• Follow us on Twitter @buckeyeplanet and @bp_recruiting, like us on Facebook! Enjoy a post or article, recommend it to others! BP is only as strong as its community, and we only promote by word of mouth, so share away!
  • Consider registering! Fewer and higher quality ads, no emails you don't want, access to all the forums, download game torrents, private messages, polls, Sportsbook, etc. Even if you just want to lurk, there are a lot of good reasons to register!

Need BP's opinion...

Jump to latest Follow Reply
Sort by date Sort by votes
reagdog

reagdog

Hall of Fame
What's up people. I need your opinion on a website I am going to create. I'm a real estate agent in AZ and so it will be a real estate blog/website. I've looked at tons of different Realtor websites and 99% of them are the exact same. I want to do the exact opposite of everyone else, but not sure if it will work and wanted to know what you all think.

I'm sure lots of you have bought/sold houses and looked online for information. What information did you look up? What was interesting to you and what sucked? What information did you look for that you couldn't find? Did you like to read articles or watch videos? If you used a Realtor, how did you find them?

The website I want to create is mostly a blog, but a funny blog with lots of informative, entertaining videos and articles. Not the same old information dump of monthly market statistics and videos about how great of a Realtor I am. Videos that people would watch, learn something and hopefully laugh a little or a lot. Videos that people would actually forward to their friends for the entertainment value even if they weren't looking to buy a house. Raw videos that aren't full of fluff and cheesey music. I want the content of the information I give to show that I know my shit, not me verbally saying I know my shit.

Would this appeal to you or would you think I'm not serious enough to do a good job?

Thanks in advance for anyone who wants to provide an opinion.
 
I would be careful about using too much humor. When I'm looking to buy a house I look at it strictly as a business transaction and little more. My wife on the other hand?.

For me, the number one thing I look for, that I can't get on realtor.com, is information on the neighborhood. I would love to see average cost of home in neighborhood, amenities, HOA fees, etc. Also, there is nothing worse than a realtor who shows you a house and cannot answer basic questions about the construction of the house. If it is a bit of a fixer upper you need to come equipped with the numbers for what it?s going to take to fix it.
 
Upvote 0
reagdog;2118138; said:
No one has an opinion or did I forget to say please? I will move this to H&HG or RR and add some nice pics if it helps a brotha get a little feedback!!
:oh:
Click to expand...

:io:

TOGTFO

Preferrably not your own.
 
Upvote 0
Basebuck needs this guy:

Wayne_jarvis.jpg


Wayne Jarvis. He's a pro.
 
Upvote 0
I'm not entirely sure how you can incorporate video humor into (maybe I'm not understanding about what kind of videos you are proposing) a blog about real estate and make it know that you know your shit. Unless those videos are personally made about real estate in your area... still there is a fine line between humor and professionalism.

I've been in Real Estate since 1999 and used to have a personal website (when I was entirely focused on sales). I used it as a tool not so much to obtain new clients as a first contact point, but to solely enhance my chances of landing a listing or obtaining a buyer client that I've already met.

For me, I knew that this website would not land a lot of great new local leads. People search for Real Estate mostly on Realtor.com, Trulia, Zillow, and somewhat Yahoo Real Estate. They're not going to find your site by typing in "Homes for sale in Columbus, Ohio) New leads, as you probably know, has to be done mostly through networking and real tools that your company may have (ie lead referrals, making sure you're a part of the "e-team" that distributes internet leads to the company, relocation services, etc).

My website, was sleek and professional (I created it through Joomla, a content management system and then modified it). In the site I added links to all essential community information (to specific school systems, census data, parks, gov websites, etc). I also had testimonials rotate on the bottom of the site. Had a link to the blog which appeared inside my website which essentially reinforced good buying habits, how to prep a home for a listing, and with permission stories about the buying process. As I stated before it was there primarily to reinforce to people I already pitched to that I was, in fact, a knowledgeable professional and gave them the tools to help find exactly what they were looking for.

The biggest issue I always tried to overcome is to help a client narrow down what they wanted before we looked at homes. I learned early on when a client said "I want a home to be located somewhere near 270, with 3 bedrooms 2 baths for $150k" (or a monthly amount) that a LOT more digging had to be done. You don't want to be the guy that shows someone 40 homes and then have the buyers claim you didn't really understand what they wanted.

What I found from talking with my clients and my personal research is that there isn't (or wasn't) a good localized portal where someone could find out all the information about communities and preparing clients for the buying/selling process.

The reality is people aren't going to spend a great deal of time on your website by stumbling upon it. Blogs have their purpose, I'd also make sure you have an email list where you send a couple paragraph snippet of what you're writing about to drive traffic to that.... But I'd encourage that you make it about solely about Real Estate (humor is great, if it's on the subject they want). You have to ask for their business - and referrals.
 
Upvote 0
DA-Bucks, thanks for your personal experience and insight. I agree there is a fine line between professionalism and humor and it will probably be hard at first for me to know where that line is. Hopefully over time I will be able to interject just enough entertainment value into my content that it seems natural and enjoyable to most viewers/readers.

A really good real estate blog is www.thephoenixrealestateguy.com It was rated the best RE blog in the country and is not only informative for prospective buyers/sellers, it also is very informational for RE agents. The guy has only been in RE for 7 years and built his business on the back of his blog. This guy puts a lot of personality into his material and he isn't what you expect from your every day Realtor. I like his work and would model my blog similar to his but with a lot more video and slightly more humor.

Another website I really liked on RE marketing is www.mytitleguy.com Click on his blog section and he has some good ideas for RE agents. I've taken a couple of his classes and am signed up for a couple more this month.

I also agree that having a website is great for strengthening relationships/trust with referrals and leads.

I'm also going to pay someone to develop my site and have all the right Wordpress plugins for all that SEO optimization stuff that I'm still learning about.

Once I get the site up and running (hopefully in the next month) I will share the link and see what everyone thinks. It will be a work in progress and will hopefully get better as I get more experienced.

Thanks again for your input.
 
Upvote 0
Sounds good, I'll check those sights out soon. Keep us updated on your progress! This business has huge swings every day, try not to get too invested in the downswings and b stable. Oh and I never congratulated anyone on an accepted contract. The real sale is the renegotiation after the inspection and good appraisal. I would only say congrats when the keys are in the buyers hands.
 
Upvote 0
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top