Jared Wilson

This past weekend I was speaking with a client, who is interested in buying a home in the Clairemont community of San Diego. While asking a few questions and setting up our search parameters, my client explained to me that he was in search of the perfect Clairemont backyard. I chuckled when I heard this because a backyard was also a major influence in my home purchase 2 years ago. In my 4 month house search I had only 3 conditions outside of price.

1. Location
2. Lot size
3. The direction in which the backyard faced.

In addition to being a Realtor, I also know my way around many areas of construction and property maintenance. From the start, I knew that I was getting into a remodeling project, so I was not overly concerned about buying a house in need of repairs. Instead, I focused on the three things that I could never change, location, lot size and direction the back yard faced.

For my Wife and I, the decision on location was easy. I had been renting a duplex in Clairemont since 2001 and I knew that this is where I wanted to grow old. My Wife had been a lifelong resident of Pacific Beach, our bordering beach town, and I knew that we could not venture to far from her childhood stomping grounds. We quickly agreed on Clairemont and decided not to look anywhere else. We began looking at houses for sale in the North Clairemont area, scheduling our showings in the afternoon and early evenings. It wasn't until the third or fourth house that we noticed how the positioning of the lot was going to be a major factor in our purchasing decision. We planned on spending a lot of time in our backyard with our young daughters and entertaining our family and friends. We quickly realized that the homes with north and east facing yards seemed to be dark, shaded and less appealing during our early evening viewings. We saw one house with pool and an east facing backyard and the pool was completely shaded by 3:00 in the afternoon. Living in San Diego, I've always wanted a house with a pool and we just couldn't see ourselves enjoying a swim if the pool was entirely shaded in the middle of the afternoon. In addition, we knew that we would be entertaining our friends in the evenings and a backyard BBQ would be much more inviting as the sun was setting.

During this time, I was trying to get as many home remodeling ideas as possible and I had become obsessed with some of the "Do it Yourself Shows" on TV. One in particular is called Yard Crashers on the DIY Network, where the host ambushes unexpected home owners and proposes a back yard makeover. I would sit and watch with a sketch pad at hand, and draw my plans for a yard that I didn't even have yet.

These plans contained features such as a complete outdoor kitchen, seating areas, pool and Spa, Fire pit, pergola, hammock and a playground, all surrounded by lush tropical landscaping. I know all this may sound a little over the top but these were the types of amenities going into some of the backyards on this show. It quickly became apparent to me that I was going to base my purchase, primarily on the potential of the back yard. A few weeks into our house hunt we made the decision to exclusively look at houses that had large west or southwest facing back yards. After a month of searching and finding nothing on the market that fit our parameters, we decided that we needed to reconsider a few of our requirements, so back to the drawing board we went.

We weighed our options, however, we did not want to compromise on the areas that we could never change, and we would have to live with for the rest of our lives. I performed another search, but decreased the number of bedrooms , with the thought that we could always add another bedroom in the future if the lot was big enough. Low and behold, the search returned one result, ahouse on a half-acre canyon lot in North Clairemont. Literally, the ugliest house on the street but it was exactly what we wanted, a large west facing back yard. We immediately submitted an offer and closed escrow in 43 days. I spent the next 4 months gutting and remodeling the house and we moved in on November 12, 2008.

Over two years later, I am convinced that we made the right decision, as we spend the majority of our family time out back. Whether it's the beautiful San Diego sunsets, cool ocean breezes, sunny backyard BBQ's, Entertaining friends or spending time with our children, not a day goes by where we don't enjoy our backyard.

Jared Wilson was born and raised right here in San Diego and since 2001, Jared has called the San Diego neighborhood of Clairemont his home. In 2008, Jared Purchased a house on Onondaga Avenue, just south of the Clairemont Town Square, where he currently lives with his wife Jennifer and two Daughters ages 3 and 6.

"I would never want to live anywhere else! Clairemont has so much to offer and it's one of the best communities in San Diego to raise a family. I know this to be true because I've lived in San Diego all my life. I can't think of many other neighborhoods where you are five miles from the beach, five miles from Downtown, has good schools and affordable housing. Over the past 5 years, the Clairemont Real Estate Market has seen a significant increase in first time home buyers, the majority of which are younger families. This is good news for home owners in our community, as the younger buyers emerge, homes are usually upgraded before the home is put on the market or after the home is purchased."

Jared goes on to say;

"When I bought my home 2 years ago, it was the ugliest house on the street, after a four month remodel, it is now one of the most appealing homes in our neighborhood. The transition seems to be contagious, just last year both neighboring houses and the house across the street from me, underwent major renovations. It seems that Real Estate improvements in Clairemont are spreading like a virus, a very good virus!"

The Real Estate Career of Jared Wilson

At the age of 22, Jared began his career in Real Estate working as an Assistant Property Manager in San Diego, California. Jared quickly learned all the components to Real Estate Management, including the negotiation of leases, maintaining asset value, supervising maintenance, payment of taxes and insurance, inspections, accounting and reporting.

At the age of 26, Jared became a Licensed California Real Estate Agent and continued his career as a Property Manager, working exclusively with Investors and managing a team of Real Estate Professionals.

Jared Wilson's abilities to effectively advise property owners about the San Diego Real Estate market and guide their investment decisions, triggered him to focus entirely on representing Buyers and Sellers of Real Property.

What sets Jared apart from the other realtors? Jared has assembled a dynamic digital marketing plan that includes tools such as websites, blogs, and social media. Further, as a lifelong resident of San Diego, Jared can put his insider knowledge to work to find a special property in your neighborhood of choice.

Jared Wilson lives by his motto, "Your Success Is My Success", he strives to help his clients achieve their Real Estate Dreams

For more information or to get free advice on Buying or Selling Real Estate, email Jared Wilson at Jared@SoldByJared.com.

In my previous blog post, I discussed the importance of marketing a clients’ home on the web, using multiple platforms like Google, Facebook and Twitter. Today I’d like to share the service I am using to Create a Website for a Property Listing. In my next post, I’ll show you how to get the website to the top of the first page of Google.

First and foremost, I am not a tech genius, and I have no financial interest in what I’m about to reveal.

Over the last couple of months I’ve researching the best way to Create a Website for a Property Listing. Last Tuesday I was introduced to Epropertysites.com, where you can create a fully functional website, equipped with pictures, virtual tour, local demographics, maps, loan calculator and tons of other great tools.

A few of my favorite features of Epropertysites.com include;

· “Flip Book” Listing presentation and Marketing material that can be emailed to clients or prospects.

· Printable flyers in different layouts and color schemes.

· Automatic posting on Facebook, Twitter, Craigslist, You Tube, LinkedIn and Myspace

· Text messaging with Call Capture, where Buyers can text for more property info about a listing right from their car, and all of the data including the mobile website is instantly texted right back to their mobile phone!

· Widgets

· Analytics

You’re probably saying to yourself, “this must cost a lot”, but believe it or not, it is only $10 per month for 10 websites. That’s only $1 per property; to me it’s a no brainer. To get started, visit Epropertysites.com and set up an account, you will not be prompted to pay until after you’ve created your website. Set up a profile with your picture, company logo and contact information, then follow the on screen instructions and input the property information.

I’m not going to do a step by step tutorial in this post; however, I will point out the importance of choosing your Title and Description. This is a critical step when it comes to getting the website on page one of Google, which I will discuss in greater detail in my next post. Your title should be composed of your keywords; these are the words that are being searched on the internet. It is important to use keywords that are geographically specific, using the property sub division as opposed to the city is important. For example, instead of using “House for Sale in San Diego”, I would use “North Clairemont Home With Views”. Most buyers will have narrowed down their desired location to a few specific sub divisions or neighborhoods and they will search for homes using these key words. Another tip in choosing your Title is to phrase it so you can plug it in to your description. As a rule of thumb, your description should be between 200-350 characters and keywords should make up about 4% of the description. This is extremely important when it comes to Search Engine Optimization (SEO).

Here’s an example;

For Sale, a 3 bedroom, 2 bathroom North Clairemont Home With Views, situated on a large canyon lot. This North Clairemont Home With Views features a spacious floor plan and a remodeled kitchen, including granite counter tops and stainless steel appliances. Contact me today for an appointment to see this beautiful North Clairemont Home With Views.

I know this seems repetitive but I want my listings to be on page one of Google, where they will be seen.

I’m going to jump off topic for a minute.

Here’s a chart showing the Organic Click Through Rate for Page 1 of Google. As you can see, the top three spots account for almost 80% of clicks. If your listing is not on the first page of Google, most likely, it will not be seen at all.

After the Title and description are complete, you’ll want to add the keywords in the “Property Features Field”, these will be your tags and they will be seen on the website. Normally the features would contain actual features of the property but for the sake of SEO, I repeat my keywords and add any other words that may be searched by home buyers.

Keep in mind that buyer are mainly looking at pictures, in fact 90% of the clicks on your website will be on the pictures. Although, the repetitive text is not the most appealing method, it will get your property seen. If your listing is on the first page of Google, and a prospective buyer is searching for a home in your particular neighborhood, they will look at the pictures and call you. Often the description and features are not even viewed; the pictures get all the activity.

Continue to follow the Epropertysites.com on screen instructions to upload pictures, create a virtual tour and utilize many of the other website enhancements that are offered. You can preview the website when you are finished and if you like it, buy it. Revisions can be made easily at any time even after the website is activated. From start to finish, this process should take no more than 30 minutes. When you’ve completed your website you can automatically submit your listing to Facebook, Twitter, Craigslist, YouTube, LinkedIn and Myspace. In addition, Epropertysites offers a media sharing tool where they provide links, HTML and widgets that can be plugged in to your website, emails and other Social Media sites.

Now that you know how to Create a Website for a Property Listing, in my next post, I will show you the tricks to get your listing on the first page of Google.

As always, if you have any questions, please email me at Jared@SoldByJared.com

What should be the primary focus of a Listing Agent?

Easy, Exposure!

Without a doubt, a Realtor who exposes a home to the most buyers will be the Realtor providing the highest quality of service to their client. It's a pretty simple notion, if buyers are not exposed to the property, they will not buy it. You would be surprised by the amount of Realtors who only use the MLS and a few flyers to market a listing. In todays' high tech world of Real Estate, these primitive methods do not suffice.

In order for a Realtor to expose a home to the most amount of buyers, he or she, will have to get the buyers to see the listing. Did you know that over 90% of consumers search for homes on the internet? In addition, over 40% of homes purchased are found buy the buyers on line. These numbers will only increase as a result of the advancement in Technology and Social Media.

How does a Realtor expose a home to the most buyers?

The easy answer would be to advertise on sites like Realtor.com, Trulia, Zillow or Redfin. While it is true that Realtor.com, Trulia, Zillow, Redfin and others have an extremely powerful on line presence, and should be used in a marketing campaign, we must also look at how these sites use Google to get their properties seen. A large number of the buyers using the internet to search for homes are doing so via the number one web site in the world...Google.

Another tool for a Realtor to expose a home to the most buyers is by using Social Media sites, such as Facebook and Twitter. Think about it, these two Social Media giants have almost 1 billion users combined. If a Realtor is not using these platforms, they are simply not able to expose a home to the most buyers possible.

What about taking it one step further and creating an entire web site for each home, and by using the sites and tools mentioned above, getting that website on the 1^st page of Google?

In my blog posts to follow, I will be discussing the systems that I've developed to expose a home to the most buyers possible!