York, ON

Does having a real estate website build your prospect database?

When people find your website, it’s your chance to demonstrate to them why you’re the best at what you do and why they should work with you. You’ve probably found it much easier to close people who find you vs. people you’ve found yourself. So the next question is: what content should my website have?

Your website should be a composite of and reflection of the different types of people in your target market. Your website should be all about THEM. NOT you. Quite frankly, prospects don’t really care who you are. They just want someone or something to help them find the homes they want to buy.

Let’s say your target market is Brampton, Ontario. Brampton is ethnically diverse, but there are a noticeably high number of East Indian people there. So if you wanted to focus on that market, you should design your real estate website as if you were one of these people. Many of them are immigrants to Canada and are probably much more comfortable reading and speaking information in their mother language. So your website should be available in all the different languages these people might speak.

You don’t necessarily have to hire a translator to get this done if you don’t speak any of these languages. There is very sophisticated software available nowadays for translating writing in specific languages with great precision. Google has translators to cater to this need.

It is important to always narrow your content to your specific target market. This way they find you easily and they feel more comfortable doing business with you. However, you have to first decide and establish what your target market is before you proceed with narrowing your content down.

CREA (Canadian Real Estate Association) has passed it's new rules to work alongside of the Competion Bureau. The Bureau is not satisfied with what CREA has passed to make both sides happy. It is now going to go to a tribunal which could take years.

The Competition Bureau wants CREA to allow For Sale By Owners to use our system. CREA owns the MLS on all Canadian local boards and we as realtors pay dues, take courses and are responsible for all the information we post on a listing. They claim that we are non-competitive with our commissions and make it out to sound like every realtor charges 5% and there is no room for negotiation. NOT TRUE. Realtors have always been allowed to negotitate their commisssion or run a listing as a flat fee. The sellers name and number did not go on the listing as all appointments were directed through the agent. The realtor could work on a very base flat fee or in increments of services negotiated between the parties.

CREA has agreed to allow the sellers name and number to go directly on the MLS listing and all appointments will go through the seller. There is a written agreement that the Seller is only paying a flat fee for the right to list on MLS and no further services are required of the agent. However, The agent is responsible for all information posted on the listing-room sizes, chattels included or excluded. The agent is also responsible to know if there are any property defects. Putting a disclaimer on the listing is not sufficent.

The great thing with this new ammendment is that althought the seller's name and number will appear on the local board MLS, it will not appear on Realtor.ca. Realtor.ca is the second stage of a listing- once it gets posted to the specific local board it is then uploaded onto Realtor.ca. The buying public finds properties on Realtor.ca but can not access the local board MLS. CREA will not allow the seller's name and number to appear once it gets uploaded onto Realtor.ca-THAT IS GREAT FOR THE REALTORS.

If a buyer finds the listing on Realtor.ca and phones the only number that does appear, the realtor's, the agent is not obligated to give any information about that listing-the seller's name, phone number or address. The realtor can, however sign up the buyer under agency and then explain the process of buying that house if they so choose. So the options then become,

a) the Seller agrees to pay a commission to the realtor  

b) the buyer pays a commission to the realtor

c)there is no deal between the realtor and the seller.

This is fairly simplified, but will come into effect within the next months and in the mean time the forms exisitng will have to be rewritten.

There are more issues but this is the key one causing all the controversy.

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I proudly server buyers and sellers in the Toronto Neighbourhoods of: Forest Hill, Bedford Park, Cedarvale, North York, North Toronto, Summit Heights, Wilson Height, Bathurst Manor, Leaside, Bayview, Thornhill, Richmond Hill and all surrounding areas.

Whether you're buying or selling and looking for a Toronto Realtor or feel free to e-mail or phone us and we will be happy to guide you through your real estate experience.

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Diane Plant, Broker
Re/Max Realtron Realty Inc, Brokerage
(416) 782-8882

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