Robin Evans

While enjoying Raleigh's first snow day in about 8 years, I was able to spend some time playing around online. I have been posting my listings on Craigs List and was envious of how other agents listing looked so professional, while mine just looked like a classified ad. It finally occured to me to check out the bottom of the listings, where I found....Powered by Postlets. Hum..... So I check out the site. There I found the most amazing free product ever, an online georgous flyer! Of course I am aware that there are many more amazing sites out there, but for me, this site was a great find.

The rest of the day I spent playing on postlets creating flyers and uploading them to Craigslist. After a bit of playing around I figured out a great place to use the postlets mini feature, My Facebook Wall. Gosh was it simple. I just copied the mini link and pasted it to the share link feature on my profile page, and up popped a little picture of my listing with some info and a link. It looks really cool and professional. Much better than just posting pictures of listings under photos. I think that my facebook friends probably appreciate it more as well.

I am not fluent enough with links and blogging to figure out how to post an example of the postlet mini that appears on my facebook page. But it is so simple, if you have a facebook page and use postlets, you should have no trouble posting your listings with the mini's on your profile page. When you do, please let me know what you think.

Below is what I was able to copy.

Source: www.postlets.com Buy and sell real estate, housing, condos, townhouses, homes, houses and other property on postlets.com. Georgous home for sale. My seller wants an offer!! Spread the word!Comment - Share Edit 7253 Bedford Ridge Drive, Apex, NC | powered by postlets 7:01pm Source: www.postlets.com Buy and sell real estate, housing, condos, townhouses, homes, houses and other property on postlets.com. Totally Awesome Home! Priced to sell quickly!Comment - Share

I am a total Facebook Fan. I have been using Facebook to find and stay in touch with friends for about six months. I have found it to be a great way to remind my sphere that I am a Realtor. It also lets people that I have not seen in years know what I am doing these days. I sprinkle life updates along with real estate related items in my daily updates. My facebook friends know and congratulate me when I have a closing. They ask me how my offers are coming along and most importantly they are reminded on a constant basis that I am a working Realtor.

One of my favorite features of facebook is the "Flair". You can make your own or find pre-made flair. My Realtor girlfriends and I send Real Estate Flair back and forth to eachother. I have a corkboard on my facebook wall to post my flair. Thus another reminder that I am a Realtor when my friends check out my page. Below are some of my flair pieces. I only post the flair on my corkboard that says something about me or it something that I love. Good Luck finding your Flair!

Business planning for 2009 required me to reflect on my business related activities in 2008. Looking back I found that the best decision that I made in 2008 was to help form a real estate agent / Mom support group. The idea of the support group came about over lunch after a company pep rally. Several ladies and I were discussing all of the obstacles that we encounter on a daily basis that prevent us from being all that we can be, great Mothers, great wives, great agents. We decided that we needed to form a group to help hold us accountable to our goals and for plain old peer support. At our first meeting we determined our goals for our group and worked on coming up with a name. After a couple of weeks meeting we decided that the group would be called "Me Power". The name is to remind us that if we are to accomplish our goals, it is up to "me". We try to meet weekly at the same time and discuss the past weeks challenges and our plans for the upcoming week. During the week we gently remind each other of our goals for the week. The world of real estate can be a crazy business. We work with people but we can feel all alone. The Me group has helped me feel that I am not alone in my business. We "Me's" have also formed great friendships. We are each others biggest fans and cheerleaders. So as I plan for 2009, attending all of our Me Power meetings is at the top of my list of important business related activities.

I know that I am not alone when I say that I am ready for the "Spring Thaw". The spring thaw that I am taking about would be the thaw that will bring potential buyers out of hibernation. It seems that since November, buyers have buttoned down their hatches and crawled away for a long winters nap. As they slumber they are missing out on some fantastic deals. Interest rates have dipped below 5% at times and sellers in our market (Raleigh, Cary, RTP) are ready to deal. It is hard to tell these slumbering buyers that right now they have "The Power", when they are snug away in their slumber. So I am hoping that people will find and read this post and start thinking about real estate and begin asking questions. I actually heard Clark Howard say, a couple of weeks ago, that this may be the best opportunity that we will see in our time times to get fantastic deals on real estate purchases. So help me and other agents spread the word, Now is a great time to buy a home! Now is a great time to trade up! So please help wake up the sleeping buyers and help them see the great opportunities and great bargains currently on the market.

So what do you do when the Buyer lives in Florida, Seller lives in Kentucky, home being purchased is in Apex, NC, Listing agent is in North Raleigh, the Buyers agent is in Cary, and the lender in Havelock, NC wants a clean copy of the offer to purchase and contract? You are probably wondering why there is not a nice clean copy of the offer to purchase and contract. But the reality is, when a document is faxed multiple times, the end result is a blurry mess. I had such a situation this week. The lender would not move even one foot forward in processing my buyers loan without a beautiful clean copy of the contract. With all parties in different places, even if we started the process again, the end result would still be the same. Short of mailing the contract from state to state, which could take a week, we were in a bind. For the soluntion, I forwarded the contract to the lender in 3 different formats. Fortunatley the copy of the contract that I have is barely legible. I scanned this copy on very high resolution and forwarded this copy to the lender along with the unsigned copy that was in excellent condition, and another copy where I wrote above the numbers the correct amounts with arrows to show where then numbers were on the contract. We heard this morning that the lender would accept the contract as present and my buyers loan is now moving forward.