At last weekend’s 2007 Sutton Broker’s conference I was discussing Real Estate 2.0 with a few of our brokers. A lot of them were curious about the buzz but didn’t have the slightest idea of what it is all about. This post is an introduction to trends going on with real estate on the web.

An important thing to keep in mind is the generational gap between brokers, agents and the real estate customer because this has a huge impact on RE 2.0 acceptance. A lot of brokers and agents are Baby Boomers. In contrast many new home buyers are Generation X and Generation Y.

So this is the tip of Real Estate 2.0:

1. Blogging
2. Social Networking
3. Open data
4. Mash ups

Let’s start with what is blogging or what is a blog?

From the Wordpress Docs:

“Blog” is an abbreviated version of “weblog,” which is a term used to describe web sites that maintain an ongoing chronicle of information. A blog is a frequently updated, personal website featuring diary-type commentary and links to articles on other Web sites. Blogs range from the personal to the political, and can focus on one narrow subject or a whole range of subjects.

Essentially it is content written on specific topics displayed in chronological order usually newest to oldest. Blogs are valuable because they are an easy and inexpensive way to build your reputation and identity online. Reputation is what people say about you. And they are talking online. The web has grown into a social tool.

Social networking refers to people having social interactions online. Real estate has always been a people business and the web allows people to interact more quickly and efficiently. The value here is that you can maintain good relationships with many more clients with a lot less time.

By leveraging social networking tools like blogs, FaceBook, MySpace, LinkedIn and participating in online communities like Yahoo! Answers your expertise and your reputation can let you interact with more people which directly equates to more business. As a further benefit by investing in your online identity it will generate business for you while you sleep.

The next part of Real Estate 2.0 is opening up the listing data. This is a controversial subject for many brokers and agents. Protecting listing data has traditionally been synonymous with the preservation of livelihood. This thinking has become outdated. The industry’s mls.ca already has most of the listings in Canada available online all the time. The data is already out there so the value of real estate agents as gateways to listings is already gone. There is more value to the industry as a whole by opening up the listing data.

Making the data available encourages others to use it on their websites and applications. This directly increase the exposure of an agent’s listings. The more eyeballs that see a listing the quicker it will sell. Free marketing, where’s the downside?

Opening up the listing data also encourage mash ups. Tools and data from different websites mixed together to form a whole greater than the sum of its parts. Anytime you see a real estate listing sitting on a Google map you’re looking at a mash up.

This is important because the cost of building something big and complex like listings on a map becomes simple and affordable. By commodifying these things even a teenager can build something that would have cost millions a few years ago. The result is more eyeballs and more free marketing for your listings.

This post just scratches the surface of Real Estate 2.0. The new ideas of sharing, online reputation and identity management do challenge the traditional thinking of real estate marketing. The key thing brokers ought to know is that Gen X and Gen Y is growing up. We’re getting married, having kids and beginning to buy and upgrade our homes. We think in Real Estate 2.0 terms so it is frustrating for us to operate on Real Estate 1.0.

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Yesterday at the Vancouver Real Estate Technology Meet Up guest speaker Joel Burslem, Social Media Manager of Inman News and proprietor of the Future Of Real Estate Marketing blog gave a presentation on trends in online real estate marketing.

This is a summary of Joel’s presentation:

1. Learn the new tools. The “winds of change” are coming.
2. Build your online reputation. The game is the same, you build your business by touching bases. Online your website can work for you while you sleep.
3. Have conversations. Blogging and participating in online communities (LinkedIn, FaceBook, Yahoo! Answers, etc) demonstrate your expertise. Have conversations with people. Learn to type.
4. Show, not tell. More photos, more video and more information. Use your digital camera, make a video, upload it to YouTube.

I share Joel’s opinions and I like to push Real Estate 2.0 marketing ideas as much as I can. In the end, whether offline or online the key is about differentiation and standing out from the crowd. It pays to be remarkable.

Here’s a new mantra, apply the old rules, learn the new tools. The web commoditises everything at light speed. Soon every agent will have a great looking website with a listing search for $5/mo. When everybody is remarkable, nobody is remarkable. The only way to stand out is by investing in and marketing your reputation.

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The GeekEstate blog has an interesting post by Brian Wilson on never ending MLS data access debate. Brian doesn’t see value in opening up the listing data to syndication:

I can understand how making MLS data more malleable and easier to syndicate may benefit national aggregating websites like Zillow, Trulia, Homegain, etc, but I do not understand the value of this to the real estate agents or real estate customers. I look at this question in a very capitalistic way by following the money…after all, this is a business to most of us, not a government service of some type.

It is a good read with compelling reasons for keeping the data more controlled.

I am of the opinion that there is more value for everybody if we share listing information with anybody that wants it. Let the data be free. The more places it can be seen the more value it can generate.

Here’s how I would make listing data available:

1. Put your best foot forward. Clean up those descriptions, add pictures and list all the features. Make people want to use your data!
2. Give away just enough to whet their appetite. Address, photos, features, description, number of bedrooms, bathrooms, etc. Make them come back to you for more.
3. Get linked. Anybody that uses your data has to link back to you. This drives more traffic to your site and that is good.

A good real estate website tells customers why you’re the best agent to represent them in their next transaction. The best way to accomplish that is by marketing your skills and expertise.

That is why we added testimonials to our FlexiSites. Take a look at the feedback our agents have been receiving at http://www.sutton.com/testimonials/.

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With the franchise office move upcoming we only have a couple new features/improvements and a few smaller bug fixes for this week:

1. Added Educational Designations to flex-site contact form.   REALTORS® can now add designations such as: BA, MBA, or any other real-estate related designations.
2. Updated settings to improve search result on Google and other search engines.
3. Several small bug fixes:
   • Realtor search results better represent smaller areas (especially when these areas are represented by more than one office).
   • Resolved an issue we were having downloading listings from REBGV (Greater Vancouver).
   • Made the “Realtor/Listing Linker” script a little more efficient.
   • Fixed a bug with the Flexi-site page titles that was occuring in rare cases

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On Monday, you will notice two small updates:

1. Flexi-sites: Now REALTORS® and Offices can add/update their main Flexi-site photo via the upload page under the Presentation/Photo tabs in the Flexi-site editor.
   Note: This upload change is not instant, as SGRS must approve all photos for size, format, and quality.
2. Listings: We’ve added a new REALTOR® / Listing linking script for downloaded listings that will run during business hours on the hour from 6am PST (9am EST) until 6pm PST (9pm EST).

Explanation:

• In order for downloaded listings to appear on the REALTOR® Flexi-sites, the user must enter their Real Estate Board ID in the editor.
• For those REALTORS® who haven’t entered this Real Estate Board ID yet, you no longer need to wait 24 hours (the next download time) to be linked to your listings.

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In an effort to increase traffic and interest in the Sutton Blog, we’ve added social bookmarking links under the “Share This” link (look for this icon at the bottom of each post). Now we have an easy way for readers to post articles that interest them on all of their favourite social networking and bookmarking sites, such as: Facebook, Digg, Del.icio.us, etc.  In addition, under the “Share This” link, there is also an option to email the article to a friend.

Please leave a comment and let us know if there are any other sites you wish to have a “Share This” link to and we’ll see if we can add it in as well.

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Welcome to the Sutton Group Realty Services Ltd. (SGRS) Blog.

This blog is intended to be used as a means of communication between SGRS and our Brokers, REALTORS®, and real estate clients. We’re hoping this actually brings double the value to Sutton:

1. The blog itself allows us to keep our Brokers, REALTORS®, and real estate clients informed of any developments to our various web projects.
2. The blog’s “comment system” allows our Brokers, REALTORS®, and real estate clients to leave suggestions of improvement, complaints, compliments, or general thoughts about our web projects.

This two-way street is important to us as it allows us to grow and better understand the needs of our users. Please feel free to comment on any of the new features that interest you.

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