HomeGain emailed out this month’s Agent Success Newsletter today to its real estate agents and brokers.

The Feature Story was dedicated to agents who visited the HomeGain booth at NAR last month in Orlando. See featured videos.

The Question of the Month came from Kathy Hayes in Hermosa Beach, CA, who asked, “I just signed up on AgentView and want to start using the blog but am not sure where to begin. What do you suggest?” Thanks for your question, Kathy! Read the Blog Professor’s response. If you have your own question for the Blog Professor, Joseph Ferrara, please send an email to blogprofessor@homegain.com. 

Under the News section, the newsletter summed up the success of the December 4 Ask the Experts event, offered FREE HomeGain license plate frames and announced that the 2008 Top Performers will be determined next month in January. (See last year’s Top Performers)

Under the Awards section, we congratulated the newest AgentEvaluator^® Platinum Club, Gold Club and Silver Club members. These real estate agents represent our top performing real estate professionals nationwide and receive a reduced referral fee rate.

The newsletter concluded with a quote from Sara Calo of Howard Hanna Real Estate in Ohio who commended Samantha Apsey here at HomeGain for her excellent customer service, and by announcing this month’s Customer Advocate of the Month, Ken Yee.

Interested in receiving HomeGain’s complimentary Agent Success Newsletter once a month? Sign up here. 

Read past newsletters

HomeGain is pleased to announce that it is running a sweepstakes this month to all AgentView customers. With each home listing that is uploaded between December 1 and December 31, 2008, one entry will be submitted into the sweepstakes to be a winner of a $100 credit towards the agent’s AgentView subscription.

With 84% of all home buyers starting their search online, loading your listings into your AgentView account increases their exposure to online buyers, and enables interested buyers to print flyers of the homes or forward them to family and friends.

Are you an AgentView customer who is interested in partaking in the sweepstakes and haven’t uploaded listings yet? Watch this 5 minute video on how to load your home listings in 3 quick steps.

On January 5, 2009, five winners will be selected by random drawing from all eligible entries received.

Good luck to all participating AgentView customers!

Read Official Rules

About AgentView

I just started using AgentView this year and have really benefited from it. Many times the consumer is just looking for the value of their home to be used when considering a refinance or maybe just curious about the market. However, this is a great opportunity to reach out and possibly get a listing lead. 

By responding quickly and trying to build a rapport, it may end up that a neighbor or family member is in the market to buy or sell a home.  I am always ready to help by providing such information. 

If you are good at it, people will remember you.

If nothing else, AgentView gives you the opportunity to sharpen your marketing skills and may refresh your knowledge of a particular area. It causes you to find out what a certain area in the market is doing.  I have been surprised on a few occasions.

Eric Pakulla is a long-time AgentEvaluator® Platinum Club member and now a HomeGain AgentView agent as well.

Visit Eric’s Agent Blog for home buyers and sellers in the Maryland area.

To learn more about AgentView click here. 

1. Blog about a news event

2. Ask a question

3. Take a poll or survey

4. Have a contest

5. Have a quiz

6. Write about a controversial subject

7. Solicit comments by email

Blogging Tip courtesy of the HomeGain Blogging School Professor, Joseph Ferrara. To read the full blogging newsletter, sign up for AgentView and the HomeGain Blogging School.

Here’s some quick advice for AgentView real estate agents to manage that new blog you may not know what to do with:

1. Blog articles are great but they do take time to write. Generally, the first ideas new bloggers have for topics - how-to’s, hyperlocal news - have been done before by other bloggers. It’s hard to differentiate yourself starting up a blog.
2. So do something different. Think like a journalist; watch out for real-time housing market news and be the first to report it.
3. Take notes at the tour marketing meetings, subscribe to the feeds of local online news and real estate publications.
4. Think in sound bites. Whenever you hear something interesting, write a sentence or two in the blog. Be efficient, don’t take more than 3 minutes per idea. Use a cellphone to write it if you’re in a tour meeting or open house.
5. When you see an interesting article online, cut and paste the article title and create a link to it.
6. If you write down several ideas per day, you soon accumulate a whole portfolio of ideas and facts that will be displayed on the blog. This content is just as revealing about how you develop business and help clients as blog articles.
7. You become a go-to source for your market. Prospects will come back again and again to see your new “sound bites”. After all, you’re the only one reporting on a daily basis… this is compelling to a committed home buyer or seller. Analogy - if I’m doing a stock purchase, I’d much rather analyze it in real time on Marketwatch.com than pick up the current Business Week magazine.
8. You’ll soon realize you can expand on the sound bites to construct more detailed blog articles. You’ll lose your writer’s block.
9. Finally, it’s easier to automate the whole process of “reporting” using a variety of micro-blogging and bookmarking applications like Twitter , Friendfeed, Tumblr, Delicious and Diigo. This is another story.

To learn more about HomeGain’s AgentView product, click here.

Last night we launched a new design of our web site.

The new HomeGain.com  makes it easier for visitors to find real estate information and to connect with local Realtors quickly.

We’ve made the agent blogs, agent profiles and  agent listings more accessible with direct links to these sections from HomeGain.com.

Also available directly from HomeGain.com is our instant home values tool and the popular Home Sale Maximizer tool that helps home sellers determine which home improvement will provide the best return on investment.

Visitors to HomeGain.com can also find and compare Realtors with our Agent Evaluator product and can search MLS listings in the View Homes For Sale section.

Please take a look and let us know what you think.

Louis Cammarosano