Real estate professionals Liz and Bill Spear have a point about getting real when it comes to prospective listing clients.

Basically they say, don’t necessarily count on us, or any one listing agent to get you the right buyer, Mr. and Mrs. Home Seller. The reality is, they will probably come from another agent we will contact.

“We’re a 10 to 1 longshot on us bringing you the buyer who writes the contact that leads to the actual sale of your house,” they wrote in their blog.

They’re being blunt. Maybe that’s not exactly what a seller wants to hear.

But if a listing agent tells a home buyer they  personally have tons of buyers, well, then something ain’t right either.

What the Spears are informing home sellers is that “our role as listing agents is to cause the sale of your home.”

There’s quite a bit of effort that goes into making a sale happen. That includes pricing. Making the property ready. Getting the word out. Taking pictures. Writing descriptions, etc. etc.

Basically, marketing that property so an another agent or seller will find it attractive to consider.

When you tell experienced sellers this, it creates trust because yes, they will realize you are not necessarily that one agent who has a prospect in their back pocket for their particularly property in that particular location at that price point.

Okay, so now we have established a trustworthy rapport with the prospective seller.

Next, why not dazzle them with what you can do?

Sure they are going to know that you will advertise their property and you will tell other agents and you will conduct some home tours.

But what if you also pulled out your laptop or tablet and showed them your SpatialMatch IDX and Lifestyle search engine platform on your site.

With its state-of-the art graphics, hyper-local maps,  its enormous database of homes for sales, neighborhood businesses, schools, parks and other amenities, it’s going to show that seller what the extra mile is all about when it comes to choosing a real estate professional.

Take them for a walk through SpatialMatch. Show them how you are going to position their home as a great place for people with middle-school aged children, or people who like to play golf, or people who like to jog in the park.

Show them how their home listing information will appear right next to a map pointing out the distance from several amenities that other homes don’t have.

Show them how people can save their searches, or searches can be emailed or shared on Facebook.

Imagine what is going through the sellers mind at that point.

“Wow, what an honest, down-to-earth real estate agent with some really cool technology who is going to be marketing my home with something like out of Star Wars. I’m in.”

As Emily Dickinson once said, “Truth is such a rare thing, it is delightful to tell it.”

Set them up with your reality-check, and then impress them with your technology. That’s truly a fantastic combination.

To read the Spear’s blog “We Won’t Sell Your Home”, go here.

For a demo on SpatialMatch, click here.

I read a few words the other day in an article on Realtor magazine that just popped out at me like a geyser gushing from a broken water main on a seller’s front yard.

The title of the article was “Winning Features For Any Real Estate Website.”

Now, I know the writer used the words in a broad sense to make a point about how to improve your web pages.

But as Mark Twain said, the difference between the right word and the almost right word is like the difference between lightning and lightning bug.

Before I tell you the words, let me put them in context.

The article explains how a real estate pro should focus on these attributes for their website: Is the content Accurate and Approachable? Customer-centric? Property rich? Knowledge rich? Analytical?

I particularly focused on the “knowledge rich” part.

The writer states: “Visitors to your site probably know right away that you’re a real estate pro – but what does that mean? Explain each aspect of your job. Spell out which communities you serve, and offer links to resources such as sites of local schools, cultural activities, and commerce.”

See the words in question?

The first word that caught my attention was “spell.”

Hey folks, this is the visual age. The Internet is a visual medium. Everybody knows photos and videos catch the eye of users tenfold more times than text.

Don’t spell it. Display it. You can use a real estate tool like the SpatialMatch IDX and Lifestyle search engine to create screenshots of the communities you serve. (see example below)

Screenshots of a map pointing out homes for sale. Aerial satellite views of the community. Heck, even a view of the terrain. That’s impressive.

The other words that caught my eye were “offer links.”

Now, links are okay. But remember, they also mean you are sending your prospects away. And any internet-savvy person knows that’s a no-no.

You spent a lot of effort over the years creating a site and positioning your site to get people there. Once you send them off into cyberspace, there’s no guarantee they will come back. There are plenty of sharks out there looking to grab your customers.

With the SpatialMatch platform embedded right on your site, again you can create pages showing home buyers maps of where all the schools are located.

Better yet, SpatialMatch provides a data snapshot of each school – number of students, teacher/student ratios, etc.

All on your site.

Same goes for businesses. You can create a page pointing out the highlights of each town – your favorite coffee shop, award-winning restaurants, cool book stores, neat places to shop, etc., etc.

Again, you can provide this hyper-local information without the prospect ever leaving your site.

Be proactive. Whenever you see a discussion going on about subdivisions or schools or local businesses, you can create a page with SpatialMatch and share a link to it by email or Facebook. Use it (like a shark) to drive people to your site.

So, the article had great advice, but there’s the difference that will set you apart from the others who read it.

They can write a list of the communities they specialize in. And they can provide links to various locations around town.

But you can be the epitome of “knowledge rich” by displaying all this information and a ton of other hyper-local information directly on your site.

Here are the critical points – don’t tell, show. Don’t send people off your site onto the giant highway that is the Internet. Keep them on your site by providing all the relevant information they need.

That’s a winning strategy.

To read the full Realtor magazine article and its useful tips, go here.

To learn more about SpatialMatch and how it can make your site “knowledge rich,” click here.

The deejays on the radio posed an interesting question the other day: “What are some of the items you used five years ago that you don’t use today?”

The pay phone is one. I challenge you to find one.  They’re all gone. Phone books are going by the wayside. Record stores are rare these days. Video rental places like Blockbuster have closed up. Book stores – gone.

Another interesting item they mentioned that has faded away is a printed map.

Who buys those anymore?

But hold on a second. Throughout history, maps have been incredibly valuable. They helped humans define, explain and navigate their way through the world ever since they were first found scrawled on cave walls. They recorded the advancement of civilization.

Some of those cave maps are estimated to be 25,000 years old.

Think how important maps were to early sailors who literally believed they could make a wrong turn and sail off the edge of the world. And sometimes you get mad at your GPS.

Sure, most people have maps on their cell phones. But those are very limited.

There’s a tremendous opportunity here for real estate professionals.

With the SpatialMatch IDX and Lifestyle search engine, in essence, you could become today’s map maker.

But using SpatialMatch’s sophisticated geo-spatial software combined with an enormous database of businesses, schools, landmarks, boundaries, etc. makes you more than just a plain ol’ cartographer.

No, you can be so much more.   You can be a custom cartographer.

For example, offer to provide home buyers with an array of maps tailored to their particular needs covering communities they are considering.

With SpatialMatch embedded on your site, all you have to do is find the property and then designate the amenities you want to illustrate. You can then save the search and email a link to your customers.

Is your prospect interested in schools?

Provide a map indicating local schools in the area and their relative distance from any property for sale.

Do they like to jog? Play golf? Stretch out in a yoga studio?

Create a map pointing out those locations.

Are they sushi-lovers?  Spaghetti lovers?  Steak lovers?

Maybe the idea of living near some great restaurants is just the thing that tips a buyer in favor of one property over another.  Anyone who has ever eaten a salmon roll with avocado and cream cheese can attest that taste buds are a powerful motivator.

And these are more than just maps. They include detailed information and photos about properties for sale, school sizes and teacher ratios, restaurant offerings, etc.

Now, maps today might not carry the same intensity as maps of old that pointed out where the sea monsters hid or even worse, where the earth ended.

But for a couple buying a home, as you know, finding just the right house in the right neighborhood can be a very intense experience, almost as intense as battling a dragon.

The real estate broker or agent who provides tools to help them navigate these waters is going to be the one that gets their business.

Make sure you are aware of the latest real estate technology on the market. Schedule a demo on SpatialMatch by clicking here.

I don’t know if you noticed lately, but there seems to be this new obsession with an old commodity.

I’m not talking about oil or gold. I’m talking about bacon.

People are crazy over this pork delicacy. There’s bacon ice cream, bacon wrapping paper, bacon-flavored candy necklaces.

So how would a savvy Realtor take advantage of this trend? Or any trend for that matter? Or any subject of intense interest?

Put a local spin on it. Tie it into your blog.

Follow me here.

For example, say you found a local restaurant that just makes the best bacon, lettuce and tomato sandwich in town. Crispy. On fresh bread. Homemade sauce. Mmmm good.

Write about it in your hyper-local blog. You obviously don’t want to write about food every day in your real estate blog, but it’s smart to vary your subjects so you are not just writing about home sales data every day either.

You are also flaunting your in-depth local knowledge.

People like BLT sandwiches. They are going to pay attention to what you say.

Then, the savvy Realtor will take a copy of their blog, put it in a nice frame, and take it to that restaurant (or spa or chiropractor or dress shop, etc., etc. etc.)

The business owner will certainly appreciate it. And when they post your blog on the wall, you will get the added exposure. And they will be your advocate for a long time.

You can go one step further. Using the SpatialMatch IDX and Lifestyle search engine, you can also add a screenshot  including  the location of the restaurant in relation to a local community you are farming (see example of Ruby’s Diner in Palm Springs, CA,  below)

This is not your standard Google map. The SpatialMatch format has colorful icons, channels for Homes for Sale, Lifestyle amenities, Values, Areas, Favorites and Alerts.

It’s impressive…and it’s going to impress people when they see it.

This hyper-local information that you provide and these state-of-the-art hyper-local tools are going to create and reinforce in the minds of buyers (and sellers) that you are the hyper-local expert.

You are the person to talk to in regard to where are the best schools, best restaurants, best stores, best parks, best tennis clubs, best everything.

You not only say it, you show it in your blog and you show it on your website with the enormous SpatialMatch neighborhood database.

Post it with all the content you produce, whether it’s a blog or a mailer.

So, you don’t need to write about BLT sandwiches. You can write about that new spa that just opened down the street. Or the new hairstylist from Beverly Hills they hired at the salon. Or the new exhibit at the local museum. It’s news and when you become the source of great and interesting news, people will follow you.

Whatever the subject, aggressively promoting your hyper-local knowledge and your hyper-local tools is going to help you bring home the bacon (sorry for the cliché). And that’s the oldest trend in the book –  finding ways to grow your business.

To learn more about SpatialMatch, click here.

Sure, we know the real estate business is tough. And continues to get tougher.

We hear it from our clients all the time – banks have gone overboard on loan requirements, consumers have let their credit scores go and some buyers have lost their minds when it comes to making a realistic offer.

You have our sympathies. We’re here to help.

For there is a silicon lining to every cloud and when it comes to FSBOs, nowadays smart real estate agents have a huge advantage. They possess a very compelling argument they did not have before.

You can thank Google for that.

Before the internet, you could approach a FSBO with all the right questions: How are you pricing your home? Do you have a CMA? Do you know what a prequel is? Are you going to be able to show the home at all hours?

But many stubborn FSBOs would just naively reply, “No thank you.  I can put my own sign in my yard and I can write my own classified ad and I can place it in the newspaper myself”.

And they could do that overnight. But the one thing you can’t do overnight is get to the first couple pages of Google with relevant keywords for any community.

That’s why it is so important to be sure your web site is search-engine savvy. And there is literally no better platform to do this than WordPress.

The company that can help you do this quickly is Home Junction Inc. and its real estate-focused, GeoTheme websites using the WordPress platform (www.hjwebsites.com.)

Not sure what WordPress is? You need to find out.

Here’s what one expert web developer wrote that says it all: “WordPress has done a better job of making it easy for non-technical people to update and contribute to a website than any other technology I’ve seen.”

Why is that important? Because while Mr. FSBO watched TV in his living room before deciding to sell his house, for months you have been aggressively updating your website with hyper-local content relevant to his community. Local blogs. Local maps. Local schools. Local neighborhood amenities.

So when a buyer searches for “Golf course homes in Potterville,” Mr. FSBO’s golf course home in Potterville is not going to show up (or if he happens to get it on the web, it will be buried many, many pages back in search Siberia.)

If you work it, your WordPress web site will show up. Prominently. Like a spider web catching buyers.

As you know, other agents are going to pound away at Mr. FSBO to get his listing. Many who are not web-savvy will ask the usual questions.

But you can appear at Mr. FSBO’s door with solid evidence of your expertise – screenshots showing him your position on Google for searches for his type of home in his community. You can demonstrate how you own his potential buyers.

Sure the signs and the ads in the newspaper are nice, but you will have stats verifying that 89% of homebuyers now start their search on the web.

That means he is missing out on offers, maybe decent offers, maybe multiple offers.

At that point, the odds could tilt strongly in your favor for Mr. FSBO to give you his listing and go back to watching TV on his couch.

Sure times are tough. But the tough get going with a Home Junction WordPress site.

To see how easy it is to implement a Home Junction GeoTheme WordPress site with the state-of-the-art SpatialMatch IDX and lifestyle search engine, click here.

If you watch the History channel about famous battles, you might notice that many times it isn’t who has the most troops who wins, but it’s some form of new technology that actually makes the difference.

Crossbows could fire an arrow 350-400 yards, better than a conventional arrow.

Chain mail could lessen a deadly blow from a sword. But next came body armor that could stop a sword. To fight an army wearing body armor, someone developed a large hammer you could swing at their opponents.

Catapults became cannons, cannons became missiles, missiles became smart bombs.

What’s this got to do with real estate?

Well a smart fellow by the name of Andres Maurois once said: “Business is a combination of war and sport.”

Now, we all know war is a serious, tragic event and certainly no one wants to conduct their business as if they are at war. You will end up in a bunch of trouble.

On the other hand, if you take business lightly, as if you were playing a friendly game of badminton in the backyard, you are not going to last long either.

The key point here is that history has demonstrated that conflicts are won with the best technology, whether on the battlefield or in the marketplace.

Seen the price of Apple stock lately?

What have you done to your web site to make it more competitive? What sort of IDX technology are you using to showcase homes in your area? Is it outdated? Dull? Missing information?

One technological advancement you might consider is the state-of-the art SpatialMatch IDX AND Lifestyle search engine.

It’s a beauty. First of all, design-wise, it’s colorful and intuitive. Data-wise, it’s not only packed with all the latest home listings, but it also provides an enormous neighborhood database as well, so you can see where a home is located in relation to certain amenities a home buyer prefers.

For example, Mrs. Jones is not sure about House A or House B.

But she loves her Starbucks and her art classes at the community college. With SpatialMatch, you can show her how House B is located right down the street from a Starbucks which she can grab on her way to attend classes nearby.

Sold!

Use this technology as well to convince sellers how you are going  to market their property and their relative proximity to all these great locations.

The real estate agent down the street probably has an outdated home search tool, the equivalent of a little red wagon with a water pistol.

With SpatialMatch embedded on your site, you’ll have a tank/F16/nuclear-powered sub.

They say a person who is an expert swordsman is called a “strategist.”

What’s going to be your strategy to capture more buyers and sellers this year?

Arm yourself with the latest IDX technology. That’s how battles are won.

To see SpatialMatch in action, click here. To see how Home Junction can provide you with a WordPress site to give you an edge on search engines and promote your SpatialMatch search engine, click here.

Have you conducted a search lately on Google for the keywords “real estate?”

I wouldn’t suggest it.

Because just when you think you got yourself a really cool site, you might be a little disappointed to find out there are 3.7 billion other real estate-related sites out there competing for the same phrase. That’s a 3 followed by three 7s and 6 zeroes.

Now of course, this example is an exaggeration.

Naturally, your web site will have less competition for local searches in your local market.

But still, there’s a ton of competition out there including Zillow and Trulia who are your largest competitors and dominating the search results as well.

On his real estate site, “Think Traffic” expert Corbett Barr makes a good point about standing out from the crowd.

You have all heard the business term “Unique Selling Proposition.” It’s the angle or strategy you take that separates you from the others.

But Barr says most sites don’t really approach this strategy like they should.

They usually just rearrange the elements on their site to create what Barr says is a sense of “Hey look at me. I’ve got great stuff too.”

He says, what you want to do, is create a site that gives the impression: “Hey, I’m all about x. We do things differently. If you want x, we’re the only place you can get it.”

One tool you can use to do this is the SpatialMatch IDX and lifestyle search engine.

You can promote your office as the place where consumers can not only find a great home, but where we can find you a home that fits your lifestyle – whether you are a yoga devotee, golf nut or coffee addict, etc.

When looking for a home on SpatialMatch’s IDX, which has the look of a colorful iPhone app by the way, you can specify the home you want AND ask where the nearest amenities are located.

You’ll get the results on a map, giving your buyer a true picture of what their buying and where they are buying.

Because, if that yoga practitioner isn’t sure about House A, and is leaning toward House B, pointing out that “Handsome Dude’s Yoga Studio” is just down the street could be a major factor that changes her mind.

You can take this unique lifestyle selling proposition even further.

Say for example, you live in a horse community with 5-acre ranchettes.

With the SpatialMatch tool, you can create entire pages pointing out all the horse-related amenities you want with satellite aerial views of the homes AND the surrounding properties (see example below).

Let’s take this another step further. Home Junction Inc. which developed SpatialMatch, can create a WordPress site for you that is heavily geared for horse communities.

WordPress is the recognized platform for maximizing your ranking on search engines.

What this means is that the site’s content – meta tags, keywords, descriptions, SpatialMatch tool and other information will contain many of the words and phrases that consumers will use to find horse communities.

Plus, WordPress makes it very easy for you to continually add content to reinforce your position as the authority on horse communities in your market.

Just imagine a horse lover checking out equestrian communities in your area and they come across your horse-related web site.

“Whoa Nelly” they will say (my sincere apologies). “These are the people to call.”

Now we’re talking a truly Unique Selling Proposition.

To read Barr’s blog and to get inspired by ten “killer” examples of USPs from mouth-watering chocolate to saddle bag briefcases, click here.

To see SpatialMatch in action, click here.

To see some examples of Home Junction WordPress sites, click here.

Have you participated in a conversation lately and someone asks, “Who was that guy who played in the movie (insert title here)?

“You know who I’m talking about, the guy with the (insert unique character traits here).”

After a few minutes of everyone wracking their brains, someone finally pulls out their smartphone and finds the answer in nanoseconds.

Are you taking a close look at what is occurring here?

Your smartphone is no longer just a phone. It’s an information device. And you might take a closer look at how this is changing the real estate marketing landscape.

As of February, Google said 300 million Android devices have been purchased (phones that use Google’s Android software). That’s how many people live in the US.

There are 850,000 new Android devices being purchased every day. Every day.

Forget the phone calls. Ninety-five percent of owners use their Android device for search.

Eight-two percent use their phone at least once a week to search for something.

And guess which search engine is getting the majority of those searches? If you guessed Google, you guessed correctly. They are generating not just a majority of searches, but at 97%, for all intents and purposes, a monopoly.

The thing is, consumers are not just searching for names of movie stars. Nearly half, 48%, are searching on their phone for businesses.

That includes real estate businesses like yours.

What’s the bottom line here?

If you have ignored the whole process of search engine optimization, which means positioning your web site so it shows up in the first or second page for Google search results relevant to your real estate company,  it’s time to make this a priority.

Search is already huge for real estate as it is. But with the phenomenal rise in mobile search, it’s going to get even bigger. Much bigger.

Ouch, does the whole idea of getting a better ranking on Google make your head spin? Yes, it’s complicated, very complicated.

Lucky for you, there is a very simple solution. It’s called WordPress and Home Junction Inc. specializes in creating WordPress web sites for real estate brokers and agents.

With WordPress, it’s extremely easy to put in target keywords and text that will make your web site rank better for the searches that are important to you.

You probably already know how difficult it is to get to the front page of Google for the search term “real estate.”

But with WordPress and a steady optimization strategy, you can get to the first few pages for narrower terms such as “(insert your town here) homes for sale.”

“If people in real estate think the marketing landscaping is changing now, the avalanche of smartphones is going to create a quantum leap,” said John Perkins, CEO of Home Junction Inc. “Brokers and agent would be smart to pay more attention to their presence on search engines. And WordPress is unquestionably the leading platform for this technology.”

So, next time you see someone reaching for their HTC Evo or their Samgsung Galaxy (with Android software) or even their iPhone, don’t think they are just checking their email or friends on Facebook.

They could be looking for a Realtor in your town.

Are they going to find you on their smartphone?

To read about the rise of Android devices, click here.

To talk to Home Junction Inc.  about a WordPress site, SEO, and improving your rankings on Google (both online and mobile), click here.

The American Dream used to be: find a decent job, raise some kids, support your community, fix up your house and then when you retired, dump it all and move to Florida.

Retirees are still moving to Florida, but surprisingly not so much.

According to US Census data, in 1990 one of four retirees sold it all and moved to the Sunshine State.

From 2005 to 2010, that number dropped to one in seven.

Just two years ago, only 1.6% of retirees 55-65 moved across state lines. Less than 2%.

What’s the reason for this trend?

Who knows? Hurricanes? Alligators? Fire ants? Warmer weather up north? All those shiny new casinos?

Perhaps because people are living longer, they are not ready to uproot their lives entirely and move away from family, friends, etc.

But those retirees are downsizing and moving further away from large cities to cash in on their existing homes and to save on a newer home in “exurbia” – a place further away, and less expensive,  than suburbia.

As a real estate broker and agent, there’s a tremendous marketing opportunity here to capture this demographic – a demographic with money and fewer credit problems we might add.

Because not only are many retirees moving shorter-distances, they are also more likely to prefer amenities that don’t require much driving.

With the IDX/Lifestyle search engine SpatialMatch, you can promote your real estate office as the one that can help these retirees find a smaller home that is close to the places they will frequent – such as golf courses, community centers, doctors, chiropractors, hospitals etc.

With its enormous database saturated with over 100 layers of neighborhood information, the SpatialMatch tool can display all those important locations in relation to the type of home they desire.

And the display is very easy to understand, all color-coded and laid out on an interactive map. Distance indicators included.

“This group is going to be less prone to driving across town for their needs whether it’s groceries, prescriptions or visits to the doctor,” said John Perkins, CEO of Home Junction Inc. , which developed SpatialMatch. “The savvy real estate pro is going to address this need by promoting the fact that they have this very useful tool to help retirees find an ideal location that cuts down on the time they need to spend driving around in their car.”

Today’s retirees are probably more active than their earlier counterparts. But in their golden years they want to be active doing the things they like to do.  Sitting in traffic is not one of them.

With the SpatialMatch search engine embedded on your site combined with a full IDX, you have the flexibility to address the concerns of many demographic groups, even one that’s just not ready to live under a palm tree.

To read a Reuter’s news service article about this new trend, click here.

For a tour of how SpatialMatch can help you offer solutions for every age group, click here.