Elixir Technology BLOG

Walkscore on Facebook!

Murali Vasudevan (Elixir Addons) — Fri, 30 Oct 2009 23:06:37 -0500

Find walkable places to live! Find walkability of any address by locating nearby stores, restaurants, schools, parks, etc. See how easy it is to live a car-lite lifestyle. This is a Facebook application I built using Walkscore API >>> http://apps.facebook.com/walkusa/ A very useful tool for realtor to rate a neighborhood or property you want to sell! If you are a realtor, show the Walkscore of your properties on your Facebook wall! Feedback and suggestions are always welcome!

Show off Home valuation charts on your Facebook profile - using eZcharts!

Murali Vasudevan (Elixir Addons) — Wed, 14 Oct 2009 17:06:14 -0500

An essential tool for Realtors! A must if you are in the housing market planning to buy or sell house!! Get Home Price or Percentage change graph using eZcharts for any zip code within the Unites States. Save the chart in your Facebook Profile or in the Boxes tab and share with your Friends. If you are a realtor with Zillow account, you can even co-brand the chart using your zillow ID before storing in your Facebook profile! Get it Now! Feel free to provide feedback if that can improve this tool! Note: I used Zillow API to create this tool.

Two Craigslist advertising Tips

Murali Vasudevan (Elixir Addons) — Mon, 24 Aug 2009 20:14:07 -0500

Recently realtor Rod Johnston asked me to help him with two issues while placing ads on Craigslist.

1.How to add more than four pictures of the property? Craigslist built-in feature only allows to upload max four.

2.How to re-post an ad without having to upload the pictures again?

The answer is quite simple. You use HTML tag to point to the pictures stored elsewhere (like photobucket.com). This will let you show as many pictures as you wish and will make re-posting a breez!

Here is what Rod has got

Check it out and show off your skill like Rod!

Zestimates on Google Map for any city within USA

Murali Vasudevan (Elixir Addons) — Tue, 14 Apr 2009 15:14:22 -0500

Here is Zestimates mapped on Google map for any city in USA. http://www.elixiraddons.com/zillow/regions.php

You can also select a different state, county or city to further drill down to see more local Zestimate.

Has color schemes to highlight Zestimates above (red) and below (green) the average value for the selected region.

This is done using Zillow API.

Murali
www.elixiraddons.com
API Integration Specialist

Neighborhood Information charts using Cyberhomes API

Murali Vasudevan (Elixir Addons) — Tue, 14 Apr 2009 12:14:20 -0500

Recently one of my realtor friends Paul Paterakis called me.

He was planning to revamp his site and asked me about adding Neighborhood Information charts to his site. According to various surveys, this is one thing consumers are looking for.

Here is the page I built.

Here is his site with my page

regards,
Murali,
www.elixiraddons.com,
Realtor Technology Expert

Online Property Tax appeal using Zillow/CyberHomes APIs

Murali Vasudevan (Elixir Addons) — Fri, 27 Mar 2009 23:09:29 -0500

Here is a site I created for Los Angeles, Orange, Riverside and SanDiego county home owners!

This site will list comparable sales in the neighborhood. Properties sold close to Jan 1, 2009 are shown at the top since this is what the assessors need for the appeal.

This also generates the appeal PDF form automatically filling in all the details based on the county the property belongs to!

This was created using Zillow API to list comparable sales.

Here is another similar site I created using Cyberhomes API. Check out these and see which one is better, Zillow or CyberHomes!

Murali
www.elixiraddons.com
API integration Expert

Mortgage rate chart Widget for various states

Murali Vasudevan (Elixir Addons) — Fri, 27 Mar 2009 22:58:40 -0500

Here is a widget to display a chart to show current mortgage rates Vs last week rates for any state in US.
By default, this shows the rate in the state from which the customer is surfing.

See more widgets

Murali http://www.elixiraddons.com

Online Property Tax appeal (Prop 8) for California home owners

Murali Vasudevan (Elixir Addons) — Tue, 03 Mar 2009 20:27:34 -0600

Here is a site I created for Los Angeles, Orange, Riverside and SanDiego county home owners!

This site will list comparable sales in the neighborhood. Properties sold close to Jan 1, 2009 are shown at the top since this is what the assessors need for the appeal.

This also generates the appeal PDF form automatically filling in all the details based on the county the property belongs to!

This was featured on Cyberhomes blog this week!

Search Twitter - find Tweets from Twitter

Murali Vasudevan (Elixir Addons) — Sat, 22 Nov 2008 12:11:29 -0600

Twitter is catching up like a fire! Here is an addon to find Tweets from Twitter. Do you think adding this to your web site will help attract more visitors? You can do the following four different searches.
Tweets containing word
Tweets from user
Tweets to user
Tweets referring user

School locators for realtor sites

Murali Vasudevan (Elixir Addons) — Mon, 17 Nov 2008 01:14:56 -0600

Here is a School Locator for families planning to purchase homes in Arizona. Since families would like to see the school district and the schools, locator like this one is a must for any relator web site.

I created the AZ locator using the directory info available for download from Arizona Department of Education. This is stored in my database which provides the engine for the search feature. The search feature is created using PHP (one of the many programming languages avialable like Coldfusion, ASP, Java, Perl, Python).

From the search result, you can get the details of the school and the test scores by linking to Arizona Department of Education site.

I have similar locators for California and Nevada also.

Here is a Google mash up for California school locator.

Please check these out and let me know if you would like to have it added to your web site.

CyberHomes-Zillow-Trulia widgets for realtor web sites

Murali Vasudevan (Elixir Addons) — Sun, 16 Nov 2008 19:22:03 -0600

CyberHomes provides two options to add home valuation details to your web site.

Co-branding is the easier option I haven't yet tried. I will do this shortly.

Second option is using PHP as shown here. This also provides properties comparable to the one you are looking for including the price change during the previous months. You can also search for a property.

Previously I have shown how to add Zillow widgets to your web site.

In general, these widgets are provided free for you so that you can add content to your web sites without having to spend time and money to own and keep these data accurate and updated. These contents, if properly used, can attract more visitors to your site which in turn can help increase sale!

As demonstrated here, there are options to keep visitors from going to Zillow if you create those capabilities for your site. This will require advanced programming though.

I also have a similar demo for TRULIA widgets.

Check these out and let me know what you think.

California school locator for potential home buyers (AZ and NV too)

Murali Vasudevan (Elixir Addons) — Sun, 02 Nov 2008 20:40:32 -0600

Here is a School Locator for families planning to purchase homes in California. Since families looking for houses would like to see the school district and the schools, this is one thing any relator web site should have.

I created it using the directory info available for download from California Department of Education. This is stored in my local mySQL database which provides the engine for the search feature which is created using Coldfusion (one of the many programming languages avialable like PHP, ASP, Java, Perl, Python).

From the search result, you can get the details of the school and the test scores by linking to California Department of Education site.

I have similar locators for Arizona and Nevada also.

I always look for opportunities to utilize my technical expertise to resolve practical issues. Created another version of Google mash up for California school locator. Check it out and let me know your thoughts.

Please check these out and let me know if you would like to have it added to your web site.

I will give free six months trial for the first 10 responders.

ZILLOW widgets for your web site!

Murali Vasudevan (Elixir Addons) — Sat, 01 Nov 2008 22:57:06 -0500

Check out these Zillow widgets and decide whether you can benefit from these.

As demonstrated here, there are options to keep visitors from going to Zillow if you create those capabilities for your site. This will require advanced programming though.

I also have a similar demo for TRULIA widgets.

I don't endorse any of these. I just play with popular technology and try to demonstrate it to others in my spare time.

If you have any suggestion for reviewing new technology, feel free to contact me.

Do you really need a web site?

Murali Vasudevan (Elixir Addons) — Sat, 01 Nov 2008 12:44:55 -0500

In realtor industry, there are two distinct categories.

Most of them have a web site doing nothing for them. They have it as a bragging tool. To put on their business cards. To paint on their cars! To brag about during chamber mixers and business network gatherings. Not to feel like a left out if some one finds out you don't have a web site!

These are cookie cutter sites offerred for as low as $20 per month. There are no reason for the potential buyers or sellers to visit these sites, let alone return. Online marketing is not a term these group knows or cares about. For them a name sake web site is all one needs! Most of these people get clients by word of mouth.

It is interesting to see how many realtors still haven't changed their way of doing business to utilize the internet. These people do make steady income and don't grow their business.

However, they seem to be happy (which is all that matters when it is time to say Bye).

Then there are the minority. Who sells million dollor homes. They have big budget web sites maintained by trained professionals. You throw money to get money back, I guess?

They grow their business so much, finally they are overwhelmed by it. When the economy tanks, these folks are hit hardest. Life is stressed out. Finally ending up in a hospital!

That leaves the big question.

Who really needs a web site?

TRULIA widgets for your web site!

Murali Vasudevan (Elixir Addons) — Sat, 01 Nov 2008 00:02:13 -0500

Recently ran into this web site. This has cool widgets you can add to your web site to attract more traffic and improve the search engine ranking of your web site.

Watch a demo of widgets I created for Cerritos, CA. Add these to your web site NOW!

Instant Info and Instant Leads using Text Messaging.

Murali Vasudevan (Elixir Addons) — Wed, 29 Oct 2008 01:01:19 -0500

House4Cell provides real estate agents with an innovative, affordable way to deliver instant information on their listings, while capturing valuable lead information.

Using the "text messaging" prospective buyers send a 1-word code to a special number. Within seconds, the homebuyer receives a message back (along with property photos!) with a description of the property, and the homebuyer's phone number is captured and sent immediately to the agent for follow-up.

If more information is needed, the home buyer can receive additional information via e-mail or FAX.

House4Cell rate plans currently start at $29.99 for three listings.

Watch a Demo

Prevent email spams using CAPTCHA IMAGE

Murali Vasudevan (Elixir Addons) — Mon, 27 Oct 2008 21:35:24 -0500

Did you ever wonder why you are getting those spam emails?

Well here are two possibilities and a way around them.

1) Most likely you have a contact page for your customers to fill their information. The contact page can be used by spammers to send you those emails too. To stop these kinds of spams, you use CAPTCHA image on the contact page. You can see it used on this site when you try leaving your comments to a blog. You are asked to type in what you see in an image. Spamming tools (robots) cannot see the image thus stopping them from spamming you.

Here is a free, elegant tool to implement CATCHA image.

Here is a working example I built for a site. You need PHP knowledge to implement this.

I have explained it all in my blog.

2)Second possibility is embedding email address on your web pages which is harvested by spiders.

These can be tricked by dynamically creating the email address using Javascript which cannot be seen by these spiders.

Your own MLS listings ? MLS Search?

Murali Vasudevan (Elixir Addons) — Sun, 26 Oct 2008 21:12:54 -0500

Lot of real estate professionals ask me about adding their own MLS search and listing to their web site. Based on my experience, this is more than an Yes/No question.

If you are a member of an MLS, your best bet is getting a free ride on them as shown here at Victor's site. This is very easy to accomplish even thogh you are at the mercy of your MLS in terms of the appearance and the content.

If you are BIG realtor and have good budget, you can have an agreement with your MLS to get a daily feed of additions and deletions of properties. You can use this (with good amount of programming) to host your own search and listing. Remember, this is not for small budget realtors!

Another option is to use out of the shelf packages to host your own mini version of MLS. This will require a PHP/MySQL (or similar) specialist to install, setup, customize and maintain.

The choice is yours!

Host video sharing on your own server

Murali Vasudevan (Elixir Addons) — Sun, 26 Oct 2008 20:58:04 -0500

I have seen lots of interest in hosting video clips on your own server instead of using YouTube. There are many free software that can help you do this. PHPMotion is one of them and you should check it out. I have played with it and it looks cool! I even added a feature to it by which you can grab clips from YouTube. Please check it out. This requires a good PHP/MySQL specialist to install, setup, customize and maintain.

Locator for INnOut, Ballys, Borders and more....

Murali Vasudevan (Elixir Addons) — Sat, 25 Oct 2008 22:44:12 -0500

As mentioned on this site, I always look for opportunities to develop cool addons for web sites using my programming skills. In this era of free stuff, I can see BIG companies like Amazon, Google, Ebay, USPS etc. trying to attract more traffic by giving away tools to share their proprietary data.

Here are some examples of what you can do using the tool kit from Google.

Bally's Fitness locator Borders bookstore locator Indian Restaurants locator In N Out Restaurants locator