I've always had a website or two (actually I own about 10) since I began in this business, and it's been frustrating at times because it seems that real estate technology providers often lag behind in innovation compared to other industries... And that leads us to the crappy template sites that nobody likes. My journey began with a linku template site in 2006 (the year I got into the business), and that lasted about 4 months. I still had not gotten indexed by google for any meaningful search terms, so I did some research and decided on an Agent Image site. It was great looking and I think the impression helped my business a little but after almost 2 years did not get any reliable search engine traffic. After a brief experiment with a typepad blog on the domain, I found it was pretty easy in that regard to get ranked for a term due to the inherant SEO benefits from blogging. In fact, another website I own was started as part experiment and part of a listing presentation and it gets great search engine traffic and has resulted in a couple of deals! It's a wordpress site that I have nothing more than the cost of hosting and some of my time into. In fact, newgearharthomes.com gets more search engine traffic than my main real estate domain jeremylinder.com. In fact the only downside to running a real estate website on a blog platform is the challenges of displaying listings and a IDX search. Both of those items can now be addressed using plugins if you have a wordpress site I'm told. I tried to get some increased function on my blog site to make it more real estate specific, but ran out of talent and patience and decided to explore other avenues. I had heard of Ubertor, and in fact had considered their platform about a year prior but never did jump in and try it out (it was dumb, they give you a month free) until recently. I signed up on a Saturday afternoon, and about 20 minutes later my phone rings and the owner of the company Steve Jagger was on the line to help me get going and answer any questions. Great service! The more I started to dig into the Ubertor platform the more excited I got. The functionality and ease of use is amazing, you must try it out! The added bonus to the great looking and highly functional site is that they are coded to be very SEO friendly. I confirmed this by using a tool call seo-browser that lets you see what a search engine bot sees. After adding some content and checking the results, it displayed almost identical to the same wordpress page I checked. I'm sure there are other differences that impact SEO but most sites don't come close to a wordpress in terms of search engine friendly.
I spend a lot of time in the evenings getting content written, and my new site configured. Take a look, and if you like what you see get one for yourself. You won't regret it.
**disclaimer: I'm not affiliated with Ubertor in any way, nor will I benefit from ya'll getting awesome sites from them**
I've been using the FBS smartlink on my site, but am wanting a true idx solution that would allow buyers to save searches, homes, ect. I've looked at idxpro and an eneighborhoods solution, but nothing that really tickles my fancy. I have seen several attractive idx searches on various company sites, is that the difference when you spend $5,000 on an idx setup?
Who do you use and why? For those that added idx to your website later, was the upgrade worth it?
The market in Astoria, Oregon and all of Clatsop County has returned to "normal" following a sharp inventory increase resulting from our December hurricane. I feel that 3 months of declining inventory is positive momentum moving towards our spring (the rain starts to slow here in May) and into Summer. Also, hopefully the Coast Guard buyers will begin to start buying for their spring/summer transfers here.
I'm hearing many areas markets are slowing stabilizing and improving. How's your market as we move into spring & summer? How many months of inventory in your market?
This Youngs Bay view townhome is truly move-in ready! It's an owner occupied unit, which means it has been very well kept and it shows. A very smart floorplan maximized the 1090 SF, which includes 3 bedrooms (including a master) and 2.5 baths. The upper level is a modified great room plan, combining the eat-in kitchen with the living room. The kitchen area offers the flexibility of dining at the breakfast bar or the nook, and offers lots of room and a great layout. The bedrooms are nice sized, with the 2 guest rooms on the lower level. A like new home at a fixer price, only $177,500.
This article about the shift in advertising revenues from print and other traditional outlets to on-line marketing doesn’t surprise me. I have been preaching to my fellow Realtors about staying ahead of the curve and effectively spending your advertising dollars to the point that many are probably tired of hearing me quote response and effectiveness stats.
With more than 8 in 10 consumers starting their search for a home on-line, how can you afford not to have your home in front of the majority of buyers? Many Realtors are beginning to learn that an on-line presence is not optional if you wish to grow your business in the future, but some of the old school folks in my market have me scratching my head. I see some Realtors actually ramping up their print advertising, in a time where some of the local media is out of favor with some of the residents here, and certainly nationwide the subscriber base for newspapers is down. I certainly have no problem with the pretty ads in the newspaper with your lap dog that proclaim how wonderful you are and maybe even that you’re a “million dollar producer”, but don’t let that be your entire marketing platform. Please.
Yesterday I went over the first of three critical elements if you want to generate a quick sale in today’s Astoria housing market. You see, contrary to the belief of some Sellers today you want your house “sold” not “for sale”. The second ingredient is product. Our local market on the Oregon Coast is very competitive, especially in Clatsop County. We were cruising along at 8-10 months of inventory, but in the last three months residential inventory has nearly doubled. How does that effect somebody with an Astoria home for sale? It means instead of 20 homes directly completing with yours in terms of price and location, you would now have 35. That’s right, a Buyer for your home would have 35 other homes that also meet their search criteria. What now? If you priced your home correctly, you’ll have a slight upper hand on the competition.
The next element you can control as a Seller is product, or your home. The rest of the story
Most sellers, if given a choice of when to sell their home, would pick a much hotter coastal market than we have today. Here in Astoria, we’re much better off than many parts of the country but it doesn’t mean your home will sell itself. In my opinion, there’s three critical elements to generating a sale in today’s Astoria, Oregon real estate market.
The first and most important element is…. price. A wise man once told me any home in any market will sell quickly if you price it correctly. It’s true for most items, even non-housing related if you think about it. Read the rest here.
Late last week in a segment on retirement destinations, Barbara Corcoran tells Ann why Astoria is among the 5 best places for retirees. In the segment, Barbara pretty much nails the high points of Astoria living, including a revitalized downtown and excellent health care. She does completely miss the mark on housing prices. You won’t find much more than a wood shed for $150,000, as the median home price in Astoria is over $250,000. The market here starts in the low $200k’s, and mid to high $200k’s gets you an average home. Maybe even a Columbia River view home.
A quick look at the real estate market here in N. Clatsop County, more specifically Astoria, Oregon. I believe we're looking at the market continuing to improve as we move into spring, likely the rate will be dependant on what rates do.
The Clatsop County map system or GIS is something I use daily. You can access specific tax lot information and maps are your leisure. Searching can be a bit tricky, until you learn to master the map & tax lot key. A great exercise is to search by owner name, and examine the record of your own property. That gives you an idea of what is published online, and where to look for it. When trying to find the owner of an Astoria home, or specific info on a neighboring property the GIS website is an awesome tool.
Disclaimer: ActiveRain Corp. does not necessarily endorse the real estate agents, loan officers and brokers listed on this site. These real estate profiles, blogs and blog entries are provided here as a courtesy to our visitors to help them make an informed decision when buying or selling a house. ActiveRain Corp. takes no responsibility for the content in these profiles, that are written by the members of this community.
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