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Jim Crawford ~ Atlanta Real Estate-ABR E-PRO

New Reality Real Estate TV Shows We'd All Like to See!

When I was a kid, nothing was better than waiting for the Fall to come. Once school had restarted, there were loads of great new TV shows that would come on! For ever night of the week we'd have the TV guide out and see what new show was on that particular evening. SOme shows were great, and others well just dissappointing. The dissappointing ones never seemed to make it to the next seasons! Great TV shows would always be around! Wll almost! My favorite show was Man From Uncle! I guess that lost some interest over time! Over the years, TV changed, and shows left the entertainmanet business and passed themselves off as psuedo learning tools. They really were neither. They gave just information to be dangerous! Sort of like going to a real estate seminar. To learn the real tricks and tips, you will need to buy my tapes and books!

Well, for the last few years on HGTV we've entertained and supposedly learned form a lot of TV shows that filled our insatiable anorexic needs for why we should buy real estate. We weree all like anorexic phiranias, and there was not enough information that we could amass! It was never enough! Even though I never really got into the reality real estate shows, Ti me they made no sense, and never addressed real issues of profit, commission and taxes. I would bet money that their popularity is waining right now. Home sellers with staged homes sitting on the market with cheap makeovers are starting to get annoyed at the reruns of successful sales of rso really dreadful looking homes! They've not quite learned the art of learning how to stage their homes with paints, and half ass cheap repairs that look like it was done by a do-it-yourselfer on a Wal-Mart gift card budget! Up close those do-it-your-self projects always look like you did it yourself anyway! The new waves of reality real estate TV shows should address the new realities in a variety of new shows. We are long overdue for some new entertainment, and waiting impatiently! Here are a few new reality TV shows I'd like to see:

  • Flip this!
  • CSI Mortgage Fraud
  • Designed to Sell - Well Almost
  • Flipping Intervention for Investors
  • Marrooned in a home I can't sell!
  • Survivor Real Estate Version
  • Buy Me...Now!
  • Design Wannabees
  • This SOLD House
  • Loan Hunting Trying to Find Financing
  • What's with All the Houses?
  • Simply Quit
  • In Over Our Heads

Driving Direct Traffic to Your Real Estate Website!

How do you know your real estate website is successful? The answer is easy! Success isn’t based so much on web position or being # 1 for the term “My City Real Estate”. Success on the Internet in Real estate isn’t measured in hits, clicks or traffic. The measure of your efforts will be measured in sustained closed business, and lots of it! One or two sales from the Internet may be just a fluke, good fortune or luck. The challenge of being very successful on the Internet comes in creating a sustainable formula for generating closed business. Success should be easily duplicated. Enough closed business from the Internet will allow you to live well, provide for your family’s needs and plan for your future.

How can you do this? Well first your site has to be found on the Internet. This is called Search Engine Optimization or SEO. This allows you to be found on the Internet when a person types in “Atlanta Homes for Sale” and I show up pretty consistently as # 2 on Google for the phrase "Atlanta Homes for Sale". SEO is important because it allows you to maximize your ability, your web advertisement, your resume and your products or listings cheaply! Branding on the other hand tries to couple your professional image to your web. Pay Per Click is also another way that can drive some traffic to your website, but given the cost, fraud, and the percentage of those that will actually use a PPC link are so low that it is not viable for a real estate agent to sustain the expense. The difference is that branding is kind of self defeating in terms of Internet dollars, you are driving traffic to your website from traditional expensive marketing. Branding and PPC will never be a replacement for web position through SEO.

The next item is that once the consumer finds your site, will they like it? Will they want to come back? Did you annoy them with your “It’s all about me attitude?” Did you intrude on their privacy with intrusive forms, logins, and cookies? Mandatory forms, spleash screens with sound music and flash are show stoppers! Is you page easy to navigate, and can the consumer find what they are looking for? Does your page load easily or can you take a nap when you click on the link to open your page? If you have come this far, then the consumer or web viewer may want to return to your site often. They may even book mark your page or save it as a favorite if you made it easy for them to do so. This is an important point, because once the consumer finds your site they do not have to search for the term “Atlanta Homes for Sale,” any longer. The just go to you site through favorites. For the last 6 years I’ve added a line of script to wards the top of my html that allows the consumer to easily find my site again, or send the link to a friend.

The site I use is http://www.send-a-link.com/ It is very effective and of course it is free!

When I go to my web stats and check referring traffic and see the referring Search Engines such as Google, MSN, Yahoo. AOL, and Ask and the percentages of business they refer to my site I am always amazed that the direct traffic referrals from someone having saved my site as a favorite. The stats are always through the roof! Direct traffic can be as high as 85%! Why? Because you made it convenient to save your site either from a save as a Favorite or Bookmark Script, or external link that allows the consumer to do so. This allows you a lot more chances at bat especially if you lose your position on the search engines! Driving direct traffic one component of being successful on the web.

How Do You Deal With Changing Markets...?

It is hard for any agent or real estate brokerage adjusting to the changing real estate markets. We all must adjust a business plan if markets rise, so too we must make adjustments when the market slows. I am sure there are some high flying markets, there is always a segment of the market charging ahead when others lay flat or fizzle instead of sizzle as in just a short while ago. Tightening credit and loan requirements have sucked huge pools of would be buyers out of the market. With the speculators, investors, and buyers on the sidelines in many markets how have you changed the way you do business? Have you set a new focus, reined in the spending, increased your marketing dollars, gotten more selective on the listings you take or the condition they are in? How are you filling your time? Are you planning new avenues to market? Please share I'd love to hear all!

Change Dated Light Fixures to Sell a Home.

In the early 90's when we moved to Atlanta after the market here had collapsed in 1988. We were very successful in selling Atlanta homes that sat on the market for years. How? We paid attention to the details. The first place we began is in lighting. Nothing will date a home as much as lighting, and cap your return on the resale price. It is the most over looked item by real estate agents. They go crazy in all the wrong areas, but our experience gained us an important reputation in Atlanta for selling homes that expired with other agents, and were unsuccessfully marketed.

Most light fixtures are what we call builder grade. They are totally unimaginative, and detract from the homes worth. A few hurndred dollars in upgraded modestly priced light fixtures will dramatically increase your chances of selling your home. The swap out is almost subliminal. Most of the other homes agents will show will not have updated lighting fixtures or ceiling fans.

Before builder grade date looking light fixtures:

Updated Lighting

Do real estate designations make a difference? They should.

Years ago in real estate designations in real estate made a big difference, not only to the consumer and clients, but to other agents. It was a recognition of achievement, and accomplishment. It was quite the thing to have a Graduate of Realtor InstituteGRI or Certified Residential Specialists- CRS designation. Then the Accredited Buyers Representative ABR became the hot item, and E-Pro. The promotion and education of these designation however seems to have fallen on hard times. Some company real estate websites do not even allow specialized searches to find a CRS, GRI, ABR...etc. http://www.realtor.com does.

Real estate magazines are loaded with promotion of the designations, seminar and events, but it sort of like preaching to the choir. The ads need to extol the accomplishments and accolades to the public. A better awareness of how each of these groups better serve their clients should be a must. A great place to start would be in Sunday newspapers, local tabloids, hey even www.Realtor.Com what a concept! I really believe the brokers who used to play a really big part in prodding agents to go for a designation have let it fall by the wayside! It used to be that earning designations was the pathway to relocation referrals and business,.It was a requirement. Why? Well with the CRS designation it really was tied to performance. It proved you were capable of being trusted with bigger responsibilities. Perhaps it isn't as important anymore since relocation business is not what it once was.

Performance is a better test of abilities than a couse work and passing a test. Real estate has so much more involved at stake.

Personally, if I was placing a referral to an agent in another part of town, or part of the country the first thing I'd look for is a CRS designation. Why? Because our referred clients will be best served, and that will mean a referral income for the referring agent. And frankly part of the reason we insist on it is that we have lost to many referrals by those who had no designations.

CRSReal Estate Designations

Jim Crawford - http://www.atlantabesthomes.com/