Video Blogging Is Being Added To The Column

In an effort to make the column a little more interesting and easier to follow, I am going to add video blogging. You will now be able to read the article or watch the video, or both. I hope you enjoy the new format.

iPhone and Android Apps for Real-Estate, Part 1

Ok, there are a lot of apps for the iPhone and the Google Android (Droid) based phones. Too many, we say. Trying to wade through the list to find what might be useful to use in real estate can be very time consuming. In this article, I will try to provide a shortcut for the process.

I’m going to list a few apps that are available on both iPhone and Android phones. Where it is only available on one phone, I will note that also.

The first group of applications is location based search apps for finding things like restaurants, gas stations, etc. These are good because the can make you the instant neighborhood expert if your riding around with a buyer and they say “can we get some coffee”. Whip out the phone and find the nearest Starbucks or neighborhood coffee shop.

Aloqa – This is a very interesting app. It has channels you can add for things like “Coffee” or “Meetup Groups” and yes, it even has a real estate channel called “Hotpads” that is similar to other location based real estate search apps. Homes around you show up on the map of the area you are in. But for this section we want to focus on the other channels. In addition to these, there are channels for fast food, shopping, and ATMS which can be real nice. The channels list is large and growing. You can find just about anything you might be looking for. It will definitely make you the “expert” of the neighborhood.

Maps – Similar to Aloqa, but using layers instead of channels, you can turn on or off categories of things to find near you. I like it because you can have multiple layers turned on at one time versus Aloqa which will show you one channel at a time.

Places – like Maps and Aloqa, but in reverse... sort of. You will first pick the category you want to find and then Places will give you a list of the places in that category it finds around you and you pick the one you want for more info and a map with that place located. It's nice if you want to read the reviews or ratings before you map it.

Where – also very similar to Aloqa. You will first set your current location, either manually or using the phone's GPS and you will get a category list of things to choose from. There are the typical restaurants and places, but Where focuses more on information about a place. For instance, instead of a gas channel, there is a gas prices channel. And unlike Aloqa, there is a check- in capability which we will touch on later in the next group of apps.

So go download these and start becoming the “expert” of your next neighborhood. It works even for agents who aren't really from there.

In the next article, we will talk about the group of location check-in apps out there that allow you to show the world where you are and that you know the neighborhood because you visit local spots.

Navigating Real Estate Technology

There are so many companies out there trying to sell agents all kinds of technology to improve our business. That’s great, except it leaves the agent with trying to wade through it all and figure out how to make is all work and what really does work. For the most part, people trying to sell us technology are NOT Realtors. They don’t know or understand our business.

Most technology companies deal with one single aspect of our business, like websites. But there are many technologies needed to make a website successful. There is the website itself, the IDX technology, the web search strategy, the lead capture and follow up, and the list goes on. Yes, there are many companies that offer a so called “All in One” solution, but usually this means we are getting a bunch of technologies that are thrown together and no one of them is that great.

So I want to try and start something new and offer to answer questions from readers about real estate technology. What works? What doesn’t? Which technologies work best together? Most importantly, what technologies actually can make your job easier and give your clients a better experience?

So while the technology developers will continue to throw new cool technologies at us, I’ll be more concerned with how that technology translates into our everyday business. For instance, one new technology I will be writing about in a future article is live mobile broadcasting. We heard about this over a year ago when companies like Bambuser began to offer live video broadcasting from your iPhone. I have been busy testing this with a few ideas on how to use it in real estate. Right now I am testing it as a live Open House broadcast.

So continue sending questions and comments and I will work them into answer in future articles.

Using Bing and Microsoft Photosynth in Real-Estate

Earlier I wrote about a new Microsoft product called Photosynth. In that article I talked about how I felt Photosynth was another option for agents to use to showcase a property. I talked about it being a new type of “Virtual Tour”. The more I learn about Photosynth, the more I like it.


Now Bing Maps has added an extra twist. Within Photosynth you can do what is called “geo-code” the location of the content. Geo-coding actually places the content, a Photosynth photo tour at a location on a map, in this case the Bing map. When you pull up Bing you will notice on the left side a “Map” option. Selecting this brings up a map that looks very similar to Google Maps. Once the map is loaded you will see another new feature in Bing on the left called “Explore the New Bing Maps” with a “try it now” hotspot.


Clicking on the “try it now” brings up a Bing with some new features turned on. You will notice the left side now features the current weather for the area you have centered on the map along with some other interesting content, such as photos, AND any Photosynths in the area. Clicking on the “Map Apps” button on the left brings up a window where you can turn on additional features. One of those features is Photosynth. Turning this feature on now places location pins on the map where a Photosynth is present. By doing a Photosynth of your listed properties you now add another marketing tool to your arsenal and get more exposure for you and your listings.



In my Photosynths, I add titles such as "Offered by Barrett Powell" or if the property was sold I leave the "synth" up (with the new owners approval) and place "Sold by Barrett Powell" along with my contact information. So all my Photosynths on Bing Maps become little stick pins of advertising for homes I have for sale and homes I have sold.


Try Microsoft Photosynth on your next listing. http://photosynth.net/.

Add Instant Messaging To Your Website

Few people know that one of the stipulations for using VOW (Virtual Office Web) data on your website is to offer web visitors a "chat" or instant messaging as a method of communicating with an agent. Many State Real Estate Commissions have such wording in their VOW guidelines.

But there are other reasons to offer chat or instant messaging on your website. The least of which is to make it as easy as possible for a potential client to contact you. Studies have shown that most web visitors want to remain anonymous while they are early in their search process. But when they are ready for your assistance, that same study shows they want immediate response and will typically work with the first agent they make that contact with. Offering chat or instant messaging on your website gives them the best of both worlds; they can remain anonymous and thus are more likely to contact you, and they get response now.

There are many service providers that offer chat capabilities for your website for a fee. But why when you can just as easily provide it for free, thanks to Microsoft. You and your agents can go to http://download.live.com/messenger to download Windows Live Messenger. Then go to Windows Live at http://login.live.com/ and get an ID you plan to share with anyone that takes floor duty. Only one person should be logged in at a time with that ID, the agent on duty, though you can have more than one actually signed in. I like to have the agent one duty as the primary and the broker in charge logged in to the same account as a backup.

Now once you sign in on the web to your ID, you will see on the left the ability to create Web HTML code that will allow you embed a Windows Live Messenger on a web page. You will need to copy that code and paste it on your website where you would like the instant chat window to show up. Most of the time it is placed on the "Contact Us" page, but it can easily be on your home page or property search page.

Now your agent on duty can login with the ID you created. Now when anyone needs"Instant Chat", they will see a Windows Live Messenger window on your website and an indicator of "Online" or "Offline" depending on whether or not the agent on duty is signed in. If signed in, the web visitor can now initiate a chat session with the agent on duty. When the visitor submits the request to chat, the Windows Messenger will alert the agent on duty he has a request for a chat and he or she can begin conversing.

There is also a mobile version of Windows Live Messenger so agents can even monitor and chat with website visitors from their iPhones, Droids, or mobile phones. How cool is that!

We have been using this since it went into beta about 2 years ago and we actually get a few chat request per week off our website to inquire about properties. Enjoy!

Microsoft Virtual Tour For Real Estate

A couple of years ago I stumbled upon this new technology out of the Microsoft Live Labs called Photosynth (http://photosynth.net). I have had photo stitching software technology before to do my own virtual tours. But Microsoft is on to something here. The technology is easy to use and it creates some very engaging results from just a few photos. Click on the graphic of my photosynth in this post to view the first one I ever made.

Basically all I did was go out and walk a big circle around the house shooting a photo every few feet. But instead of just shooting in a perfect line, I just threw the photos together, sometimes walking up and taking a closer photo of the rock work or the wrap around porches. The system figured out how to place the photo in my "synth" so that it flowed in with the other photos. The resulting 3-D effect once you have gone completely around the house in the tour is really stunning.

To understand how to take photos for Photosynth, go here:
http://photosynth.net/howtosynth.aspx

Like I said, I am truly amazed at how this technology works. Microsoft is making it free. In fact you get 20GB of space to use for your "synths". The technology works equally well shooting inside of the property. You just stand in a corner and shoot while sweeping the camera from one of the opposite corners to the next. Then you can stand in the middle of the wall and do the same for additional perspectives.

Unlike traditional "photo tour" technologies, Photosynth allows for "zoomed in" perspectives to be intermixed. This allows you to show zoom in to details that might otherwise not be possible in a normal "tour". It allows the viewer to really explore the subject, such as a house.

When you finish adding the photos to you "synth", you can add location data by selecting on a Bing map where the Photosynth is located. I will go into some additional things about Photosynth in another article.

So give it try. You have nothing to lose except more exposure for your listings.

Making The Most Of What You Have Available

This is the start of a new series of articles for Realtors on leveraging free technologies for success in the real estate business. There are so many great applications that are provided to us for free. The catch is always trying to wade through what works and how to use each. I will try to make this column answer both of these questions.

Many of us have heard about our National Association of Realtors and this new thing called the RPR. RPR is supposed to be a National MLS. While NAR and the local MLS boards have gone back and forth over who is doing what, a little company named Google quietly began working on something called Google Base. This is a Google's product that allows products for sale to be added to Google. Why, you might ask? If a product is in Google, it can be searched for and found. Hum, this sounds interesting. I wonder if it works for houses?

You bet it does! As I write this little article, just about every property in a MLS is now being uploaded to the Google Base Real Estate section. But it is not only properties from the MLS. Many property databases exist beyond our MLS. How about the many foreclosure listing sites out there or the For Sale By Owner sites? Well, many of these are now being added to Google Base Real Estate. This is game changing because while we as Realtors wait for our association to deliver on the National MLS, Google has already done so. Well, almost anyway.

True, the Google Base Real Estate solution may not have all the information available in our MLS. It may not have all the details about the property, such as all the appliances listed. But for the consumer who is starting their search, is all that data really important? Maybe, maybe not. What is important is to give the buyer what they want. What they want is to be able to search for a property and then search for information about the area. They want to search for school information. They want to search for demographic information. They want to search for photos of the area. Guess where they can go today to find all these things, right now?

So how do we harness this Google information? One way is to add a Google Base Real Estate search widget to your website. There are a number of companies who have started offering an IDX-type search using Google instead of your local MLS. What I especially like about these new Google Base search vendors is that also offer a really nice mashup of information about the area the house is located. For example, since you can search Google for just about anything, why not offer categories like schools, restaurants, shopping, etc. of things geographically located near the house you are interested in. That is what a mashup can do.

One vendor I really like is Realbird (http://Realbird.com). Realbird is a paid solution, similar to your other IDX vendors. But instead of pulling the property data from your MLS, Realbird pulls it from Google Base. This does a number of unique things. It first means you have properties now available that are not in your MLS, including properties outside your MLS’s service area or properties like foreclosures that are not listed with a member of your MLS. Another nice feature of Realbird is they offer a Wordpress plug-in. This is a native Wordpress type application that makes the search work much better in a Wordpress environment than your typical IDX vendor can using what is called an I-Frame (don’t worry about this for now).

Another vendor that just came on the scene is RealShout (http://RealShout.com). RealShout just released their free Google Base Real-Estate Search. Like RealBird, RealShout’s search is available as a Wordpress plug-in and also offers a “mashup” capability by providing additional location information on the property detail page. RealShout does offer a paid version of $50 per month, which is the same as the free version but with support included. I am currently beta testing RealShout on my real estate website and so far I really like it.

Google Base Real Estate is for real, no pun intended. It is here and here to stay and will only get better.

I will be covering Wordpress in a future article, so if you have any questions that you would like answered, please feel free to get in touch with me at wbarrettpowell@gmail.com