2 Percent Creativity

Google is at it again! Google Trends was launched this week and first impressions are interesting. What to think of it is another thing. After testing some searches for real estate trends across the US, Canada and Australia, it was quickly apparent that overall searching for real estate is down 15-25% over the past two years ago in the US & Canada and UP over 35% in Australia. Interesting! Try out your own industry trends and see what you find.

Let us know what you think and what you find by leaving your comment below.

The folks at HouseValues.com have just launched another website. This one is called HomePages.com. Interesting name? One has to ask themselves, how easy will it be for them to make online consumers think of a website about ‘homes’ rather than ‘homepages’ of websites? I can just imagine the marketing meeting where this idea came up. “Hey, we’ve got boat loads of cash, let’s just pay whatever it cost to buy this great domain name I heard was avaliable for our new site—HomePages.com!”

For you REALTORS® out there, it is a national IDX website designed to build the HomePages.com and HouseValues.com brand - not yours. When you perform a property search, the REALTOR who has purchased the zip code for that area is profiled (if you can call it that) on the top of the page. We can only assume that all ‘leads’ captured here will go to that agent.

Link: HomePages .

Zahara Mossman is one of the first REALTORS we have seen to utilize Podcasts to promote her listings. Check out her website, Zahara Properties, where you will also find a link to her site Podcast Realty where she presents the whole concept. It’s good to see REALTORS pushing the online envelope in an effort to separate themselves from the pack and provide their clients with remarkable service.

For the past two weeks, there has been a firestorm of controversary in the real estate industry over the DOJ’s (Department of Justice) decision to sue the National Association of REALTORS® (NAR) over their Internet property listing policies. Those inside the industry cry foul and denounce the unwashed media for spreading lies and untruths about their sacred listing policy. It is sad to see those in the industry I work with, allowing their story to be framed in such unflattering ways. Damon Darlin’s article in the New York Times this past weekend entitled, “The 6 Percent Solution: Skip Real Estate Agents” is a must read if you want to see how badly the story will be told. You need to subscribe to the Times to view this article, but it is FREE.

A Realty Times article from today, written by Blanche Evans, asks the question, “Can Consumers Be Retrained? E-Pass Raises Questions.” E-Pass is the brainchild of the Hampton Roads MLS that we told you about a few weeks ago. They have decided that this is no longer the 90’s and that the information should no longer be free. They have contrived a solution that is going to force consumers to either pay for access to listings information or go through an agent to get free access. To get that free access however, you are going to have to prove you are a real person by providing a verifiable credit card.

The article rather boldly suggests that, oh yes, consumers can and will be retrained. Well, sorry to burst the little bubbles floating up there in those blue skies, but there is no way that consumers will accept such a backward step. Read more…

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Talk about heading in a direction that is completely opposite to their customers, the Real Estate Information Network (REIN) or the www.HRMLS.com, Hampton Roads Multiple Listing Service, has decided to start charging potential home buyers to search the local listings. They call this new service MLS E-Pass and expect that folks searching for homes in the areas surrounding Virginia Beach, WV, will want to pay $5.95 per month for what was previously free. Here’s the details on this one….

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Carol Lloyd is a writer for the San Francisco Chronicle and in this article she has exposed, for the first time that I have seen, some of the under-belly of the online, lead generation business in real estate today. If REALTORS® were perceived by some people as lazy opportunists before (very unfair to the true professionals in the industry, but some people don’t like it when you make a $5,000-10,000 commission), the details in this story will only add fuel to the fire. Check out what she has to say….

Link: Referral madness — an innocent e-mail is bait in the trap.

Here’s a must read for every real estate agent! MarketingProfs.com is one of my personal favorite websites for marketers. I have never seen them do a piece specfifcally for real estate before and their first is a great one. As I have gently tried to explain to many REALTORS® before, Lee Iacocca is no longer the president of Chrysler. Branding ‘you’ is what most agents do and have done for the past 25 years. Your ’services’ are your value proposition and what really count today, if your goal is to separate yourself from the pack. Read this and grow…

Link: Avoiding Common Real Estate Branding Pitfalls.