Remember all those years of geography you studied in grammar school and high school poring over maps, globes and textbooks?

Those classes certainly instilled in students a fascination with the world and distant lands.

But underneath all those discussions about the Himalayas, the Great Wall in China and Machu Picchu in Peru, there is an underlying lesson that is resurfacing.

Geography matters.

If you look at your smart phone or Google’s home page, you can see how technologists realize this as well.

Now it seems that most searches and information on your computer or your smart phone are somehow tied into location. Even social networking has a location element that lets you know where your friends are or where they’ve been.

It’s called geospatial visualization. And it’s going to be big in the next decade.

The famous consulting company, Deloitte, recently cited geospatial visualization as one of the top Tech Trends of 2012. These guys are smart, they know how to see the writing on the wall before it’s even written.

Their article stated: “The human brain is naturally wired to process visual images by recognizing patterns, inferring relationships and discerning features. Analytic visualization connects these perceptual and cognitive strengths with modern statistical computing capabilities and can enable decision makers to pull significant results quickly out of tremendous volumes of complex and diverse data.”

Let me put this into layman’s terms for you – data integrated into a map is better for consumers.

And this is catching on big time.

It makes sense. With modern computing and the incredible capability of chips, processors and web connectivity, there’s a boatload of data that is available.

Take SpatialMatch for example. Our hyper-local database contains millions of home listings, homes not-for-sale, public records, 130,000 schools and 12 million businesses. An IDX database combined with lifestyle information to give home buyers everything they need in one place.

Throwing all that info at a home buyer on a web site would be like tossing a giant pie of pixels in their face. Yuck.

So we made it geospatial – enabling users to pick and choose what part of that database they wanted to show on a map. For every market in the US.

This location-based visualization is trending now, and will probably be tied into just about everything that has to do with anything in the future.

Embedding this capability on your real estate web site is going to give you a tremendous advantage in your local market.

Here’s are a few examples of how you can use it:

a)     Send screen shots to prospects – consumers are already attuned to this new trend in mapping, so it will immediate make sense to them and let them know you have the latest located-based technology.

b)     Market your site as geo-spatial based – looking for a unique selling proposition – here’s one.

c)     Go social with it – every time you point out something on Facebook or Twitter, use a link to your map from SpatialMatch.

d)     Etc., Etc. Etc.

This is a new reality folks. The amount of data that can be processed on the web today is astronomical.

The key, as Deloitte points out, it’s not how much you have, it’s how you display it; how you tie it into a consumer’s location.

To read Deloitte’s report on Geospatial Visualization and other trends click here.

To see the SpatialMatch geospatial application for real estate sites, look here.

It makes sense that real estate would be booming in a city that never sleeps – NYC.

Believe it or not, some experts say those insane housing prices in New York City are a bargain.

Sure, they are high, but they are not hysterically high like in Tokyo or London or Paris.

There are other factors causing the boom – super low interest rates in the US, inquiries from overseas investors and a scramble by Wall Street wonders who now apparently have more faith in real estate than in the stocks they sell.

This has caused some interesting trends, including a rush to buy now before someone else grabs it and to buy pre-construction before it’s built (tulip mania anyone?)

But there’s another trend that caught our eye – don’t count on amenities. Builders are scaling back on rooftop pools, bars, gyms, etc.  In this economy, high-rises are getting mean and lean. Extravagance went out the window years ago.

Now some real estate professionals will definitely see this as a downer. There’s no sizzle on this steak. No fun in the sun.

“Buyers today are more practical and are looking for value,” said Stephen Kliegerman, with Halstead Property Development Marketing.

As Jimmy Stewart would say on his way to Washington, “Now you just wait a darn minute there mister.”

Who wants to sell nothing more than a giant steel and concrete box? A very expensive concrete box at that.

Savvy brokers and agents can turn this around with a tool like SpatialMatch, the lifestyle search engine combined with a robust IDX.

SpatialMatch has an enormous database of millions of businesses. You can designate any business in relation to distance away from any property.

You can easily illustrate these businesses on a colorful map, surrounded by icons for Homes (IDX), Lifestyle, Value, Areas, Favorites, and Alerts.

So, Mr. Buyer likes to swim, we’ll find a pool so close to the property, he can practically walk there in his bathrobe.

Mrs. Buyer likes to go to the gym twice a week. Well, we don’t have a gym in the building. (That’s actually a plus, Mrs. Buyer, since you don’t have to pay for it in your common area fees for ALL the other days you and your fellow condo owners are not there.)

But look here Mrs. Buyer, there are a few quality gyms nearby. You can walk to them in your sneakers and start working out before you even break a sweat getting there.

(See our example of Fitness Centers in mid-Manhattan below).

You don’t have to be in NYC to provide this information to buyers. Or show sellers how you will use it to market their property. You can do it in Peoria as well.

You can make any property more desirable. You can add amenities to any location. With SpatialMatch, you can put that sizzle on any steak.

To read the article about the boom in NYC, click here.

To test drive the SpatialMatch lifestyle search engine in action, click here.

I was speaking with an acquaintance of mine the other day, and was surprised to hear he recently moved to the other side of the country.

“Yea, we like the schools here better.  We were considering a private school where we lived before but thought it would smarter to just relocate.”

2,000 miles!

That’s quite a leap.

Now I know he didn’t just move 2,000 miles for the schools, but our conversation kept nagging at me and I would not be surprised if it was 80% of the reason why he hauled his wife and two kids more than halfway across the country.

Every Realtor knows schools are a big issue with home buyers. But in this increasingly competitive day and age, it’s no secret that issue is getting more intense.

So, what have you done to increase the intensity of school information you can provide to prospects?

I looked at a few real estate sites and yes, they had school-related information on their site. And that school information consisted of a list. School names and addresses.

A list? It’s 2012, the era of the iPhone, Google and Facebook. A time when you can be sitting at a Starbucks with your smart phone and can access all the information in the world.

And some real estate web sites just post a list. A list?

There is a huge opportunity here.

What if your web site had this school information:

• a map pointing out the location of schools, public and private, in relation to any property under consideration.
• sliding distance circles allowing you to determine how far away each school is from a certain property.
• data on the number of teachers.
• the number of students.
• enrollment of students per grade.
• ratio of male/female students.
• enrollment by ethnicity.
• school lunch information.
• school district boundaries.

And what if your site could provide this data in an interactive search engine?

Integrated with a robust IDX system that lets you research homes along with this critical school information.

Where you could save and email the results.

SpatialMatch is a tool that provides a IDX and Lifestyle database that can be embedded directly onto your site. Your valuable prospects don’t need to go wandering on the web to find this information. You got it.

And when you approach sellers, when you show them how you are going to market their properties, you can point out to them how you are going to position their listing as an ideal property in terms of addressing the educational needs of buyers.  In terms of distance, public and private schools, detailed information about those schools, etc.

This is how you market real estate in 2012.

This is how you educate home buyers and sellers on one of the most pressing concerns of the day.

See an example below of how schools can be indicated on a SpatialMatch search platform for any neighborhood.

For a demo or more information on how you can immediately add this enormous educational database to your site, call 858-224-3535 or click here.

I just love those commercials where the two mobile phone users seem to know everything that is going on at a football game or in their office before anybody else does.

Their saying is: “Oh, that was so 17 seconds ago.”

The commercials are amusing. And prophetic.

If you are in the real estate business, or any business for that matter, there is a more universal message being offered here.

Many of today’s consumers, not just 40 and under, have incredible, lighting-fast access to unlimited resources.

And it’s not just the younger crowd. If you are older, how many of your friends, formerly non-techies, are now pointing out new websites or apps to you?

This is today’s consumer.

So, as a real estate professional, are you what some buyers refer to as a “walking key?”

Is all you do is walk into a property and say, “And this is the master bedroom”?

Are you handing out the same one-page flyers you were handing out 20 years ago?

Are you telling buyers where the schools are located when they have probably not only have already found the schools, but know the test scores, enrollment numbers, student-teacher ratios, busing districts, etc., etc., etc.

But you might say, I have a blog! I have a Facebook page!

Man, that is not enough.

If you are going to impress today’s tech-oriented home buyers and sellers, you had better be tech-oriented right down to your toes.

You are not going to impress these people with a one-page flyer.

You will impress them with an iPad (or other tablet), you will impress them with video on your site and one on your smartphone, you will impress them podcasts on the latest marketing trends.

Another tool that will impress them is a SpatialMatch IDX and lifestyle search engine embedded on your site.

This enormous database of home listings combined with local lifestyle marketing data such as schools, restaurants, gyms, golf courses, is going to let them see that you are on top of the technology wave.

Searches for homes combined with neighborhood amenities can be displayed from your web site. Results can be saved. Links to saved results can be emailed. And it all comes in the form of a colorful, easy to use app.

This lets consumer know you speak their language.

You are not speaking the language of a real estate broker or agent from say 10, or even 5 years ago -  now a dinosaur in terms of how fast the market is changing.

You are not “23 seconds ago.” You are current.

And the beauty of being current with the times it will increase the opportunity to still do something you did 10, 20 years ago. Put that check in the bank.

If you want a free consultation on how you can upgrade your real estate web site, contact the folks at Home Junction Inc. here.

Business philosopher Jim Rohn once said, “Success is neither magical nor mysterious. Success is the natural consequence of consistently applying the basic fundamentals.”

Everyone knows the old sports adage, when things go wrong, it’s time to get back to the fundamentals.

Steve Gutstein, a certified real estate coach, wrote an interesting and nicely succinct article about the fundamentals involved in creating a successful real estate office.

He called it “Five Traits Buyers Demand of Their Realtor.”

We’ll go through four of them quickly because they are common sense: “Honesty and Credibility,” “Great Follow Through,” “Organization and Responsiveness,” “Be a Great Listener First and then a Great Communicator.”

You know this stuff.

The fifth one he mentioned is “Area Familiarity.”

You certainly can’t create a tool to improve Honesty and Credibility. You’re going to have to do that on your own.

But how up-to-speed are you with the tools and technology available to demonstrate your knowledge and expertise when it comes to local neighborhoods?

Are you still carrying around a bunch of paper maps in your trunk? Do you limit your hyper-local expertise to telling people where the elementary, middle and high schools are located?

SpatialMatch can’t make you more honest, but we certainly can help you demonstrate how you have the fifth trait nailed down with the latest advances in IDX and Lifestyle search tools on your web site.

Imagine sitting in your office with a young couple interested in buying a home. After getting to know what type of home they are looking for, imagine asking them to give you their ideal location based on what they like to do for fun. Say for example, he’s a golfer. She’s into yoga.

Then imagine pulling up a colorful, user-friendly screen with brightly arranged icons showing all the local listings for sale and pointing out all the area golf courses and yoga studios as well. Then imagine narrowing down all the properties that meet the couple’s initial criteria for home size, price, etc. and showing how close these fun amenities are located in miles.

Then imagine saving that information and offering to email it to the couple so they can review it later. Or being able to post the link on their Facebook page so their friends can give them instant feedback on the properties they are considering.

This is a hi-tech, Internet-driven, in-depth service that taps into an enormous database of local knowledge. This is not someone saying, “Oh, I think there may be a yoga studio somewhere down there around the corner.”

This is what will separate you from the others when it comes to the trait “Area Familiarity.”

Sure, you’ll see coaches out there haranguing their players about getting back to fundamentals. But you also know the successful coaches are those that use the most modern techniques and technology to train, evaluate and assist their players.

Call it Fundamentals 2.0.

To reach Gutstein’s article, click here.

For info on how SpatialMatch can make you a leader for hyper-local knowledge click here.

When it comes to farming a community, there’s one guy in Daytona Beach, Fla., who is a real pro.

According to RealtorMag, of the 649 residences in the Fairway Estates community, Ed Savard has either listed or sold one out of three of them.

One out of three! That’s not a farm, that’s a gold mine!

The article says his strategies are simple: Pick a Target (hopefully a place not too oversaturated with agents) Become an Expert (more on that in a minute), Make Yourself Visible (he sends out a newsletter almost every week and wears his real estate shirt while taking walks) and Give it Time(we have a way to speed things up).

Okay, sounds easy enough. But as we all know, this guy didn’t gain this stature in this community overnight. He worked it. Hard.

But we’re going to give you a simple tip to accelerate becoming the dominant farmer in any community. Just like an expert gold miner would: go get better tools.

SpatialMatch is a hyper-local neighborhood database combined with a user-friendly IDX that provides a ton of information about any community. And the beauty of it is, you install this search engine on YOUR website, so buyers and sellers go to YOUR website, not Google or Zillow or someone else’s, to use it.

And then add one more strategy to the list – Know your Neighborhood Amenities (could be a subcategory of Become an Expert, but make it a separate strategy).

Buyers today want more than a house. They want a local support system for their lifestyle.

Wouldn’t it be great if you could show potential sellers when you market their property, you also have a web based mapping platform illustrating these important amenities with the distances from their location:

- local grocery stores

- local schools

- local library

- local gym and fitness centers

- local hospital and medical facilities

- best local restaurants

- local Starbucks

- local places of interest

Send them an example of how cool it looks (it does, someone once compared our look to an iPhone app. See screen shot below).

And wouldn’t it be great to let the community know when something new is going up in town…and the distance from their community?

Most people see a bulldozer clearing some land – but as the Local  Expert with the SpatialMatch tool, you can load that location into the system, tell them what it is and send them a map (or link to a map) showing them the exact location AND the distance from their community.

And you can continue to let them know you will be using this SpatialMatch resource to market their particular property when they decide to sell.

Before you go off to target a community, be sure you have all the latest technology on hand. It will make things easier and make things happen faster.

To read the RealtorMag article about Ed, click here.

To add SpatialMatch tool to your site, click here.

Here we go again. A new year. A time to reassess where we are and where we want to be.

It’s funny how we as humans all seem to come up with the same resolutions every year.

I’m sure you’ve seen the list.

1)    Quit smoking

2)    Get fit

3)    Lose weight

4)    Quit drinking

5)    Organize

6)    Learn something

7)    Enjoy life more

8)    Get out of debt

9)    Spend more time with family and friends

10) Help people

These resolutions are all well and good, but as you know, most of them drop by the wayside after the first month.

But what about your resolutions as a real estate professional?

Hopefully, two of your goals this year are to get more customers and earn more money.

But just like the list above, those statements are way too vague.

Simon A. Rego, assistant professor of psychiatry and behavioral sciences at Albert Einstein College of Medicine stressed that goals are more likely to be reached if they are “SMART,” meaning specific, measurable, attainable, rewarding, and time-limited.

He cautioned against, for example, simply making losing weight a goal, but instead suggested being more specific, such as “I’d like to lose five pounds over the first two months of the year and then set a new goal from there,” he said.

So what are you specifically going to do about reaching more clients?

Since Home Junction Inc. is a real estate technology company, obviously the first thing we are going to recommend is to make some specific technological changes.

a)    Look at IDX technology – Is your current service bland and boring? Consider adding the SpatialMatch IDX and lifestyle search engine to your web site. This state-of-the art platform goes beyond the standard IDX and incorporates vital lifestyle and neighborhood search information as well, all critical to attracting buyers and impressing sellers.

b)    Look at tablet technology – iPads, Kindles, how can these popular new tools help you in your sales efforts?

c)    Look at mobile technology – there are so many hundreds of thousands of new apps out there to make you more efficient, be sure to check them out. One time saver can make a big difference over a year.

d)    Look at email technology – with the rise of Groupon and LivingSocial and easy-to-use email services like Constant Contact and Mail Chimp, email marketing is popular again.

Sure, this seems like more work. But keep this in mind, making an improvement TODAY, this first week of January, will mean payoffs for an ENTIRE year. That could mean a significant difference in whether you acquire new customers and earn more money.

Waiting until June for example, will cut the potential rewards for the year in half.

So go ahead, plan to help people or enjoy life more in 2012. We intend to do the same (and drop that holiday cookie weight as well).

That’s fine. But when it comes to your business, you need to execute S.M.A.R.T. goals, and it’s smart to execute them now.

To read the full article on resolutions, click here.

To learn more about the SpatialMatch advanced IDX platform and how it can help make a difference in your business this year, click here.

The tech gurus at Mashable came out with their 10 trends to watch in 2012 and savvy Realtors will pay close attention to the list.

It’s rather obvious that most new trends coming up make it is easier for web users to reach out to each other.

As a result, you are going to see much more information, some useful, most of it worthless and boring, flying around the web.

What’s the underlying issue here? Especially for real estate agents and brokers?

You absolutely need to have great content if your messages are going to stand above this extra noise. That means relevant content, local content, easy-to-absorb content.

A state-of-the art IDX combined with a lifestyle search engine such as SpatialMatch should be on your list of how you are going to generate that great content. Great hyper-local info.

The SpatialMatch search engine comes with billions of bits of local listings and local neighborhood data all combined into a colorful, user-friendly interface. That’s going to give you an edge, content-wise.

Your blog, your emails, your posting on your web site won’t be enough. Everybody’s doing that.

But don’t take our word for it, here are the top trends coming your way and we’ll start with the ones that will have a direct impact on how real estate information is dispensed.

1)      Touch – touch screens like the ones on your iPhone and Android will become even more prevalent, making it easier to move through pages on a web site.

2)      Social Gestures – lots of stuff you post is going to go right up on automatically on Facebook and other social sites. Are your posts going to be interesting?

3)      Beyond the iPad – more devices are coming out to compete with the iPad, like the lower-priced Kindle. Everybody’s going to have one soon. That means even more time spent online.

4)      Voice – the future is here. Voice commands to help you navigate faster will be arriving soon.

5)      Spatial Gestures – moving web pages and info on a screen in the air just like the movies is coming down the pike as well.

6)      Flexible screens – this one, we believe, is going to be huge. It’s no secret, desktop computers are going away. Laptops are okay, but will soon seem too clunky, especially when all you need is a smart phone. The only thing missing is a larger screen. Well, that’s now on the way.

Other trends include Mobile Payments, TV Shows you can access everywhere, Second Screen interaction with TVs and advanced HTML5 coding.

As we said, the key to taking advantage of all this new technology is going to be the useful information you can provide.

Home buyers and sellers are going to be using this technology in 2012. The web is going to be even more omnipresent than before (if you can believe that).

Where are you going to be in 2012? On the tech bus speeding down the information superhighway? Or left behind, using the same approach you’ve used online and offline for the past five years?

Move fast, add great content and prosper.

Happy New Year from the folks at Home Junction Inc.

To read the Mashable article, go here.

To find out how SpatialMatch can enhance your site in 2012, click here.

As families gather in their homes for the holidays, if you are a real estate professional, you’ve got to have some feeling of pride knowing you found the right home for many of these families.

Many times in our professional lives we get caught up in the numbers – how many sales, how many listings, the amount of the sale, the amount of the commission.

But now that the holidays are here, reflect for a moment on what you are selling – a place where families gather to celebrate well, just being families.

Comedian Bill Cosby once joked “Human beings are the only creatures that allow their children to come back home.”

Be proud of your role as a real estate professional in getting people into the right property. It truly is a beautiful thing.

We’ve been involved in the business long enough to know the real estate business is not an easy one.

That’s why we create tools to make your jobs easier.

Providing a home in the right community for a family – where kids can play, one can mingle with their neighbors, good schools are nearby and it’s pleasant to go downtown for a cup of coffee, should bring a sense of satisfaction to any broker or agent.

At a HUD hearing, former US Senator Elizabeth Dole once said: “The benefits of homeownership for families, communities and the nation are profound. When individuals and families own their home, they establish roots in their communities and have a great stake in the growth, safety and development of their towns and cities.”

She went on to add: “It is through initiatives to further grow homeownership that we empower individuals and families by helping them build wealth and improve their lives.”

So when you drive down the street these next few days and see all those homes filled with families enjoying  themselves, take a second to enjoy the part you played in making it happen.

The staff at Home Junction would like to wish everybody a Happy (and fulfilling) Holiday Season.

When my father sold the home I grew up in, he told me an amazing fact.

“You know, when I bought this house back in the 60s,” he said with a grin, “The interest rate on my mortgage was only 4%.”

Ah, the good old days. If only life was that simple again. Better times. Lawrence Welk. Ed Sullivan. The Beatles.

Screeeeeech. Wait. Hold it a minute.

Have you looked at the 30-year fixed mortgage rate as of Thurs., Dec. 15?

It’s 3.95%!

The good old days are here again.

To put this in perspective, in 1991, the 30-year fixed rate was 9.25%.

The difference in monthly payments on a 30-year fixed loan for $200,000 from that rate and today’s rate comes out to nearly $700 a month. That’s enough to lease two cars. Buy a condo. Go on vacation. Do something!

Okay, you might say, rates have been low for a while.

Yes, but how are you communicating to your prospect this latest drop to all-time lows?

It’s an event Money magazine referred to as “an historic opportunity for those who can afford to buy or refinance.”

An historic opportunity.

Sure, the housing market is tough. But you are also in a time of historic opportunity in terms of technology.

Use this technology to do what it takes to convince homeowners now is the time to sell and move up to a larger house. Or to convince renters now is the time to buy and own a house.

Get an iPad and illustrate what these interest rates mean. How they are at an all-time low but there is certainly no guarantee they will stay there.

Make a video. Post a blog. Show a link to a chart on Facebook.

Use a marketing tool like the IDX and lifestyle search engine SpatialMatch to show clients how you have the latest, state-of-the art resources to find buyers for their home.

Or use SpatialMatch to show buyers how a particular home not only fits their household needs, but is situated close to all the things they like to do. So they better grab it fast.

Yes, it’s a tough housing market for agents and brokers. But there are many, many tools and factors out there (such as low mortgage rates) that when combined, can pry out those sales.

Sure, it seems that things were better back then. But remember, you also had to get up to change the channel on the TV and pull off to the side of the road to call someone on a pay phone.

The big difference today is technology. Are you taking advantage of all the latest real estate technology to make things happen in your market?

Use it to shake things up and make things happen.

For a demo on what SpatialMatch technology can do for you, click here.