Top 5 places to retire
Top 5 places to retire
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Virtual staging sparks vacant home sales
Virtual staging sparks vacant home sales
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Rethinking the open house
Rethinking the open house
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Brokers need social media guidelines
Brokers need social media guidelines
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Photos make online home listings stand out
Photos make online home listings stand out
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Not all clients are worth a Realtor’s time
Not all clients are worth a Realtor’s time
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Text marketing gets message to consumers
Text marketing gets message to consumers
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Cultivate relationship with first-time buyers
Cultivate relationship with first-time buyers
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Fla. is a business-friendly state
Fla. is a business-friendly state
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Get ready for impending 'boom'
Get ready for impending 'boom'
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Fla. is a great place to live
Fla. is a great place to live
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Marketing: Think out of the box
Marketing: Think out of the box
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Your new online pal? Your Realtor
Your new online pal? Your Realtor
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Online marketing: Make every lead count
Online marketing: Make every lead count
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Smart ideas for better social networking
Should you post snippets of your blog on Facebook, use Facebook to advertise your blog, or maybe just Tweet the info instead?
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Want the perfect professional profile? Buy it
Want the perfect professional profile? Buy it
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Truth in advertising: One Realtor’s strategy to sell foreclosed homes
Truth in advertising: One Realtor’s strategy to sell foreclosed homes
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Open houses are still worth it, practitioners say
Open houses are still worth it, practitioners say
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SHOWING VACANT PROPERTIES
SHOWING VACANT PROPERTIES
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Six reasons why it’s still a good time to buy
Six reasons why it’s still a good time to buy
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MORTGAGE GUARANTEE
A number of companies, including Keller Williams Realty in South Florida, are offering to cover mortgage payments for borrowers for six months in the event of a job loss.
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REALTORS IN THE COMMUNITY
Market Movers, a group of Realtors in East Tampa who get together to discuss new listings, recently added visits to local schools as a new activity, and have visited six in their community so far.
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MAKE YOURSELF STAND OUT
Real estate professionals can distinguish themselves from the competition by giving prospects what they want. And how do they find out what clients want?
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OPEN HOUSE PARTIES?
Real estate professionals are becoming more creative with open houses, turning them into parties. Some agents offer car washes, prize drawings, food, gifts and other entertainment.
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Survey: Where do real estate agents plan to spend marketing dollars?
LAWRENCEVILLE, Ga. – Jan. 30, 2009 –The Real Estate Book, a publisher of online and print real estate information, conducted a national survey of top real estate professionals to assess how they are marketing themselves and their listings in the current economy.
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RELOCATION FRUSTRATION
The economic slump has hit residential relocation specialists hard, particularly in weak housing markets. With relocation leads from the Internet posting big declines, realty firms increasingly must reduce the number of relo specialists on staff and restructure their businesses.
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Four tips for marketing to baby boomers online
ORLANDO, Fla. – Jan. 20, 2009 – Baby boomers, born between 1946 and 1964, account for 29.4 percent of Internet users, but a recent report from eMarketer indicates that a disparity in the ages of baby boomers poses a challenge for online marketers. The report, “Boomers Online: Attitude Is Everything,” says marketers often separate baby boomers into older boomers born from 1946 to 1954 and younger boomers born from 1955 to 1964.
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RE-RE-REPOSITION
RE-RE-REPOSITION
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ONLINE SHOPPERS NEED YOU
Home shopping alone – without the help of a professional even when online – can become a huge handicap for home buyers.
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LET’S FACE IT
Many Realtors now drum up business on the social network Facebook. “Real estate practitioners are probably the most natural networkers,” says Pablo Viola, who created the 12,700-member “Real Estate on Facebook” group.
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JUST SAY NO
If sellers refuse to budge on a too-high asking price or won’t make necessary improvements, many real estate brokers now urge agents to turn down the listing. The decision to accept a listing must be viewed as a business decision, according to Libertyville, Ill.-based broker Mike Stodola of Koenig & Strey GMAC.
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MAKE THEM CALL YOU
Real estate agents looking for an alternative to cold calling often place advertisements featuring their picture, a slogan and a means for prospects to contact them. However, buyers and sellers generally do not respond to ads that do not offer them something of value.
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MAKE NEW FRIENDS BUT KEEP THE OLD
Real estate professionals should forge new relationships to generate business, but they shouldn’t forget past clients, since research shows the 20-year value of a client tops $93,000 on average. To be prepared for market changes in the new year, property professionals are advised to take time now to install a contact-management system, and input past clients, present customers and prospects.
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REACHING BUYERS
REACHING BUYERS
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DIY – HOLIDAY CARDS
Do-it-yourself holiday cards are easy to create for those with a digital camera and the ability to transfer photos to computers.
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KILLER COPY FOR YOUR WEB SITE
Realtors’ Web sites are often carbon copies of one another, featuring a picture with a tagline about helping people find their dream home, and accompanied by a mortgage rate calculator, MLS search, home pictures and listings.
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Share marketing ideas lean times
ORLANDO, Fla. – Nov. 19, 2008 – A market downturn is not the time to cut your marketing, even if your budget is looking leaner than a runway model. It’s critical that you maintain visibility.
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BLOGGING = MARKETING
Blogs can be a useful part of a real estate sales associate’s Web strategy because the online tool positions them as experts in the local real estate market, provides a starting point for a phone or in-person relationship with prospective buyers and sellers, and generates listings.
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Get hired by the expired
ORLANDO, Fla. – Nov. 14, 2008 – About 64 percent of homeowners with expired listings end up listing with another brokerage within 30 days, according to a Hofstra University study.
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IT’S NEGOTIABLE
Successful negotiating used to be about winning at all costs and grinding the other person into the ground. But at the NAR convention in Orlando this week, associate broker Pili Meyer contradicted that assumption in her real estate course, Effective Negotiating For Real Estate Professionals.
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Are buyer incentives more effective than discounts?
KANSAS CITY, Kan. – Oct. 28, 2008 – Real estate agents increasingly are offering attention-getting incentives, such as plasma televisions and gas cards, to lure home buyers.
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Realtor.com launches new site
CHICAGO – Oct. 28, 2008 – A redesigned Realtor.com launched yesterday. Realtor.com is the official Web site of the National Association of Realtors (NAR) and operated by Move Inc. The Web site currently hosts over 4 million property listings, and reached more than 5.4 million consumers in August 2008.
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ONLINE MARKETING TIPS
Real estate professionals should understand the different ways potential clients view traditional versus online marketing, according to Realestatecoach.com CEO Bernice Ross. While the conventional approach to property marketing focuses on buyers who are interested in purchasing right now, Web marketing should appeal to buyers who are a year to 18 months away from actually making a purchase.
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UP THE LIMIT
To stimulate activity in the housing market, the Mortgage Bankers Association plans to request a permanent increase in Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac’s conforming loan limit to $625,500 from $417,000. Speaking at the MBA meeting on Oct. 20, Garry Cipponeri of Chase Home Finance LLC said liquidity is critical, noting that jumbo loans are hard to come by in pricey markets such as California and New York. Recently, Congress temporarily increased the loan limit to $729,500, where it will stay until the end of 2008.
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A TESTIMONY TO SUCCESS
No need to tell potential clients how great you are – let previous clients do it. Since consumers believe what other people say about real estate professionals, it’s crucial for agents to collect client testimonials for use in listing presentations, advertising and Web sites.
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Marketing perks of traditional open houses
NEW YORK – Oct. 16, 2008 – Open houses are time-consuming and don’t always lead to a buyer, but do the other benefits make them worthwhile? Many practitioners say yes, citing these perks:
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SOCIAL NETWORKING LEADS
Maria Skrip of RE/MAX Sea Island Realty in South Carolina uses blogs Twitter and Facebook to generate business leads, even though such networking tools generally are used to socialize rather than drum up business. “Social networks can help connect in a referral business,” she explains.
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TO BLOG OR NOT TO BLOG, THAT IS THE QUESTION
Just 4 percent of real estate agents have blogs, according to NAR, but experts underscore their importance as an inexpensive Internet marketing tool. Among other results, blogs can boost Web traffic, offer up-to-date information to clients, generate prospects, enhance interaction with an agent’s target audience and help agents position themselves as local experts.
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MAKING A NICHE
Real estate professionals need to find a niche in the current market to distinguish themselves from the competition. Targeting Canadian buyers of local properties, for instance, has become a specialization for some property practitioners in the Southwest Florida market.
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LEASE-TO-BUY IS BACK
More and more people struggling to obtain financing for a home purchase are finding a viable option in lease-to-buy agreements, which enable renters to rent a property with the option to purchase the residence at the end of the lease term. In particular, buyers with poor credit find that this approach gives them an opportunity to improve their credit while moving toward homeownership; and sellers find that once-vacant properties now offer a stable cash flow. |
© 2009 Florida Realtors®