Is RE.Net becoming RE.org?

In the past three years, we’ve seen plenty of new entrants, lots of Venture Capital money and endless blog posts extolling the benefits of the new transparency that Web 2.0 brings to the real estate industry.

Recently, Realtor Magazine also jumped on the Real Estate 2.0 bandwagon.

Despite the hype, so far I have not seen any empirical evidence that it is working. This may be because the appearance of Web 2.0 technologies coincided horribly with the collapse of the general real estate market.

Or, maybe not.

Perhaps, it may be time to start calling “Dot Bomb” on Real Estate 2.0.

Here’s why Web 2.0 for Real Estate isn’t working: Continue reading this post

Pat Kitano comes to us from Domus Consulting Group, a Web 2.0 or more specifically a Real Estate 2.0 firm that works with real estate brokerages to help them develop technology marketing strategies.

Pat is one of two founding partners of the Domus Consulting Group, the other is Kevin Boer, also a future HomeGain guest blogger and real estate broker/owner of 3 Oceans Real Estate that runs an innovative blog of the same name 3oceansrealestate.com.

Pat and I started our blogging relationship with a discussion of the merits of Web 1.0 and Web 2.0 last summer. Expect that debate to continue here now that Pat is a guest blogger.

While you are waiting for Pat’s post please check out Pat’s insightful blog, Transparent Real Estate. Continue reading this post

Some of the best content on real estate blogs today is colorful, controversial and opinionated. Our Guest Bloggers bring a taste of such content to the HomeGain Real Estate Blog and a fresh perspective.

I’m pleased to announce that Mary McKnight of RSS Pieces as the next guest blogger on the HomeGain Real Estate Blog.

Presenting Mary McKnight:

Mary McKnight is a Blogging Evangelist with RSS Pieces, a real estate blog provider. Her specific areas of expertise are search engine optimization, search engine marketing, web 2.0 technologies, website and application development, online promotion and blogging. Mary is a founding member of the self-funded technology startup, RSSPieces, serving the Realtor and Mortgage Broker markets.

The RSS Pieces website, www.rsspieces.com, focuses on helping Realtors learn to write successfully and promote their real estate blogs. Her site has tons of advice, research and tutorials on real estate blogging.

Stay tuned for Mary’s blog post! If you haven’t subscribed already, subscribing to the HomeGain Real Estate Blog will notify you via email when Mary’s article has been posted. Continue reading this post

Welcome to world of online marketing. Everybody’s doing it! I recognized that Web 2.0 had legs when I watched a model leverage a Myspace profile into a TV show. I choose to wrangle the herd by blogging.

While I’ve had some success, it didn’t come easy. Many real estate agents and mortgage originators believe that blogging is the “little purple pill”, prescribed to cure all their marketing woes. Others subscribe to business models like HomeGain, in hopes that it has the “magic tonic”.

I believe that real estate agents should have marketing systems to generate enough interest to meet their annual business goals. I think you should use the Millionaire Real Estate Agent model. That model, perfected by Gary Keller, is, without reservation, the finest way to market a real estate practice to would-be buyers and sellers.

It’s simple. You’ll close one transaction for every twelve “mets” you have in your database. If you’re practicing the principle of “buying brain cells”, through systematic multi-media marketing, you can Continue reading this post