With the right applications, a real estate agent in the field can be just as productive as one in the office. You have the ability to network and communicate with clients, fax documents, look up listings, find local area resources, calculate mortgage payments, and even shoot video!

If you have an iPhone, their app store is currently the biggest out there, and offers lots of apps to make doing business on the go easier and more convenient, so check out this list. These are just a small group of what’s available, but this list alone could probably save you hours of time versus running back and forth to your office!

Realtor.com – Search over 4 million homes with this app from REALTOR.com. Find property details, pricing, photos, open house information and more on homes for sale.

Home Buying Power – Determine how much house your client can afford by plugging in desired payment or income percentage, down payment, loan term and interest rate information to calculate buying power.

Dictionary of Real Estate Terms – Convenient and user-friendly reference tool for real estate professionals and consumers on the go.

Mortgage Calculator – Helpful tool for making quick calculations such as monthly rates, loan options and adjustments for down payments, insurance and taxes.

Zillow – Get access to the popular search site that many real estate clients are using.

Yelp – Search for places to eat, drink, shop, relax. Become an expert of your neighborhood.

Walk Score – Calculates the “walkability” of any location and shows you a map of nearby amenities; helps clients find walkable neighborhoods.

LoopNet – Get access to commercial listings around the country.

Documents To Go – Create, view and edit Microsoft Word, Excel and PowerPoint files from your smartphone.

Mobile Phax – Use the camera on your iPhone to take a photo of a letter-sized document and then send as a PDF to any email address.

Vlingo – Send a text message, call a friend, search the Web or update your Facebook or Twitter status using voice commands.

Qik Live– Shoot and share live video from your phone and send to a client.

Smarter Agent – Search homes for sale or recent sold, and apartments for rent.

Expensify – Import expenses and receipts and submit paperless expense reports from your phone.

Foursquare - Foursquare on your phone gives you & your friends new ways of exploring your city.

There are also lots of apps for Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn, and instant messaging – giving you lots of ways to quickly and easily connect and network with your clients.

Credits: Originally published by Stephanie Sievers, Illinois Realtor Magazine

Now, I’m no mobile marketing professional, so if you are looking for more info on reaching potential and current clients on their cell phones, you can read more about it at “What is Mobile Marketing Anyway?”

But our Web 2.0 Wrap-up for today is actually a post from MyTechOpinion on a brand new iPhone app from Realtor.com. As NikNik mentions,

Agents that already utilize Realtor.com to post their listings will be able to sync with their account via the app. Branding and contact information is carried over so that interested buyers can easily reach out to the agent, or even add the agent to their iPhone address book. In fact, an interested buyer can contact the listing agent in a number of ways with a single tap: ask a question, call agent directly, visit agent Website.

If you are already using Realtor.com to post your listings, I can’t see why you WOULDN”T take advantage of this new app. So many people access the internet via their cell phone, you want to be able to be the agent that gives them the ability to view listings and share with friends on Twitter and Facebook through their mobile device. So check out NikNik’s post, then go sync your Realtor.com account, and pass the word along to your clients and friends!

As he says:

There are seven disciplines you must develop if you want to achieve all that is possible for you. You can learn these disciplines through practice and repetition until they become automatic.

1. Goal Setting: Each morning, take about 5 minutes to write out your Top Goals. The act of writing them down programs them into your subconscious mind. It stimulates your mind, and helps you move towards these goals faster.
2. Planning & Organizing: Take a few minutes each evening to plan out your activities for the next day. Always work from a list and always think on paper.
3. Concentrate on your Highest-Value Activities: The ability to work single-mindedly on your most important task is as important to your success as any other skill you can develop. If necessary, outsource your less important tasks to a virtual assistant or onsite assistant in order to get your Highest-Value Activity done.
4. Exercise and Proper Nutrition: Your health is the most valuable things you have. Developing the discipline to eat right and workout will filter down into all the other areas of your life.
5. Learning and Growth: Your mind is like a muscle – if you don’t use it you lose it. You should always be learning and growing to become a better version of you.
6. Time for Important People in your life: Relationships are everthing. “Be sure that in climbing the ladder of success, you do not find it leaning against the wrong building. Build time for your relationships into every day, no matter how busy you get.”

This is such a great list of 6 things that will guarantee your success in life that I just had to share it. If you want more info like this, I strongly recommend you sign up for any one of his newsletters at www.briantracy.com.

Technorati Tags: Rich Rogala, real estate marketing coach, Brian Tracy personal growth schedule, how to become a successful real estate agent

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.

If so, this means that there’s a large group that would probably like to change homes, but have held back because they’re concerned about not getting a price for their home that is high enough to pay off their mortgage, or because they dread the idea of their home languishing on the market for months and months.

But with the new $6500 repeat buyers credit, you have a great reason to contact past clients and see how things have been for them. Since the law requires that they’ve been in their home for at least 5 years, this will be a group that you might not have spoken with much. (Hopefully you have been keeping in touch with them – you’re trying to build a referral based business!) But even if you haven’t, but have been wanting to catch back up with past clients, this is a great “in”.

Be creative, and come up with a catchy brochure or simple letter asking if they’ve been waiting for good news before they start their next home search, then give info on the new tax credit, and have them contact you to receive a Current market analysis of their home, and to learn more about the very affordable homes in their area.

If you don’t have past clients that fit the criteria of 5 years in their home, then talk to current and recent past clients. They can tell their friends about the new tax credit, and mention that you as their Realtor are keeping up to date, and can tell them all about it. Great way to generate referrals!

Technorati Tags: Rich Rogala, real estate marketing coach, 00 repeat buyer credit, real estate referral marketing tips

However, e-signatures are growing in popularity. Today’s weekend web 2.0 wrap-up is a blog post from a company called DocuSign, eSignatures: Your most asked questions – Answered!

If you’re tired of faxing or mailing forms, only to have your client miss a spot for their signature, check it out. This post gives you lots of good information on how e-signatures work, as well as integrating this system into the way you currently work with clients. Another good post from more, more on integration, is 3 Common Questions About electronic signatures.

If you’re already using a service like this, how are your clients responding to it? Do they notice? Do they like it and find it easy to use? Please share!

Technorati Tags: Rich Rogala, online real estate marketing coach, how to use e-signatures in real estate

While for some of them you might just be a name on their list, there’s a quick way to change that, and reconnect with them. When you get a card, email or gift from someone you haven’t talked to in a while, pick up the phone and give them a quick call. Just a “Thanks for thinking of me” will put you top of mind again. And you can use that opportunity to see how they’re doing, set up a time to meet for coffee, etc.

You (probably!) won’t get swamped with a massive amount everyday, so it should be pretty easy to keep up with them. And they’ll appreciate that you noticed and took the time  to thank them. People like to feel appreciated – so get busy appreciating!

Technorati Tags: Rich Rogala, real estate marketing coach, client appreciation

Today’s web 2.0 wrap-up is from an ActiveRain post, Route All Your Stops and Keep Track of your Mileage for 2010. The tool mentioned is Dashfly, an online tool that can help you optimize and find the quickest route, find the cheapest gas in your area, and track and report mileage to the IRS.

Looks like a it has a lot of potential for real estate agents, especially with the ability to track mileage and create IRS reports quickly. They offer free and paid services, so check them out.

Technorati Tags: Rich Rogala, online real estate marketing coach, Dashfly, tracking mileage for IRS

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

From their site -

Today, Oodle released the first part of our Twitter integration. Now you can post your listing on Oodle and automatically share it with friends on Twitter (as well as your friends on Facebook and MySpace). Listings are tweeted into your Twitter stream where your followers see it immediately.

We are also tweeting all of the listings posted directly into our network onto Oodle’s Twitter account. This will enable users searching on Twitter to have access to hundreds of thousands of fresh, relevant classifieds listings each day. So whether you are looking for a job, rental, house, car — or something else, you will be able to search Twitter using keywords matching your query (e.g. Burlingame Honda Accord) to find relevant, real-time matches.

In both cases, tweets link back to listings tied to online profiles from Oodle, Facebook, MySpace, etc., so you get a better idea of who you are dealing with.

More interesting Twitter-related features coming soon. Stay tuned as classifieds get more social.

I love that last sentence – “Stay tuned as classifieds get more social.” Everything seems to be going social these days, because it’s just such a great way to get additional exposure and extra eyeballs on your listings. And now is the time to take advantage of it, before tools like this become really common and part of the “noise” of social networking. If you develop the reputation and trust from your networking by sharing valuable info regularly, they will continue to interact and connect with you, even when they’re tuning out noise from a lot of the other people that start doing the same thing down the road.

Technorati Tags: oodle twitter integration, sharing listings on your social networks, Rich Rogala, real estate marketing coach, online social media real estate coach