2 Percent Creativity - Marketing and Advertising Insights from a Connected Perspective

Google Trends and Real Estate

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.

HomePages.com - A New Real Estate Website?

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 .

Podcast Realty - A New Twist on Presenting Your Listings

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.

What Consumers Don't Know About Property Listings on the Internet

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.

Real Estate Trying to "Retrain" Consumers

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...

If you are a REALTOR, try and look at this purely from the perspective of the consumer for just a minute. It is not just about giving them what they want, but it is critical to understand their worldview or trust and your ability to justify commissions, will eventually suffer.

How would you feel the next time you walked into your favorite big box retailer (Home Depot, Best Buy etc.), if an attractive greeter was standing outside the store and she asked you to provide your contact information (verified by your credit card number) and to allow them to take your photo before you entered the store. The reason she would tell you is that they have been experiencing a couple of problems that this would help them to overcome. One is the terrible shoplifting problem that they have been dealing with that affects all customers with higher prices etc.. The other reason, she adds, is to help speed up the checkout lineups when you eventually buy something today.

Sounds ridiculous right. Well, I am afraid many of us in real estate take our way of doing things so seriously, that we cannot see how nutty it is to try and justify putting barriers to access in front of our customers. The best way to be the 'center' of the transaction is to develop trust and a reputation for getting the job done. Neither of these require REALTORS being the gatekeepers to the listings.

As popular author Seth Godin suggests in his latest book on marketing, "All Marketers Are Liars", when you set out to try and change someones mind or opinion, you are bound for failure. The secret in successful marketing today, is to align your position, statements and story, with accepted or known worldviews that consumers already have. A good example he cites is that of the company Wonder Bread that went bankrupt after 100 years (or so) when the Atkins Diet became such a dominant 'worldview'. Trying to change people's minds that white, bleached carbs were a part of a healthy diet, was too much of challenge for Wonder Bread.

Real estate agents must learn to focus on marketing that tells a story that potential buyers and sellers of homes already trust and accept. For those who still believe we can resurrect Lee Iacocca and put the listings genie back in the bottle, yours will be a hastened retirement and not much fun for you or your customers.

I guess I am a bit of a dreamer folks, but I look forward to the day when the real estate industry moves past this listing debate and matures into one that focuses on the things that really matter to their customers. Home ownership, growing and maximizing your investment, planning your life's moves and sound advice from someone who cares—MY REALTOR.

Glenn

Link: Realty Times - Agent News and Advice

Real Estate Board Charges for Access to Online Listings?

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....

Since the late 90's when Realtor.com went live on the Internet in the US and MLS.ca in Canada, consumers all applauded an industry that had for decades been viewed as a very closed shop, for finally letting them see the homes for sale online. It has always seemed to the average Joe, that the practice of keeping the listings inside a REALTOR'S pocket, was more than just a little suspect. Finally, with the advent of the Internet, you and I could at least get some basic information on all the homes for sale in the market, do our own research and then, when we are ready, contact a REALTOR.

Well, friends, the battle has not been won. There are forces out there who want to take back the listings and make it difficult for you. They want control over the process and they also now want you to pay. Can you imagine Amazon.com asking you to pay for the priviledge of searching for books before you buy? What if they were to let you read a few pages if you paid a small fee—ooops—Amazon already does that and for FREE. The folks at REIN are suggesting that the reason they need to charge you for access is that there is a big cost to giving you the information online and they need to at least cover their costs. In one of the more affluent markets in the US??? One where inventory is moving very quickly???

Not the real reason friends. The real reason is of course money and control. The MLS Association wants to make money off of you and I. They also want your personal information when you register and then you become a lead for the REALTORS who pay the Association to provide the website in the first place.

What a concept. A really unremarkable concept. Charge your customer for the priviledge of looking at the product. Not even Nike or Mercedes have thought of this one.

Referral madness -- an innocent e-mail is bait in the trap

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.

Avoiding Common Real Estate Branding Pitfalls

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.