Google Offers Free “GPS-Like” Technology for Real Estate Agents

By Reggie · December 5, 2007 · 5 Comments 

As a real estate professional you’re in and out of neighborhoods all the time. You’re expected to know your area well. But at times you still need some directional assistance. When those times arise, you may be thanking Google. Recently the Google Mobile Maps crew has launched a new “GPS-Like”’ technology called “My Location”. This new feature is freely available for most web-enabled phones, and you don’t need to have GPS on your device for it to work.

So how exactly does the My Location technology work?

Google will pinpoint your location within 1000 meters by calculating and estimating your handset location based on the unique footprint of surrounding cell towers. To start up this feature from with Google Mobile Maps, click “0” and your approximate location will be displayed on the Map. Your location will be represented by a blue dot if you have GPS or a blue dot with a light blue circle around if you do not have GPS. This dot is your approximate location.

To get started, simply text the word “bluedot” to 33669 or visit www.Google.com/gmm on your mobile device to download the application.

Other useful Google Mobile Apps:

• Search
• Gmail
• Picasa
• Goog-411
• Google Readers
• Google Docs
• Google Calendar
• YouTube

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New Buyer Tour Technology Helps Real Estate Agents Bridge the Geographical Gap

By Reggie · November 18, 2007 · 5 Comments 

With Real Estate agents looking to embrace the latest technology tools like blogging and social networking, many are noticing their buyer contacts are originating from out-of-town locations. So how does a real estate agent efficiently show local homes, without the buyer traveling for each buyer’s tour? I’m not talking about emailing MLS printouts!

SiteSeer3D is an online application that integrates with your website and allows real estate agents to show buyers 3D views of local geographic areas and points of interest. OK, I know so far I’m just describing Google Earth and Microsoft Live Maps technology. But SiteSeer3D packs in tons of other useful features by interfacing with the local MLS. For example, imagine the buyer (or buyers agent) zooming into individual properties for sale and identifying a home’s proximity to schools, parks, and downtown locations. SiteSeer3D also displays parcel boundaries, much like Cyberhomes, to help buyers understand the true size and shape of the lot. Buyers can click a “details” button on any home for sale to see listing photos, tours, physical characteristics, associated flyers, mortgage calculators, community links and resources etc.

If a real estate agent would like to give their buyer a guided tour, they can use SiteSeer3D’s remote tour guide features. This allows the potential buyer to watch his/her screen while the real estate agent takes the driver seat and explores the local homes for sale and community characteristics. This tool makes the initial preview insightful and helps eliminate showing mismatches; making the actual tour day much more productive while shorting the sale cycle.

After carefully reviewing the SiteSeer3D demo, I found the technology rather intuitive; however one challenge you may face is that they are not integrated with every MLS. When they do integrate, data flows from the MLS via a FTP data push or RETS feed. I was told by SiteSeer3D Excel import is also available although I have not personally tested the feature.

Useful Links for SiteSeer3D:
Watch a video overview of SiteSeer3D

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Color Generation Technology for your Real Estate Blog

By Reggie · November 9, 2007 · 4 Comments 

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Norton (Symantec) Gets It Right

By Chad A. Johnson · November 1, 2007 · 5 Comments 

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Interview: Brian Wilson of the Zolve Real Estate Network

By Reggie · October 29, 2007 · 2 Comments 

Many real estate agents understand establishing an online presence is more important than ever. But not only an online presence…you want to generate some business! That’s why the social network(s) you choose for your real estate business should have strong referral tools built in. One such system is Zolve.com. Recently I cornered Brian Wilson, founder of Zolve, and asked him some questions. Read the interview below.

Q. In your words, what is Zolve?

A. Zolve is a business exchange platform for industry professionals built to simplify the inefficient, time consuming process of referral tracking, its paperwork and locating like minded professionals to work with. It is a marketplace of real estate professionals where people can objectively evaluate and select a local expert in their market.

Q. How do you see Zolve benefiting real estate professionals?

A. Several ways. First and foremost, Zolve’s platform completely systematizes the entire referral process so it can be executed and tracked online. Secondly, the Zolve network will be comprised of members with online profiles and consumer ratings that simplify the process of choosing referral partners. Of high importance, it helps real estate professional to “be found online” which is no small challenge. There needs to be some reasonable alternatives to every web-based real estate professional in a market all competing for the first 10 search results on the search engine. Zolve provides a technology economy of scales that allows members to be found in an objective marketplace.

Q. How do you see Zolve streamlining the referral process?

A. Zolve provides binding referral contracts in an easy to use “referral wizard.” I can send a digital referral agreement in a few minutes and the member on the other end will get an email alert which will allow him/her to accept, decline or discuss it. Once a referral in place, the receiving member is automatically prompted for regular progress reports and all communications between the cooperating members are stored in a permanent transaction log. Zolve also provides members with a host of exclusive online social and marketing tools to handle inbound and outbound referrals and interview requests.

Q. How will Zolve differ from ActiveRain and other social networks?

A. Zolve is a platform built to process referral transactions. That’s its primary function - to serve as a business tool. All of its social features are designed to support the business center within the platform. Active Rain and other social networks work completely the other way. Their business tools are designed to support the social network. We have designed this network so the time spent on it results in business and is thus productive time. Every decision we make in continuing to evolve Zolve and add features answers the question, “How can we directly help the agent on the street grow his/her business?”

Q. What social tools does Zolve provide real estate professionals?

A. They are considerable. To begin with, Zolve is also an online community – a group of like-minded professionals gathered for mutual benefit. Zolve members create a virtual sphere of influence comprised of other members with whom they have or would like to do business. Each receives a personal blog that allows them to leverage their expertise and local market knowledge. We have built this blog and are continuing to improve this blog so that it can be used as a truly consumer-facing tool. In fact, we are currently developing an option that members can have their profile look one way to non-logged in viewers and differently to fellow members. Thus, the agent who has a static website that is not producing business for them could use their Zolve profile both as a network profile page to interact with other professionals and as their consumer facing website/blog. This will enable them to focus their marketing investment and time into one online brand rather than managing several. Zolve also provides a rating and feedback system that will serve to police the activities as it does on eBay, creating an accountability system that helps ensure that the customer willg et the best possible service.

Q. How can a real estate professional expand their sphere through Zolve?

A. They very same way professionals expand their sphere through a network like LinkedIn. At its core, Zolve provides its members with a new source of business by granting members access to inbound referrals from across the country and globe and connecting them with a community of reliable practitioners to whom they can confidently refer business. A big difference in Zolve is that our members grow their sphere visually. We created a Google Map mashup for each of our members that shows visually where they are connected. With one click of a mouse, they can look beyond their own sphere of influence and view their “sphere network” which shows their network’s sphere of influence as well. Thus, a member with 15 members in his/her sphere can now be connected within one degree of association to thousands of people worldwide, graphically.

Q. Is Zolve only for Real Estate agents? Who else should join?

A. Zolve is absolutely not just for agents. We have members who practice in many real estate service areas and actively encourage them to participate in the platform.

If I am real estate professional like a lender or inspector and I generate most of my business by building relationships with REALTORS®, I want to be on a referral network where top professionals from markets across the country are building out their networks.

If I am selling vacation property in St. Thomas, I want to be on a network where real estate professionals who have clients with 1031 funds or 2nd home aspirations can find me as a trusted, proven professional off-shore.

If I am a real estate technology provider, I want to be on a network where real estate professionals who are willing to pay for an online service are actively trying to build their online brand. I could probably fill a need that they are experiencing.

I want Zolve to become the answer to this problem… if my mom in Bloomington, Indiana wants to refinance her home and asks me for help, I would love to be able to go to Zolve and screen the 5-6 lenders on the network for that market and be able to read 3-5 customer and real estate professional feedbacks on each of them to determine who would be the best fit and take the best care of my mom. I would like the fact that the person that we choose for the job would know that when the refinance closes, my mom as the customer and me as the referring member will both rate him/her on objective criteria that will “stick” to him forever. This is a layer of accountability that does not currently exist. As it is now, if this lender takes advantage of mom or does a terrible job, he has lost nothing in terms of future business since I am an out of state REALTOR® who never sends referrals to his market anyway. Zolve solves that problem.

Q. How should an interested party get started?

A. Go right to Zolve.com and sign up for a 30-day free trial. If you like it, then on day 31, you will be charged $34.95 for the whole year. At this membership you can do everything on Zolve to include sending referrals, except receiving referrals. To accept a referral on Zolve, you must upgrade to our regular membership rate of $40 per month or save 20% by prepaying the year.

Q. Why join now?

A. I think for those early adapters who understand the need to use systems to save time, save money, and expose themselves to new opportunities during a slow market, then Zolve can be an important component of their business. Zolve is a solution that enables its users to take part in a global real estate market that they would otherwise never get exposed to. For the cost of one business lunch, you can be found online by real estate professionals across the country looking to do business with someone in your market.

For those who tend to procrastinate, I say put off your procrastinations. Get started now. Build your profile and send some referrals whether they be customers across state lines or to the lender you are already using in your market. The advantage is that you and your network can begin earning valuable ratings & feedback that will translate into business you would have not otherwise have in the future. Take advantage of our offers to elevate your current network online and to build a new book of business.

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RSS and Pipes are the Future of Real Estate Content

By Reggie · October 21, 2007 · 5 Comments 

Lately I have been hearing a lot of talk about a technology called Yahoo Pipes, and what it can do to streamline RSS feeds. So today we are going to demystify RSS and Pipes for your benefit!

Let’s Talk RSS
To start, you must be noticing it gets harder and harder each day to keep up on all the great content accross the web. You likely know that Really Simple Syndication (RSS) is an easy way to keep up with this ever changing content. Rather than going out to each of your favorite sites one by one to see if they have new and appealing content for you, RSS is designed to bring the content of the sites you subscribe to right to your desktop via a Feed Reader. So rather than individually visiting 25 blogs in a row…simply open your reader and browse all content from one location. Your content comes to you!

Yahoo Pipes Technology Explained
Ok, now that you understand RSS let’s talk about Pipes. The term originally comes from UNIX and means roughly the output from each process is chained together creating a new output. Think of aggregation. You can say that pipes are the natural evolution of the RSS feed. Think about the current state of the blogosphere. Today you write a post on ActiveRain, tomorrow on Zolve, then Trulia and of course there is that guest post you recently did on another blog favorite. Plus this whole time you have been posting on your own blog. So how do you take all this content and mash it up into one feed for your readers? Introducing Yahoo Pipes.

Yahoo Pipes will aggregate and mashup content from around the web using RSS, data sorts, filters and translation. (Did I mention that no programming is required?) So in the example I mentioned above, the pipe you create could be a mashup of all your posts in one place—filtered by your name.

Let’s Build a Pipe
To get started, go to Yahoo Pipes and register for your free account. Once you have logged in, click the “Create a Pipe” button. You’ll notice the canvas appears. Start by simply dragging the module titled “Fetch Feed” from the library pane on the left side onto your working canvas. One by one enter the feeds that you would like to combine. Click the “+” sign to the left of URL to add another feed. Repeat the steps as necessary. Now drag out modules from the library such as “Sort” and “Filter”. Make sure you connect each module by its connecters. Once you have customized your pipe, click the save button and name the feed. Now click properties and give your feed a description and tags. Congratulations! Now save and publish your feed.

See an example of a pipe here. This is a combination of NikNik’s posts here at MyTechOpinion and the HelpMyAgent blog. See tutorials here.

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Add PDF Conversion to Your Real Estate Technology Arsenal

By Chad A. Johnson · October 20, 2007 · 8 Comments 

The PDF (Portable Document Format) has long been the document standard for the Internet age. PDF files are small in size, are platform independent (can be opened on Windows, Apple, Linux, Unix), don’t require expensive software to view, and are non-editable duplication of the original files.

PDF files are the perfect format for many of your real estate document needs. Can’t email a Microsoft Publisher file because the file size is too large or the recipient doesn’t have Publisher, convert the file to the PDF format and the problem is solved. Need to email a Microsoft Word document to a client, but you don’t want any verbage to be changed, convert it to PDF and send it with confidence.

There are many ways that you can incorporate PDF files into your real estate business without shelling out hundreds of dollars for a full version of Adobe Acrobat.

• Zipform (Winforms) has the capability to convert forms into PDF. Real estate agents can then email the forms, confident that they can be opened by the client and can’t be modified before being signed.
• Microsoft Office 2007 provides a “Save as PDF” feature for those download a free add-in. Instantly convert Word docs, Excel spreadsheets and Powerpoint slides into PDF files.
  The very popular Paragon MLS system offers PDF conversion of listing reports with a simple click. This allows for MLS reports to be inserted into listing presentations in a cleaner manner.
• Many free PDF distillers are available on the market. These programs create a pseudo-printer on your computer. Anything that can be printed can be converted to PDF by printing to that pseudo-printer. This is great for converting web pages into PDF. Take a look at Cute PDF and PrimoPDF for this functionality.
• Adobe, the creator of the PDF standard, has added an online PDF conversion service.

Once you have gotten a taste of how much value the use of PDF files can add to your real estate business, you may long for more control over your PDF files and additional functionality. There are numerous PDF editing tools on the market that ranges from $50 to several hundred. Most products offer feature comparisons between their product and competitor’s products. This allows you to purchase only the functionality that you will use.

• ScanSoft by Nuance provides multiple PDF solutions to fit nearly any real estate agents PDF technology needs. Features they offer include: password protection of PDF files, the ability to merge multiple documents into a single PDF, delete, add and reorder of document pages, and PDf form creation.
• For those looking for the Cadillac of PDF creation and editing tools, you need to go to the source, Adobe. The Adobe Acrobat 8 product line provides the ultimate feature set for working with PDF files with an emphasis on collaboration tools.

If you are currently utilizing the power of PDF technology to benefit your real estate business, please share your experience with us. What tools do you like? How are you using PDF files in the daily running of your real estate business?

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Cyberhomes PDF Report Aids Real Estate Agents with Local Market Statistics

By Reggie · October 12, 2007 · 2 Comments 

There has been a lot of buzz on the Street about Cyberhomes recent partnership with AOL. If you have not heard, Cyberhomes is now AOL’s exclusive provider of home valuation and listing content. However that’s not what this post is all about. For some time now Cyberhomes has been offering it’s free PDF Report to Real Estate agents and consumers alike. This report is packed with useful statistics for important pricing and buying decisions. For example, the 18 page PDF reports contains zip-code level information such as buy/sell indicator, building starts, rental vacancy, local unemployment, median and average home prices, sales count by price range, local school and neighborhood info, etc. This report can be customized by using the refine value tool. (i.e. custom comps, home upgrades, subject property adjustments.)

If you would like to check out the Cyberhomes PDF report, simply visit Cyberhomes and search a property. Once you see the neighborhood mashup, click the link titled Detail Page on the balloon. Make any refinements first, and then click PDF Report.

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Blackberry Adds Wi-Fi; Saving Real Estate Agents Money

By Chad A. Johnson · October 6, 2007 · 1 Comment 

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Why Ubertor For Your Next Real Estate Website?

By Reggie · September 27, 2007 · 2 Comments 

Occasionally here at MyTechOpinion - Technology for Real Estate we will invite a guest writer from a top real estate technology company. This week I am pleased to announce that Stephen Jagger from Ubertor has the spotlight. (By the way…Ubertor also provides SingleProperty websites that allow you to keep all the data within your original site, while having a domain go directly to your single property site.)

Reggie asked me to write a post about what makes Ubertor real estate agent websites so different from our competitors. Here are a few points that make us different. To really get a feel for it, feel free to order a website on our system and you will get the first 30 days free. What a great way to try us out.

1. Google Webmaster Guidelines
We have built our real estate agent websites to follow Google’s http://www.google.com/support/webmasters/bin/answer.py?hl=en&answer=35769
http://www.brianbecker.ca/
http://www.sellwithstratton.com
http://www.loftsvancouver.com
http://www.jameswarren.ca

3. Integration
Our system has the ability of being integrated into Google Sitemaps, Google Maps, Feedburner.com plus you can post any widget that you like into your website. It is quick and easy to manage.

4. IDX Compatibility
We have created the system so that any agent anywhere can use it. Want to have your areas property search built in? No problem, you can use our MLS tab within the control panel to add your MLS property search or the IDX feed of your choice. Here are some examples:
http://www.sandiegocastles.com/ - San Diego, CA
http://www.jeffandsteve.com/ - Palo Alto, CA
http://www.moveuputah.com/ - Draper, UT
http://www.historicmodern.com/ - Okeechobee, FL

5. Flexibility
Without using CSS you can add pages, delete pages, change page names, add banner images, remove the banner completely, flip the template colors, plus much more. The system is built to give you as much flexibility as possible so that you can have a unique look and feel for your website.

There is so much that can be done with an Ubertor website and so many reasons why you should have one. From a dollar point of view we are so confident that you will love our product we will give you the first 30 days free. Plus there is NO Setup Fee, No Contract and No Obligation. Check us our here http://www.ubertor.com/

Here is an interview I did with the Real Estate Channel that answers some more questions about Ubertor:

Here are some testimonials about our product:

“This is just a little note to let you know how pleased I am that I made the move to Ubertor. As you know I had a website designed, built and marketed professionally some years ago. This site was and is a great source of business for me so I was really nervous about changing anything. I wondered, why mess with something that is working? However the site was hard to work with and I had to pay people to do changes to the site, upload photos, etc. etc. I was not skilled enough to do my own work on it. My new Ubertor site is great! It doesn’t take much training to be really good at managing my own site! I am really happy with it.
I still stay up were I was in the search engines too.”
Trish Anderson, RE/MAX All Points
Burnaby, BC

“Ubertor is a small Real Estate software provider based out of Vancouver, Canada that is definitely worth checking out if you’re looking a simple, all-in-one solution to get your real estate business on the Internet.”
Joel Burslem - FutureOfRealEstateMarketing.com
Portland, Oregon

“Ubertor’s product was the first I found that offers the flexibility I desired. The sites are simple enough for the novice yet offer the more sophisticated user the tools required for full content control, such as access to code and the ability to add and edit pages and site navigation. Of course, your featured homes presentation software is among the best I have encountered.”
Kris Berg, Prudential California Realty
San Diego, California

“This has become the best RE sales tool that I have ever invested in! I have referred other fellow agents within my office to their services & they all have been equally impressed. I must say I LOVE my website & the results it gets! Ubertor was so easy to work with in tweaking my site & their support is super! Their excellence continues to exceed my expectations. Use them they are GREAT!!!”
Steve Church, The Muljat Group
Bellingham, Washington

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Google’s New Presentation Technology for Real Estate

By NikNik · September 18, 2007 · 6 Comments 

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17 Single Property Website Solutions for Real Estate

By Reggie · September 18, 2007 · 10 Comments 

With real estate agents looking for more exposure online, the single property website technology has exploded. I have listed 17 Single Property Websites Solutions for your real estate business.

1. Agencylogic
   
2. Classified Flyer Ads
   
3. Individual Listings
   
4. iPropertyWebsites
   
5. ListingDomains
   
6. Listing Producer
   
7. Listing Producer Pro
8. MyMarketWare *Post Updated.
9. PropBlogs
   
10. Property Address Website
    
11. RealBird
    
12. Realivent
    
13. RealtyGear
    
14. Single Property Sites
15. Single Property Website
16. Spotlight Single Property Websites
17. Ubertor *Post Updated.
    
18. UniqueHomeSites
    
19. vFlyer

Do you know of any single property website technologies not listed? Please let us know.

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