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Most Adulterous Lifestyles: Life is Short, Have an …

Published by Joseph Ferrara (2) March 17th, 2010 in humor. Comments

Is it true, according to a survey of 1.9 million members by the “world’s #1 Married Dating service for ATTACHED men and women…”, AshleyMadison.com, these are the highest cheaters? Real estate agents make the cut for women and men. Oh, my.

For Women:

1. Teachers
2. Stay-at-home Moms
3. Nurses
4. Administrative Assistants
5. Real Estate Agents

For Men:

1. Physicians
2. Police Officers
3. Lawyers
4. Real Estate Agents
5. Engineers

For more curious types, use their iPhone App.

h/t BoingBoing, Shine and One More Reason to Hate Real Estate Agents (360Digest).

Image by AshleyMadison.

Technorati Tags: dating service, ashley madison, survey

PSAR Launches San Diego’s First Organized Real Estate Listing Syndication for Buyers

Published by Joseph Ferrara (2) March 16th, 2010 in Press Release.

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pacific assoc of realtors

Press Release:

Property Listing Distribution to Popular Consumer Real Estate Search Websites Enhances Member Services and Extends Inventory Access to Buyers Worldwide

Chula Vista, CA – March 16, 2010 – The Pacific Southwest Association of REALTORS® (“PSAR”) today announced a strategic initiative that will provide to millions of consumers in the United States, as well as to buyers in International markets, easy access to PSAR member property listings, online. The move is designed to bolster member benefits and enable better quality of service and consumer experience online.

The undertaking is in the advanced stages of development and is planned to go live by the end of March 2010.

A first in San Diego County, one of the nation’s largest, most desirable residential and 2nd home vacation destinations, the new initiative will give PSAR’s 1500 broker and agent members a significant competitive advantage through efficient branding and listing exposure on the web, at no additional cost to them.

Under the program, all PSAR members will be able to selectively publish and update listings across Point2 Technologies’ (www.Point2Agent.com) industry leading syndication and re-syndication partner network of nearly 40 high traffic real estate portals and search engines, and nearly 300 U.S. national and regional newspaper websites, with a single click of the mouse.

“It is extremely rewarding for PSAR to lead San Diego County with an important initiative such as syndication, combining tremendous new benefits for PSAR members with heightened service levels for consumers looking for the help and expertise of a local REALTOR®,” said Mark Marchand, Chief Executive Officer, Pacific Southwest Association of REALTORS®. “We are pleased to have chosen Point2 for this critical endeavor. Their teams took the lead on the project and made the process seem effortless.”

“Distribution of listing information to various web portals such as Google, Yahoo!, Trulia, Zillow and others is a far more efficient and cost effective way to garner exposure for property than trying to persuade consumers to go to any one website or web portal in particular. This is evident when you consider that the number one, most visited real estate website in the world (REALTOR.com), with all of its efforts and brand recognition, only receives 6 to 8 percent of the traffic, according to Hitwise.com. It is much easier to put the listing information on the sites that have traffic, than to convince all of that traffic to come to a single website,” said Saul Klein, Chief Executive Officer, Point2 Technologies Inc.

“As adoption of syndication expands in the real estate industry, listing data online will become more accurate and the distribution of listings amongst the hundreds, even thousands of parties will become more streamlined and efficient. Point2 is excited to work with PSAR Staff and Leadership to bring the value of its member listings to the web. Syndication of property data provides benefits for brokers, agents and consumers,” concluded Klein.

Using integrated, easy to use syndication control dashboards, the new program will also enable PSAR members to seamlessly subscribe to, and launch Point2 Agent accounts, for optimized productivity tools including detailed online exposure traffic reports, an optional Point2 Agent website or blog, and critically, effective lead capture, management and conversion tools.

About The Pacific Southwest Association of REALTORS®

Since 1928, the Pacific Southwest Association of REALTORS® (PSAR) has played a significant role in shaping the history, growth & development of the San Diego County South Bay. The Association maintains this leadership role today assuring each REALTOR® member the opportunity to seek new heights in their professional lives.

The Pacific Southwest Association of REALTORS® promotes, educates and supports its members in serving the public with the highest degree of ethics and professionalism. By partnering with local, state and national associations of REALTORS®, PSAR exists to enhance the real estate profession, to preserve private property rights and to improve the regulatory environment. More information about PSAR can be accessed at www.psar.org.

For More Information:
Mark Marchand, EVP/CEO

Pacific Southwest Association of REALTORS®

T. 1-619-421-7811 F. 1-619-421-0087
E. mark@psar.org

Microsoft Tag Like QR Codes for Mobile Phone

Published by Joseph Ferrara (2) March 12th, 2010 in qr code. Comments

microsoft tag

microsoft tag 1

I have been a fan of QR Codes for some time. QR Codes look like bar codes and communicate information about a person or a home or a product — simply by taking a photo of the QR Code with your cell phone.

A real estate firm had used QR codes on home For Sale signs. Although QR codes widely used in Japan, they are rarely used in the U.S. to bridge the gap between print and the online world.

Perhaps it will change. With Microsoft Tag.

snap it

Microsoft will create a colorful visual tag for you to store your information. Once someone photographs the tag with their cell phone they get your info. The tag reader is available for a lot of phones. I easily downloaded Microsoft Tag for my Blackberry… and used it with no problem.

While attending the Leading Real Estate Companies of the World great convention in Las Vegas, where I had the pleasure of speaking, I met Carpenter Realtors who was using Microsoft Tags on his home For Sale signs AND business cards.

mcrosoft tag for sale house

The Microsoft tag on the For Sale sign gave me all the information about the home. Shooting his business card recorded all his contact information (phone number, email, address, etc) in my cell phone address book. That was useful.

tag busines card

real estate tag

You can even create custom Microsoft tags and use it them in any kind of print advertising.

custom tags

While Microsoft’s Tag is colorful and easy to use, the problem appears most folks need to take a little effort to download the system to their phone. Time will tell if this catches on.

Video here. Microsoft video demo here (why you can’t copy it is odd). Microsoft Tag blog here. (they have a $5000 contest in Austin til March 15)

Technorati Tags: microsoft tag, qr codes, for sale signs, real estate marketing

RentJunge is Apartment Search Engine with Facebook App

Published by Joseph Ferrara (2) March 11th, 2010 in Marketing tips. Comments

rentjungle

RentJungle is new real estate rental search site.

According to their press release:

Rentjungle.com works much like Google in that it scours the Internet and pulls together apartment listings from a variety of sites. It one ups Google by focusing solely on apartment searches and displaying results either on a simple, interactive map or as a listing with links to Google street views. So you can get an idea of what awaits outside your front window without having to physically visit the place—especially useful if you’re moving to a new city or want to apartment hunt at 2am. (emphasis added)

Here’s how easy it is to search on the website. Enter address, city or zip. Interestingly, you can search for rentals near colleges. It searches many websites, including Craigslist, Sublet.com, and Apartments.com.

Or, you can search it out on Facebook and share it with a friend:

Besides being able to search for apartments in a city, including neighborhoods, it has a Facebook application you can add to your Facebook page. It lets you search on Facebook for apartments and share the results with your friends.

Rent Jungle has launched an apartment search and sharing application that is first of its kind in the apartment industry. You can search for apartments using our Facebook Apartment App without even leaving the Facebook site. You can share apartments and invite your friends to comment. Best of all, it is free! Try it! (emphasis added)

It also has a rent comparison tool to see if you are paying too much for rent. Interesing.

rent comparison

Who’s the guy in the Jungle?

Behind the site is Rick Ferris, a real estate broker with over 30 years experience in residential and commercial realty. He’s sold or leased over $400 million in commercial property and has earned the CoStar Power Broker Award every year since 2002.

I’m going to have to pass Rent Jungle to my son, who’s looking for an apartment in Manhattan.

Technorati Tags: rentjungle, facebook apartment app, rental apartment search

Need Help with a Domain Name? Try PickyDomains

Published by Joseph Ferrara (2) March 10th, 2010 in Marketing tips. Comments

Someone asked me if I knew any websites to help pick a domain name. So I passed this old post from 2007. Still good. Check the related posts for other posts on domain names.

pickydomains

Choosing a domain name is tough. Ideally it should be easy to spell, catchy, trademarkable and describe your business. PickyDomains is a website which claims to have the method to find your ideal domain name.

The site uses the wisdom of crowds — domain name contributors from around the world suggest names based on your criteria. If you like the name, it costs you $50—half of it goes to the namer, half to Picky.

This is how PickyDomains describes how it tries to help you:

If you need a great, memorable, easy to pronounce domain name that EXACTLY describes what your website is all about – you are in the right place. This is what we do. We find available domain names that are descriptive, concise and are easily remembered. And if we can’t find one, or you don’t like any available domain names we suggest – you don’t pay anything. PickyDomains.Com is completely RISK FREE.

After you deposited $50, we need to know your answers to these questions:

1. What is your site going to be about.
2. Does the domain name has to be in .COM zone or other extensions are desirable.
3. What keywords are critical for your domain name.
4. Is there a limit as to how long your domain name has to be (in characters.)
5. Dashes or no dashes.
6. Give us an example of existing websites in your niche that you really like.

Once we get answers to these questions, we’ll send you an e-mail with your login and password. You’ll start receiving your domain name suggestions within 24 hours (sometimes as fast as 10 minutes).

Your job is to check suggestions periodically and mark them as ‘Liked’ or ‘Disliked’ to help our contributors. We will soon add an option that allows you to comment each domain name suggestion, if you choose.

Once you see that perfect domain name suggestion, simply mark it as ‘Picked’. This will complete your order (we’ll forward $25 to a contributor who made the winning suggestion).

Rarely a client doesn’t get a name that he or she really likes. But this does happen from time to time. All you do in this instance is simply close the order and ask as for refund.

Sounds like an interesting idea. Check them out. Has anyone used them? DialerQueen and SoftwareJudge did.

Are you a good name picker? Join them as a paid contributor? Register here.

Technorati Tags: Picky Domains, domain names

How to Use Twitter to Find Clients

Published by Joseph Ferrara (2) March 8th, 2010 in Marketing tips. Comments

Those who pooh-pooh Twitter for business, simply have not taken the time to explore the possibilities or still think it’s only about what you’re doing now. Here’s one method I share with my clients–it’s called the Anyone Know Search (AKS)

Go to Search.Twitter.com and type this in the search box: anyone know [fill in the blank with your profession and location (unless you're national)].

Here’s an example:

The results:

This is a Twitter need . Send a tweet or Direct Message to this person. Since you are a fellow Twit, you already have something in common. See if it works.

But there’s more to the AKS strategy.

Get the RSS feed for this Twitter search inquiry and you will get an email every time someone tweets they are looking for a Realtor in Portlad (or wherever the heck you are).

Here are some other folks looking for Realtors in other places on Twitter:

So wise up and try using Twitter to help folks looking for you to help them. More Twitter marketing tips coming here soon– so subscribe whydontcha?

Bonus Twitter Marketing Tip: The BIO TWEET

Since you’ve paid good money to come here…ah.. wait.. you haven’t paid a dime.. nevermind. Here’s a tip on your Twitter bio– you can change it. Do it to reflect what you are currently working on— “Saving folks from bank foreclosures in Chicago” “Writing a book on Twitter. ” “Casting for homeowners in LA” I call it the BIO TWEET.

Technorati Tags: twitter, twitter search, real estate marketing, marketing tips

Cool Twitter Search Tips

Published by Joseph Ferrara (2) March 8th, 2010 in Marketing tips. Comments

Here are some tips to search Twitter effectively at Search.Twitter.com.

(See Best Google Search Secrets for searching Google).

Type this Search term: Get these tweet results

real estate porn: tweets contain all terms (in any order)– “real” “estate” and “porn”. This is the default search setting. See example
“real estate agent”: tweets contain only the exact phrase “real estate agent”.
best OR worst: tweets will contain “best” or “worst” (or both).
root -beer: tweets contain “root” but not “beer” (because of the minus sign)
#lssmc: tweets contain the hashtag “lssmc”. (an underground SM salon in NYC)
from:Zillow: will show tweets sent from “Zillow”.
to:sellsius: will show results sent to “sellsius”.
@jfsellsius: results will reference “jfsellsius”.
“barcamp” near:”New York”: geolocation results will contain the exact phrase “barcamp” AND sent near “New York”. (See: Use GeoChirp to find Local tweets)
near:LA within:15mi: geolocation results are sent within 15 miles of “LA” .
guru since:2009-12-13: results contain “guru” AND were sent since December 13, 2009 (year-month-day).
ftw until:2009-12-13: results contain “ftw” AND were sent up to December 13, 2009.
film -scary : results contain “film”, but not “scary”, PLUS they have a positive attitude. (or snarky sarcasm)
Comcast : tweets contain “Comcast” and have a negative attitude (very popular with cable companies that suck)
hot? tweets contain “hot” and ask a question.
beautiful filter:links: tweets contain “beautiful” and link to URLs.
real estate source:Hootsuite: tweets contain “real estate” that were entered using Hootsuite