Over the last twelve months, we’ve seen a swathe of new for sale by owner (FSBO) property websites come online, from owner-direct.eu in Europe to buymyplace.com.au in Australia. The UK market seems to be particularly flooded with FSBO offerings – hablib.com, tepilo.com, bethemiddleman.com, notestateagents.com, and auctionmove.co.uk are just a few examples. Even supermarket giant Tesco is organising an FSBO option, according to telegraph.co.uk.

So what effect are these websites actually having? Are they drawing traffic away from traditional property portals? Are they attracting business from owners keen to bypass real estate agents?

At first glance, you could be forgiven for thinking FSBO is the new black. “We sold one day after the sign went up” reads a testimonial on buymyplace.com.au. “Join the property evolution” is hablib.com’s tagline, while thelittlehousecompany.co.uk claims it sees 3 million buyers on its website every month. UK commission-free agency NetMovers has gone so far as to partner with auctionmove.co.uk to offer its users an FSBO option.

But on closer inspection, not all these websites are making such a huge impact. owner-direct.eu, for example, is currently listing just 60 properties in the UK. Australian FSBO site remoov.com.au launched in May 2009, but by July had repositioned itself to operate like a traditional agency. buymyplace.com.au isn’t doing badly with 2,150 houses for sale, but that’s a fraction of the listings covered by Australian market leader realestate.com.au and runner-up domain.com.au.

Meanwhile, portal traffic figures seem strong as ever, with the major players in each market continuing to tout their unique visitor numbers at the end of every month. realestate.com.au has just reported a milestone of 5.9 million uniques in January, while in the UK and US rightmove.co.uk and realtor.com continue to dominate, with the only argument being over who, exactly, is in second place.

Perhaps NetMovers’ partnership with auctionmove.co.uk sums up the story. Some owners are keen to take the process of selling or renting their property into their own hands, but there are still plenty of sellers who want the option of working with an agent.

What’s your opinion? Are FSBO websites a concern in your area, or simply a niche offering that can co-exist comfortably alongside more traditional models?

[Image: frontdoor.com]

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Judging by the preliminary results of our poll, most Property Ad Guru readers are planning to invest significantly more in online marketing this year. With the Internet Advertising Bureau also predicting another increase in online ad spending in 2010, one question springs to mind: How do you make sure the money you spend on online advertising doesn’t go to waste? In other words, how can you fine-tune your advertising strategy this year to ensure it results in more leads?

The place to start answering those questions is your records for 2009. Where did you spend your money? What form of advertising resulted in your strongest leads? If you’re not sure of the answers to these questions, start tracking your online ad spend today, recording exactly where each lead is coming from and how much it cost you in terms of dollars as well as time.

Of course, the biggest expense for agents advertising online is usually the property portals that carry their listings. Property portals are the obvious choice, especially when we consider the number of people looking online for property: the US National Association of Realtors estimated 90 percent of potential buyers were looking online at the end of last year. But even the major real estate websites are gradually realising they don’t have every base covered when it comes to online advertising.

US property search engine trulia.com, for example, recently said it plans to bring more content to mobile phones this year, and to offer property seekers more local information. In Australia, market leader realestate.com.au has also branched out into the local and social realms with a property review website.

So if even major property websites are catching on to these trends, does that mean agents should also invest in a mobile website, add reams of local information to their blogs, and double their efforts on every social media channel?

Not necessarily. Internet Advertising Bureau chief executive Guy Phillipson, quoted on outsourcery.co.uk, sums up the issue when he says, “In the end you need to follow an audience and find out what they do all day to decide where you are going to advertise.”

Phillipson added that he sees the social side of the Internet becoming “inescapable” for online advertisers. But as with every aspect of online advertising, the key is tracking the results your efforts are bringing in. Ultimately, this information will allow you to keep fine-tuning your marketing mix until you have a personalised strategy that works for you.

For more tips on knowing where your leads are coming from, check out our article here.

[Image: thechesspiece.com]

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In a recent guest post, Ryan Hinricher said agents need to define their niche market to stand out in the online marketing game. It’s sound advice when you think about it – finding your niche, and owning it, gives you a much greater chance of becoming the agent who stands out when a buyer hones in on a certain suburb.

So, how do you promote yourself online as the expert in your chosen niche? Plenty of real estate portals offer ready-made platforms encouraging this, from zillow.com’s Local Experts section to realestate.com.au’s Local Voices website. But these are not the only options.

Once you’ve defined your own area of expertise, another strategy is to seek out websites that are focused on the same area. Then, get in touch and see if you can organise an exchange of content for a link back to your website, or even just a by-line including a mention of your business.

Of course, online social networking is another part of the puzzle when it comes to positioning yourself as a local real estate expert. The trick here is to focus on what you love about your niche when tweeting, updating Facebook, or commenting on a blog.

While you can get away with slipping in the occasional listing, it’s important to balance these with updates that show how engaged you are with your local area, to the point where your friends and followers associate your name with the place.

Of course, don’t forget to ensure all your “real-world” advertising – things like window displays, flyers, and your shop front – include all your online contact details. Over time, these three steps should go a long way towards establishing your reputation as the local real estate expert.

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This article was originally posted on onlinerealestate101.com.

Establishing yourself as a successful real estate professional in 2010 can easily be a daunting task. The real estate market is unrecognisable when compared to just a few short years ago. In 1994 the first online real estate listing was published in an email by Eric Hilding of Coldwell Banker in Morgan Hill, CA which changed real estate forever. Within 1 year ERA launched the first listing portal with over 50,000 listings. Today we have Zillow, Trulia, Twitter, Facebook, iPhones, and thousands of other tools and technologies which power the new real estate economy.

Because of this, it’s easy to become overwhelmed and impossible to stay ahead of the technology curve. I thought I’d put together a shortlist of critical components to your online real estate foundation. These are the building-blocks of any real estate business and most aren’t sustainable without them.

The 4 Building-Blocks:

1. You must find a Specific Niche. The new real estate economy is simply too vast to compete if you don’t have a niche. Your niche will be your area of expertise which you can leverage online and offline for your future marketing, blogging, and web optimisation efforts. Ask yourself this question: Can I really compete for terms on Google, Twitter, and more such as, “LA realtor, Chicago real estate, etc”? I hope you get the picture. You don’t need to find your niche overnight but it is a requisite to competing in an online world successfully.

How do you find your niche? Look for something you feel highly confident about, which you also love. Maybe it’s Miami Beach condos or something similar. By looking around and searching in your area, you’ll find that the smaller the niche the more the person behind the niche seems like a true expert. I’d be hesitant to spend much money on your marketing until you’ve truly defined your niche.

2. A Defined Sales Process is essential for building your business the right way from the ground up. This sales process is going to make or break you in the long run once you start generating leads. Most real estate professionals never plan this out correctly leading to low conversion rates, frustration, and ultimately lost dollars.

When defining your sales process keep in mind 3 things: Recency (how quickly you follow up), and Frequency (how often you follow up), and Consistency (following up at regular intervals). Considerations for defining this strategy include, online replies, Facebook strategy, Linkedin, emails, phone calls, thank you notes, etc.

A good book worth reading to give you some ideas on these is  “Selling the Invisible”.

I didn’t take having a defined sales process seriously until I lost a client to someone who said the only reason he chose my competitor, was they called him back first!

3. A Customer Relationship Management or CRM tool is a must. This is not optional.  The  Dunbar Number is a theoretical number that says the average human can only manage 150 relationships mentally at a time. The average Facebook user has slightly more than this number of friends so how will you suddenly manager hundreds of customers? CRM tools help you manage your customers by setting reminders, sending out auto-replies, and creating follow up communication for you with regards to your clients.

There are many to choose from in the marketplace, both free and paid. I’ve used, in the past 37 Signals Highrise(recommend), Leads on Rails (wouldn’t recommend), Sugar CRM, and most recently SalesForce (highly recommend, but a bit more costly).

Also Josh is running a CRM for Real Estate experiment with Heap on onlinerealestate101.com. I look forward to seeing his feedback.

4.  In-House Lead Gen and your Online Presence go hand-in-hand. These are where you’ll put most of your intellectual capital, personal expression, writing, and branding.  In fact, the online space has been so cluttered that by you having your properties on all the classifieds like Craigslist, Backpage, Oodle, etc. is going to give you little if any competitive advantage at all. Why?  Because there is no longer a barrier of entry into these spaces and everyone, including your competitors, are already using them. That’s not to say you avoid these, but these need to become automated functions of your business.

Your website can provide you residual efforts from much front-loaded efforts. Your web presence should be unique and offer strong call-to-actions which are visually appealing and clear in message. Use Wordpress to get started if you don’t have a big budget for a custom site. Offer something of value. The 2 year old report that all of your competitors are giving away too is not something of value. Create original content, build a guide to people relocating, a dining guide, or comprehensive data on a specific neighbourhood. By creating something original you can offer a unique value proposition which will likely usurp what your competitors are offering.

Last thoughts:

Don’t be overwhelmed in your mission to be successful as an online agent. Focus on the essentials which will give you a long term benefit. These building-blocks will give you a basis for which you can add new tools you test out to your business. Otherwise you’ll be chasing a never-ending rush to find the newest, quickest, sexiest real estate tool or trend.

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Ever heard of the Google Local Business Centre? No? It could be worth investigating. For one US broker, listing his business with Google paid off in a big way.

about.com real estate blogger James Kimmons explains: since his “tiny” real estate brokerage was listed on Google’s Local Business Centre, he was included amongst around 100,000 businesses across around 5,000 US locations amed one of Google’s Favourite Places.

Kimmons was then sent a window decal to promote his business, which included a customised QR code – a barcode that can be scanned by smart phones – to give passers-by instant access to information about his business.

Google outlines how the process works in this video:

Google chose these Favourite Places from businesses that were regularly found and queried on Google Maps. “Content, lots of video, and hundreds of images all on my blog-based website is what I attribute it to, as my brokerage is one of the smallest in the area,” says Kimmons.

Since the first round of window decals has already been sent out, local businesses have some time to update and promote their Business Centre listings before more are released. Google says they haven’t yet decided whether they will expand Favourite Places beyond the US, but there are advantages to listing on the Local Business Centre even if your business isn’t US-based.

The reasoning is simple: this is another way to get your business noticed, especially as many people now use Google Maps as something of a Yellow Pages replacement. The process of listing is also straightforward. Businesses create a free profile on the Local Business Centre that shows everything from their opening hours to the types of credit cards they accept. As this video explains, traffic to your listing can also be analysed to help you target your advertising:

So what’s motivating Google to focus on smaller businesses? cnet.com’s Tom Krazit explains:

“Much has been made of Google’s interest in courting the big-name advertisers of the corporate world, but the company is also very interested in the mom-and-pop stores of the world, which fit nicely into its strategy of delivering targeted advertising to specific niches.”

If you’re an agent with a Google Local Business Centre listing, let us know whether it has been beneficial to you.

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Not only is this a great way to promote your listings to an international audience, it is also a great tool to differentiate yourself from your competitors when marketing to potential sellers.

If you would like to be a guinea pig and help us test the application for free, just go to www.listglobally.com and click the link on the home page to register for a free trial. Once we receive your request, we will be in touch via email with your login details.

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We knew something was up at zillow.com when it posted a “site down temporarily” note on its blog on Monday.

The next post confirmed our suspicions: zillow.com was adding the option to list rental properties on its US-based real estate marketplace. By the next morning, zillow.com was already touting the first ten listings to take advantage of the new option, and dealing with a wave of questioning regarding its new pricing strategy: US$9.95 for a 180 day listing.

The comments were relatively quiet on zillow.com’s own blog, but over at 1000watt blog and agentgenius.com things were different, prompting zillow.com’s spokespeople to respond.

“[W]e have moved all manually posted listings to featured listings (which have always been a paid product on zillow.com),” wrote community director David Gibbons on 1000watt blog. “Featured listings receive six times the traffic that normal listings do on zillow.com. There’s significant value for a very nominal charge here.”

Over at agentgenius.com, broker relations director Sara Bonert assured agents that if their listings come to zillow.com via a third-party feed they will still be free, and emphasised that 97 percent of listings to zillow.com are received from feeds.

While free listings through applications such as vFlyer and Postlets are still an option, it seems clear zillow.com wants to emphasise the value of featured listings. “Featured listings typically enjoy six times the traffic of our standard listings, so you are getting a lot for your ten dollars,” Bonert told agentgenius.com’s readers. Gibbons also quoted the “six times more traffic” statistic in his response to 1000watt blog’s post.

The move raises a number of questions for US agents. Should they feature their listings on zillow.com? Would this really result in six times more traffic? Does more traffic equal more leads?

The key, as at least one commenter astutely pointed out, is in tracking where your leads are coming from. If zillow.com is bringing in business, then perhaps these featured listings are worth the investment. But if your leads are coming through your website, social media, or another source, then this change at zillow.com need not be cause for concern.

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The news just over a week ago that Google was “entering” the UK/European market has sent the share prices of Rightmove and Seloger into a tailspin. Seloger dropped by 9% while Rightmove has plummeted a whopping 17%. Seloger has since recovered to its pre-news price while Rightmove continues to be significantly down.

So let’s look at what happened, will the property portal landscape change and is this impact on the share prices is justified.

An article by the Financial Times (Dec 2 titled “Google set to enter UK property market”) seems to have set the cat amongst the pigeons. The article stated that Google is in talks with British estate agents and that “experts” say that an entry by them to the market could pose a serious threat to existing property websites. The article didn’t talk about what Google was going to do and Google didn’t comment. So there is really not much to go on. So the only guide we really have as to what Google may do in the UK and Europe is what they have done in Australia.

Google “entered” the Australian market 6 months ago (July 2009) when they made it possible for agents, brokers, franchise groups, and portal sites to place their listings on Google Maps. When a user does a search on Google Maps (not the main Google search) for real estate, Google plots the houses in its database on the maps and users can then click on the various dots to see if they like the houses and then are driven back to the advertiser’s site.

At that time, there was a similar uproar and many were predicting the death of realestate.com.au and domain.com.au and the REA Group share price dropped nearly 7% from $5.90 to $5.50. However in the 6 months since the announcement by Google, the REA Group share price has increased 60% to $8.84, the traffic to the site has increased from 4.5m UB’s in June 09 to 5.4m UB’s in October and analysts are predicting an additional 20% revenue growth for the REA Group in FY 2010.

In August, PropertyPortalWatch wrote about the challenges for Google knocking over the market leaders. Here is the link to the article called “The Challenges for Google Real Estate”. All of these still hold true.

Many hope that Google will be the saviour from the “big bad” commercial property portals and deliver free marketing to the agents. However this is a simplistic view and underestimates the challenges Google faces. The challenges include gaining enough listings, maintaining their quality, driving traffic to the maps area, and ensuring the interface is attractive to consumers.

Even if Google is successful in addressing the above, they will only be delivering clicks to the agent’s site not email leads. The agents will need to invest more in higher quality sites to convert the clicks to leads. This, of course, comes at a cost. The old adage holds true, there is no such thing as a free lunch.

It will be interesting times and if I was an agent, I would be putting my listings on Google. However, any clicks I get from Google should be supplemental to my existing online marketing strategy and not replacing my use of established portal sites.

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US rental property search engine rentbits.com has released its first whitepaper: Maximizing the Effectiveness of Marketing in the Single and Multifamily Rental Industry.

The whitepaper covers a range of information on the rental housing market including what type of housing renters are looking for, which marketing sources renters are using, and how rental search varies across demographics.

rentbits.com surveyed 1,000 renters to create the whitepaper. One of the more interesting results was the data on what resources renters are using to find their next property. As the graph below shows, 72 percent go online, 17 percent use the newspaper, 5 percent look at yard signs, and 5 percent rely on referrals:

It’s interesting to note the difference between rentbits.com’s data on renters and the NAR’s data on buyers, which has 90 percent of respondents using the Internet as their first port of call when searching for property.

Meanwhile, rentbits.com has tweaked its advertising model, allowing users to list rental properties for free on Google Base, oodle.com, vast.com and hotpads.com.

There are two paid packages for advertisers on rentbits.com: a US$69.95 per month “gold” package to post listings to over 40 rental websites, and a $129.95 per month “platinum” package to post to over 100 websites. Both packages include free email and phone tracking.

rentbits.com includes rentals.com, homes.com, rentalhomesplus.com and rentalhouses.com as examples of the websites that will pick up these listings.

On top of those options, properties can be listed via rentbits.com’s partner websites, and advertisers can also choose to post a feed file or have rentbits.com crawl their website for listings.

rentbits.com states that over 90 percent of potential tenants look at multiple rental websites when searching for their next home. The search engine says its distribution network reached over 10.2 million unique visitors in March this year.

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The US National Association of Realtors recently released its 2009 Profile of Homebuyers and Sellers and the results show an even heavier reliance on the Internet to find homes than in 2008.

The often-quoted statistic from the 2008 NAR report had 87 percent of US home buyers looking online for their next home. According to the new NAR figures posted by Sara Bonert, zillow.com’s director of broker relations, that figure has now risen to 90 percent.

Bonert’s blog post also shows that looking online for properties was the first step taken by both first time and repeat buyers, rather than contacting an agent. Buyers spent an average of two weeks on this initial property search before they decided to find an agent to help them with the buying process.

So how did buyers go about finding an agent once they were ready to buy? This is where reliance on the Internet drops off dramatically: according to figures quoted by Leading RE, 44 percent of buyers were referred to their agent by a friend, neighbour or relative. 10 percent went with the agent who previously bought or sold their home, and 10 percent went online to find a new agent.

If buyers are more likely to rely on referrals to choose their agent than to go looking online, are agents wasting valuable time creating a strong web presence? Not so, says Bonert, who points out that agents have a big opportunity to connect with buyers who haven’t yet chosen representation during their initial two week research period.

And before you delete your social networking accounts and cancel your website hosting contract, consider the NAR’s finding that eight out of 10 home buyers who used the Internet to search for a home purchased their house through a real estate agent, while non-Internet users were more likely to purchase directly through a builder or via a private transaction.

LeadingRE points out another significant finding from the report: 66 percent of buyers and 64 percent of sellers contacted just one agent before agreeing to work with them. Eric Bryn, LeadingRE’s vice president of strategic development and intellectual property counsel, sums up this finding best:

“What this tells me is that responsiveness, already a key point in selecting an agent, is likely a key factor in gaining business too. The first agent to pick up the phone, answer an email, respond to a chat, reply to a Tweet, comment on a status update, etc, increases their odds of gaining a new client or retaining an existing one.”

Finally, Denver property website Mile High Urban Living quotes another finding from the report that won’t surprise regular propertyadguru.com readers: The most valued features for real estate websites were property photos, detailed property information, virtual tours, real estate agent contact information, and interactive maps.

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