Walkscore lets you…

• Map an address, and get lots of information – find nearby amenities and find the walkability to local restaurants, banks, schools, groceries, shopping, public transportation and more. You can even easily map a clients’ commute.
• Easily print out a properties Walkscore to give to clients – help make their decision easier
• Add the Walkscore Amenity Map to your site to market what’s nearby a property and show commute times.
• Use the iPhone and iPad apps to give valuable info to clients while you’re at a property
• Help Sellers better market their property – each Walk Score point can be worth up to $3,000 more for a property, or a 40 to 200% price premium when a property is within walking distance of public transportation

Could you define each term below?

You might be able to rattle off a explanation worthy of the best real estate textbook out there, but can you actually communicate in a way that your client understands? An easy way to lose rapport and trust with a client is talk over their head. They’ll usually feel like either a) you think you’re much smarter than them, or b) you’re using big words because you’re trying to pull the wool over their eyes on something. A great way to establish trust and rapport is to be able to explain all the paperwork, laws and new concepts that come along with our profession in a way that makes sense to them. They’ll feel much more comfortable with the transaction because they’ll be making educated choices, and will associate that comfortable feeling with you, their agent.

So here’s your challenge – take the definitions below and see if you can’t find a way to explain them in layman’s terms that works with your personality. Why not have a little fun with it? Personality just deepens your connections with clients!

Appraisal: a written report by a state-licensed professional that includes an unbiased analysis of the property’s value and the reasoning that led to that opinion. An appraisal report is required for any property sale.

Broker: an agent who brings together a buyer and a seller, or a landlord and a tenant, in a real estate transaction. All brokers must be licensed by the state in which they work. Most work on commission, and the landlord or seller usually pays the fee.

Build-to-suit: a method of leasing property in which the landlord makes improvements to a space based on the tenant’s specifications. The cost of construction is generally factored into the lease terms. Most build-to-suit provisions apply to long-term (10-year) leases.

Concessions: benefits or discounts given by the seller or landlord of a property to help close a sale or lease. Common concessions include absorption of moving expenses, space remodeling, or upgrades (also called “build-outs”), and reduced rent for the initial term of the lease.

Escalation clause: a clause in a lease that allows the landlord to increase rent in the future. Rent increases dictated under an escalation clause may be charged in various ways, including:

• A fixed increase over a definite period
• A cost-of-living increase tied to a government index, such as the tax rate
• An increase directly related to increases in operating the property

HVAC: an acronym for “heating-ventilation-air-conditioning” system. In a commercial building, the landlord generally is responsible for maintaining the HVAC.

Lease: an agreement by which the owner of a property (the “lessor”) grants the right of possession to a tenant (the “lessee”) for a specific period of time (the “term”) for a predetermined amount of money (the “rent”). A “leasehold estate” is the space occupied by the tenant. Common types of leases include:

• A straight, or flat, lease, which stipulates that the same periodic payment (usually monthly) be made for the entire term of the lease.
• A percentage lease, which uses a percentage of the net or gross sales to determine the monthly rent. This is most often used in retail properties and with a minimum base rent.
• A net lease, which requires the tenant to pay maintenance, taxes, insurance and so on, along with a fixed rent. This is also called “net-net-net” or “triple net.”

Lien: a legal claim filed against a property for payment of a debt or obligation. If a property owner fails to pay a creditor, for example, the creditor can place a lien on the property. A lien can halt the sale of a property.

Sale-leaseback: a transaction in which an owner sells a property to an investor, who then leases the property back to the original owner under prearranged terms. Sale-leaseback deals offer the original owner freed-up capital and tax breaks and the investor a guaranteed return and appreciation.

Sublease: a lease given by a tenant for some or all of a rented property. For example, if a tenant rents 20,000 square feet but only ends up needing 10,000 square feet, they may want to sublet the extra space for some or all of the remaining term of the lease, providing they continue to occupy and pay rent for the property.

Technorati Tags: Marketing, Real Estate, Real Estate Marketing

If you are going to the trouble of creating special YouTube videos, audios, blog posts, etc. to help solve a problem or answer a question, don’t make it hard for them once they’ve clicked through to your site. Your site should actually give them more of what they’re looking for. Whether you set up an individual pages/post for people to land on for each video, or just make your search button very prominent on your site (and have it display real results, not broken links), follow the process.

Be sure to read his entire post so you really understand the steps a true consumer took hoping to go from social media to a real solution to his problem, then think about where you could be losing potential clients.

Technorati Tags: Rich Rogala, online real estate marketing coach, social media tips for Realtors®, how to engage visitors from social media, Real Estate Tomato

1. It’s a VERY good thing to have your listings dynamically updating straight from your MLS, as it keeps the property search on your site fresh and up to date without you having to manually input your listings onto your site all the time.
2. From what I’ve seen, IDX has been somewhat hard to implement on Wordpress, especially if you don’t have a tech person.

But Diverse Solutions, a provider of IDX services, has just launched a new plugin for Wordpress users. Very cool!  Jay over at the Geek Estate Blog goes into lots of detail, and it looks like they’ve really got things figured out (especially for SEO purposes). So if you’ve been wanting to add a real-time property search to your site, head on over and read the full post. And if you’re already using Diverse Solutions and Wordpress, run (don’t walk) and grab that plugin! It looks like it will make your life a lot easier and your site a lot more Google friendly.

“…the cumulative traffic gained from dozens of these sorts of micro-topic articles will easily outweigh the gains from high-demand search terms. And, more importantly, this traffic will target and attract more read-to-act buyers.”

Check out his post, then think about ways you can talk about not just your city, but how you can answer potential clients questions about your neighborhood, your housing specialty or any specific topic you know concerns the people you want to connect with.

Local search is a competitive and increasingly critical space of the web that local businesses need to take seriously.

So today’s Web 2.0 Wrap-Up post is from Bill Gassett, Free SEO Through Google Local Business Pages. It’s a great post that offers lots of handy info on using Google Local business pages to improve how often and where you show up in Google’s local listings.

Check it out, and then take advantage of the free tools that Google offers. After all, if you want to be found online, a great place to start is through local listings. And Google gives you lots of tools to help you do just that!

Technorati Tags: Rich Rogala, online real estate marketing coach, local search for real estate agents, SEO for Realtors

My challenge to you is to find a way to use these stories in your marketing that fits your personality.

**********************************

This is our house. 24 Maple Drive…I love this house. I love that I taught my kids to ride their bikes in the driveway. I love that I slept with them in tents in the backyard. I love that we carved our initials in the tree out front. This house is warm in the winter, cool in the summer, and looks spectacular with Christmas lights. It’s a great house. I never want to move. But the thing I think I like best about this house are the voices I hear when I walk through the door.

This is my favorite quote from the classic movie, Father of the Bride.  This is the kind of thing that new homeowners imagine when they buy any home.  They may not say it out loud, for fear of sounding corny or unrealistic.  But don’t most of us want the fantasy life that George Banks so lovingly describes in this monologue? 

A home is more than just bricks, hardwood flooring and wall to wall carpeting, a patio and a backyard.  It’s the building blocks of people beginning their lives together and making memories.

The home plays a large part of this movie.  It’s where George Banks played basketball with his daughter in the driveway every night, where his little girl stood in her nightgown and socks at the top of the banister right before she slid down it to fall into her father’s arms, and, eventually, it ends up serving as the setting of his no-longer-little-girl’s wedding reception.

People love to hear about sentimental memories being made in the home.  It makes them believe that good old family values are still alive and well.

With that said, are you staying in contact with your home buyers after that monumental closing?  Do you know about the memories that they are making in their new homes?  Are they hosting family game nights, book club meetings, garage band practices, block parties and/or weddings?

Make it a point to stay in contact with them and find out. It would be the perfect feature to post on your website.  You could call it Home-Made Memories.  Have them send you a picture and tell a story. Or if you want to go all out, you can dedicate a whole blog to your happy clients.

To get an idea, take a look at this blog.  It’s about a young couple starting their life in their new home.  You can follow them as they go through the trials and tribulations of fixing up their 53 year-old home and throwing the cutest DIY backyard wedding you’ve ever seen.  There are a ton of other blogs out there like this one.  New homeowners love to talk about their home.  Why not let them use you as their outlet to do it?

People will love to see concrete evidence of happy homeowners that were made possible by you, their trusted advisor, friend and real estate agent.

After all, who doesn’t like to see that sappy home memories can happen in real life too?  Have your Real Estate Virtual Assistant setup a page on your website to dedicate to your Home-Made Memories or have them put together a special blog post for each client’s special memory. 

Your clients will appreciate your extra efforts and they’ll be sure to give out your name and give you their repeat business!

Best wishes!

Technorati Tags: Rich Rogala, real estate marketing coach, Real Support, real estate marketing tips

Feedblitz RSS to Email: If you have a blog, this is an incredible tool. It allows people to sign up to receive your blog posts by email instead of through RSS. It allows you to use your blog as a direct marketing email news system to keep in touch with your existing sphere of influence. Plus the basic service is free. You can see this one in the top right navigation right on this page! Have you signed up for the Consistent Client Feedburner notifications yet?

Top Producer Market Snapshot: This widget isn’t free but it is a nice online lead generation tool. It is basically a sign up form to get local real estate market conditions. It offers a summary of what is for sale, what just sold and how fast properties are selling in your market. It also requires viewers to enter their name, email and phone number to get the data.

Are you regularly using the tools available to you to grow your business?

Technorati Tags: Rich Rogala, Top Producer, FeedBlitz, real estate widgets, real estate marketing

Here are a few quick ideas to help you start generating content for your blog, even if you don’t write a bit of it!

• Utilize more videos on your blog. YouTube is a great source for videos on staging homes, home repair, and other tips that would be helpful for sellers. Realtor.com offers many great real-estate related videos that you can embed on your site, and there are lots of other sites that have videos that you can share as well. One of my coaching clients does a great job of this on his blog www.rookiehomesellers.com. Once you find a good video, just add a paragraph or two sharing why this particular tip or topic is important.

• Read a great article that you think your database should see? Write a short paragraph letting them know your favorite point or tip, give credit to the author, then link back to their article. Go a bit farther, and contact the author. You can often get permission to reprint the entire article on your blog as long as you include their bio information.

• Hop over to an article directory like Ezine Articles or GoArticles, and reprint one of those articles. Here, you don’t even need to write up your own short message – just copy and paste the entire article, along with the full bio, onto your site. If you’re using Wordpress or a similar platform, you can even create a second username “Guest Post” so readers understand this isn’t your content, but you’re sharing it as additional content.

• If you enjoy listening to podcasts, share a good episode as a link on your blog. Whether it’s from iTunes or BlogTalkRadio or somewhere else, you can usually find the individual episode link. Then it’s just another quick message from you on why they should listen, and you’ve got another blog post.

Obviously, filling your blog only with content from other experts isn’t going to build up your own expert level, but it’s a great way to supplement with your own posts. And more content is always a good thing! Plus, I’ve always noticed that as I view other people’s videos and posts, it often triggers ideas for my own content, thereby giving me two posts!

Technorati Tags: Rich Rogala, real estate marketing coach, real estate blogging tips, how to find blog post ideas

And I try to integrate that same tool in online marketing as well. Rebecca’s blog post has some really good examples of how she is using Twitter and Facebook as a way to virtually “pop-by” her clients and stay top-of-mind. That is a question I get asked by clients a lot – “I’m on Facebook and Twitter, now what? How do I use them? Why should people care what I’m doing?”

So if you are looking for ideas on how to use Brian Buffini’s pop-by concept in your online marketing, check out Rebecca’s post. Then pick one concept, and use it this week!

Technorati Tags: Rich Rogala, online real estate marketing tips, Rebecca Levinson, Brian Buffini’s pop-bys, Twitter and Facebook tips for real estate