Santa Claus and the Holidays

Just a quick note to express my apologies about not posting over the holidays.  It was a great break… I had a lot of extra family in town and we had great Christmas and New Years.  I have been busy working though.  I am trying to complete a list building course and some other marketing courses focused on the Internet… all to improve my Real Estate Business for my clients.  Well and to make a living of course…

I think technology and the Internet is the waive of the future for Real Estate.  It is basically already here, but it is a confusing sea of information for all sides. 

For Realtors it is hard to figure out which tools are best…

Which tools/sites are the most cost effective, most effective in results, etc.  They all tie together, yet most of the systems are scattered about and it can be difficult to integrate and maintain them.  There are more and more service providers that are supposed to be making our jobs easier, but they all overlap and have holes in them as far as I am concerned.

Franchise providers like Century 21, Remax, Coldwell Banker, ERA, Keller Williams, etc. all try to get their agents to use their branded solutions and products.  This is good and bad.  They are trying to further their brand and keep their agents locked into their systems.  If they have good systems and they work, the agent won’t want to change… Problem is they aren’t always keeping up with the new technology.

In the end most if not all Realtors use multiple systems… and fortunately there are more syndicator type sites that allow us to post once and they push it out to the syndicated partner sites….

For Home Buyers and Sellers it is just as confusing… 

Where should you begin on the internet for your search to buy or sell?  

I would be interested in your comments here as consumers or what you think is best.

They claim that Realtor.com is still the leading home buying search site.  I’m not sure but they have revamped and improved their interface. 

Still this is a sub-feed from the MLS (Multiple Listing Service - usually a proprietary system for only realtors and affiliates).  In otherwords a Realtor has to flag the listing to go out there to Realtor.com. 

The same is true for IDX (Internet Data Exchange), the Realtor has to mark in the MLS that the listing should go out to IDX (with or without an address) so all the other Realtors with their own branded searching sites can find the properties…

To add to the Confusion…

We have problems of data duplication and obsolescense.

Realtors in their effort to be sure their listings get exposure, add them to all kinds of other sites that people might search.  In many cases this involves the Realtor re-entering the information… (e.g. sq ft, beds, baths, price, etc.)  Some of this stuff doesn’t change, but some does, like price (at least in this market 2008/2009), taxes (usually go up each year), association dues (can change), maybe it actually sells… you get the point. 

So say the Realtor forgets to update all the sites, well then you get what Computer Geeks & Database Guys call “data duplication” with “update or information anomalies”. 

To further complicate this problem…

There are companies that are mining the data from other sites, repackaging the data and driving traffic to their sites, in order to generate leads that they turn around and sell to Realtors usually for a large one time fee, some do referral fees, others charge monthly.  

The real problem for the buyer lies in…

How reliable is their data?  The answer is “I don’t know it just depends”.

I think the best answer is still to shop around… however you like, but when you get serious, call a Realtor.  If you find a Realtor establish a relationship with them and keep using them.  They will make or save you time and money. 

If you are stubborn and want to “Do it Yourself” at least try to get to the base source of the data to make sure what you see is Reality and not some Web 2.0 artifact. 

Happy Holidays Everyone!