The following statistics are provided by the National Association of Realtors (NAR):

• 90% of consumers did online research before they bought their last home.
• 36% of buyers found the home they ended up purchasing on the internet, while only 2% of buyers found their home in the newspaper.
• 63% of Agents marketing budget still goes to offline advertising (newspaper, flyers, etc).
• Consumers’ looked at an average of 12 homes over a period of 12 weeks before purchasing.

Are you staying in touch long enough to capture a relationship with an online lead?

• 89% of consumers said that response time was very important when choosing their agent.
• 56% of consumers expect a response from their agent within 30 minutes.

Online Consumers understand that the internet is an immediate medium. Are you succeeding with your online leads? Do you have a hole in your business model? What is your average response time?

• 88% of Buyers said they would use their agent again or recommend their agent to others (66% said definitely, 22% said probably).
• Only 10% of Buyers used an agent they had used previously.
• 81% of Sellers said they would use their agent again or recommend their agent to others (59% said definitely, 22% said probably).
• Only 24% of Sellers used an agent they had used previously.

The vast majority of consumers — 66% of buyers and 59% of sellers — say they would “definitely” use their real estate agent again or recommend that person to others. Yet only 10 percent of buyers and 24 percent of sellers say they used the same real estate professional that they worked with for their previous transaction. Why is there a disconnect? One reason, undoubtedly, is a lack of consistent communication.

Your day is busy and your time is important.  Make sure that you aren’t letting your clients fall through the cracks.  If you don’t have the time to maintain these high levels of contact, let a drip email system lend a helping hand.  Consumers need constant reminders of who you are, what you do and what does that mean for them.

Make sure you provide the right level of contact.

According to a new Profile of Home Buyers and Sellers, recently released by the National Association of REALTORS®, the Internet has become an essential and indispensable tool in the home search process.

• More than one third of buyers began their search for a home by looking online for properties for sale.
• 90% of home buyers used the Internet as one of the information sources in their home search process.
• The Internet continues to be increasingly popular among all homebuyers, while traditional real estate marketing methods such as print media are declining.
• In 2009, 36 percent of buyers reported that they found their home online, up from 32 percent in 2008.

How Buyers Search for Property
Information Sources used in Home Search

It’s important for real estate professionals to understand that the Internet is not replacing them. On the contrary – according to the NAR study, 89% of buyers who used the Internet, also used a real estate agent. And the vast majority of homebuyers still purchase their home through a real estate agent.

It’s not that the Internet is replacing agents, but agents who want to stay current and on top of their game need to harness the power of the Internet and use it as part of their real estate marketing campaigns.

ATTN ListingDomains users! We have just released our new Flash Slide Show control that can display your property photos FULL SCREEN at FULL RESOLUTION. Our dynamic resizer will optimize and display your photos to fit any size monitor. Our enhanced slide show features include:

	Unlimited Photos
	Dragable Thumbnail Strip
	Photo Captions
	Set Your Image Timing
	High Definition Full Screen Mode

This CNN article is not good news for those of us in the real estate industry. In it Karen Weaver from Deutsche Bank estimates that home prices in the US will fall another 14% causing 48% of homeowners to be upside down on their mortgage. What?? I thought we were bottoming out? Anyone have any comments on this?

Read the article here

I just downloaded the new app from walkscore.com and must say, it is pretty cool.  Some of my favorite features include:

• It’s Free!
• Will find nearby Starbucks in a hurry
• Directions to the amenity of your choice
• GPS will map your location
• Includes restaurant reviews

For all you iphone junkies out there, this is one to get!

Welcome to Real Inventive – a fresh, innovative real estate blog that provides an online space where real estate agents and brokers can network, learn about new real estate technology and regulations, follow real estate news, and share interesting thoughts and ideas.

It’s been a rough year for all of us! The real estate market, just like the economy in general, has been through some serious turmoil. Thankfully, it looks like we are finally starting to see the light at the end of the tunnel. While the economy is still very fragile, the free fall of real estate prices has finally stabilized in many local markets. Home sales are going up, and as we all know, this will eventually lead to home prices going up too.

In the meantime, if you find yourself without enough work or earnings, think about this as an opportunity – this can be a great time to take a course, to learn something new, to make yourself familiar with real estate technology, and to improve yourself as a real estate professional. Think about times where you have less work as times when you can prepare yourself for the next boom. Economy works in cycles, and the more credentials and knowledge you have, the better positioned you will be to make the most of the next real estate boom.

Before we wrap this up, a quick note for the real estate bloggers out there: we would love to hear from you! We are always open to receive fresh new content to enrich our blog and make it more interesting to our readers, most of whom are real estate professionals.

Please feel free to contact us at: [ideas AT realinventive DOT com].

Even if you’re not a blogger, we would still love to hear from you if you have an interesting idea, a tip, or anything you think we should cover on this real estate blog.

RealInventive.com is powered by Properties Online, the creators of ListingDomains.com and RealEstateSites.com.

(from Realty Times) Interesting article about an Oakland, California real estate investment fund carving out a niche that might work in other areas with roughly similar demographics: Acquiring and turning around lower-cost single family houses in neighborhoods outside San Francisco with strong mass-transit connections to urban employment centers and good job-growth potentials.  Read More

(from CNN) In recent weeks, mortgage brokers, bankers, and even Fed Chairman Ben Bernanke have been talking about a housing rebound later this year. And the figures seem to back up their optimism: New home sales rose 11% in June for the third consecutive month. Read More

Partner Honored for its Excellence in Sales, Quality and Customer Service.

BERKELEY, CA – iHomefinder, Inc., the leading provider of online property search and MLS data, announces that Properties Online LLC has been named May 2009 Reseller Partner of the Month. Created to honor excellence among iHomefinder’s community of over 200 Reseller Partners, this month’s award acknowledges Properties Online’s success in increasing their iHomefinder IDX sales by over 400% in the last year.

Properties Online LLC was founded in 1999 by real estate professionals who wanted to offer unique website marketing tools to the industry.  The company bridges traditional marketing techniques with the ever evolving Web.  Their products increase lead generation and save time for agents, sellers and buyers.

In May 2008, Properties Online launched a new agent website product incorporating iHomefinder IDX called RealEstateSites.com.  The RealEstateSites.com sites are user configured, completely customizable, simple to navigate, and packed full of dynamic features that engage buyers and sellers.  RealEstateSites.com utilizes interactive maps, market reports, recent home sales, and detailed reports to educate and inform prospects about the home buying and selling process.

“iHomefinder’s IDX solution has been a wonderful enhancement to RealEstateSites.com. iHomefinder allows us to offer our clients a complete website package with the tools buyers and sellers are looking for online. With iHomefinder as an intricate part of our website marketing system, we look forward to continued growth in 2009 and beyond.” said Amanda Cornelius, Founder/CEO, Properties Online, LLC.

“We are pleased with exceptional growth in the iHomefinder/Properties Online relationship over the last year.  They offer an attractive and effective solution for brokers and agents,” said Brett DeSchepper, Founder/President, iHomefinder.

For more information on Properties Online, please visit http://www.propertiesonline.com. More information on iHomefinder and its Reseller Partner program is available here.

About iHomefinder:
iHomefinder is the leading national provider of online property search technology and MLS (Multiple Listing Service) data for real estate websites. Using the Internet Data eXchange (IDX) standard, iHomefinder powers hosted property search and lead capture capabilities in thousands of real estate broker and agent websites. The company partners with a wide variety of web designers and online marketing firms to integrate and deploy our technology in the real estate websites and related online marketing applications they develop. They also maintain relationships with hundreds of MLS’s across the US to provide accurate and timely listing data. The company maintains a long-standing reputation for stellar compliance with the local rules of each MLS.

In addition to serving real estate agents and brokers, iHomefinder provides strategic data services to innovative Internet marketing firms and MLSs who require robust access to national real estate listing data and reliable compliance technology. Established in 1997, iHomefinder is privately held and headquartered in Berkeley, California.