bernardino, San Diego and Sacramento.
Recent buying appears to have been predominantly among private builders. Of purchases made this year, 35% were by public home builders.
Sales, Traffic and Expectations Jump: The builders’ rating of current sales reached a record level since our survey’s inception, traffic ticked up in every region but one, and expectations climbed as builders’ outlook appears to be brightening. No region of the country reported declining net sales per community. Average net sales per community rose to 1.7, which is the highest level since September.
Builders Start More Homes: 70% of builders started homes this month, compared to only 59% last month.
Pricing Net of Incentives Inches Toward Flattening: Overall, the direction of new home pricing moved closer to flat, but regions like Southern California report decreasing prices over last month.
Inventory Declining: The average number of unsold, finished units per community is continuing to trend down nationally, to 4.0 units from 4.2 last month. This is the lowest number we have seen in more than six months.
For more information, visit: www.realestateconsulting.com.
RISMedia welcomes your questions and comments. Send your e-mail to: realestatemagazinefeedback@rismedia.com.
With the numbers telling all, at over 87% of consumers looking online for Real Estate. How do you get seen in this sea of online hoopla? Well, the internet is a great media for advertsing your listings to the consumer there is no two ways about that. I do it as well, I feed to over 35 sites but I still find myself picking up a Real Estate Book or source so that I can get a local feel for the market at a glance. There is nothing like having it under my nose, then it sparks me to maybe do a search online for more inventory. With that being said many consumers have taken the same path, we are now finding that print actually drives a portion of the internet.
Lands End, a popular clothing line started its path with a book or magazine to promote its goods. Then the internet came and the buzz that went along with it. Many of the execs turned their nose to the print side saying its gone! Well, they let it go and so they also let the profits go. They concluded that the print side actually drove consumers to their website for a more detailed search for whatever it was they desired. Needless to say, they now have both!
The current Real Estate market is much like the same. We all need to be seen and "as soon as possible" yet there are so many homes available "how do we hope to be seen or our listings viewed ?" I have a suggestion look into The Real Estate Book, www.therealestatebook.com they feed to the internet and are the largest printer of Real Estate Magazines in the Country. They are offering a deal right now for a full page of advertising and your listings fed free to over 35 sites for $320.00 (Inland Empire) it is the half page rate Countrywide!
Call today, offer is ending and then its back to the full page rack rates!
Thank you!
Jeff Vandermate
909-520-2410
760-403-6220
jeff@catreb.com
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At NCI we are committed to expand our services and provide fresh insights to clients. As such, we have developed a new tool that will allow users, bloggers and Web site owners to search thousands of property and rental listings. The Real Estate Book and Apartment Finder Widgets are a fast, free and easy way to increase traffic to your site and strengthen your brand presence.
A widget is a small specialized desktop application that allows the user to interact with a website and its content. They provide easy access to frequently used functions, are free to the user and easy to install. This viral component makes it an excellent source to get users to visit our site on a daily basis and encourage them to share with friends and colleagues. Widgets are also great marketing tools that provide the opportunity to acquire new customers, promote brand awareness and increase overall traffic. It also helps with SEO, since once the widget is adapted the links will benefit the natural search engine rankings for that website.
With the Real Estate Book and Apartment Finder Widgets, we will be able to offer agents, communities, renters and buyers an opportunity to access properties in our website in a simple and fast way. By selecting the city, state, price range and bedrooms that they are looking for in a home or apartment, the widget will deliver them directly to the search results page based on that criterion.
Both widgets will be distributed thru Google Gadgets and available for download to your personalized iGoogle Page (www.google.com/ig ). Recently announcing over 100 million users, iGoogle is the perfect starting point for distribution. Anyone can download our widget by simply searching the Google Gadget directory and adding it to their personalize page. Please refer to the attached document for step by step instructions on how to find and add the widgets to iGoogle.
For bloggers and website owners interested in adding the widgets to their site, refer them to widget.realestatebook.com and widget.apartmentfinder.com where they can customize the widget to fit the look and feel of their personal blog and webpage.
If you have any questions or comments please send them to onlinerequests@nci.com.
| iGoogle Search Widget Examples |
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Apartment Search powered by www.ApartmentFinder.com
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Thank you,
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RISMEDIA, March 27, 2009-I received a letter recently that began, “What you have given me is a whole new outlook on real estate sales.” The letter continued, “My husband and I ran a mom-and-pop brokerage in Northern New Mexico for 25 years. We were a big fish in a little pond and our business was 100% referral and walk-in. Then we moved to Las Cruces, New Mexico (a city of about 100,000) and went from a Realtor board of 43 to one of over 600. It occurred to us that we had to do something to stand out in the bigger pond.”
“We knew there had to be an answer that would help us establish ourselves and succeed in the bigger market and after reading about how over 87% of all real estate sales begin online I started to think that online marketing might be ‘the thing.’ I worked hard at it and got myself some first page listings. After a while, though, I couldn’t keep that performance going.”
“I subscribed to an online marketing service for Realtors. I took a gamble and within 30 days of signing up I got my first lead off the subscription. I sold that lead a $450,000 home and I have never looked back.”
Two years later
“I am at the top of most search engines and I receive about a lead a day, sometimes more. I haven’t had a day off in six months. I couldn’t even answer your questions because every time I would sit down to write you, another lead would come in and I had to follow it up. I hired two new sales people to help field all the leads we get. I pay less than $300 a month for my subscription and my subscription will easily produce over $100,000 in commissions this year for me. That’s a 3,000% return on investment in a world where very few services even cover their costs.”
When I read this, I realized that I needed to speak to this broker, so I called Judith Picker at Las Cruces Fine Properties in Las Cruces, New Mexico and found her to be a wealth of good information about online marketing. Judith is no newbie, she is a 33-year Realtor. Las Cruces is a beautiful city with 350 days of sunshine, low humidity and New Mexico State University in town to keep things interesting. When I was able to finally reach her, Judith graciously answered my questions- both written and oral-and what follows is what she told me.
I learned the formula for Internet success
“I used to look at people high in the search engines and think to myself that if I could only get there, I could succeed, too. I was wrong. It takes a lot more than just getting found by Internet shoppers, you must do more to succeed. I found that succeeding is a three-step process and that not completing any of the steps relegates your site to obscurity and you to hoping for walk-in traffic again (not too likely, these days).
Those steps are:
• Your website must be found when shoppers type in exactly what they are looking to examine and it must have the information and education they want to find. Since most people don’t know me or the name of our company, I realized they had to find us under where we sell homes. If you type in Las Cruces NM Real Estate on Google, you’ll have a chance to pick my site there because I am on page one for that Google search. When those shoppers come to my site, I give them all sorts of useful information that encourages them to sign in with me, not just listings (although your listings are the most popular pages on your website, according to experts). That’s just step one: You must be able to be found by Internet shoppers when they type in what they are looking for and you must give them what they are looking for.
• As your site climbs up in the search engines, you’ll find your traffic increasing. Contrary to what you may have heard, you really don’t need a huge amount of traffic to succeed if you do this right: if you can bring 300 unique visitors to your site each month and just 5-15% of your unique visitors will register, that will keep you busy and selling houses. Step two is that you must convert a percentage of the anonymous visitors to your site into people you can farm and prospect. Some will be long-term prospects, some are immediate prospects, but whatever the case, when they register, you can communicate with them regularly and build a rapport and trust with them.
• Once they register, you must respond to them immediately. This is so obvious I feel silly even mentioning it, but I read where NAR says that about half of all Realtors respond to an Internet lead within 54 hours and the other half never responds. The half that never responds needs no further comment, but even 54 hours is just too long.” Plenty of leads and plenty of sales, all the time
About 80% of the company’s leads come from their online marketing subscription, Judith reports. “Sales continue to be strong and we recently had to add two associates to help handle all the leads we get. We follow our own advice and respond immediately to those leads and when they ask us about the market, we say this: We tell buyers it’s a great time to buy and we tell sellers that they’ll make up their loss in value when they buy on the other end. Both statements are true.”
When common sense and high technology work together, it’s a beautiful thing
Think about this: NAR says that 87% of home sales begin online. It’s also a fact that 92% of Internet buyers find their agent through a search engine and that 880 million people search Google for real estate related things monthly. You truly will not be able to function as you have in the future without bringing the Internet into your business. That’s not sales talk, that’s fact as reported by NAR.
If you aren’t getting about 80% of your leads and sales from your website, how do you think you will remain in business in the future? Judith Picker used to get 100% of her business through referrals and walk-ins. “Used to” is the key phrase. You probably used to get 100% of your business through walk-ins and referrals, too, but that’s unlikely these days. Now, Judith gets 80%+ of her business through her website, but chances are good that you don’t, because NAR also tells us that 90% of agents are unhappy with the production of their websites. Plenty of agents and brokers are succeeding every day; it’s just that they aren’t waiting for walk-ins and referrals anymore; they are going out and capturing prospects online. Most of those succeeding online have something in common with Judith Picker: they subscribe to services like ours, CompassSearch and REAL SEO, to power their success. “None of this would be happening without CompassSearch” Judith said “and we really appreciate the services Compass brings us, in addition to the many sales and leads.”
Summer is coming fast. New economic measures are slowly turning things around. Why not turn your business around and become an Internet Realtor? It’s where everyone goes to look at homes today, and it’s where 87% of residential homes sales take place.
Mike Parker specializes in online marketing services for Realtors® and real estate professionals. Obtain a free copy of his booklet that shows you what Judith Picker has that you don’t have: “REAL SEO Explained” by writing to realseo@compassinternetsystems.com. It will be sent to you free and no one will call you. To request a free review of your website to determine if it can be found by Internet buyers and if it is search engine friendly, click here and it will be evaluated free.
Spring into Savings!!!!
The market is great out there and homes are selling. New reports that just came out in the San Bernardino markets show that housing is on the rise! This means buyers are looking at the lower cost of housing and the affordability of home mortgage's. Its the perfect storm of cheap homes and cheap money. Anyone that went through this as I did in the early to mid nineties knows what I am talking about, the only exception is that then money was NOT cheap. So, really this is a great opportunity for the up and coming home buyer.
With all this I have a solution for your self promotion as well as your listings. I am offering a full page of advertising for $320.00 and this includes your listings being feed to over 35 real estate websites. By the way www.therealestatebook.com is now ranked in the top 20 in the Country AND we feed to 10 additional sites within that top 20. Dont your sellers deserve this exposure of their homes?
Carpe Diem! (Seize the day)
Jeff Vandermate
909-520-2410
The Elements of Design
1) Proximity-sometimes referred to as proportion. Elements should look like they belong on the same page together. Good proximity allows the page to look good in its entirity, utilizes space appropriately, and avoids a cluttered look.
2) Alignment (Flow)-to present you in a favorable way to potential home sellers.
3) Repetition- repeat visual elements. This is very easy in real estate advertising as we either use single photos of many homes or multiple photos of a single home but isnt it nice to know that it is also a good graphic design. Making similiar elements different often confuses the reader.
4) Contrast-the way selected items differentiate themselves from eachother. Thick, thin, light, dark create most basic contrasts. Contrast without alignment (purpose) or proximity (proportion) is clutter.
These are a few simple truths in preparing for your next advertising campaign. I will dig deeper into these 4 basic truths at a later time, until then "Make it a great day"
Jeff
The goals of advertising are clear:
1) LEADS- to attract quality homebuyers to you and your listings
2) LISTINGS-to present you in a favorable way to potential home sellers
3) IMAGE- to help create and reinforce your image. To create, in the consumers mind, a preference to do business with you.
There are also some very basic truths we must keep in mind when it comes to advertising to the real estate consumer:
1) The consumer is looking for a home (show the home)
2) In print, they expect to see multiple homes, and on-line, they expect to see multiple photos of a home.
3) They will respond better when they see the home at its best (take good pictures)
4) They want to know where the property is located (at least proximity)
5) They want understandable and pleasing ad copy (clear and compelling)
6) They are interested in the price (tell them)
7) They want to easily contact you (dont make it difficult)
Good luck out there and I will be doing another blog this afternoon about THE BASIC ELEMENTS OF DESIGN.
Take Care!
Jeff
909-520-2410 jeff@catreb.com 
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Jeff Vandermate
Pasadena,
CA
More about me…
The Real Estate Book
Office Phone: (909) 900-5035
Email Me
Advertising in 2008 versus 1998.....have you seen The Real Estate Book lately?
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