Today HomeGain announced that it has integrated a comprehensive suite of home buyer and seller tools into its AgentView platform.

Read full PRWeb press release

After getting a home’s value, looking at local Realtors, and looking at suggested home improvements, visitors can then readily access the following real estate calculators all in one convenient platform on HomeGain.com:

Max, the HomeGain gorilla, reviews the newly integrated Buyer Tools tab.

• Stay Put or Trade Up Calculator
• Improve or Move Calculator
• Home Sale Proceeds Calculator
• Capital Gains Calculator
• Private Mortgage Insurance Calculator

Additional tools that were integrated for people looking to get started buying or selling a home include:

• New Home Wish List
• Buyer Agent Interview Worksheet
• Seller Agent Interview Worksheet
• Real Estate Library
• Real Estate Glossary

The HomeGain AgentView platform also features local information, HomeGain’s home

Louis Cammarosano, General Manager at HomeGain, stated:

“This integration provides consumers with a comprehensive set of tools to help guide them through the home buying and selling process – as well as providing easy access to HomeGain member real estate agents and brokers who can provide additional assistance.”

I’ve seen many business plans in my day. Although I’m a great advocate for planning and setting goals, I believe there is something even more important. In fact, I believe that without this critical ingredient, no great game plan or strategic goals will get you where you want to go.

It’s adaptability.

This past year is a great case in point. Our team duly met prior to the year’s beginning to lay down the tracks for the coming year’s business. Since we’ve historically focused on home listings, listings were at the heart of our discussions. We fine tuned our listing presentations and geared up to handle all the details that would come from an increase in listings.

Who knew that normal listings would go into the toilet because home sellers were afraid to compete with REOs and Short Sales?

Had we stuck with our game plan, we would have ignored the long queue of home buyers lining up at our door to cash in on record low prices, rock bottom interest rates and the first-time buyer tax credit. Our business would have slammed to a halt.

Bottom line: We quickly switched our focus and game plan. By reacting to the market and adapting, we ended up doing 2 ½ times the total business we’ve ever done in any previous year.

A great example is a football running back. The play is called in the huddle, the ball is snapped and the running back swings into motion. What if the planned hole in the line doesn’t materialize? Continue reading this post

Bad photos seem to be a part of many a real estate agent’s marketing plan. You’ve seen the fuzzy, blurry or pixilated pictures. My personal favorites are the ones that have the real estate agent’s rear view mirror in the picture and then, to no one’s surprise, it will be the only photo on the listing.

It took me about 1 minute to find this one (shown left).

The disregard of the most important marketing piece that we as agents have full control of boggles the mind.

A decent camera is cheap from a business perspective and 10 minutes to get out of the car and take a few pictures seems well worth it to me, but, that’s obviously not the case for all amongst us.

A decent camera is cheap and an appropriate camera is not cheap, but is still inexpensive for the ROI. The pictures are certainly worth the expense though. I enjoy photography so I take my own photos. If you aren’t into taking your own photos, let a professional handle the work load for you.

Locally, you can get 25 high resolution photos and a virtual tour for about $100. It would take anyone 3 or 4 hours to get out the property, take the photos get them back and edit them so the time involved to hire a pro may be worth it.

I’ve seen a lot of bloggers over the last few years offer up opinions about what you need and what you don’t need if you want to take great real estate photos and most don’t have any idea what is required to take them. If you don’t use a digital SLR camera, you won’t have the capability required to take exceptional photos of your listing.

To shoot the interior of a home, you need a true wide angle lens, but not a fisheye.  A wide lens will keep straight lines straight and allow you to see a whole room. Continue reading this post

HomeGain and CyberCity 3D announced a new partnership today (read PRWeb press release), which provides HomeGain’s real estate agent members the ability to display CyberCity’s 3D Virtual Viewing marketing products directly on HomeGain.com.

3D Virtual Viewing promotes homes for sale through the Google Earth™ API virtual globe. It provides an interactive, 3D model of the home designed to increase web advertising exposure and attract consumers searching for their next home.

See 3D home listings on HomeGain.com

HomeGain Realtor members can now link their CyberCity 3D models to their property listings directly from their AgentView product. Agents simply enter the 3D model URL in their HomeGain® account for that listing and a “View in 3D” button will automatically appear on HomeGain’s Search Results and Listing Detail pages linking the Google Earth™ API 3D model to the home listing.

This video features Brian Kinkade of Cherry Creek Professionals Realty who presented at the August 2009 HomeGain Nation Live Real Estate Forum in San Francisco.

Brian focuses on the value proposition of HomeGain’s online marketing system, AgentView — Internet exposure, blogging and home listings — all of which are key marketing components to REALTORS’ success.

Learn why these are important and how to effectively implement them into your business.

Get ready to take some notes because this experienced REALTOR packs in a lot of powerful information about marketing that you may never have heard!

Watch the AgentView session video: “Exposure, Blog, Listings”

Keep checking back as we will be adding more videos!

Watch more session videos

Also see more HomeGain Nation real estate videos on the HomeGain YouTube channel, on the HomeGain Nation Blog. and in the HomeGain Media Center. Continue reading this post

In many cases, the perception of an online consumer is that they are not real. The result is that they are not treated as a true prospect and, clearly, deals will not close due to this situation.

This perception is understandable since an online consumer is represented on a computer screen as a series of characters in an email address or in their name. The person is not standing in front of you. They have no pulse and you cannot look them in the eye.

Their preferred method of communication is email which, by its nature, maintains a certain level of anonymity. Due to this desire to remain anonymous, the online consumer controls the frequency, or even possibility, of contact.

This same desire prompts an online consumer to register false contact information on a real estate agent’s web site whether or not entering contact information is even necessary for the consumer to gather the information they want.

Clearly, this is a huge source of frustration and, in some cases, expense for an agent.

But, on the other hand… Continue reading this post