Contact Pricing How To

Is knowledge really power?

In an age where we have more information and knowledge available at our fingertips than at any other
time in history why are "we the people" not more powerful?

We have instant access to what is happening in real time any where in the world. We tweet our activities
to the world ad nausium. We post our faces for the world to see. We give a status update about our jobs, our families, our likes and dislikes

Our kids sit at the dinner table with their heads bowed into their iPhones when they used to bow their heads in thanksgiving for the meal placed before them. We have commercials where the children are telling the parents what ailments the parents have and what drug they should be taking to cure it.

We have relegated our conversation ability to 140 characters or less and we must respond
immediately to the latest posting on our wall. We take more anxiety drugs than anyone before us and we have more doctor's appointments.

We spend billions on weight loss and yet we are the most overweight people on earth.
Why are we seemingly so helpless that we turn to our government to tell us what to believe. I say the reason is that knowledge is not power - only applied knowledge is power!
 

You may feel that you don't need to know about todays technology and how the internet is influencing your life. You may not want to post your life on Facebook or tweet your way through life - but your children are and therefore as a parent you should at least familiarize yourself with these entities.

You need to have the knowledge of how marketing on Facebook and Twitter works and then apply the knowledge in helping your children understand the good and the bad about living their lives before the world on the internet. I encourage you to gain this power by applying the marketing knowledge Ellen Stebbins will give you in her booklet and video series concerning how to market on Facebook and Twitter .

Do yourself and your family a favor and gain the knowledge today!

Home buyers are spending more time doing this than any other time since 2001. What is it?

The process of finding a home in Mt. Pleasant, SC or Charleston, SC can be daunting and time consuming. I came across a survey done by Realtor.org and discovered that home buyers across America take a lot of time in deciding which home to buy. Here is the poll question...

The typical home buyer searched how long before purchasing a home? 

 
Correct Answer: 12 weeks
On average, a home buyer searched for 12 weeks and viewed 12 homes before purchasing, according to NAR research.
That's the longest average time that buyers have spent looking for a home since the survey started tracking it in 2001.
Buyers searched, on average, two weeks on their own before contacting an agent. 
 

Online Traffic Up in a Down Economy

It appears as if everyone is looking for real estate online these days.  Traffic to real estate websites is soaring. Visitors to ViewThisHome.com are not only visiting the site but staying for lengthy time periods to view videos.   Now is a great time start learning how to video your properties.   There is much discussion on transparency in the real estate industry.  Creating video of your properties will add an element of trasparency for your online buyers.  They can now see the home as they would if they were there.  Show them the surrounding neighborhood and all of the ammenities offered.  You have the traffic online,  just make sure you have the right presence!  Check out this interesting interview with Trulia's CEO regarding a surge in online traffic to real estate websites:

 

Keller Williams Family Reunion Gets "Techie"!

We just returned from another seven hour road trip down to Orlando. This time, we were vendors at the Keller Williams Family Reunion. What a lively bunch these agents were! They don’t mess around when it comes to mixing fun with work. It was quite entertaining to see the agents networking in feather boas and Mardi Gras beads! I was glad to see such enthusiasm about our website as there was definitely a technology buzz at the show. Ready or not, technology is here to stay for marketing and selling real estate. Here is a company that I found to be extremely interesting and beneficial to realtors:

This amazing booth drew me right in with their flashy orange and gray color scheme and classy name (pronounce like you say “elite”). This company offers a solution for making virtual tours that create compelling panoramic views. Previsite is a web-based virtual tour software solution.  The solution includes a photography kit and unlimited access to the online platform, allowing you to create your online virtual tours in minutes. The camera has a neat fisheye lens that allows you to capture the whole room, but when you create your tour, it magically flattens out the picture! The kit is cost effective at $150. To create your virtual tours the fee is $29.99 a month. Why not get the camera and upload your virtual tours created with this nifty camera to ViewThisHome.com for FREE?!
I’m always searching for products that will benefit the agent and that will coordinate well with the services on our website. There are so many great products and websites that you can be using to market your properties. It is important to stay ahead of the competition by staying with the technology advancements available.
We will be syndicating with Visual Tour soon, so when you create your virtual tour you can elect to have the tour on ViewThisHome.com too! Stay tuned for this exciting partnership.