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

Real Estate Radio USA interviewed Louis Cammarosano and me last week to find out about our latest integration—Home Sale Maximizer with AgentView.

Listen to our radio segment to find out what Louis Cammarosano and I had to say and why Home Sale Maximizer is making headlines.

Popular tool becomes part of AgentView

It seems every other day a newspaper reporter or blogger takes note of Home Sale Maximizer.

After getting the value of his home on HomeGain.com, Max finds out which home improvements to make before his home goes on the market, and contacts the featured Realtor to ask questions about his market.

Home Sale Maximizer is an online home improvement tool home on a HomeGain survey of over 2,000 real estate agents.

Home Sale Maximizer helps consumers calculate which home improvements will increase the resale values of their homes.

Last night we integrated Home Sale Maximizer into our popular AgentView product that features Realtor listings, blogs, profiles and other real estate content in an advertising-free environment. Continue reading this post