On Tuesday we launched the premier of the “Ask the Experts” live real estate forum. Thanks to our terrific panel of experts, a great turnout and active participation from the audience, the forum was a success!

Overall, participants rated each of the experts with marks of excellence for presentation and content covered. Due to the positive response, we’ll be continuing the series, so stay tuned for future Ask the Experts!

If you weren’t able attend, here’s your chance to hear the valuable information and advice the experts gave out to real estate professionals.

Listen to the full version:

Or, listen to the individual experts here:

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Not! Does anyone want my advice on blogging? Ok, good, I’ll give you some advice: start by writing. It’s always best to start your blog by writing something.

Now you might ask—write about what?

And that would be a good question. Well, if you are a real estate agent you might want to write about real estate. That’s my first two pieces of advice—write, and write about real estate.

Seriously, if you are just starting or thinking about starting, there are a few things that might help. I will assume you’re an agent writing to consumers, and I will assume you’re not an experienced writer—otherwise you wouldn’t need my great advice. I write on several blogs, some related to the real estate industry and some related to consumers, but writing to consumers is the business end of blogging and it’s the main usefulness to you as an agent.

What are blogs good for?

They are good for informing consumers about your local market, about the real estate process in general, about market trends, about your services, about neighborhoods and listings and about how all this ties together.

You might want to develop a list of topics, such as: Continue reading this post

As an engineer, avid technology junkie and as my wife likes to say “all around geek”, it is just plain amazing even to me, at how fast our lives are transformed with the ever increasing technology changes that now invoke a major impact on the way we work, and interact with each other on a daily basis.

By now we all know some of the key buzz words like Social Networks, Web 2.0, Blogs, Virtual Tours, Syndication and the impact that video can have to help convey a story to prospective home buyers.

But how do these terms fit into the broader context of a Real Estate agents job function, and how do we see the broader forest for the trees?

The reason I ask the question, is because of the amount of information I consistently observe in Real Estate print media. This information often does not convey the entire message or the message is so confusing that it leads to the very thing that Real Estate agents have been accusing the media of for months now.

Scaring people!

In the case of the latter, it was clients who were not buying, in the case of the former it’s agents that are not fully engaged and embracing the technology changes because of the confusion.

So what do I mean? Well lets’ take this one step at a time. Continue reading this post

While the RE.net crowd promotes the power of networks and blogging,
some of them don’t seem to be adverse to doing a little paid search
on Google.

Looks like the 4realz seminars and
the Redfin blog forum are being promoted not just through their vast
Web 2.0 networks but also through good old fashion paid advertising. Continue reading this post

We’ve heard all the arguments about lead generation companies. It’s been debated on blogs, in real estate forums and at office meetings. I recently read a blog comment which likened a certain lead generation company to a drug dealer.

Pretty strong stuff.

I’m the little guy with a little office. Even though I work for a franchise, I can’t personally compete in my area with the big franchises or the public MLS when it comes to driving traffic to my IDX website. If you do a search using the most sought after search terms in my area, all the big franchises are right there on the top of the first page, along with HomeGain and a few other lead aggregators. They can afford to outspend me to get there.

Blogging does keep me competitive with the big guys. As far as long tail searches, my blog is all I need, and I can outmaneuver the best of them on that playing field. But being the competitive person that I am, I wanted anther tool in my arsenal. In 2005 I signed on to HomeGain’s BuyerLink. At that time I had 3 buyer’s agents and needed to keep them fed with a good supply of leads. HomeGain generated about 30% of our team income that first year by driving traffic to our IDX site. Continue reading this post

In the past two weeks since I’ve posted The Case Against Blogging and The Failed Promise of Real Estate 2.0, I’ve learned that I don’t know too much about blogging and that many bloggers don’t know too much about HomeGain.

I’d like to thank the many bloggers who are assisting HomeGain and myself in our education about blogging, including:

• Our Guest Bloggers: Brian B., Joe F., Mary M., Pat K., Nicole N., Jay T., Kevin B., and Diane C.

• Our HomeGain Agent contributors:
  Brian K., Eric P., Jeffrey B., Mark J., Barry K., Jerry R., Joe C. and Mitch R.

• Comment contributors to the HomeGain Blog: : Todd C, Brian Bl. Sara B., Missy C., Mitch R., Tony V., Anne Marie C., Rebecca L., Ken S., Laurie M., John F., Steve M., John M. Jerry R., Bob M., Rudy B. and Rich J.

• ActiveRain’ers: Rich J and Laurie M.

• Sellsius Real Estate Blog: Greg T. and Teresa B.

• Rain City Guide: Ardell D., Dustin L. and Kevin T.

• Bloodhound Blog: Jason L., Mike F. Morgan B., Thomas J. ,Lane B., Sean P. and Benn from Agent Genius

• The Notorious R.O.B., Rob H.

• 1000 Watt Consulting: Marc D. and Brian B.

I look forward to our continued conversations.

Thanks again.

Louis Cammarosano

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