I invite you to experience an evolutionary online marketing technology for the Fort McMurray Real Estate Market, streaming HD web video tours. I offer high definition web video tours of your home when you list with me that are stream directly from my personal website www.McMurraysBestHomes.com  and including MLS^®.

My web video tours are not only comprised of interior and exterior shots, but also include highlighting features to match feature sheets, a visual from Google Maps of the area, a community tours with landmarks and neighborhood shots.

Why Video?

• A real estate web video tour is the next best thing to an open house walk through. Nothing replaces this up close, in person visit, but a web video tour is the ultimate way to promote interest and prompt buyers to make a call to me to schedule a showing of your home.
• I show your home to clients who are genuinely interested and serious about viewing your house.
• Gives your home a one-up over the current highly competition Fort McMurray Real Estate Market.
• 93% of home buyers turn first to the Internet to research real estate. Optimize the exposure of your home today with a web video tour!

This is the future of real estate marketing! It is a natural evolutionary phase. Spinning 360 virtual tours will soon be forgotten and photography alone will simply not be enough. Ensure your real estate advertising is top notch and up to date. Let the power of high definition web video tours go to work for you in selling your home in Fort McMurray.

Marketing and Distribution of Video Tours
Here are a few of the social community video websites, similar to YouTube, available to host and stream your home web video tour to the world.

Did you know that when working with a good mortgage broker, you will always be offered the best rate upfront? Manulife Financial Advisor, Greg MacPherson, says that banks "only reveal the lowest mortgage rate they will give you when you absolutely force them to by coming up with a better competing rate from across the street."

This is the similar to negotiating the price of a souvenir in a third world country marketplace. They always want as much as they can get. You shouldn't have to go through that!

The difference is that banks usually offer retail mortgage rates while brokers always offer wholesale mortgage rates.

 Our lenders are offering some extremely low rates right now that are generating a lot of attention. If you are thinking of buying your first home, refinancing your existing home for a lower rate, or buying another property now may be the time to do so.

Did you know that even 1/4% difference in rate on a $300,000 mortgage over 5 years will cost you over $3500 in extra interest? It definitely pays to check with a broker to ensure you are offered the best rate.

If you need help in finding a good broker to help you with your next home purchase visit my website www.McMurraysBestHomes.com and I will give a few names.

Often, the market will get tougher for a period of time. Agents will get frustrated because there is not enough inventory. Sometimes, getting new listings is more difficult than ever. We will always go through periods of challenge and adversity. We will all have trials. Even long ago, Confucius said, The gem cannot be polished without friction, nor man without trials.

We must accept that adversity and trials are there to strengthen us, our thoughts and mind, and our will and actions; to shock us into improving our skills, so we are better prepared the next time around. That is the role of adversity in our lives its to make us better.

The first thing to do when you encounter adversity (because of not having enough listings or sales) is to increase your frequency and intensity of prospecting. When those challenging market adjustments appear, it may take more contacts to generate the leads we need. It may take more leads to generate the appointments we need. It may even take more appointments to generate the listings we need to drive our business. Tracking our numbers and sales ratios and understanding the market can be the difference between winning and losing. Writer George Shelham said, Winners keep track of the results; losers keep track of the reasons. The results are the daily activities of prospecting: the contacts, leads, appointments, and clients created from them. The losers let the reasons why they dont feel like prospecting take over. We all can think of a million reasons not to prospect. There will be many distractions every day that will take us away from the necessary

There are things we know we need to do daily to achieve success and accomplish our dreams in life. Often, our feelings determine whether we do them or not. Our will and desire has to be strong enough, so we do what we need to do anyway . . . even if we dont feel like it. For example, I feel like eating Rocky Road ice cream daily. I have a weakness for ice cream, especially Rocky Road. If I did what I felt like doing, I would weigh considerably more than I do. I need to discipline myself to control that feeling with the action of abstinence.

We all must control the feeling of not wanting to prospect. Prospecting daily is an act of will, not feeling. If we are determining whether to prospect or not based on feeling, we will not prospect. Granted, daily prospecting isnt easy. It will be difficult, but it will be worth it. When the first part of that statement is coming true, always remember the second part: It will be worth it! The personal satisfaction that we will achieve by conquering our fears and winning the game of production will be unmatched.

Too often, we expect results instantly. We want success without effort. We want victory without defeat. It amazes me how many speakers and trainers are trying to sell Agents on the get rich quick system of success. They promise results from a magic ad campaign, a magic website, or any number of other gimmicks. If we look throughout history, the people who got to the top and stayed there have one thing in common: they continually worked diligently, and all their failures added up to eventual success. These successful people persevered and struggled and mastered the fundamentals to reach the pinnacle of peak performance. I watched a commercial that illustrated this truth well. The individual in the commercial said, Ive missed more than 9,000 shots in my career. Ive lost almost 300 games. Twenty-six times Ive been trusted to take the game winning shot and missed! I have failed over and over and over again in my life. And that is why I succeed."  The commercial was for Nike, and the individual was Michael Jordan.  We can only avoid failure by playing the game, meeting the challenge, and stepping toward the adversity.  We must stare failure down and do the difficult task of prospecting.  We need to set aside our thoughts of not feeling like it.  If we do that, we will change the outcome of defeat to victory.  Start your journey to disciplined success today.

comments by Dirk Zeller of Real Estate Champions in a reccent email.

How do you know when a prospect or client is going to waste your time or go the distance? That is something new Agents and some experienced Agents struggle with regularly says Dirk Zeller of Real Estate Champoins in a recent email sent to me. Please read the rest of the email it has some great point that needed to be shared.

Having a step-by-step pre-qualifying process helps dramatically. It will help you evaluate each person the same. When you go in to get your annual physical the doctor doesnt just wing it. The doctor sends you through the same steps as every other patient taking an annual physical. All patients have their blood pressure checked and blood and urine samples tested. The doctors and nurses dont skip a step. Create a step-by-step process to qualify your prospects. There is no substitute for experience. Like anything in life, the more you do something the better you get. Michael Jordan was the greatest basketball player of all time because of will and practice. Even though he was cut from his high school team, he focused on improving; his practice habits improved between high school and the NBA.

The experience of working with many prospects and clients helps you develop a sixth sense. The only way to develop that sixth sense is through making mistakes and learning from them. Since a sixth sense is developed by experiences, the number of years you do something has very little to do with it. Lets say that you need to do 100 closings to have a functional and operational sixth sense. You could take 10 years to do those 100 closings or two years. By doing more, you will develop your sixth sense more quickly.

There were transactions and people in my sales career that didnt pass the smell test. There was just something that didnt feel or smell right. Rather than hoping it would all come out in the wash, I would pour bleach on the situation by questioning and digging deeper. The gray stains would be bleached to white, and I would be able to see my next step much clearer.

I had one rule when working with people: It usually gets worse under pressure, not better. The deal that is in escrow that is shaky the first week remains shaky all the way through and usually gets worse. Our solution was to tighten or kill it in the first week. This solution would either remove the escrow or solidify it, so that it would close easier. The prospect that is flaky at the very beginning usually doesnt get any better. Qualify him hard to either get him to commit to you with certainty or remove him from your life and move on. The seller at the listing appointment who will not take your counsel on price is a great example. Does that person get better or worse 30 days down the road? Usually 30 days later he blames you because his home hasnt sold. Actually, his failure to accept your price counsel was the reason.

Develop your sixth sense quickly by creating more opportunities with prospects. The more opportunities you have, the more selective you can be with who becomes a client. Dont neglect to listen to that sixth sense you are developing. Rarely will you be wrong.

A great coach Dirk Zeller just emailed this information that is so timely.

Lets start with the bottom line first: The whole purpose of a prospect presentation is to establish your competitive advantage. In the least time possible you want to communicate what makes you different from the more than 1.2 million other licensed Realtors in the United States. You want your prospects to see exactly why they should hire you, whats in it for them, and why they should proceed with confidence to sign your listing agreement.

Most agents spend the presentation explaining what they will do for the client rather than focusing on the results the client can expect the agent to deliver. Newspaper ads, website pages, home magazines, dazzling flyers, and a lineup of other marketing items are tactics that, in truth, nearly all agents use in the normal course of business. They are not competitive advantages. In fact, you must assume before a listing presentation that every agent will promise a near-identical marketing plan.

So why will they hire you over the others? Theyll hire you because they see whats in it for them. And whats in it for them is the set of benefits they will receive as a result of your proven competitive position.

Defining your unique competitive position

To differentiate yourself in the field of real estate sales you need to create, define, and consistently convey a competitive position that positively distinguishes you from your competition.

By knowing and exploiting the difference between your products and services and those of your competitors you will attract more prospects, win more clients, grow your market share, increase your revenue, expand your profits, and, eventually, weaken your competitors.

To pinpoint your unique competitive position, answer these questions:

* Are there key statistics that set you apart from your competitors and provide you with a clear point of difference?

* Do any of your Big Three statistics create a unique competitive position?

1. Average list price to sale price

2. Days on the market

3. Listings sold versus listings taken

* What benefits or values do consumers receive only when they deal with you?

* Do you have dominant or strong market share in a geographic region?

* Do you specialize in a particular property type, such as small plexes or a certain style of home?

* Is your market share success tied to a particular price point?

* When representing sellers, do you achieve quantifiably higher sale prices?

* When representing buyers, do you achieve quantifiable savings in sales price, down payment, monthly payment, or interest rate?

Your answers dont need to lead to 20 unique competitive positions. You only need half a dozen reasons why the consumer whether youre presenting to a buyer or a seller should choose over everyone else. Focus only on advantages that will matter to your prospect. Keep in mind the old sales adage: Its easier to sell someone what they want to buy than what you have to sell them.

Proving your excellence: You dont get paid for second place

A Fortune 500 CEO who doesnt increase revenue will watch the stock price plummet. A quarterback who throws for lots of yards but doesnt win games will be benched or traded. A Realtor who doesnt get listings sold or find and secure the right home for buyers will leave the business.

In the real estate world, results are the name of the game. Anyone can make money in a marketplace where everyone wants to buy and sell, but only the excellent agents will thrive in a competitive marketplace.

There hasn't been a better time to buy in Fort McMurray in the past three years then right now. Since October 2008 we have watched the listing price of single family home drop. The number of sales each month has been in the 30's a compared to the 100's in the past few years. The average price is down about $40,000 over the same period last year, but still up from three years ago. March 2009 will be seen as the turning point in our market, the sales volume has incease to near normal levels for Fort McMurray at just under 100 unit for March.

What has caused this change? Near record low interest rates, oil prices are around the $50 a barrel range. The recent news that Suncor is purchasing PetroCan and the fact that all the major oilsand players are still hiring staff position. Are all signs that Fort McMurray is ready to start leading Canada economy again.

If you have been sitting on the fence waiting for the bottom of the market before you buy, then welcome to the bottom. Things are about to start moving again. Give me Patrick Dardis a call today to find the home of your dreams in Fort McMurray.

In setting prospecting goals, focus on three core areas: the number of contacts you should make each day and week, the number of leads you should develop, and the number of personal appointments you should set.

Start with easily attainable numbers, so you can build up your energy, intensity, focus, and discipline slowly and steadily. You wouldn't decide to run a marathon without working your daily and weekly mileage up over time, and the same premise applies when establishing and meeting your prospecting goals.

A contact is a personal conversation with a decision maker who can make a purchase or sale or who might refer you to someone who could. A contact is not a conversation with the babysitter, a 10-year old neighbor, a friendly teenager, or an answering machine.

When I take on a new coaching client, I almost always start them with a goal of five contacts a day, and I would suggest the same for you.  Make a goal of five contacts a day without fail, resulting in the completion of 25 contacts a week.  It will take three to four weeks for contact with five prospects a day to become a habit. Once you achieve the goal for three weeks straight without missing a single workday, you can raise your goal to seven or ten.

Leads are contacts that have demonstrated through their dialogues that they possess the basic motivation and desire to make a change in their living arrangements. In prospecting, we assume until we either pre-qualify them ourselves or they secure an appointment with a lender that determines they have the financial capacity to make a purchase.

To advance your business, you should aim to develop at least one lead per day and five leads per week.

An appointment is a face-to-face meeting with prospects, during which you discuss their needs and wants, share how you work, and aim to gain their commitment to work with you in an exclusive relationship to sell their home or find them a home to purchase. An appointment is the launch of the agent-client relationship. It is not a meeting during which you show a property!

Like your lead-generation goal, your appointment goal should be set at a reasonable level: A goal of one appointment a week is a solid start. If you acquire two appointments, terrific, but make sure that you are able to secure at least one.

If about now you are wondering, hmm, five leads and only one appointment a week from all those calls, realize that these are starting goals. It is far better to begin with aims that you can actually achieve rather than ones that overwhelm you from the onset. As you gain consistency and skill in prospecting, both your numbers and your ratios will improve.

Even if you maintained the goals we set and sales ratios of leads and appointments, you would have a good year as a newer or inexperienced Agent.  At the end of the year, you would have made 1,250 contacts.  You would have created 250 leads.  You also would have set and conducted 50 appointments and gotten two weeks off with your family to boot.

Even if only half of the appointments turned into listings or sales, you would have 25 deals in your first year.  In most companies, that would make you rookie of the year.  You would also earn in excess of $125,000 in gross commission income.  I do not know too many people in real estate or in any other profession that make that type of money in their first year.

So set your prospecting goals by focusing in those three core areas: number of contacts made, number of leads established, and number of appointments secured.  You will meet your goals if you follow through and be diligent in achieving them.

A quality listing presentation involves considerable advance planning, careful research and analysis, and highly developed presentation and sales skills.  This allows you to derive maximum impact from the minimal time you have to present yourself and your recommendations, close the deal, and obtain signatures on a listing agreement.

Your advance planning takes two forms.  First you need to qualify your prospects - determining not only their desires and expectations but also their ability to make the buying or selling decision and complete the purchase transaction.

The other essential ingredient in a listing presentation is a competitive market analysis (CMA) along with a presentation that displays the full complement of your sales skills and abilities and helps you win your prospect's confidence and secure their listing.

Knowing the purpose of your presentation

Be crystal-clear on this point.  The objective of a listing presentation is to secure a signed listing agreement before the meeting ends. It's not to pave the way for a "be-back" listing, where you plan to return at a later date to handle paperwork and secure final prospect approval. Your purpose is to make your case, close the deal, and get ink on the paper right then and there while you're face-to-face with your prospects. If you don't, I guarantee the odds of securing the listing start to swing away from you.

If you let even a few days or a week slip by, your prospects will have a hard time separating your presentation from other agents who they met in the meantime. And the moment they lose sight of your distinguishing attributes, they'll revert to a commodity mindset by focusing on price and selecting an agent based on who offered the lowest commission or the highest list price.

I've personally made over a thousand listing presentations, and I've coached and listened to the presentations of hundreds of other agents. I am totally convinced that a quality listing presentation can and must result in a signed contract at the presentation.

These are two reasons you need to get the listing signed during the presentation: 

1. The moment you leave the appointment, anything can happen. A buyer could appear out of nowhere, knocking on your prospect's door with a direct offer. An agent who interviewed your prospect a few days ago could be desperate enough to call with an offer to cut their fee by another percent. At Rotary or church or a chamber of commerce meeting, your prospect could meet another agent. Or, after-the-fact, they could begin to confuse you for a different agent whose presentation they didn't like at all. The list of "coulds" goes on and on. The only thing you know for sure is that if you don't get the signed listing at the appointment, you leave it up for grabs and vulnerable. 

2. You need to feel the win. The win in the listing game is when the contract is signed. Don't underestimate the power of that personal victory. Selling involves the risk of rejection. If it didn't, it would be called order taking, and you wouldn't be paid so well because it would be so easy. A listing presentation gives you the chance to go for the win, perfect your close, and attain the victory. Give yourself the satisfaction and adrenaline rush of walking out of the home with a signed contract. Your drive home will be the shortest ever known. If you don't get it signed, it will be the longest few minutes you've ever known.          

I have an incredible coaching client who sells homes on Long Island. She is a listing machine in her market area. She takes over 125 listings a year. Yet a while back, when we tracked the numbers she was closing on the night of the appointment, we found her close rate was less than 40%.

This finding got her focused on the uncompensated time she was spending on second meetings with listing prospects. It also made her think about how many listings were lost following the first meeting. A month later, her closing figures had changed dramatically. With a new resolve to get the contract closed on the night of the appointment, she skyrocketed her closing rate to over 70%.

Again, be crystal-clear.  Know your objective of your listing presentation.  It is to secure a signed listing agreement before you walk out that door.  Don't leave your business to chance - take control and watch your closing rate skyrocket!

A great Real Estate coach Dirk Zeller of Real Estate Champions sent me this email that I think should be shared.

Think of your marketplace as your playing field, not unlike an athlete views a football field, basketball court, or hockey rink. The better you know every inch of that playing field, the more you can exploit it to your advantage. 

Before I became a REALTOR®, in my early twenties, I was a racquetball professional. I played hundreds of tournaments over my sports career, and my best games were always at my home club. There, we had a court with floor-to-ceiling glass on the right side and back wall, making it particularly difficult to see in the back right-hand corner where the two walls of glass converged.

When players came for tournaments at my club, they struggled to pick up the ball in that corner - giving me what you might call a significant home field advantage. I rarely lost a match on that court.

Real estate is like any other competitive endeavor. If you learn all there is to know about your playing field, you'll acquire a competitive advantage that will distance you from the competition and build the basis of your success.

The most challenging aspect of gaining market knowledge is determining what facts to collect and where to find the information you need. Fortunately, a number of readily accessible resources are available to REALTORS®. All you have to do is contact the right people and ask the right questions. The following sections will help you on your data quest.

Your Local Board of REALTORS®

All professional agents belong to REALTOR® associations that compile and make available a wealth of statistical information. The facts you can obtain from your local board include:

• The number of agents working in your marketplace. This information helps you understand your competitive arena. It also allows you to track whether your competition has expanded or receded over recent years.

• The production of the average agent in terms of units and volume sold.  By obtaining this information and comparing it with your own production units and volume, you will be able to contrast your performance against the other agents on your local board. This information will be useful in your effort to calculate your share of the market. It also helps you understand how you stack up against the other agents your prospective customer might be considering. 

• Experience levels of agents in your field. Most Boards of REALTORS® keep information regarding the percentage of agents recently licensed and those with three, five, and ten years in the business. This information provides you with another factor against which to measure your competitive position.

Meet with the executive director of your local Board of REALTORS® to learn the extent of information that is available to you, how frequently new research is released, and how you can obtain copies for your ongoing review. 

Your Local Multiple Listing Service

The Multiple Listing Service, commonly called the MLS, keeps statistics of all the listings and sales in your area that are processed through the MLS. 

The MLS does not cover every sale due to the fact that some sales bypass the system. Often, new construction builders, particularly in very robust markets, don't submit their inventory into MLS. Agents also sometimes sell properties themselves or in-house, and those sales are not submitted to MLS.  However, the MLS, in most markets, covers more than 95% of all marketplace sales, and it represents the surest indicator of real estate activity in your region.

The MLS can give you key market statistics including:

• Days on the market averages
• Listing price to sale price ratios
• Listings taken versus listings sold ratios
• Geographically active markets inside your service area

Nearly all REALTORS® recognize the MLS for its significant role in increasing communication and exposure of real estate properties. Fewer REALTORS® recognize the MLS for its powerful but under-utilized role in reporting trends and performance of agents, companies, and subsets of the marketplace. Access and put this information to work to your advantage.

The National Association of REALTORS®

There are a number of national resources that you can access to obtain a wealth of knowledge and statistical trends. The best is the National Association of REALTORS® (NAR), which produces some wonderful studies, reports, and market statistics that most agents never use.  The truth is most agents don't even know they are available.

Their monthly "Real Estate Outlook" publication provides a national view of real estate sales: What has happened in terms of sales, days on the market, what people are purchasing, what financing they are using, emerging trends, and predictions for the future.  This is a powerful tool in the hands of a successful agent. If you aren't currently receiving and reading it, put it into your information arsenal immediately.

They also conduct annual surveys and studies of home sellers and homebuyers. They delve into why consumers selected particular agents, what services they sought from agents, and what geographic areas, home amenities, and features caused them to buy.  This type of knowledge will enable you to provide the highest level of counsel and value to your clients.

NAR also issues reports on second home markets, investment properties, financing options, and many other topics. It's one of the best services that NAR provides, but it's the service that agents use the least. Make yourself an exception and dive into this deep pool of information.

Visit the NAR website at www.REALTOR.org to obtain an overview of the association, to access quick links to useful sites including REALTOR® Magazine Online, and to subscribe to receive e-mail updates on real estate topics and statistics.

Other Sources of Marketplace Information

Consult your broker about company-compiled statistics on regional trends and also on your firm's market share and market penetration. Especially if you work for a regional or national real estate company or franchise, your organization has likely commissioned studies that will be useful to your fact-gathering efforts.

Also, if you live in a state where sellers provide title insurance to buyers, the title companies often conduct market trend reports that allow agents to better understand the marketplace they are working in.

Low-Cost Tips to Get your Home Ready for the Holidays
It's that time of the year again and even though getting your home ready for the holidays can seem like a chore, it doesn't have to be. Fortunately, it doesn't even have to take up much time or money, either. You can do it in a few easy steps. Just get in the mood to be creative.

Add colour and texture
Simply displaying some richly coloured pillows or throws in any room can give the room a different feel. Choose warm and spicy colors, or maybe something with mirror work to catch the light and add to the glowing effect and sparkle of the holiday season.

Neutrals, metallic and peacock shades are the hot holiday hues of 2008, so don't feel like you have to stick with the traditional red, green and white schemes.

Artwork, throws and mirrors can also add a new splash to the walls.

Spread some warmth
Changing the shades on your lamps to warm coloured ones can make the light appear richer. By lighting candles in holiday scents - ensuring, of course, they're displayed in safe areas away from flammable objects - your room can take on a warm glow.

Revamping or creatively using what you already own can also create lush looks in leaner economic times. For instance, filling a clear glass bowl or vase with ornaments of a single bright colour can make for an eye-catching display.

Another trick that makes for a pleasing display that is kind to the wallet involves bringing in some evergreen cuttings and using ribbon or other household items to dress them up. And you can make old wreaths look new by attaching fake berries, sprigs or pine cones.

You can also refresh your old decorations by dressing them up with paint or glitter.

Make it cozy
There's no better time than the present to get started on your holiday cleaning. If you rid your rooms of clutter, especially those catch-all coffee tables and kitchen counters, your home will seem much more inviting.

Piles of junk mail, unfiled bills and magazines not only look messy, but can also interfere with your cleaning efforts. It's much easier, and faster, to dust a clear surface than to clean around three months' worth of the latest decorating magazines and some early Christmas cards.

To eliminate - and prevent - clutter, everything should have a designated space. Magazines, for instance, can be placed in a bin under the coffee table, while children's art can be stored in a chest or accordion-style folder.

And to encourage an even more inviting atmosphere, think about arranging your furniture in conversation groups. You have to move the furniture anyway in order to get rid of those dust bunnies, so why not try arranging them in a fresh, new manner?