Unfortunately, being able to decode a property listing on a real estate site doesn’t necessarily mean that you’ll get a clear picture of the house that’s for sale. Like comparing apples to oranges, one Realtor’s flowery ”luxurious master bath” may be another real estate agent’s succinctly stated “full bath.” Even real estate agents can find themselves confused when reading listings from another part of the country. Each regional of the U.S. seems to have its own unique way of describing different real estate features. Being unfamiliar with the local slang can radically skew your interpretation of a real estate listing. For example, a California bungalow could be a Midwest ranch or a New England Cape Cod. Each word conjures up a very different mental image depending on where you live in.

More than 900 nationwide multiple listing sites complicate the issue. Many determine their own listing standards. Discrepancies from one real estate website to another are often found in the way square footage is determined, how living space is defined, and how bedrooms and bathrooms are reported.

Such inconsistencies in the reporting, translation and display of real estate property data have led the Real Estate Standards Organization (RESO) to consider creating and adopting a standardized Data Dictionary for the real estate industry. Charged with promoting the development and implementation of data standards across the industry, the organization’s board has scheduled a discussion of the Data Dictionary proposal for its April meeting.

Real Estate Standards Organization board chairman Rebecca Jensen, CEO of UtahRealEstate.com, told The Seattle Times that preliminary discussions at the Real Estate Connect conference make publication of the first real estate Data Dictionary “very close.”

Real Estate ‘Dictionary’ Aimed at Standardizing Descriptions is a post from: Properties Online Blog

Easier to use and display and even more portable than laptop computers, it didn’t take iPads long to replace laptops at open houses and client meetings. Their larger screen size also gives tablets a considerable edge over smartphones when it comes to displaying property listings and running walk-through videos for home buyers.

iPads have become de rigueur at open houses. Real estate agents find tablets a convenient and eye-catching way to showcase other area properties. Touch technology still engenders a certain “oh, wow!” response that impresses home shoppers. Some real estate agents have found it profitable to join in sponsoring neighborhood open houses. Tablet tours at each property entice home shoppers to visit other area open houses. But numerous industry watchers believe that tablets and the rise of mobile communication have already rung the death knell for traditional open houses. Time-crunched home buyers would rather check out property video tours on their iPads than spend time traipsing from house to house.

The marrying of tablets and mobile technology allows real estate agents to interact with clients anytime, anywhere. Video conferencing is replacing office visits. Tweets are replacing emails. iPad and iPhone apps allow real estate agents to forward listing information and video tours to clients as soon as new listings are posted. House hunters can now peruse real estate listings from the comfort of their home or while they’re on the go. With an iPad, home buyers can check out new listings while they’re commuting to work or sitting in the parking lot waiting to pick up the soccer car pool. Tablet technology frees real estate agents and home buyers from time and place constraints, opening a new era in real estate.

If you have an iPad, you might want to check out this cool app called Open Home Pro

iPad Is Becoming a Must Have at Real Estate Open Houses is a post from: Properties Online Blog

For many years Real Estate agents have struggled to create professional, engaging videos for their listings.  The expense of having a professional video shot has always been cost prohibitive and the quality for most do-it-yourselfers usually leaves something to be desired. Virtuets seeks to solve these issues by enabling real estate professionals to create property videos that won’t break the bank.

This December, Properties Online will be releasing their new product called Virtuets. Virtuets allow real estate professionals to create stunning videos for each listing using still images, music and a whole lot of pizzazz! The agent can select the genre and music that best fits the property and the Virtuet’s engine does the rest. Agents can share the videos on YouTube, blogs or Facebook!  Additionally, they can burn each Virtuet to a DVD for safe storage. These engaging videos will impress even the most discriminating seller. The company plans to release this new product as an added value service for their website products ListingDomains.com and RealEstateSites.com but will also launch a stand alone version in 2011.

-Amanda Cornelius, realinventive.com

New Video Posting Tool for Real Estate Agents is a post from: Properties Online Blog

Listing websites, or single property websites, are gradually becoming an essential tool in the marketing tools arsenal of savvy realtors. The reasons are simple:

1. Single property websites impress sellers, because they see them as proof that their agent is willing to work hard to sell their property.

2. Property websites are great for buyers because they love the convenience of having all the information about the house, including images, maps and mortgage calculators, in a single place.

3. Agents love listing websites because despite being so impressive, they are very affordable, and very easy to set up. A beautiful listing website filled with info, images and tools take just half an hour to set up.

4. Single property websites include built-in, easy to use tools for sharing properties on a wide range of social networks. Since social media is quickly becoming a must-use tool for agents, this is a huge advantage of listing websites.

5. Since listing websites have the home’s physical address as their URL, they are typically one of the first results to come up when potential buyers search for the property online. Since more and more people start their search online these days, the fact that listing websites are search engine friendly is another huge advantage.

6. Single property websites are a great way to secure listings. Agents can create free demo sites for prospects prior to getting the listing. The demo website can be filled with unlimited photos and documents and can feature music, a voice over, a video and more. Agents can then email prospects a link to the demo site, or demo the site live at the listing presentation. When the agent gets the listing, they can purchase the property website.

7. Property websites work better than virtual tours because they are easier to find. Virtual tours are directed at buyers who have already seen the property someplace else (on the agent’s site, for example, or in the MLS listings). Virtual tours don’t generate traffic in their own right. On the other hand, property websites generate their own direct traffic through online searches, social media and through the sign rider on the property itself.

Just like many other online tools, single property websites are quickly moving from a “nice to have” tool to a “must have tool.” Take advantage of them today!

7 Reasons Why Listing Websites Work is a post from: Properties Online Blog

Sellers love property websites. Sellers love individual property websites because they give them the feeling that the agent has worked really hard to feature their home in the best possible way. Filled with images, rich text, floor plans, neighborhood information and mortgage tools, single property websites have a professional look and convey a strong message of “Look at what I can do for you!”

Buyers love property websites. For homebuyers, this is a matter of convenience. Being able to type the property’s street address into their browser’s URL field and gain immediate access to a site filled with all the information they’ll ever need about the property saves buyers time and helps them make an informed decision.

Property sites are easy to set up. Despite being so impressive to both sellers and buyers, the little secret that agents don’t tell their clients is that single property websites, such as the websites offered by Listing Domains, are very easy to set up. A typical property website, filled with text, images and tools, takes less than a half an hour to set up, yet looks extremely professional.

Individual property websites are affordable. The ROI on each single property website is extremely high. For a one-time fee of $60, agents who set up a Listing Domains property site get a high-quality, professional looking website that stays up for a full year and helps them secure listings, keep sellers happy, attract buyers, and establish themselves as Internet-savvy real estate professionals.

Property websites facilitate viral online marketing. One of the great benefits of online real estate marketing is the ability to use social networks to create viral marketing campaigns. More and more agents are discovering that featuring a property on social networking sites is a great way to get people to spread the word about it. Single property websites such as those offered by Listing Domains include built-in, easy to use tools for sharing properties on a wide range of social networks.

Five Quick Facts About Single Property Websites is a post from: Properties Online Blog

Sellers know that the real estate market has become a high-tech market, and that effectively marketing their property must include online marketing. When sellers see that an agent is willing to go above and beyond and create a full website for their property, they are always impressed (of course, they don’t know how easy it actually is to set up a single property website!).

Marketing Real Estate
Methods Real Estate Agent Used to Market Home

Single property website providers such as Listing Domains are now allowing agents to create free demo sites as an excellent way to impress potential customers and secure listings. Demo websites allow agents to create a website for prospects prior to getting the listing. Just like a live property website, the demo website can be filled with unlimited photos and documents and can feature music, a voice over, a video and more. Agents can then email prospects a link to the demo site, or demo the site live at the listing presentation. Once an agent gets the listing, they can purchase the property website.

According to the National Association of REALTORS®, in 2009 the Internet was the third most common way for buyers to find an agent. Since Listing Domains property websites stay live for a full year, even after the property has been sold, they become a great way for real estate professionals to showcase their work for previous clients and to establish themselves as savvy realtors who are experts at all aspects of real estate online marketing. This helps them attract future clients who have seen their work, are impressed by it, and want the same for their own home.

How Property Websites Help Agents Win Listings is a post from: Properties Online Blog

We’ve already discussed the importance of marketing and promoting your single property websites after you have created them.

We also said that as real estate professionals, we are very aware of how busy you are and so have made it our goal to include as many useful tools and features as possible in our listing websites in order to make the important task of marketing your website significantly easier.

One of the best features we have included in our property websites is providing you with an html snippet of your website. This html snippet enables you to easily cut and paste your data into online classified sites such as the very popular Craigslist, Backpage or Ebay.

Don’t forget to take advantage of this free service. Craigslist can be a powerful tool for generating free traffic to your property website. It is one of the most popular websites in the world, with millions of daily visitors.

Regularly posting relevant Craigslist classifieds that point to your listings and include a link to your property websites have the potential of driving significant amounts of highly targeted traffic to your property websites. Get in the habit of using our handy html snippet for each listing and you can see a real difference in the amount of traffic your site receives.

Drive More Traffic to your Listing Website with Online Classifieds is a post from: Properties Online Blog

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

Listing Domains Launches new Flash Image Gallery is a post from: Properties Online Blog

Social media works very well for real estate marketing, because it’s natural. You join a social network such as, say, Twitter, and you start posting useful information and following relevant people.

In just a few months, you can build yourself an impressive network of online friends, who are very loyal to you, because they have come to see you as a good source of relevant, reliable real estate information.

But where is the connection between social networking and your ListingDomains single property website? Simple. Each of our property websites comes with a built-in posting tool that enables you to quickly and effortlessly add your website to your favorite social network.

So, for example, if you’ve been active on Facebook and have a couple hundred friends there, you can post each single property website to your Facebook profile to let people know about it. Now they can spread the word around about your new listing.

But it gets even better – our social networking tool allows your website visitors to also add your website to their own social networks, spreading the word even further. The potential is unlimited, and you can reach a far larger market than you have ever anticipated.

Use Social Media to Promote Your Listings is a post from: Properties Online Blog

A professional-looking, easy to navigate agent website should be a big part of your real estate marketing strategy. We are real estate professionals too: we know that as a real estate professional you work hard each and every day to manage your business and to show potential clients that you are different – and better – than other agents. We know competition is fierce, and we want to provide you with the best tools to be the best agent in your market.

No doubt, you realize by now that a business – any business – must have a website. These days, if you don’t have a website, you seem unprofessional. People look for information online, and any business that can’t provide them with that information is dismissed as irrelevant.

But you don’t just need any website. You need an affordable website that is tailored specifically to your needs as an agent, that offers many features and lots of flexibility, and that is user-friendly. Our agent websites offer you just that. They are packed with features and are very easy to use. After all, our Realtor websites are designed by agents for agents!

We pride ourselves on offering you the most useful features, and the best design options, for the lowest price. Our real estate websites are extremely customizable. You can get as custom as you want, or you can sit back and use our default text and graphics – you decide!

Our agent websites also take advantage of social media, which has become an important marketing tool for real estate professionals. Our websites include a built-in posting tool that enables you, AND your visitors, to quickly add your website to various social networks such as Facebook.

Just as important: our real estate websites are optimized for search engines, which helps search engines index your site properly, and as a result, helps people find your site when they search for properties or for a real estate agent.

Your website could very well be your first point of contact with a new client. Is your website giving your clients the right impression? With our award winning agent websites you can rest assured that you have all the latest online tools built right in. Our design team is always working hard to ensure that your website not only looks clean and professional, but is designed to give buyers and sellers the information that they are looking for online.

Please visit Real Estate Websites today to create a free demo of your very own agent website.

An Agent Website Can Help You Sell is a post from: Properties Online Blog