In 2005, the search for the perfect neighborhood took a backseat to simply finding a home.  In terms of new developments and new builds, "waiting lists" and "lottery systems" were common phrases.  For resales, same-day offers (sometimes in the double digits) was common-place.  In many cases, homes were selling so rapidly there wasn't even time to list them online (or even a need to do so).

Given the recent rise in volume of homes, the search for the perfect neighborhood or community is not paramount, but a definite sought after luxury for today's buyer.

INFORMATION SOUGHT AFTER
-- Census Data (crime, demographics, schools, etc) - The typical information any buyer would want to know.
-- Maps - Overlay of Neighborhood Data with Maps - Both topographical, satelite, and traditional street name views are available.
-- Google Street View - Be a "fly on the wall" and get a first person view of the "street" and immediate neighborhood on which a target property resides.
-- Agents owning a neighborhood - showcase and sponsorship of neighborhoods and zip codes for increased impressions on consumer websites.

CONSUMER SITES
Each of the following sites allow for neighborhood search capabilities combined with advanced map and view technology.
--> eppraisal.com - Allows for both a map view with street, aerial, and hybrid views, as well as a 3-dimensional "bird's eye" views.  "City Snapshots" (also when searching by zip code) is a service that allows consumers to browse: recent sales, market insights, schools, lifestyles, employment and find a real estate professional.
--> Trulia.com - 2-D, 3-D maps and now street view is common-place; along with "Stats & Trends" for a target zip code or city (market trends, homes for sale, schools, community info, Trulia Voices "feed" w/ Q&A on target community, and text box to get advice or ask questions).
--> RealEstate.com - Provides Street View capabilities combined with aerial views.
--> Zillow.com - Provides aerial maps of the surrounding areas including 3-dimensional "bird's eye" views. Zindex, their home valuation index, is the median Zestimate valuation for a given geographic area on a given day.
--> CyberHomes.com - Offers all of the previous viewing options plus icons embedded in the view application for information including points of interest and various other noteworthy local information.

AGENTS' WEBSITES
--> NeighborhoodScout - Allows for searches for senior communities, best schools, luxury communities, etc.  Incorporates various views as well as a host of neighborhood statistical information such as housing value range, school quality, crime rates, and much more.

CONCLUSIONS
From the comfort of the consumer's home, Neighborhood search has expanded, serving equal importance (if not more), than the sea of listings on the market.  Given Neighborhood Data, Earth / Sattelite Images of Neighborhoods, and even street view to examine "upkeep" by residents in a neighborhood (or lack their of given Home Owners Associations commonly needing to step up...consumers are becoming more savvy in researching neighborhood data on their own time.

One interesting thing about Web 2.0 is the enhancement of communication between real estate professional and consumers, establashing transparent dialogue that is also of interest to other potential clients.

When we think of communication such as blogs & email, this communication is asyncronous. This means it's not in real-time and dialogue occurs when you can get to it. In Web 2.0, realtime or syncronous communication is the next unchartered wave of the Web 2.0 ocean.

Chat tools could be effective as real-time communications, but there exists a problem of agents (or their assistants) being tied to a computer to chat in real-time.

WEBINARS & ONLINE MEETINGS
Many of you agents and brokers have attended a webinar to listen in on a new product your thinking of purchasing, or have attended a webinar for training of a product you have purchased.

(a) Use by Agents / Brokers
Given realtime communication, agents / brokers could hold online meetings w/ prospective buyers and sellers in their own marketplace. From a Web 2.0 perspective, online meetings still keep that "buffer" consumers enjoy online of not meeting someone in-person until they are ready to conduct business. These meetings could be "scheduled" during evenings when prospective clients can "sit in" from the comfort of their own home.

(b) What to Discuss
Listing Presentations and knowledge on the current market would play into such online presentations. You'd be surprised that you likely have all materials handy to create, for example, a Powerpoint presentation. You could have a series of online meetings targeted to niche consumers, i.e. "First Time HomeBuyers".

(c) Who'd Attend
Besides the agent and prospective consumers, mortgage brokers and even previous clients who can bring "testimonials" to the table, are ideas of who could attend. Having an assistant on hand to take notes, write down questions of consumers where time outside the meeting is required, is also a smart idea. As with any "meeting", a single person such as the agent or broker, must keep things moving and not let anyone person dominate the dialogue.

(d) Marketing Your Online Meetings
Besides your agent website and blog, direct marketing can be used where it makes sense. Consider holding informational webinars for the niche "First-time Home Buyers". You may want to develop flyers and target apartment complexes in your direct marketing, advertising your online meetings and webinars.

(e) Online Meeting Software
Tools like Yugma and Gotomeeting are great tools to assist in sharing your desktop w/ consumers, but also scheduling and pre-registering invites given different packages from such vendors.

In conclusion, Web 2.0 is about creating a dialogue with your current and prospective clients. Realtime chat is of great challenge. Online Meetings are a "scheduled" chat, can be visually stimulating, and inclusive of many prospects when done properly.

Recently, Stefan Swanepoel’s 2008 Real Estate Trends has been released, and cast light on some extremely interesting movements in the RE market. Although I haven't had a chance to read it myself yet, the future of REAL ESTATE MARKETING blog posted an extraodinary graph of how real estate has developed over the years pictured below.

What do I make of this graph? Well, overall, technology usage and adoption appears to be on the rise. Secondly, RE technology appears to becoming more and more specialized. In the late 90's up to the peak in 2000, the trend was most driven by large changes in the dynamics of the technology itself, that is until the (dare I say it?) DotCom fiasco.

It took redevelop of Web 1.0 and the introduction of Web 2.0 to spark user confidence in the market again. In the most recent years, the driving force behind the trend has shifted from large overhauls to the technology itself to better and more specific exploitations of the capabilities behind the technology. This is most evident at the end of 2007 with the graduation of Virtual Tours to Online Video.

From a graph like this, anyone can conclude that RE agents, brokers and assistants should have been (and if not, should start) investing in these technologies to stay on the cutting edge. However, like they say, hind sight is 20-20 - it's easy to judge when the noise of the real estate boom as died down. But now that we have the facts, why are some so resistant to education. I see professionals so quick to spend money on billboards, and park benches - maybe it's time to re-evaluate those expenditures. Maybe it's time to invest in the services being offered and not just the number of places advertised.

It could just turn around the market...

This week, InmanTV interviewed Keith Garner, the managing director of the National Institute of Realtors' Center for Realtor Technology, about upcoming technologies available for RE Professionals. The Center for Realtor Technology's mission is two-fold, (1) to educate real estate professionals on the technologies available today to make them more efficient and successful and (2) to provide a sounding board for real estate professionals to either build utilities they need or could use, or advise technology companies on technoology content real estate professionals need or would find beneficial.

As stated in the introduction of the REW Handbook ,"the CRT’s development of applications, published surveys and white papers on real estate technology highlights why they care about technology acceptance and adoption by Realtors®. Throughout this book and online courses found at Webographers.com, training content is written in the “spirit” of the lessons and best practices expressed by the Center of Realtor® Technology (CRT)".

In this short interview, Keith discusses what CRT is and what they do, weighs in on the usefulness of smart phones, with specific attention to the newly released iPhone and finally gives his take on what should be the real estate professional's "silver bullet".

Real Estate Video by - Real Estate Blogger

Recently, discount brokerage, Foxton's, announced it laid off 90% of its work force, essentially signalling it's demise. Inman News' Scott Einbinder wrote an excellent article entitled "After Foxton's, a 'real' real estate story" covering the news, adding an interesting take on the reaction of this brokerage's downfall . To see the original Inman News post, please click here.

The emotional reaction to this event in the real estate community is extremely revealing because it demonstrates an unfortunate trend that has existed in the industry for ages. That is the industry is too often focused internally on itself, rather than on the customers it is supposed to serve. You constantly hear and see Realtors spend untold sums of money splashing their pictures and logos on everything from park benches to refrigerator magnets, but ask a brokerage or an independent realtor how much they have invested in themselves and their education, and more often than not, the answer, is very, very little.

And the reasons for not continuing their education don't always revolve around the expense of it. You often hear "I'm are too busy to educate", or "I don't see the real value in it". Real estate professionals regularly talk about service, and "placing the customer first", but a shockingly small percentage of them actually follow through.

Thankfully with the advent of Web 2.0, and the continuous flow of "need for technology education" articles originating from the most popular real estate news sites has changed this attitude significantly in the last few years, but many professionals still sit on the side line.

Real Estate brokerages, Realtors, and assistants need to realize the value in investing in their skills - the skills and techniques that will help them better serve their customers. In the current real estate landscape, that means utilizing web-based technologies. These technologies were created to make our lives easier, to more successfully serve our customers - so why do we not utilize them?

Benjamin Franklin wrote that the definition of insanity is "doing the same thing over and over and expecting a different result". Maybe it's time, as a community, we realize that the same old RE practices are merely producing the same old results. Maybe it's about time we learn some new ones, not only to benefit ourselves, but for the benefit of our customers...

For the first time since the real estate bubble started about 8 years ago, there are more RE agents within the profession than properties being sold.  That means that, for example, last month there were not enough homes on the market for every licensed agent to each sell one.  And when agents can't do their job, it effects everyone, from the brokers employing them, to the assistants supporting them.

A friend of mine relayed to me her take on the current RE market - she likened it to trickle-down economics, although she labeled it trickle-down real estate.  With the state of the market today, she said, only a limited amount of poperties are being sold, and the people buying them are utilizing the movers and the shakers of the real estate game - those with the biggest names, the cream of the crop so to speak.  Anything these RE agents aren't moving are slowly trickling down to the the next tier of agents who have their chance...and so on and so forth.  By the time it's the newest agent's turn in the market, there's simply nothing left.

So how do the newbies level the playing field?  They need to branch out.  They need to be able to reach the same size audience that the major players already have due to years of hard work and reputation.  Fortunately, this is not as difficult as it once was - the internet allows one to reach people anywhere a phone line exists, so access is possible.  However, you have to do more than just reach your audience, you have to capture their attention by differentiating yourself. 

Education is your Key

If you want to differentiate yourself from your competition, you have to understand the online tools and technologies that are at your disposal.  Once you understand what they are and how they work, you can start to combine them in ways that allow you to stand out. 

Take for instance the newest trend with RE professionals - posting virtual and / or video tours on the video sharing site, YouTube.  Before you can even post a video, you need to know how to make one, what needs to be in it, and how to splash your information into it. If you want to give them additional information, you need an agent website, which should also offer them valuation propositions on homes they can search for in a specific area with a neighborhood search capability.

This sort of "technology mashing" taps into a whole new audience that wasn't even looking for real estate, however they found themselves on your website because of a 42 second video you posted.  And your knowledge was what helped you get noticed. 

While at the Inman Conference today, I met up with Mark Lesswing, NAR senior vice president and chief technology officer.  Fantastic gentleman who moderated numerous sessions at Inman.  He let me know that 2007 Realtor® Technology Survey was hot-off-the-press today. 

As the REAL ESTATE WEBOGRAPHER certification evolved from research and findings, many of which came from the Center for Realtor Technology (CRT) surveys, studies and whitepapers, we wanted to see where technology adoption stands with today's agents and brokers.   We concluded that technology adoption and implementation remains well-behind-the-times; that through technology awareness and adoption training with the REAL ESTATE WEBOGRAPHER (REW) Certification, these less-than-optimal findings can improve.
 

MLS-CMA
"Ninety-four percent include a CMA as part of their listing presentation. The majority is satisfied overall with the CMA program furnished by their MLS; still about 35 percent were either somewhat dissatisfied or very dissatisfied. The ability to personalize design was the number one area that was deemed 'needing to be improved the most.'" 

• Take-away 1 - Comparative Market Analysis (CMA) is still an agent/brokers' own design, hand-crafted through their own special recipe to produce a personalized, well-branded CMA, where the MLS (along with supplemental data from county / public information sources) just provides data/maps/etc.

• Take-away 2 - Comparative Market Analysis (CMA) or Property Report is crafted using a 3rd-party tool, like AgentAVM.com or RETS-compliant eNeighborhoods.com for example, where data is "pulled" from the MLS to craft a professional CMA-document.

• Take-away 3 - As far back as I've looked, the #1 issue with the MLS-CMA tool (having "the ability to personalize" CMAs) is at least 4 years in the running.  Either vendors of MLS solutions are not listening to their end-users, or take-aways 1 & 2 above are driving factors for not "enhancing" the MLS-CMA tool, as agents/brokers have other prescribed methods.
   

Agent Websites
"Approximately two-thirds, of respondents have their own real estate agent business Web site." 

• Take-away 1 - 1/3 of all agents do not have a website...there is still more do be done to further awareness and adoption as with the REAL ESTATE WEBOGRAPHER certification.  Moreover, this 1/3 is likely to not have a personalized "business" email that is an extension of their website, their web presence, their marketing. This means that agents who utilize free email addresses such as johndoe1234@hotmail.com immediately lose a sense of "branding"  as discussed within our "Agent Website Course".  Consider referral business where emails originated from agent are forwarded.  Given Me@GregDugan.com, the email directly implies a web presence for my business and that of my listings at www.GregDugan.com.
   

Automated Transaction Management
"Twenty-three percent of respondents use a transaction management system...Sixty-nine percent of those respondents who are not currently participating in an automated transaction management system are interested or very interested in participating."

• Take-away 1 - Adoption rate remains low.  However, implementation of an online transaction management system as a consumer-facing solution, lends itself to agents/brokers immediately differentiating themselves given adoption, as others do not offer this convenience to consumers and peer real estate professionals.
   
• Take-away 2 - Interest remains high.  National Institute of Webographers speaks to the 69% of interested or highly interested.  It is now time for agents and brokers to engage training on the value-proposition of Transaction Mgmt, strategies on adoption and implementation, and the ability to play with live applications while a candidate within the REW Certification.

In conclusion, amongst other findings in the survey, it reaffirms that the REAL ESTATE WEBOGRAPHER (REW) certification is the solution to less-than-optimal (almost dismal) findings within the 2007 Realtor® Technology Survey. REW creates a heightened sense of awareness to today's technologies that increase the agent/broker's reach with a full-service web presence for Internet-savvy consumers, while further marketing their brand image.  Simply stated, differentiation through REW certification, also means differentiating yourself with implementation of technologies; as your peers in this survey may elect to stay behind the times.
 

Extremely proud day at the National Institute of Webographers.

ZipForm®, the real estate industry's leading brand of forms software, today announced that its solutions, along side the RELAY™ Transaction System, have been selected as official sponsors of competencies within the REAL ESTATE WEBOGRAPHER™ certification. While ZipForm® has been named the official sponsor of the electronic forms competency, RELAY™ has been designated sponsor of the online transaction management category.   

View Press Release here.

Truths about Electronic Forms

Electronic Forms technology is commonly provided as "inclusive" of Realtor® member dues.  As with ZipForm, accessibility is made available via desktop, online, or from a mobile device.  ZipForm is currently used by 400,000+ Realtors and RE professionals, and is available to 1.4 million Realtors.

Electronic Forms applications include form libraries (standardization in the “look” of all forms), error-handling in form input, and the ability to minimize redundant data entry. Additional components for conducive paperless activity includes digital signatures applied to electronic forms, integration of forms software with the MLS, CRM and online transaction management (OTM) systems.

Transaction Management :: Consumer-facing Interface to Electronic Forms

If consumers engage online banking, they are ready (and expect) online transaction mgmt solutions. 

Besides streamlining transactional paperwork for brokers, agents, assistants, and peer professionals such as Title/Escrow, transaction mgmt (online) is the "consumer-facing" technology that highlights procedures that were commonly overlooked, undervalued, or under-appreciated by consumers...executing the volumes of transactional paperwork. 

Given the array of technologies on the market, transaction management solutions have the highest potential for growth in adoption-rates by real estate professionals. Online transaction management solutions, when adopted, remain the strongest differentiating factor between brokers/agents who provide such all-inclusive, online services to clients compared to those who do not.

ZipForm / WINForms & RELAY
RELAY™ allows the tracking and management of all information related to a real estate transaction from listing through closing; allows users to enable assistants, other agents or transaction facilitators to participate in the process; and features one-click integration with ZipForm® and WINForms Online®, the electronic forms software used by nearly 400,000 REALTORS® nationwide.

National Institute of Webographers is extremely proud to showcase these two products to candidates of the REW certification, providing every candidate demo accounts to these applications to experience their functionality and native integration; to further comprehension and hands-on understanding to today's Electronic Forms and Online Transaction Mgmt solutions.

As a result of valuable feedback from both our trusted certificant holders and students as well as our many site visitors, this week, the National Institute of Webographers has announced our release of Webographers.com 2.0. To read the entire press release, please click here.

The entire effort was two fold (1) to upgrade our "external look, feel and navigation" and (2) to continue to push the envelope in delivering the most powerful and effective real estate training availabe online today.

Enhanced Learning Experience

Here at Webographers.com, we are always looking to remain on the cutting edge of online technology training. Our enhancements in 2.0 have helped us deliver an even greater "self paced, self directed" technology experience that our certificants have available to them 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, 365 days a year.

The Big 3

Every business enterprise has a target audience - a group they feel can really benefit from the services they are offering. In 2007, NIW has placed great emphasis on more clearly defining and speaking to this audience - that is of our "Big 3" - AGENTS, BROKERS, and ASSISTANTS. In doing so, our first major step was to build a site navigation system customized to their wants and needs, and we believe we have succeeded. The look and feel of the site is greatly improved as well as our clear message of the necessity to partake in Online Real Esate Technology Training through REW.

"REW is not just a certification to mention in an email signature block, but a real estate technology experience in consumer-facing RE Technologies," said Marc Grayson, president and founder of NIW.

Although we have a new look, our long standing message remains strong: Are you ready to embrace real estate technologies?

We had the pleasure of interviewing Butch Daviau, a recent REAL ESTATE WEBOGRAPHER™ (REW™) certificant and top-producing REALTOR®/Associate with Emerson REALTORS® in central Massachusetts and the Boston metropolitan.

He services Boston and surrounding suburbs (Worcester, Blackstone, Sturbridge, Holden, Middlesex, and more). He represents both sellers and buyers in the Central Mass. area, specializing in single-family homes, condominiums, land, and income property. For more information about Butch, please visit his website (with a very slick flash-intro) here.

Butch recently completed the REAL ESTATE WEBOGRAPHER™ (REW™) certification and we asked her a few simple interview questions.

1) What is your background?

I'm a Worcester native having been born and raised in the local area. I graduated from high school in 1964 and immediately enlisted in the Air Force specializing in maintenance of jet fighter aircraft. After being Honorably Discharged in 1968, I started working as a civilian on Army helicopters for the Dept. of Defense. I retired in 1994 with the closing of Fort Devens in Massachusetts. I became interested in real estate and passed the state requirements for my real estate sales license. I have been representing both buyers and sellers since 1994.

2) Why did you undertake the REAL ESTATE WEBOGRAPHER certification?

Simply stated, it looked appealing. The curriculum looked in-depth, rather than just scratching the surface but getting deep into the "nuts & bolts" of real estate technology. I had been curious of technologies such as single-property websites, virtual tours and neighborhood search. The REW certification had training that looked comprehensive, discussing technologies I could add to my arsenal.

3) What are your impressions of the online experience?

It was better than just about all online trainings that can be found in the industry. Course materials were voice-driven, keeping my attention. In addition, strategy was also discussed alongside the value-proposition of various real estate technologies.

4) How long did it take you to complete the certification?

I was on the fast track and completed in less than two weeks. Took some extra time to play with some of the showcased products as well.

5) What would you tell those who are considering this certification?

In terms of continuous learning, every agent should consider taking the REW certification. For Brokers, consider making it available to your agents!

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Thanks Butch and all the Best!