In Northern California, we get excited when we hear that sales are up.  Prices, however, continue to fall.  Which is why it's hard to get too awfully excited about any perceived ''turn'' in our housing market just yet!

Granted, I'm not a licensed Realtor, but I've been providing support services to about 3 dozen of them for nearly 7 years now, and I believe I have a reasonable ''feel'' for the pulse of the housing market here in Northern California (based on listening to the extensive knowledge of my clients, of course!).  And the bottom line for me is... I wouldn't buy a home here right now unless I planned to be here for at least the next 3-5 years.

So, with that said, I've had to pretty much ''re-invent'' my marketing strategies for my clients, in the last year especially.  I've attempted to think outside the box with regard to what will give their listings as much exposure as possible.  Being a bit of a computer geekette, I realized years ago that the Internet was the best mode of marketing.  It took a bit longer for some of my clients to catch up to that train of thought, but they are definitely there now (even those who think computers hate them are getting on board!).  So, what have I done?

First, I began creating single listing property websites (http://www.reshowcaseproperties.com/).  That was about 2 years ago.  A wonderful Coldwell Banker client of mine gave me the idea (wish I had thought of it myself, but I'm so glad she did!).  There were a few companies offering this type of service, but they didn't personalize the site like I did, with extensive local community and school information.  And I did everything for the Realtor... they didn't have to log in to a control panel to upload photos and verbiage.  Call me, order it, and it's done!  The single listing property websites still work well today, especially for Sellers (who enjoy having their home's own website), Buyers (who love driving by the property, writing down the website and checking it out on their own before they take their Realtor's time with a showing), and the Realtors who can show their Sellers that they do more than just put the listing and some photos on MLS and Realtor.com.

With the sharp downturn in our housing market this last year, I felt it was time to re-think my current marketing strategies.  So last July, I created a video channel on YouTube, Google Video and Yahoo! Video and began creating and uploading photo slideshows (complete with music, effects and transitions).  I was absolutely amazed to see that they (for the most part) were making it to PAGE 1 or 2 of the search engines in less than 48 hours.  Now, nearly 9 months later, these are a staple in my business.  I have even begun providing them to various businesses around town and across the country.

Now that we're in our Spring market, I'm finding it's probably time once again to get innovative.  My head has been spinning with ideas for my next marketing venture, which I'll be sure to share right here on my Blog as soon as I work out the details!

Have a beautiful Spring!