Yearly Archives: 2009
For those who run their own websites, keeping content above the “fold” – the place where a web page disappears below the bottom of a browser window – can be an important issue. Ideally, content you want to draw attention to will sit above the fold, giving visitors an incentive to investigate further before they bounce back to their search results.
But because Internet users view websites through a wide range of different browsers, knowing exactly where the fold is for each of them can be tricky. To address the problem, Google have stepped in with their new Google Browser Size tool.
realtown.com Reaches 150,000 Users
realtown.com, a US online community that aims to cover all things real estate, has now passed the 150,000 registered users mark. Its current total is 153,858 member, which puts it slightly short of activerain.com’s total of 168,099 members.
realtytrac.com Goes Social
US foreclosure marketplace realtytrac.com has introduced a social media element to encourage discussion amongst users.
RealtyTrac Community, which is free to join, covers topics such as buying, selling, home values, investing, and realtytrac.com features.
realtytrac.com says visitors can seek out local real estate experts and ask questions on neighbourhoods, schools, market conditions, financing, and foreclosure activity.
Seven Portals the Minimum: home.co.uk
The results of a survey from home.co.uk, a UK-based property search engine, show some interesting trends in the listing habits of UK agencies.
home.co.uk surveyed 14,660 agencies to come up with the results, which show 93 percent of respondents list their properties on at least one portal. However, just over 20 percent of respondents were found to advertise on only one portal. Which was the most popular portal? You guessed it: rightmove.co.uk.
Big Changes at zillow.com
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.
Tech Trends from the NAR Conference: Part 7 - Social Networking
Welcome to the final installment of our series on the top technology trends emerging from last month’s NAR Conference in San Diego.
In previous installments we looked at the rise of mobile access, low cost agent sites, video and virtual tours, the importance of local information, distribution to multiple portals, and most recently, the use of SMS and email based yard signs.
In this final installment we look at the continuing rise of social media and whether it really makes a difference to realtors.
NAR’s Game Changers Announced
The US National Association of Realtors (NAR) has announced the 14 winners of its Game Changer Challenge, all of which will be fully funded by the NAR and guided by a panel of consultants.
Social media platform Front Porch, resume standardisation tool Realtor Resume, and Realtor rating tool Realtor Finder were among the ideas chosen for NAR backing.
Discounted Tickets to Inman’s Real Estate Connect
Inman News’ Real Estate Connect conference is only 1 month away. This conference is the must attend conference for leading agents and bills itself as the place where technology meets real estate.
Over 1,300 people have already signed up for January’s conference ensuring that it will be a great place to spend the second week of Janaury.
Property Ad Guru has negotiated a discount rate with the team at Inman and if you want to save $100 off the list price, just register with the team at Inman and make sure you use the PPW promo code.
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.
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