According to reports in the Wall Street Journal and the Miami Herald first time home buyers are accounting for a large portion of the recent boost in existing home sales. The reports cite lower home prices and the provision in the Obama stimulus plan that gives first time home buyers an $8,000 credit.

Indeed, on a conference call following HomeGain’s release of its survey of Realtors on Home Values, HomeGain member Jeffrey Bastress of Starpoint Realty in Massachusettes cited that he had recently received numerous offers from first time home buyers citing the $8,000 credit as a reason for their interest in purchasing a home.

Andrew Duncan of Keller Williams of Tampa also cited the new tax incentives, lower home prices and great interest rates as driving new home buyers to make their first purchases.

Could it be however, the reason that first time home buyers are making up a good portion of existing home sales is that they haven’t been burned yet?

Continue reading this post

People love pictures.

Homebuyers REALLY love pictures of homes and buildings and parks and waterways and anything that will help them gain a better feel for the place they will be moving. (I’m assuming an out-of-town buyer who is unfamiliar with the area.)

If you have a website with a photo album function and the ability to write text below the pictures, I suggest you utilize it, and if you don’t, then I suggest you set something up you can link to.

Photos are a great way of making your site useful and worth coming back to. But photos are only one part of it, the power of the photo idea goes beyond just the picture, plus Google doesn’t do photos, so it won’t help with search engine placement just to have pictures.

Having the ability to place text below the image serves two purposes—

The most important is it allows you to tell the story of the city to the potential buyer and to inform them of important facts about the city (or neighborhood, or area, or particular house), and it helps with search engine placement so you can be found online.

I suggest having the albums categorized into different areas or neighborhoods or Continue reading this post

Many of you have heard me tout the advantages of capturing and converting leads. There are other great benefits to building a large database of home buyers and sellers.

Of course, as you know, the best way to build your database is excellent lead capture through your website.

Over the past 4 years, we have built our database to 18,000 active home buyers and sellers, mostly buyers. At last check we were just under 18,500 leads in our system. With that said, a funny thing has been happening lately; many people have been contacting me to advertise on my site.

Since we have over 55,000 people on our site monthly, and more than 13,000 of them are from out of state, we are quickly becoming the only local company that carries such a large database of consumers moving to the area.

This was one of those things that make you go hmmmmm.

So let’s look at two potential opportunities you can create by building a large database. Continue reading this post

Vikas Pawa of Prudential Hills Real Estate in Tucson, Arizona, has only been in real estate for two and a half years, but has already experienced success that some agents never come close to.

We spoke with Vikas to get his take on what’s happening with the market, and how agents might be able to overcome any hurdles they are facing.

Vikas comes from a family of realtors, real estate investors and developers. So, naturally, when he was faced with a career decision, he felt it was a clear choice to get into real estate.

“Anyone just starting off in real estate can expect to work hard, and deal with new and unfamiliar situations on a regular basis. Just because you may have a website, and maybe signed up for a lead service online to help get more business (like HomeGain), doesn’t mean that you can take a back seat and let it happen. It takes work to see results.”

Vikas adds, “Too many buyers ask me how I’ll get paid for my efforts! They don’t realize that we represent them for free.” Continue reading this post

Firstly, I want to thank the many of you who have emailed me and thanked me for my blog entries.

I try to only write things that I feel will help you become either a better real estate agent or broker. The Internet can be a huge money pit if you don’t know how to use it properly.

Believe me; I have spent hundreds of thousands of dollars perfecting what we do here at Tropical Realty in Melbourne, Florida.

Now to my main point.

I have received this question several times over the past few weeks: “What do I do with all the leads I get that have no phone numbers?”

I figure I should probably set the record straight. Each time I get the question I cringe at the thought of these real estate agents throwing their money down the drain.

My immediate reaction is always, “What do you think you should do with them?” Of course I usually say that to myself so I don’t hurt their feelings. Continue reading this post

Thanks to MyTechOpinion.com, here is a list of 10 great gift ideas for real estate agents this holiday season.

For six more ideas, go to 16 Holiday Gifts for Real Estate Techies!

1. Lenovo Think Pad Tablet PC. The tablet technology allows real estate agents to sign contracts onscreen. The Lenovo Thinkpad X61 offers Intel’s Core Duo processor, embedded EV-DO or HSDPA modem for integrated wireless broadband, long battery life and strong benchmark scores for performance.

2. Garmin Nuvi 660. This state-of-the-art navigation system provides 2D or 3D maps and turn-by-turn voice directions. It also offers a complete “points of interest” database for local restaurants, gas, ATM’s and more. Also stop getting surprised by accidents and road conditions with an optional traffic package from XM NavTraffic® or MSN® Direct. Even use the Nuvi 660 to play MP3’s or display JPG’s of that next listing you’re visiting on a home buyer’s tour.

3.Wireless Broadband: USB727 or U727 Modem. Two pieces of technology every mobile real estate agent should have is wireless broadband internet and a flash drive. The Verizon Wireless USB727 and Sprint U727 combine the two. Get a 4BG of microSD™ memory, combined with a next generation mobile broadband on the EV-DO Rev. A network. Continue reading this post