Happy New Year, HomeGainers! 

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We are pleased to welcome Kevin Koitz of The Koitz Group as our newest Guest Blogger here on the HomeGain Real Estate Blog.

With a degree in Marketing from Stanford University, Kevin has been able to apply “new age” marketing strategies to The Koitz Group’s 20+ years of residential real estate expertise. His early success in the real estate industry speaks to his ability to grasp innovative concepts and apply them first-hand as a Realtor.

As recognized top producers in Long & Fosters “flagship” Bethesda Gateway office ($1B in sales for the past seven years), The Koitz Group focuses on real estate in the greater Bethesda, Maryland area and Northwest Washington D.C.

Stay tuned for Kevin’s first blog post — coming soon!

I’ve been selling real estate for over eight years now and have had the privilege of observing both successful and unsuccessful Realtors. I have worked in the same office with and have been involved in transactions with some of the top producers in my area.

One thing I have observed about their business is that their lead generation is mostly systematic. Not all of them receive their leads the same way but the big producers have built up a consistent lead generation system where most of their clients contact them. Of course, there are successful Realtors who are out door knocking and cold calling but the largest producers seem to be chased and not chasing.

Where to Get Leads?

There are many ways to “skin a cat”. Realtors can farm geographic areas, build a web presence, advertise in print, use direct mail, purchase leads, or network with their sphere of influence. All of the avenues can lead to success. You just have to decide which of them work best for you. Non computer savvy Realtors barely know how to turn on a computer so they might not be suited to focus on the web. A new agent with few contacts may find it difficult to live off of their sphere of influence. There are very successful agents out there in virtually every market using one or all of these avenues to garner leads. If you do just one of these extremely well you will generate plenty of leads.

Goal: Be Chased, Don’t Be Chasing

If you have been in the business long enough you have probably cold called or door knocked. Some love it while the majority of the agents I speak with generally do not. Your ultimate goal as a Realtor is

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Please raise your glasses and welcome our new blog contributor, Marc Rasmussen.

Marc is a Realtor with Michael Saunders and Company in Sarasota, Florida, with a focus in luxury real estate property investments.

Over the last decade, he has developed an impressive web presence in the Sarasota markeplace through unique marketing strategies via direct mail, advertising, blogging and other Internet verticals. He attracts home buyers, sellers and investors from around the world to his Florida real estate website, www.luxurysarasotarealestate.com.

Marc is active with the Real Estate Web Masters (REW) community, ActiveRain and the Sarasota Association of Realtors.

Stay tuned for Marc’s first blog post here on the HomeGain Blog later this week!

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.