In today’s ever competitive Internet arena, we, as real estate professionals are drawn every direction for the perfect website solution.  With website companies offering multiple color schemes to integrated IDX search engines including all the bells and whistles, it’s easy to fall into information overload.  Finally, we make our best guess, choose the lucky winner and begin our journey.

Almost predictably there is a progression that the new agent takes until they find a website solution that works for them.

And, just how does it truly work for us?  Have we reaped the desired net return or do we ignore it and continue to pay the $35/month just so we have a website like everyone else?  Or, are we truly investing into our website, time, passion and money, so on the flipside it generates a positive ROI?

Late 2006, I began using HomeGain’s BuyerLink product.  Through trial and error I have learned to produce a positive cash flow through lead conversion.  Since then I have come to understand you can point BuyerLink traffic to just about any IDX search engine and generate some form of lead capture.

Quite literally you could point BuyerLink traffic to a brick with any flavor of lead capturing home search feature and make money at it.

Continue reading this post

Last week Mitch Ribak, Founder of eHomesRealtyNetwork and MelboureHomeSearch.com, visited our team here in Denver, Colorado for a training and knowledge transfer exercise. Mitch and I have been keeping in touch since November 2006 after I met Mitch resulting from one of HomeGain’s Winning Agent Calls.

When I first met Mitch I was just a team of one trying to figure out this whole Internet Marking thing. I was reasonably comfortable with the website development, however I was struggling with how do I bring customers to my website and then convert them to leads then to clients and closings. A friend of mine had connected me to HomeGain’s BuyerLink product so there I was.

I had a website and some good marketing but now what do I do with it?

The same month after listening to Mitch’s presentation I had my first Internet client under contract. Yippee! I was on the running to making my first million, NOT.

With much continued effort I continued to find limited success, touching base with Mitch once every 3-4 months when I would find myself struggling the most. He would help me get over the hump then I would hit the ground running again. Continue reading this post

Interested in finding out what other real estate agents and brokers include in their marketing strategies?

Sure, a lot of an agent’s “success” has to do with the market’s condition, but there is a huge amount of magic behind a real estate agent in terms of acquiring leads, converting them to clients, keeping clients and making deals happen.

HomeGain offers a Winning Agent Call every month featuring a new real estate agent or broker. There is a new topic of discussion each time, and hundreds of agents register to listen in for a chance to get new ideas or a fresh outlook.

This month’s Winning Agent Call is with Jeffrey Bastress of Startpoint Realty, who is an an author on this blog.

On February 21, Jeffrey will be discussing his take on “applying a fresh approach to building relationships with buyers and sellers”. Continue reading this post

Today we announced in a press release that HomeGain.com received more than 6MM website visits last month, making us the second most visited real estate website to start off the year, according to Hitwise.

We attribute this number to our recently redesigned website and access to tools that allow visitors to:

• Get instant estimates of homes values and connect with AgentView real estate agents to receive information regarding the home selling process

• Find and compare Realtors using AgentEvaluator™

• View MLS listings displayed by thousands of BuyerLink™ real estate agents and brokers

• Determine the best home improvements with Home Sale Maximizer™

Let’s not forget the latest HomeGain resource, this real estate blog, as well.

On the press release Louis commented: “We are pleased to announce the launch of our guest blogger program that brings to HomeGain some of the best real estate bloggers in the country. To date we have featured Continue reading this post

Part 2

Due to popular demand of the top 5 “sealed deals” blog, we’re posting the next top 5 home buying cities!

These are markets that have been hot pretty consistently this year, even if the market is being recorded as slow on a national level.

In some of these cities we’re talking higher levels of median home prices than the US National. In other cities it’s simply about just selling at a higher volume.

We can all understand that more money for real estate agents and brokers also mean tougher competition.

OK, well, here are the next top five cities. Post a comment if you are an agent in one of these markets and let us what you are experiencing! Continue reading this post