A Real Estate Discussion Blog

I remember when I was in college it was cheaper to call home on Sundays.  Then, even on that cheap 7 cents a minute day, I would watch the clock the entire time I was talking to my parents.  Paying per minute- today's generation will never know the stress of watching the clock while your mother goes on and on about the neighbors.   

Today not only is communication light-years ahead of where in was when I was in college (cell phone in college??  Didn't know one person who had one.), but it has gotten so much cheaper to reach out and touch (or email, text, ping, call, etc) someone.  And in many cases, the price has come down to free! 

Check out these latest ways to communicate with someone - for free! 

Jott.com -  Say you are driving down the road and you remember that you forgot to email your ad copy to the person that handles your company's page in the real estate magazine.  It needs to be in now and she likes in writing.  You are in hurry, driving, and you don't have time to compose an email on your blackberry.  Jott to the rescue.  Simply call Jott's 1-800, say the name of the person you want to Jott (you would have had to programmed her to your contact list, which is very easy to do) and leave your message.  Jott will turn your voice into an email and email your message to the recipient in seconds. 

Meebo.com -  This is a service that lets you instant message from anywhere.  This is a cute service, but they have one application that could be very useful to any agent with a website.  Meebo Me is a widget you can download on the site and integrate into your website allowing you to see the people you are visiting your web page and chat with them!  Imagine that user experience on your site!  Go to www.meebome.com/learnmore.html  to learn more. 

Pinger.com - Say you have a seller that is completely rude to work with (I'll let you think about this for a second...as it will probably be hard to come up with one...) and you need to relay a message that it is imperative that they get you the condo docs by 4:00 today.  You need to get this message to them, but you don't want to actually have to talk to them and just sending an email might not get your tone of how important this is across to them.  Enter Pinger.  You can call the seller through this service and it bypassing the ringing and immediately lets you leave a voicemail.  Sort of like texting, with your voice.  Go to http://www.pinger.com/content/company/learn_more.html?_t=home_learnmore  to learn more. 

I am sure there are a number of other great services like these out there, and if anyone is using them, it would be great to hear about them . 

I don't know if the 7 cent a minute plan is still in place at my old college.  I am guessing they either had to adapt to the new ways that people are using technology to communicate or they went under.   Actually, I bet a lot of other industries have had to go through similar adaptations since my college days...

(Since this post I have written a more updated list.  You can find the updated post here.  Zillow is now reaching 9 million people a month.  Double that of when this post was written!)

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In my job at Zillow I meet with a lot of Realtors and have heard many creative ways that agents are using Zillow to further their business.  Based on these comments, I have typed up the top 10 ways agents can get involved with the Zillow website and reach out to our 4 million monthly users. 

1.  Look up the home you are selling on Zillow.  Know the Zestimate so you can be prepared if buyers want to discuss this number with you. 

2.  Edit the home's facts.  Was there recently do a kitchen remodel?  Do public records say that it is a three bedroom house, when really there are four bedrooms?  Edit the home's facts to arrive at your own Zestimate which will be published next to Zillow's automated estimate. 

3.  Post your listings for sale for FREE.  When a home's status changes to "for sale" on Zillow, traffic for that home increases over 200%.  Post your listings (and as many photos as you'd like) for free on Zillow. 

4.  Create a personal profile for FREE  This is your persona on Zillow-when you post a listing for sale, report a home for sale, ask a question or post an answer, or edit a Wiki page,.  On your profile page, you can add a photo, self-description, contact information, web site address, company name and location.  Any contact the Zillow community makes with you through this page is free.

5.  Report homes for sale.  Zillow is opening up the site to the entire community to tell us which homes are for sale and for how much.  This is a great way to appear as an expert in a particular area of town.

6.  Ask and answer Questions on home detail pages.  On every home detail page users can "ask a question," or, if a question is already posed, you can "write an answer."  To do this, you must just be registered with Zillow.  All questions and answers link to your profile page.  Home Q&A is about enabling real estate conversations online where they are useful and helpful for everyone, and lets you have an opportunity to showcase your knowledge and experience.  If you're a listing agent and post your listing on Zillow, you will be automatically updated each time there's a new question or answer on one of your listings.

7.  Contribute to the Real Estate Wiki.  The wiki is a place to find up-to-date and relevant information on home buying, selling and financing, written for and by Zillow's community of users.  Any registered Zillow user can add, edit, remove and change the content in the wiki, and you'll receive links back to your profile.

8.  Look up For Sale By Owner listings and Make Me Moves (MMM) prices.  Agents should spend time on the site to learn about the "Make Me Move" market that is available to them, whether their intentions are to prospect or expand the pool of homes a client could consider for sale.  In competitive markets Make Me Move homes can be an alternative stream of available homes for clients.    

9.  Incorporate Zillow into your listing presentation.  While a private home owner can post their own home for sale, there is value in an agent doing it for them and maintaining the copy, photos, and public inquiries.  Show the home owner that you know how to maximize Zillow's marketing tools and that you will handle the process for them.

10.  Buy an EZ Ad.  Want even more exposure on Zillow?  EZ Ads are a low-cost, self-service way for real estate professionals to reach local buyers and sellers on Zillow.  EZ Ads will show up throughout Zillow, on our map and home details pages, in the particular zip codes the advertiser chooses.  Advertisers are able to promote themselves, their company or a specific home in a specific zip code.  You can see the performance of your ad in real time, including the number of times it has been clicked on and the number of times it has have been shown.

Please find an updated version of this post at:

http://activerain.com/blogsview/977541/10-Ways-Real-Estate-Professionals-Can-Use-Zillow-v20

I got a kick out of this collage of bad Realtor photos that Norm Fisher from Royal LePage Saskatoon put together on his website.  Make sure you have your volume on, his comments are what really made me chuckle. 

http://www.visualtour.com/applets/flashviewer/viewer.asp?t=830679&sk=46&dm=teamfisher.com

 He is right about how it is sad that home owners let their home be showcased in this way.  Doesn't seem like he had a shortage of photos to chose from. 

 Actually, what a great way for Norm to market his visual tour services.

Part of my responsibility as Market Manager for Zillow in Chicago is to educate Agents and Brokers about the marketing tools on Zillow available for them to use (most are free!).  I have done a handful of presentations at very reputable offices/brokerages and gotten positive responses.  Even skeptical Agents walked away from the presentations feeling like there were some tools on Zillow they could implement in their business plans.

If you would like to schedule an office presentation or just want discuss how Zillow can work for you on the phone, please feel free to get in touch with me and we can figure out a plan.  It typically takes about 20-30 minutes to go through the site together and answer questions. 

Exciting news from the land of Zillow.  Today we are introducing new and innovative products on the site!   I'll skip the cheerleading and jump right into it to let the new features speak for themselves--- 

New Functionality: 

Home Q & A-  Anyone can ask any question about any home -- and have these questions answered by the people who know best: all of you, the Zillow Community.  These questions are posed right on the home detail page, along with any answers received.  Some of the most interesting answers to important questions about homes are locked up inside the heads of homeowners, agents, neighbors, and previous owners.  It is our hope that if a question is asked about a home, the community will rise up to answer it.  If the listing agent or homeowner has claimed the home on Zillow, they will be emailed each time there is a question or answer posted to the home detail page.

Free profiles-- Anyone on Zillow - agents, homeowners, buyers, sellers, builders, landscapers- can create a free profile page with photos, narratives and contact information.  Any contribution links back to the user's profile page.   So if you post a listing for sale or answer any questions on homes, all of these contributions will link back to your profile.  

Tell us it's for sale-- Anyone from the community can now indicate whether a home is for sale.  If you report a home is for sale you get your name, a thumbnail picture, and a link to your profile -- for free.  Special space on the page is reserved for homeowners and listing agents who might subsequently enter information on that home.  So if someone comes and tells a home is for sale, they will get attribution on the home detail page.  However, if the listing agent (or home owner) subsequently comes to Zillow and claims the home, they in a sense are allowed to take over the listing with their contact information, photo, website link, and link to their profile prominently displayed.  The listing agent and the home owner are the only two entities that are allowed to edit the homes content (i.e. let the public know that this is a 4 bedroom house, not 3 bedrooms like the public records might say).

Add unlimited photos -- Anyone can now add as many photos as they want to any home's Web page, such as historical photos of homes, before-and-after shots, or neighborhood photos.

Zillow EZ Ads-- Today marks the launch of self-service Zillow EZ Ads, a low-cost and geographically targeted way for agents, other professionals and home sellers to advertise by specific ZIP code searches.  An ad takes a few minutes to create, can easily be bought with a credit card and costs just a penny per ad view.  EZ Ads can link to profile pages, homes for sale on Zillow, or external Web sites. 

Some Applications: 

Home Q & A- Whenever a home has a question posed on the home detail page, it will be prominently marked on the site.  Do you know a lot about the Bucktown neighborhood of Chicago?  Get on the site and start contributing, establish yourself as a Bucktown expert.  Also, there can be strong potential to pick up some buyer leads.  When a question is posed on a listing, you have a sense of the neighborhood and price range that the asker is searching for.  By making sure you give quality and timely answers, you are able to illustrate your knowledge and expertise and show what working with you would be like.  

Free profiles-- Any contribution on Zillow links back to the user's profile page.   So if you post a listing for sale or answer any questions on homes, all of these contributions will link back to your profile.  This is an opportunity to really establish yourself as an expert in a particular niche or area of town.  It is also an opportunity to advertise yourself and your website.

Tell us it's for sale - You are a buyer's agent and haven't been able to play in the sandbox of real estate websites that allow your to post your listings to gain exposure?  Well, here is your chance to shine!  Let the public know what is for sale in the areas you regularly work!  

Add unlimited photos - This is more a fun feature than necessarily helping to sell a particular listing.  Imagine how interesting it would be if you were the fourth owner of a home and you could log on to the site and see pictures of your home originally being built?  

Zillow EZ Ads--  Since Zillow launched we have had agents asking us if there was a way they could buy advertising on the site.  In the past we really only had national advertisers on the site, and it was cost prohibitive to local agents as we didn't allow for such a small ad buy.  Well, today your requests have been answered.  With EZ Ads, you select the zip codes you want to reach.  You can market yourself, your company, or a particular listings.  And it is very affordable!  You pay only a penny when someone sees your ad.  Sort of like Pay-Per-View.  Imagine now being able to go on a listing presentation and telling the home owner that you are going to make sure their home is seen on Zillow by 10,000 people!  Sounds impressive and would only cost you $100.  You have the option of spreading this $100 out over 1 week, 1 month, up to 6 months.  If the house sells before the end of your buy, you can simply update the slot with a new home.  Of course you are also able to track the number of times your ad is seen and clicked on in the My Zillow section of the site.  

I will be excited to hear from agents about how they are able to harass the power of these new products and turn them into business!  

I will close by posting screen shots of these new features.  If you have any questions, please post and I will be sure to answer any questions.  

Happy contributing to the Zillow community! 

As you can see from my previous post, I was in Seattle last week.  It was a great week at the Zillow headquarters, getting together with the sales team and meeting the new VP of Sales. 

While I was watching TV one night, a local news story caught my attention.  Thieves were breaking open Supra boxes (which apparently isn't that hard to do), getting the keys to unoccupied homes, and stealing possessions.  Yikes!  There have been quite of few of these types of thefts in the area lately. 

One of the ways agents are trying to protect themselves and the homeowners from this is by doing a better job of hiding the lock box on the premise. 

In Chicago, lock boxes aren't nearly as common, so hopefully this is one less type of crime we have to worry about.   I remember when I bought my first house in Chicago, I was amazed that the use of lockboxes wasn't a more common practice.  In today's busy times getting a homeowner , selling agent, home buyer, and buying agent to all find a time that works for everyone to show a house can be very difficult.  I know for a fact that there were houses that we wanted to see but never did because the listing agent couldn't meet us at the time when we wanted to see a house.  Yes, from a listing agent's perspective it was nice to be there and be able to tell your sales story.  But if you couldn't be there, it is a disservice to the home buyer and the home seller to forego the showing altogether. 

Maybe you could use a lock box as a back-up?  Just make sure you hid it underneath the second bush in the backyard.