Pierre's Blog

Web NeXt - Break free of Web 2.0 already!

Pierre Calzadilla (Trulia.com) — Thu, 15 Oct 2009 15:02:54 -0500

Versions don't matter today, as soon as you launch a version, you become outdated.

Web 2.0 is now a cliché, web 3.0? - that happened the day after O'Reilly's Web 2.0 conference,
which really was the driver of "Web 2.0's" widespread popularity. Some cite the original source
as an article by Darci diNucci, called "Fragmented Future" from 1999. Nevertheless, the pervasive
use of Web 2.0 has jumped the shark. For example, I had a broker tell me the other day that
an unnamed web provider said their technology was "web 4.0 - and thus better than 2.0" - LOL,
oh man - I am still laughing. Web 2.0 has also managed to break into almost every person's
job description, website application and even became the 1 millionth word in the English dictionary.

In my travels I have noticed that the web 2.0 phrase has done most damage to the average web
user. They think that web 2.0 represents new technologies that that they now need to learn
before they can use them. To those people out there - the web is the web, period. Yes,
admittedly there was a shift, a moment that social media and web technology changed the way
we used the web. I do not disagree that there was a pivotal moment where it was important to
take note of the change. However, these were fluid transitions; they were growing trends that
accelerated very rapidly because of the economy and the exponential increase in web
efficiencies for carrying data, video and live interaction.

We also need to rethink giving ourselves titles that have "2.0" in it as well. It may seem trendy,
but so did parachute pants. If you consider yourself a 2.0 expert, than you are really a Web
Marketing Expert, or Social Media Expert, perhaps some new title - Online Media Pro. However
naming yourself a 2.0 agent or expert is limiting and not recommended.

One of my biggest fears is the concept that a new "2.0" website will last you more than 6
months. Today, innovation comes weekly and you should be prepared to look at your website,
if it is a serious part of your business, as a dynamic marketing tool that should have seamless
and expected improvements. The days of getting a site and sitting on it for 3 years are gone.

If we must use a version, we should use Web X.0 and for that matter Real Estate neXt - because
the medium is now constantly shifting. To put a "version" on the web, or your business, is like
trying to pour the ocean into an 8oz glass - you can't dilute it to the limiting space of a version.
What is your take on this? Is there value in 2.0? What if someone comes out with 3.0?

Heck I am Web infinity squared to the nth degree - beat that.

Best,

Pierre

The twitterati is not a kid anymore

Pierre Calzadilla (Trulia.com) — Tue, 01 Sep 2009 10:06:07 -0500

Our consumer uses Social Media, they do so greatly, and they are not kids.

NYTimes: Who's driving Twitter's Popularity? Not teenagers.

NYTImes: Why adults have fed twitter's growth

It is no secret that the real estate industry can sometimes lag behind the latest trends. However, this time around, real estate agents and brokers really caught on and understood the value that Twitter had to our business, early on - at least when the mass public did.

If there is any other industry that lags the consumer it may be old media and even they jumped on Twitter feverishly.

I believe twitter was the first site where almost every major news portal jumped on board, gung-ho. Unlike facebook and myspace, where mass media saw it as a feeding ground for inappropriate activity and initially decided to stay away. By the time they realized what was going on Rupert Murdoch bought MySpace and Facebook was positioned to take on the world.

Old media, for that matter, the old economy, learned the lessons of not staying on top of technology and letting bloggers and others get their audience eyeballs. So with Twitter, these industries did not want to let their audience get more diluted and distracted, so they all went on and promoted it. From CNN to the NYTimes, etc - all twitter and ask to be followed. This also subsequently brought more mass media appeal and expanded twitters reach. Obama and his campaign were also early adopters of twitter, further growing its base.

Besides the reasons stated in the NYTimes articles, the real reason why twitter hit it big with adults is easy - TWITTER is easy! Who can't write 140 characters? Or click "follow", the barrier to entry is way low, and you don't need to put yourself out there like you do on facebook. On twitter you can just "watch" - on facebook you need to be heavily involved, adding, requesting, blocking, accepting, updating, yadda, yadda, yadda.

I suppose the bottom line is that technology that is easy to use and viral, with limited barriers to entry will succeed with all age demographics. Having mass media appeal and making people's lives easier to connect or spread the word seemingly can help lead to success.

Trulia also has a rich target demographic - over 66% of our users are over 35, over 40% earn over $100K and over 80% are college graduates. These stats come from Trulia user surveys.

Is there anything you can do to "twitterize" your business? Have you made it easy for clients to connect with you? Are you engaging in conversation on platforms Trulia voices? Do you actually engage, or do you just broadcast like old media?

Best,
Pierre

original post here.

Newspaper to enter the Real Estate industry

Pierre Calzadilla (Trulia.com) — Thu, 20 Aug 2009 10:40:04 -0500

Reference: http://www.editorandpublisher.com/eandp/news/article_display.jsp?vnu_content_id=1004004393

Two funny things about this move:

1) Sellers pay $2K to go into papers - "Hello, 98% of buyers shop online"

2) Marketing is NOT what agents are paid for.

Agents and brokers earn their commission for the following servics, (among other things):

1) Properly pricing the home

2) Pre-approving/Screening buyers

3) Scheduling showings, dealing with cancellations

4) getting broker co-operation via MLS, broker open houses, etc.

5) Negotiating price, terms, protecting the seller

6) ancillary services: home warrenties, etc.

7) Dealing with lawyers, inspectors

8) being a mediator when lawyers don't work well

9) Keeping the seller and buyer on schedule with paperwork/deliverables

10) getting the home CLOSED.

And typically doing all of this, with no upfront fee.

My hypothesis: this will be a bust, newspapers are scrambling for revenue, and this is not the answer. Brokers should take heed of this, as that industry is one of followers, it is likely that others will follow suit. their business models are broken, it really is no surprise that they are turning to this!

Agents and brokers, pay attention to this trend, this is not cool.

Best, PC

Innovative broker Spotlight: Century 21 Laffey

Pierre Calzadilla (Trulia.com) — Wed, 19 Aug 2009 23:24:32 -0500

I get to see many Real Estate websites in my travels. Obviously there are a huge range of features, options, tools that any real estate website can have. So, I think it is good to highlight some brokers that you may not be familiar with, but are doing great new things in the Online Space.

My first pick is http://www.laffey.com, website for Century 21 Laffey Associates in Long Island, NY. Laffey happens to be a top 10 Century 21 franchise office.

The Laffey team is different. Lead by Emmett Laffey and his amazing staff, they are aggressive and have shifted almost entirely to marketing online. Emmett was among the first brokers in the Long Island/NYC market to shift enormous budgets off of ineffective print media to online placements and partnerships.

Century 21 Laffey Associates is very bullish on Open Houses. They hold over 100-200 on any given weekend. Laffey recognized that consumers do so much online, that open house traffic has decreased over the years. Therefore Laffey changed his homepage from Thursday-Sunday into a Featured Open house list. Immediately upon arriving to www.laffey.com the consumer is greeted with over 100+ listings that are hosting real and virtual open houses. Here consumers can see every upcoming open house that Laffey is hosting, along with virtual tours, multiple photos and more.

Laffey takes this one step further by organizing "online open house showings" and compiling it in a report for their sellers. Obviously the seller can now see the full-effect of being a Laffey client, not only do they get the real open house, but they get sometimes 100’s of additional virtual open house visits. They coupled this effort on their own site, with an Online Billboard, with live listing widget on Trulia.

The widget showcases their listings with a call to action for open houses. From Thursday-Sunday, Laffey owns 100% share of the Online Billboard in their key markets, promoting their live open houses. The Laffey team constantly works on optimizing their site. They realize that the web is constantly evolving and that to stay on top, they cannot afford to stop innovating and taking risks. www.laffey.com is a website and broker to watch.

Best,

Pierre

P.S. - If you know of any brokerage websites doing innovative things that should be highlighted, let me know!

original post:http://www.trulia.com/blog/pierre_calzadilla/2009/08/brokerage_company_highli

RIP Boring Banner Ad's - introducing the Online Billboard w. live listing widget

Pierre Calzadilla (Trulia.com) — Tue, 18 Aug 2009 14:45:54 -0500

Trulia has been an innovator, from Listing Syndication to our iPhone application to our partnerships -
innovation is a core part of our company culture. Last year, we really went after innovating and
improving your experience when we introduced our new Online Billboard, live listing widget. This has
revolutionized the “banner ad” you knew before.

Banner ads don’t generally work to drive traffic to your website. They also tend to offer little relevant
content to the consumer. What does that mean? The old banner ad is on life support because
advertisers failed to ask one important question:

Why would a consumer interact with this ad?

Over a year ago we went in search of a solution. A few sites were dabbling with “live content” ads,
however they were very expensive and the technologies were still not meeting the key criteria I
believe a banner ad needs to meet for a consumer to click on it:

1) Relevant to the site they are on, and that specific site’s experience
2) Fresh, live data that won’t be overly duplicative
3) Movement or implementation that attracts the consumer’s eye
4) Deliver EXACTLY what the consumer expects when they click on it, thus making the experience
positive.
5) Seamless integration into the experience

We had to make it easy. So we made a turn-key system that did not give them another project to
worry about. Other than limited creative guidance from the client, we took care of the rest. Thus was
born the Online Billboard listing widget.

It fulfills the criteria above and more when coupled with Trulia’s advanced targeting by ZIP, county,
state, price points and more. We have had several clients test this new display technology for over
a year, and I am happy to share the results.

Our hypothesis was correct. Every Online Billboard unit that ran our live listing widget saw a 3-5X
increase in click through rates when compared to standard banner ads. Some had a 10X increase.
It also did not matter where the widget was targeted - East, West, North, South, Regional or National
- it worked!

Here are some Online Billboards with live listing widgets running now:

1) Rand Better Homes & Garden Online Billboard
2) Prudential California Online Billboard
3) Champion Real Estate Online Billboard

We have an early case study done with Prudential Real Estate, where they ran both ads in
30 day trials – increasing Click Through Rates by 5X. Leave me a comment or e-mail me
(pierre@Trulia.com) for that report.

Learn More: Banner ads have evolved, have you? Join us on a Webinar (Sept 22nd) where we will
share their learning’s about online advertising. Click here to register. Space is limited!

Now a moment of silence for the banner ad…

Best,

Pierre

original post here.

Price Reduction news - so what does it all mean for YOU the seller and agents?

Pierre Calzadilla (Trulia.com) — Fri, 14 Aug 2009 07:54:25 -0500

Price Reduction news - so what does it all mean for YOU the seller and your agents?

I was astounded when I read the Price reduction news this morning. I was astounded because I know so many agents try their hardest to price homes correctly, only to have a seller demand a higher listing price. Some agents will walk away, knowing that their price is right, not wanting to align themselves with an unsuccessful sale attempt.

Other agents agree to the higher list price, only with a pre-signed price reduction, in the event that the only sound heard around the home are “crickets” chirping. I used to use this tactic myself, and I recommend it both for sellers and their agents. Simply put, you agree to disagree and place a limit on your losses. The first two weeks are so important for a successful sale of your home. Often the buyers that walked through those first two weeks will be the ones who come back 90 days later, after your 3rd price cut, to make a deal. So if you don’t correct your price immediately, you will likely end ,in a slippery slope, chasing the market down.

Why go through that?

The sales price is controlled by the market. There is a misconception that agents control listing price, or ultimately, the sales price. This price does not occur until after the sale. There is no way to forecast exactly what it will be, and you won’t know until the day you sign the offer letter. Your initial asking price is as important as your location.

Don’t chase the market down. If your city has an average 10% decrease in price, then you may want to consider a 15-20% cut to stay ahead of the trend. Too often sellers play catch-up, only adjusting the price down when it is too late and the vicious cycle continues. Situations like your neighbor asking $25K less than you, and selling within a week for the same price you are going to ask a month later, need to be avoided.

Fear. That is the number one reason people don’t price correctly – let me let you all in on a big secret. If you price your home for $1 and put it on the market tomorrow, the demand will be so high, and the offers will compete so much, that eventually you may get more than you actually expected just because of the demand and competition. $1 may be a little drastic, but I hope you get the point.

Gain the position. The position you want as a seller is CHOOSING an offer, not waiting for one. Work with your agent to see what listings you are competing with and price accordingly. Price yourself under the market and watch buyers come in fast – or learn the truth you don’t want to hear, “you should go off the market and wait”. News abounds about multiple offers coming in on aggressively priced homes.

Sellers – look at this report understand what it means for your market.

Agents – use this report to articulate to your sellers how important pricing right is, and how they need to avoid chasing the market down.

Charts are available for download at: http://bit.ly/4EQCNB

Original Post: http://www.trulia.com/blog/pierre_calzadilla/2009/08/price_reduction_news_-_s

#1 Rule of Social networks - Stop Spamming - Never Spam - Are you Spam?

Pierre Calzadilla (Trulia.com) — Thu, 20 Dec 2007 10:51:20 -0600

Ever wonder how Spam became Spam? Do you SPAM on AR? Is Spamming bad for business? Well here is the truth straight from my marketing class a few months back. It all begins with the actual wundermeat - Spam - the wundermeat became popular in america when women joined the work force and the family was adopting quick and easy meals that did had low preparation time.

(For the sake of length I am going to over-simplify some issues to get to the point)

Spam became popular because during their rise there was only 3 mediums, print, radio and TV. It was VERY clearly the birth of "brands" in America. You could literally throw money at these mediums and instantly sell millions of products, because unlike today's MASS (as in size) media, the options were very limited. I am sure that boomers and beyond can recall that even in the 70's TV was not more than 15 channels or so, of which you barely watched 4. All Spam did, was MARKET, buy ads, run commercials, you name it they were there and their sales went up - they SPAMMED SPAM - everyone caught on. SPAM is also absolutely useless for most people - sorry if you love it, but i believe it is really unhealthy.

It did not come to the technology arena until later: http://www.templetons.com/brad/spamterm.html

Now, why do I write this? STOP SPAMMING featured posts, popular posts in Social Networks, it is the ultimate way to get shunned, kicked, banned, booted, blocked, punted, denied and ignored. Social networks are NOT meant for promoting your product gratuitously.

SPAM = Promoting your product gratuitously, without request, without permission, and usually off-topic. Even on topic, it is not welcome.

How do you know if YOU ARE SPAM? ask yourself the following:

1) Am I answering the question in the blog? If you are, it is not SPAM
2) Am I merely stating my company name in a blatant disregard for integrity? If you are it IS SPAM
3) Am I putting words in a link and hiding the URL to encourage click through? 50/50 could be Spam
4) Does the comment I am adding ADD anything of value to the readers of this blog? only Yes if next is NO
5) Is this response strictly for my own benefit? If yes, you are a Spammer.

Look folks, let's Help people out, the next time someone SPAMS your post, send them the link to this post right after you report them as SPAM. They may not realize the negative effects SPAMMING will have on their business.

For example, if you are labeled a spammer, people will not like you - and instead of promoting yourself, you are actually ruining your reputation and opening yourself up for attack from the Social Network. This holds true for Trulia Voices, Zillow Q & A, ActiveRain, LinkedIn, MeetUp, Yelp!, etc.

The sad thing about Real Estate Spam is that alot of the brokers and agents do not realize they are doing it. It's okay, you are new to this medium. But you need to realize that the consumer does not fall for it, nor do they like it. If they are on Yelp! for restaurant reviews - and genuine reviews for other industries, contribute. But do NOT review yourself. Short reviews are also frowned upon, they look "spammy" - if everyone is writing thoughtful long reviews about companies and such - you should follow suit, so you are welcomed.

One Final tip: Look at the network you are joining, look at the popular posts, and learn from them what is read, what is welcomed and what kind of behavior is frowned upon.

Look at those 5 questions above, and I am sure you fellow AR members can add more to this list. Do not SPAM, and if you think it is SPAM, don't do it - But i'll give you a tip, on AR all you need to do to get recognition is to not be fake, be yourself, add to the community and people will naturally become interested in your product as a reflection of yourself. And you can write about your product, i do it. But those posts inevitable do not get featured, do not get posts and are not read. So this is my tip for 2008 - cut the SPAM!!!!!

Best wishes to all in 2008!

Pierre Calzadilla - Trulia - Manager strategic partnerships

Improve your lead conversion, by improving your leads...

Pierre Calzadilla (Trulia.com) — Wed, 19 Dec 2007 13:00:41 -0600

We all want "good" leads. I remember my years at my previous broker when we were driving 1,300 web requests a month (to the company - not counting direct to agent, office leads), we were closing around 4-6% of the requests for real commission dollars (*after appointments). We looked at our lead sources and consistently the "for sale sign" and Web were the biggest sources of "leads". Naturally, since they were the biggest sources, we tossed more money at them: bigger signs, easier to read, colored posts that could be sign miles away, larger budgets for keyword buying, site optimization, etc. We got more leads. But, was that what we needed?

In the end those leads, just created more work, more frustrated agents, more misdirected use of time. We needed BETTER leads, not more. Why? Because better leads, lead to the following:

selling our clients home as fast as possible for the highest possible price
more closings
higher earned commissions
shorter sales cycles

If we could generate BETTER leads, we could accomplish those four goals and more. That is not rocket science. Yes, in the long run, increasing the pipeline will increase your opportunity, but you also increase work and time wasted on - what some would call - "bad leads". I am going to change your vocabulary right now, because NO lead, is a BAD lead. You need to know how to identify and attract leads that are closer to their buying stage. Better yet, you want your lead to tell you EXACTLY where they are in the buying cycle. Here are some ideas:

Which buyer is more likely to buy a property from you in less than 90 days:

1) Buyer A: Types into Google, "New York City Real Estate" or Buyer B: "Upper East Side Condo for sale"

Think very carefully. Which one knows EXACTLY where they want to live, which one knows the property type and neighborhood? Do you think that Buyer B is more honed in on their target?: Answer: YES - So why the heck do we optimize for "houston real estate", or even "new york homes for sale" - are we nuts? heck even "Brooklyn Real Estate".

You see, not only has the web evolved, but web search behavior has evolved. For some of the most popular real estate sites in NYC, the most popular terms are actually ADDRESSES - of course that is because of buildings and such, but imagine that consumers are going as far as to just type in addresses into Google and see what comes up? Try it out - if you don't believe me.

Try this on for size: A school district is one of the biggest criteria for buying a home (I think we all agree), do you think the Mother and Father go on to Google to search for the city name - real estate, or a "Zip Code - homes for sale", think about it. If YOU were going to buy a home in your hometown, what would you type into the Google search box, if you were not a broker? One final test, grab someone, out of the industry, or ask a client that just made an offer on a house, what they were typing in to the search engine 12 months ago, and what they typed in before they made their offer last week.

2) Your method of connecting to the buyer/seller:

Do you have one call of action on your listings? I hope at LEAST one. But you may want up to 3 or even 4! Again, before you throw up your hands in shock and awe, let's walk through this. A buyer, 6-9 months out of a purchase, heck even a year out will want to ask a question, about anything - but the only option available is one contact form - why? So you have to determine the order you answer? So you can sit there and answer back in 5 minutes to every mundane question? Well THAT is exactly what you force yourself to do when you have ONE call to action. At the very least, you need two: "Ask a question about this listing here" "Set an appointment to view this property this evening", the consumer themselves will choose which pile they want to go into. What others could you have: "Sign up for a weekly update" - "Let's talk on the phone" "e-mail me similar listings" - etc. Think of all of the options now available. By doing this your e-mail system becomes a prioritization tools and the people that want appointments get the best treatment and instead of having to voraciously watch your e-mail, you can just look for the subject line: "appointment request" and answer those ASAP and leave the others for when you can sit down and give a great response.

In the end, our role is to help our sellers get the highest possible price for their homes. To do that effectively you need to work hard on the consumers that are most likely to buy NOW, they are out there. But they are not searching for "New York Real Estate" they are looking for homes for sale in 11223, an "Upper West Side Coop for sale", etc. They know exactly what they want - are you there? Can you be found? Can you tell the 90 day buyer from a 360 day buyer? Improve your marketing methods to improve your leads and close more business. these tips above are just the beginning.

Cheers,

Pierre Calzadilla

Trulia - Manager Strategic Partnerships - East Coast

Establish your "mega-presence" online.

Pierre Calzadilla (Trulia.com) — Fri, 07 Dec 2007 09:02:21 -0600

Hey all, this is from my article in this month's RIS Media (http://rismag.imprev.net/2007/12/) pg 124/125

http://rismedia.com/wp/2007-12-11/how-to-establish-your-mega-presence-on-the-web/ (complete)

"The average agent would probably count a website as part of their marketing plan and as important as their PDA, computer and digital camera. Yet, like many marketing tools of the past (see Polaroid and the Newspaper) the website is not timeless. As the web has matured to its proverbial adolescence, the sites that were created in recent years have quickly become outdated and non-functional. With today's "web 2.0" connectivity, data sharing and the mega-presence available to today's agent, a personal website is now optional. To understand my point, we need to assess the original intention of a website.

Some of you may say that the original goal of your site was to connect with consumers, or to display your knowledge, maybe even to market listings. These are all true. But something had to happen for this venture to be successful, you needed to be found. The race was quickly on to get to "page one" of Google for countless scores of keywords. We competed broker to broker, agent to agent and broker to agent and all against the lead farms for those coveted 10 spots on page one. An essentially painful and fruitless endeavor, that was quite costly. We can agree that unless your website can be found, it is virtually useless. Enter the "blog."

We did it, we found a way to connect - to speak with our clients and create connections - fantastic. But wait, so did 9,970,000 others according to my Google search for, "real estate blog." At first it was a genuine smorgasbord of actually good writing; it looked so easy. Quickly, thousands upon thousands of consumers, brokers, agent, mortgage bankers, lawyers and more started blogging too. The battle for supremacy raged again and blogs have now replaced websites as the medium of choice. They are text heavy, therefore easily indexed by Google, they offer quick and easy posting - and heck they don't have to be pretty. The blog has become the centerpiece of today's agent, but even that has a shelf-life that is nearing its course..."

for the rest of the article please read it here(http://rismag.imprev.net/2007/12/), I cannot link to it directly as it is a "flash" scroll to page 124-125:

"Commentary - Establish your Mega-Presence on the Web"

Happy Holidays!

-Pierre

News: EDGEIO will shut it's doors.

Pierre Calzadilla (Trulia.com) — Fri, 07 Dec 2007 08:52:00 -0600

Read Below for the full article:

http://www.techcrunch.com/2007/12/06/edgeio-to-shut-down-in-the-deadpool/

Why can't I be split in two? Real Estate Events & Personal Life...

Pierre Calzadilla (Trulia.com) — Tue, 28 Aug 2007 23:06:11 -0500

Hello my lovely AR friends. Normally i am not one to get up here and bemoan my predicaments, I rarely do that, I usually tend to lean towards the tip/advice kind of guy... but today, i just need to vent. this weekend is my 5th wedding anniversary! I am so, so, so happy to be spending time with my wife - a few months back we booked a trip to France - our first time ever out of the country to Europe. We have been counting the days to the trip...

let's put that on hold now.

Part two, i just started this awesome job at trulia in January, and I am able to meet brokers from across the U.S., speak at national venues - like Inman, and hold many agent/broker training sessions. I love that stuff, i really do. I love being able to meet people like Matt Heaton, see old friends like Mary, and meet new ones like the guys at Sellsius in person. Just like my previous life as a Real Estate agent: pressing flesh, sharing my cards and putting myself in places where my clients are - leads to more business. Business networking 101.

So, what pray tell am I bummed about? - RISMEDIA and Trulia Voices Unplugged, are going to be going on while I am away in France. To some of you, you may think, "why be upset? - you'll be travelling, yadda, yadda, yadda". But the fact is, I love what I do, and I love meeting my brokers, and most importantly I love meeting fellow bloggers, voices users, etc. it's just fun. Is it wrong for me to be sort of sad that I am going to france?

I am not kidding. I want to change my trip but my wife would cease to be my wife if I did... lol.

This is going to be the first ever Trulia Voices Unplugged get together too! You can see the blog post here, and sign up if you want:

http://www.trulia.com/voices/Using_Trulia/First_ever_Trulia_Voices_Unplugged_real_estate_mee-8107--

It is awesome, a party to just hang-out with fellow bloggers, and tri-state area Voices people, basically anyone that uses Voices is going to be there... EXCEPT ME!!!! AND it is the same week as the RIS Media conference.
If you go, can you do me a favor, and take a bunch of photos, say Hi to my friends - maybe even bring a cut out of my pic and hold it next to your face in group photos....?

I will really be thinking about you all while I am away in Paris, please send my regards to all my buddies out there. I know some of you are still thinking, "c'mon Pierre - you're in france - let's trade places" - but haven't you ever had to miss a closing, or broker meeting, or showing, that in your gut, in your business mind, in your heart of hearts, you know you should be at? But, the family is calling, and sometimes you just have to put business to the side? well that's me right now - Of course I want to go to France - I am not stupid. But i want to go to this Voices Unplugged get together - AT PRAVDA NYC!!!

So if you can go, please do and have fun for me, have a drink for me - hey it's on trulia! Toast my trip to France and wish me a safe return home. Just make sure you sign up here so they know you're coming in my place!

Inman HERE I COME! Your Tip Sheet for preparing for the Inman Conference

Pierre Calzadilla (Trulia.com) — Tue, 31 Jul 2007 18:38:57 -0500

I just got a post asking about the Inman Real Estate Connect Conference, which kicks off here in San Francisco tomorrow...so hopefully this is not too late to provide some tips on how to get the most out of the Inman events.

This is my fourth Inman conference. In previous years I have gone to the NYC events, but never to SF due to travel and time restrictions. I am stoked to be a part of it! BUT guess what! Not, only am I attending ... for the first time I WILL BE SPEAKING --TWICE!!! WOO-HOO!!!!

But before I get to that, here are some conference tips for Inman:

1) plan ahead! Here is the link to the schedule of speakers: Schedule of Events for Inman. print it out, or download it to your blackberry/treo to save paper and be eco-friendly! If you don't want to walk right by your good colleague who you've never met, make sure to study the bios/photos of attendees. (BTW, I am a last minute add-in, so don't go crazy trying to find me, LOL.)

2) DO - pick the topics that will affect your bottom line, or open your eyes to something you have not considered before. Brad and his team do a great job of presenting engaging and sometimes controversial topics/speakers so you get the most out of the experience. DON'T - attend the sessions where you'll simply nod and agree with the speaker - that delivers no real value, unless you are just looking for confirmation that you are doing the right thing (fine, just not the best ROI).

3) ASK QUESTIONS! Too many times I attend a great session, but no one asks questions. Make sure you get the most out of your trip investment.

Here are a few must-attend sessions:

Every General Session! and Every Connect Duet! Period. Speakers include: CEO's from Trulia, Prudential, John L. Scott, Redfin, Craigslist, NAR, Zillow and more... don't miss out!

Of course, COME SEE ME! My sessions will NOT be a Trulia lovefest - even if we ARE in SF. As I do here on my AR blog and have done for years in my previous role as a Director of E-Business for a Real Estate firm in NYC, I will be giving valid, fair tips on how to get the most out of social networks, working with today's consumer, and managing your online business.

Wednesday - 3-4:00pm - Agent 2.0: Developing your Future Referral Network Online (Presidio Room, level 2)!

AND!

Thursday - 12:30-1:30pm - Content as King: Developing Web Site Content to Attract & Delight Customers (same location)

If you forget the details, make sure to pick up more information from our now-famous green Trulia Marker Men.

Finally, one of the biggest values of Inman is networking and "connect-ing" with leaders such as Craig Newmark from Craigslist.org, many of the country's top Real Estate bloggers like Joel Burslem and Pat Kitano. Shake hands, get ideas and go back to work with action items that you can implement today! Mingle, exchange cards, and please come by and say hi to me, I love putting a name to a face!

See you at Inman Connect SF '07!

DonorsChoose.org - UPDATE - They made it to AmEx Members project Finals

Pierre Calzadilla (Trulia.com) — Thu, 26 Jul 2007 16:50:12 -0500

Awhile back i wrote about an awesome site that donates school supplies, and funds projects for our school teachers across the country. It has been getting rave reveiws and really growing while helping thousands of students across the country. Well, they entered the American Express Member's Project Challenge - and are now in the Finals! Please support this awesome cause! Below is the e-mail from Charles Best - from DonorsChoose.org. (this has been reposted with permission from DonorsChoose). Also, here is the post i wrote awhile back in regards to Donors Choose: Doing Good Things With Web 2.0 - DonorsChoose.org.

"Dear Pierre,

DonorsChoose.org just made the Top 5 finals of the American Express Members Project. We're in a close race.

If you voted last week, it will only take you 30 seconds to vote this time. If it's your first time voting, 2 minutes is needed. Please vote now for our submission:

"Teachers Ask. You Choose. Students Learn."
http://www.membersproject.com/Education/5630

If we win, all the award proceeds-up to $5 million-will go to classroom projects on our site. Hundreds of thousands of public school students stand to benefit.

Please refer to these simple instructions if you get stuck.

We're in the final homestretch, and the outcome will likely be decided by fewer than a hundred votes. Your vote now is essential.

On behalf of all the schoolchildren whom your vote will impact, thank you for helping at this critical moment!

Sincerely,
Charles Best and the DonorsChoose Team

P.S. Please reply "Yes" so that I can thank you for voting.

P.P.S. The project edging us out for the #1 spot is a real Goliath, as you can see from this New York Times article:

"Procter & Gamble is traveling incognito in the American Express Member's Project... [P&G employee] Mr. Allgood entered the science and theory behind the Children's Safe Drinking Water program. But he said that the Member Project's rules precluded him from naming it, or mentioning Pur or Procter." (NYT, July 24, 2007)"

GET VOTING! and please send to your clients/associates.

cheers!

-PC

Get your Widgets here, Voices Button, Free Map with YOUR listings for your site + More

Pierre Calzadilla (Trulia.com) — Tue, 24 Jul 2007 08:33:32 -0500

hey all! For those of you that use the Voices platform on Trulia, I just wanted to be sure that you know we now have a button to include on your site and profiles! The page with the code is here:

http://www.trulia.com/tools/buttons/profile/

Don't forget that you can also get a Map to include on your site with YOUR listings! That link is right here, very easy to do:

http://www.trulia.com/truliamap/

Pierre's Brooklyn Pick's

your browser not compatible

Get your own TruliaMap

There is even a neat Home Roll Wizard where you can select property types in your market to display on your site: http://www.trulia.com/wizard/

If you have other cool widgets to suggest, or want to find more, there is an awesome public directory of Real Estate Widgets here: http://www.housingwidgets.com/ they have excellent blog plug-ins that are free, a vflyer widget, mortgage calculators, the whole nine.

Cheers! - PC

Social Networking part 2 - Facebook and LinkedIn

Pierre Calzadilla (Trulia.com) — Mon, 23 Jul 2007 15:07:00 -0500

I just want to give http://Facebook.com and http://LinkedIn.com proper placement in my social networking roadmap. I left them out of my initial posting about Social Networking.

Facebook

In my previous posting, I sort of disregarded FaceBook as a "MySpace" - but I am quite wrong. Sure it definitely can be, but recently - due to the S.F. Inman Conference Group created on Facebook, i have seen the error in my ways. There does seem to be a professional aspect to facebook, a bit more "real" than what I have experienced on "MySpace". Many of us on ActiveRain are on there already, there is even an ActiveRain Group - over 130 members! and one for Trulia - that we did not start! (join it).

Not to mention Brad Inman's SF Connect Group and more! I was pleasantly surprised by it - you may be too.

LinkedIn - is AWESOME. I have been on here for a few years, and I have to say that it has been extremely helpful. First off here is my profile: http://www.linkedin.com/in/pierrecalzadilla. The purpose of this site is to connect professionals across the country. Just think of it as the world's most powerful rolodex - BUT - you get to see who else is on your associates Rolodex too, not only that, but you can write recommendations for other people.

Let's put this into a real estate scenario. You just listed and sold the home of a local V.P., maybe a bank, or a small business. Either way this person is/was your client. You place their name into LinkedIn, and viola! They they are, their professional, public image. You ask to connect to them, and now you are part of their network. So - now every employee they have, every associate that is "linked" to them - can now link to you. But wait there is more - now you client can write a recommendation for you! this recommendation appears on their profile and on yours! A public referral letter - it is really great. You can see some of the people i have recommended here. And see the recommendations I have received on my full profile.

Okay, i could just not sleep without putting this up, to have a more complete social networking package. And as usual - you are on ActiveRain, so I really don't need to mention how Awesome it is here to network too.

Meet your client - BEFORE - they need you...Social Networking 3 must-do sites

Pierre Calzadilla (Trulia.com) — Thu, 07 Jun 2007 11:40:38 -0500

No I am not talking about "MySpace" or "Facebook", those two sites may make you seem hip, but as far as reaching your target audience, you are a little off - unless you are doing rentals or sell in a college community. There are 3 other venues, that truly speak to your demographic, late 20's to mid 40's+, affluent, high-income, tech savvy, etc. They are: MeetUp.com, Yelp.com and Trulia Voices. Three free ways to communicate with your consumer, before they need you!

http://www.meetup.com

An excellent community site where the members actually get together once a month to share in topics they enjoy. For example, a museum lovers group may meet-up once a month to go to the city together and visit the MET – these are great, affluent groups that you can network with and spread your name to your marketplace. In long Island there are dog lovers group, art lovers groups, Real Estate groups! Join a group or make your own Westchester Real Estate group, maybe hold a home-buying seminar! FREE! And an excellent way to build up your name within your community!

http://www.yelp.com

The Zagat’s of the future! BUT BETTER! Rate restaurants, lawyers, doctors, and Real Estate agents, be the first to rate an item and you will be attached to it forever. Prove that you are the neighborhood or community expert by writing and providing the best local information – as you write reviews you increase in credibility. This is different than localism, as localism is really for the general area novice, or maybe a real estate buyer. The users here are as devoted to Yelp as we are to AR, and their base is growing exponentially. Users can rate your reviews as helpful or not, and can even agree or disagree. It is a very friendly, community site and another great way to build a network – write a review for YOUR doctor, YOUR Real Estate Lawyer, your mortgage bank, your dry cleaner and your favorite restaurant! Then tell them you did and ask them to do the same for you! Also, the old style closing table recommendation – DO IT Still! But how much more powerful is it if your past clients wrote about how great you are for the world to see?

http://www.trulia.com/voices

This is a great way for you to connect with the consumer on a non-threatening level. Consumers ask questions about various markets across the U.S. – perhaps your own. Topics include, transportation, schools, general market questions, and information seeking questions such as “what is escrow?”. Make a profile, and be sure to include your website address, your phone number, your slogan and a description. As you answer questions your credibility grows. Venture into other markets and ask questions too! Random questions are selected in each area and appear when a consumer does a search, for example, someone looking at a listing in Manhattan, will see a preview of Q and A’s from the voices area. Check it out! (p.s. Some of the top AR members are already ALL over the site!)

In Closing, Would you rather meet your next client when 10 other brokers are calling them too, or before? Clearly you would rather already be a "friend" or "acquaintance" to as many people as you can in your market before they need you to buy/sell a house or ask any real estate question. These venues allow you to prove your knowledge in a non-real estate sales setting, where YOU are not the focus, but your information is.Editorial note: I did not include localism because, well we are all on AR already so you know about it! But if you aren't using it, the same reasons I gave above are the ones why you should be!

Interactive Tool for Real Estate Research - see an area "boom" from the 1800's to today

Pierre Calzadilla (Trulia.com) — Thu, 31 May 2007 08:52:57 -0500

An amazing tool has been unleashed to the world that allows real estate developers, agents, buyers and you to see how an area has developed and grown over time, "Hindsight". Year by year, you can see the affects a factory opening, a train line meeting a new destination, the depression and the "Baby Boom" after WWII may have had on your city. The tool is pretty straightforward, just enter the city name into the field at the top, wait a few seconds (depending on the volume of development) and watch as the timeline scrolls and your city is developed. “Hindsight” is based on Trulia data and delivered through this beautiful interface. It’s practical applications can be for research, city planning studies, or perhaps an opportunity to see in which direction a city may be spreading and identify potential areas that are coming of age. The historical lesson is amazing as well, particularly Levittown NY – a community built by Levitt builders to provide cost-effective homes after WWII. Below are a few links to several cities which have grown at dramatic rates. Enjoy!

Las Vegas, NV

Watch as Las Vegas transforms from a barren, desert city into a booming metropolis. The first boom, in the early 1930s, accompanied the construction of the Hoover Dam, which brought an influx of construction workers to the Valley. As corporations began to invest in hotel and casino properties in the 1960’s gambling became “gaming,” making the transition into a legitimate business and bringing a three-decade-long wave of growth to Las Vegas. Starting in the mid-1980s, Las Vegas’ population began to grow by 7 percent per year, causing the city’s population to nearly double between 1985 and 1995 to 368,360. As the Trulia Hindsight timeline moves forward through the decades, housing developments mushroom before your eyes on the vast tracts of land surrounding what is today the glittering Las Vegas
strip.

Levittown, NY
Another dramatic example is the construction of Levittown, New York, a planned community originally conceived as a housing development for returning World War II veterans. Watch the Trulia Hindsight map light up between 1947 and 1951, when builders Levitt and Sons, Inc. mass-produced 17,447 homes on what had once been potato farms on Long Island. Their most popular model, a ranch built on a concrete slab, measured 32’ by 25’ and sold for $7,990. All a prospective buyer needed was a $90 deposit and payments of $58 per month.

More here:

http://stamen.com/

http://hindsight.trulia.com/

http://digg.com/design/Lose_Yourself_in_Animated_Zooming_Maps_of_Properties_Across_the_USA#c6953225

Trulia Launches out of Beta

Pierre Calzadilla (Trulia.com) — Fri, 11 May 2007 11:50:58 -0500

Greetings my fellow AR friends. Trulia.com is now out of Beta! WOO-HOO! So what does this mean to the average real estate broker/agent? Well, the fastest growing real estate website in the US, just got even better. Unleash YOUR voice on our new "Voices" interface, our new search result pages, and several new features among them:

Trulia Voices: Connect with the consumer, prove you know your market. Our visitors have asked questions across the US, and several brokers have already answered - have you? What is the best neighborhood in Brooklyn? Where can I find unbiased school info about NYC? You can answer, users vote on the best answer, and you can get credit for being the first answer. You can also now upload your picture, your favorite listings, a profile, tag-line and links - all for free. Link to your site, link to your listings, become the neighborhood expert to the millions of Trulia users across the US. http://www.trulia.com/voices/

Search Results: Check them out, do a search for your favorite neighborhood, you can now hide the map, make it bigger, make it smaller, see closed properties within the results, filter faster and easier with the new sidebar navigation, and more.

Recommendation tool: Along the left bar in our search results you will notice a few neighborhoods that are related to wherever you are searching. But what if you aren't familiar with NYC? or Some other part of the country? Well, as you cycle through and pick areas, Trulia will recommend other areas that users commonly include in the search. For example, users searching for Park Slope, usually look at Prospect Heights or Carroll Gardens too... check it out.

Trulia Trends: On the front page, you can now see the hottest areas in the country, where are consumers shopping, where are the prices fluctuating the most, and more.

New Site: http://www.housingwidgets.com This site is for YOU to add your favorite "widgets" or blog plug-ins, tools etc, that make your life easier. There are already some neat ones on there like Jaxtr - an interface to allow consumers to call you as a local call, or text you and more. I think it is a great relocation and lead capture app - plus it is free. Check out the other widgets offered and please add your own gems.

and more.... http://www.trulia.com/

Get to know the new Trulia.com, find your listings and if they are not there submit your site to be indexed. You can always give me a ring with any questions!

What was your business like prior to 2000? Let's time travel - the WayBack Machine

Pierre Calzadilla (Trulia.com) — Fri, 02 Mar 2007 14:37:22 -0600

It is March 2, 2007 - where were we 6 years ago? What were we doing then, or not doing then that we are doing now? The question is worth asking. I for one was just getting into SEO, reading books, looking at message boards - the original blogs - I think I was still using AOL as my main e-mail account.

It was my first year in real estate, websites were definitely around, but man were they bad! You gotta use the WAYBACK MACHINE - to see what some of the most famous sites looked like in the year 2000, and beyond. they have been indexing the history of the internet since 1986. It is truly remarkable, see your site, even navigate pages, perform searches on yahoo, as if it was that year in time - you are literally travelling through time when you use this site.

http://web.archive.org/web/*/http://yahoo.com <----Click on Yahoo in March 1, 2000 (eek)

What a long way we have come!

http://web.archive.org/web/20000301174425/http://www.era.com/ (ERA in 2000) not bad actually

http://web.archive.org/web/20000301053545/http://microsoft.com/ Microsoft.com in 2000

But, I really want to know what were you doing before the web became so integral in our business?

I was READING, on paper the newest MLS listings...waiting for that darn book to be printed.
I was cutting FSBOS from newspapers before websites made it easier
I was cold-calling from the phone book, intsead of using tools that are now on-line
flyers were Black and White b/c color was darn expensive
POST CARDS - oh lordie, all day stamps and printing - uggg! (still do it but way less)
no digital camera!
e-mailing was like - "what?" still to many brokers AND clients
Addresses for listings were never published in my market
Craigslist was not around yet
Web 2.0? HAH!
Buying the newspaper or having it delivered at 5am
.........................yours?

the list goes on and on - how much has your business changed? and For those of you that are new to real estate, could you imagine doing what you do now - if you had to do what they did in the 80's - 70's - before fax machines - Oh my lord!

looking forward to some funny and interesting replies... and don't hold 2000 as the year, go back farther - i loved the stories I used to hear about having a fax machine - with no one else to fax to! lol

Realogy Network (C21, ERA, Coldwell Banker) join Trulia

Pierre Calzadilla (Trulia.com) — Fri, 02 Mar 2007 09:45:07 -0600

Realogy announced this morning that they will be sending their entire listings inventory to Trulia.com and Google base for national syndication. This is the first time that Realogy, who owns Century 21, ERA and Coldwell Banker to name a few, will be actively allowing sites like Trulia to display and promote their properties.

Here is a quote from the press release: "Our announced distributed listing strategy follows an intense study of advantages...This serves as a milestone in our strategy to maximize the advantages of the Web for the benefit of our franchisees..."

Alex Perriello, the President and CEO of Realogy said in the same article," From the http://Google.com and http://Trulia.com Web Sites, consumers will be linked to the brand sites where they can learn more about individual properties, communitites and the home-buying process. Home sellers will maturally benefit from the additional marketing exposure for their properties."

This is awesome news for everyone involved. Last year Realogy did a study with Trulia under their ERA brand. the results were awesome, Trulia delivered 15% of ERA's total web traffic - WOW, that is really cool. Just 2 weeks ago we announced the Keller Williams launch, and now this.

So you may be asking why? Why should they go to Trulia to search for homes. The idea is that the consumer is already doing research on-line, they are already going from site to site. If they arrive on your site, perform a search and are dissatisfied with the sign-up process or the results, they will likely leave and go on to the next site. With Trulia, if the consumer leaves, you still have an opportunity to get them back, why? Because your listings are still in the same results they are looking through. So if in your market area, you have 20% of the inventory, or even just 5 listings, the moment the consumer comes to trulia, they still have a chance to find your other listings again. Plus Trulia offers SEO benefits, market data, and a great bunch of tools for Brokers to use on their sites. We have even more good things coming out - that I cannot talk about :( YET!

So to all of the C21, ERA and Coldwell Banker agents who read this - welcome! and I'll be in Vegas! See you there! Please looks me up in the Trulia booth!

Here is the full article link: http://home.businesswire.com/portal/site/google/index.jsp?ndmViewId=news_view&newsId=20070302005110&newsLang=en

Hey all Trulia update from the inside! (New Trulia API and more)

Pierre Calzadilla (Trulia.com) — Wed, 21 Feb 2007 14:06:21 -0600

Hey guys I am stoked to share this info with you all. As you know I was the Director of e-Business for Fillmore Real Estate for several years, and I am still a licensed NYS real estate professional - although no longer practicing as of January. Now with Trulia, the work I used to do for my broker, I now get to do for any of you across the country.

My new home at Trulia is awesome, I am meeting brokers from across the country and it is really exciting. Being able to talk SEO, e-business, marketing, etc is a blast. Yesterday we announced some news that got big headlines! between you and me there is even more on the way...but for now I am happy to welcome Keller Williams to the fold.

If anyone has questions about Trulia, please feel free to ask. Even "offline" feel free to send me a private e-mail. Although I work here now, I come from the other side of the table, and I understand many of the reservations some brokers/agents have across the country. However as you can see below, more and more brokers are coming on board.

We also had a little contest ehre at Trulia to create new API's, basically a way to share our data with anyone who wants it free of charge - (not the listings) but the actual volume data about markets, market activity, popularity, maps and more! check it out here: http://developer.trulia.com/page/gallery

Here is a link to a results page from Brooklyn, NY with my broker on it Click Here

Realtor.org

http://www.realtor.org/RMODaily.nsf/pages/News2007022101?OpenDocument

and

RIS Media

http://www.rismedia.com/wp/2007-02-20/truliacom-signs-marketing-partnership-with-keller-williams-realty-inc/

Thanks to all who wrote me about my previous post, you all got it! I was not surprised!

Cheers,

Pierre

Why'd you click this?

Pierre Calzadilla (Trulia.com) — Fri, 16 Feb 2007 16:25:32 -0600

Well?

Curiosity killed that cat, but something has to keep them coming back. think about it.

How many people come through your site everyday, but don't say a word?

How many eyes came to your page, read your thoughts, but did not write down a note?

How many people truly care about what you write?

If you want people to contact you, to inquire about property, to begin a relationship - you need 2 basic things:

1. Something they want.

2. (put down why you clicked and i'll tell you)

Doing good things with Web 2.0 - Donorschoose.org

Pierre Calzadilla (Trulia.com) — Wed, 14 Feb 2007 13:44:33 -0600

Web 2.0, the "mash-up" continues to amaze me. People have found ways to take available web technologies and create useful and wonderful sites. One of these wonderful sites is http://donorschoose.org/. This site was started by Charles Best, a teacher in 2000 from The Bronx, NY. With their interface, school teachers place projects, books, field trips, etc in their directory for good Samaritans to easily find and financially support. Unlike the old school donation methods, Donorschoose.org gives 100% transparency to every dollar donated. They provide a break down, dollar by dollar of where your donation went, graphs of how many children you helped, how much you donated over time, and the real heart clincher - pictures of your donation at work - with hand written thank you letters and cards from the kids themselves! *sniff* The "mash-up" aspect is all of the neat things around the site that make you want to give more! You get points, graphs, charts, history of donations by state, how many kids your donation helped, etc and packages it in a truly useful way.

Projects can be as little as a few hundred dollars, to several $1,000's for new computers, desks, field trips, etc. Every project is screened by their team and then given a need level rating. You can search by area, need level, donation amount and more. You can wholly fund a project or partially contribute to reach a goal.

How does this apply to real estate? Glad you asked. For one, being part of a community and supporting our communities is just a good thing to do, of course it improves your status among your community. http://www.donorschoose.org/ is going national, so little by little you will be able to contribute to your local cause. Many cities are already available.

If you really want to get your competitive juices flowing there is also a Blogger Challenge for blogs that lead to donations, complete with a leaderboard. They track which blogs link to them, and how much you donate for you chosen project. The blog owner picks a project then sets up a link on their site, I'll be doing that here shortly. As your readers donate, your thermometer will rise.

Here are some interesting projects looking for donations:

California College Trip for NYC Youth - NYC

Pre-K to 2^nd Grade trip to a Science Museum - California

A Wonder Garden for kindergarten - Louisiana

There are over 160 projects related to Hurricane Katrina

So get out there my Fellow Realtors (c) and do some good in your local communities. If you have a blog it is brainless to select a charity and join the Blogger Challenge. Have a happy Valentine's Day!

From "Ink to Links" - the transition of your marketing dollar to web media.

Pierre Calzadilla (Trulia.com) — Mon, 20 Nov 2006 12:18:09 -0600

For years Brokers and agents have spent countless dollars marketing in print. The main mediums being: Local Newspaper's, Real Estate Book's, Post Cards, Flyers, Door Hangers, etc. Their main purpose has been to generate phone calls/contacts from prospective buyers/sellers and most importnatly, keep the agent's name "top of mind". As far as we are concerned - it works, right? But how do you truly KNOW?

In this article - which may turn into a series, I will break down a few myths/facts about print and web marketing. Many brokers are transitioning their marketing dollars from "ink to links", but are they doing it fast enough? And if not - why?

To do this effectively you need to know your cost-per-lead. That is the cost of your advertising, divided by the amount of leads generated. For example, a $400 postcard mailout, gets you 2 phone calls. So the CPL for that is $200 bucks. If you run an ad this week, and you receive 15 calls on a $120 ad, your cost per lead is $8. If you spend $60/month on your website and receive 35 contacts, your CPL is $1.71

So, knowing that nfo, we can work the numbers in reverse. Just think back to those days when you were a new agent making 100 calls to get 1 appointment. Take X amount of dollars per month, divide it by the CPL for ad source, should then equal "N" generated leads. So for example, if I wanted to generate 200+ leads via any of the above sources this would be the cost: x/y=n

(website) $500 / $1.71= 292 leads
(print) $1,600 / $8 = 200 leads
etc...

I know postcards have a greater value to us -because we want that "1"deal - but is that smart advertising? Most advertisers look for greater return on their dollar. However I will propose a cost effective way to manage the postcard adertising below.

First let's breakdown the specific targets of our marketing:

Buyers - Sellers - "top of mind" (i.e. keep your name out in your marketing area)

Buyers tend to be generation X/Y, echo-boomers and Boomers. Sellers tend to be more towards the echo-boomer, boomer age, for the nature of this article let's call them "civics". We can agree that we want everyone in our market area to know our names as that area's specialist.

As we have seen in the last few years, the buyers are not coming from the paper anymore. As of the 2006 NAR buyers survey, 80% of buyers begin their search online. Yet brokers on average are spending 6% of their marketing budget in this media. Does that make sense? Sort of.

First off, many of our marketing tactics on-line are free. Craigslist, postlets, etc. Do not charge or are very low cost. Furthermore the average website upkeep costs $55-$75 a month, not including set-up fees. In retrospect a just-listed postcard to 400 homeowners or targeted buyers may run you around $316. From the onset we can see that the on-line spend is going to be less than our print.

Some differences between web and print advertising:

The web-site is a 24/7 billboard for your business; a postcard is a one time shot at a deal. But we continue to do them. It does make sense to, especially considering one deal can pay for the post cards 10X over. However, do you have a website? Quite simply, if you are spending money on postcards and you don't have a website - your marketing spend is upside down and wrong. You must correct it. Once you send out that postcard with your web address on it, you can now make a broader reaching statement that will drive traffic from buyers/sellers/ and curious "stroll-ins" because of the message. What message you ask? perhaps: Log on to West Palm beach's premiere real esate information site, find recent sales, home for sale, community activities such as the girl scouts bake sale next month, and more" - Not your typical real estate site, log on and learn more! Brought to you by....Free and no personal info is required.

(I can hear the sighs and screams from here) LOL. Look folks, let get this straight - why are we losing our sellers and buyers to these lead farms? The answer: They give the consumers what they want. So if you want to stop spending hundreds of dollars a month on leads, get the info on your site and use that money to promote your site.

Sellers: They are civics, but they also use websites - we only need to look at the success of companies like Zillow, Housevalues.com etc to prove that home sellers are going on-line too. How are these companies getting our sellers? They advertise on TV, we pay them a few bucks per lead, and they give us the seller. Sellers are also echo-boomers. This group is tech-savvy and wants to do things on thier own, almost as bad as generation X/Y do. They want leveraged services, so you need to approach them from a service/value angle. You need to offer them the housevalues service, the zillow service easily from your website.

Classified ads: We all know, deep down in our hearts, we only use this to make our sellers ego's happy. We also run them to make our egos happy. But we all know that it is just "face time." But we have to do it - or do we? Sellers want to be in the papers because that's what they are used to - but as professionals, we need to enter that listing appointment, explaining to the seller that buyers no longer come from the paper. We need to build a case for our website's, our web marketing and our service after the offer. Advertising homes in print is a waste of marketing dollars. The true print classified is not dead! What you want to do is run an ad in the paper, a group ad perhaps - and redirect buyers to see more homes on your website. Instead of 5 ads for 5 houses, make one ad for your website driving buyers and sellers there. Many times the large ad will sell for less than the 5 ads together and you can get your message out more effectively. Also, the larger ad attracts more "eyeballs" than the small column ad.

PPC: Pay per click, and banner advertising: VERY essential. VERY easy. Go to Adwords check it out, I'll make a separate post this week on how to use it. BUT - Google ahs made the interfact very intuitive and it does most of the work for you. For starters, set up your account for $5-$6 bucks a day, that's only $180/month. Well worth the cost. This is equivalent to your typical classified ad but way more effective. Why you ask? Well you are getting a targeted consumer click, but most importantly - you can track EVERY click back to google and then apply a cost per lead.

Other major alternative: Trulia.com, even better than a google adwords ad. Trulia is a national real estate search engine. Most of your listings are probably on there and you don't even know. What they do is better than any other alternative out there. They take the listing and link directly back to your site. thats' it. Free. No sign up form for the buyer. no lead fee for you. You can spend a few bucks per listing and have them featured for your area. They are stilling rolling out new markets - so keep an eye on them. I will also post a future article on trulia, a company i view as a truly broker friendly, safe marketing avenue. i foresee them to be the destination for homebuyers who don't want to scour 15 sites for listings. But still go to the listing broker directly. It is a great tool for buyer's agents too.

This article is already too long. i'll flesh out some spots this week. I look forward to questions and comments.

ciao! - Pierre

Great Article from Inman News - NAR 2006 HomeBuyer Survey

Pierre Calzadilla (Trulia.com) — Thu, 16 Nov 2006 18:29:43 -0600

I love Inman.

Every year NAR releases the Homebuyer Survey. This years survey went out to 7,500 homebuyers and gives an excellent snapshot of our real estate market. For some of us, the house values are way off, but the percentages do stand true.

Here are two links that review the survey findings released in NAR New Orleans, I can't track down the actual report yet

Inman - NAR Press Release

Long story short, 80% of homebuyers have come from the digital realm.

Mnay of you will hem and haw that the number is exaggerated, but lets look at some facts and you tell me if you agree:

Are your showings down from previous years (only agents in the business 5+ years can answer this)

Are you getting many requests via your website to view homes?

Are Buyers asking you to e-mail them?

Do buyers call up with just one question and after you answer it, they say "thanks" and abruptly try to hang up on you?

If any of these symptoms sound familiar, you are dealing with internet buyers. But how do you truly know?

YOU HAVE TO ASK. This is step one in CRM (customer relationship management) How did they find you?

The key question to ask every buyer before you answer their question is, "by the way, before I look this up, how did you find us?"

If your admin, secretary, assistant, partner, or yourself, asked this key question every time your phone rang - then you can dispute or agree with these findings. the same goes for your open houses, on your sign-in forms - do you even have them? - do you ask "how did you learn about this open house?"

This will help you market way more effectively - at the end of a month break out the percentages of your lead sources. Put more money in what is working and turning into business. An effective CRM solution can assist you with this, or you can just use Microsoft excel with defined columns for: name, phone #, e-mail, source of call/contact, for every month and start to track your results.

Invest in banner ads: If you are NOT getting web response, then your traffic is very low. Most brokers across the nation, especially the big boys - get a large percentage of their closed business from their websites. The great thing about the web is the ability to have the same voice as a 20 office or even 500 office company. You have a website - use it - market it. Read this blog and keep up as I go into specifics.

For now I am dealing with a few vaguaries to just wet your appetite and get you thinking. i will start to get more specific as i move along. thanks for reading and pelase feel free to comment.