eWalk - Virtual Tours

When the market turns around, the profile of the successful realtor will be very different. The Internet will change our roles, just like it did the folks in finance, travel, and auto’s before us.

Success will go to those who balance Hyper-Local knowledge with Internet expertise, hence our label the Hyper-Local Internet Realtor. We’ve talked about Hyper Local in 2 blog posts; you can read them beginning at: www.ewalk.com/blog/?p=7

So we are going to focus on Internet expertise in the next couple of newsletters.

First and foremost: Keep up to date on current Internet events and technologies.

Here’s an example: 2 realtors competing for a listing talk to a homeowner. She asks them if they will post her house to realtor.com.

The first one says "Of course".

The 2nd one answers, "Well, maybe. But it’s more important that we be seen across the Internet. The market is very fragmented now, with realtor.com getting less than 5% of all real estate searches. Many people now start their search at Google, and the fastest growing site is Trulia. There is no "Easy Button" we can push to get your home seen in all the sites it needs to be on to get complete coverage. I have the expertise, and will do the work to make sure it’s seen everywhere."

Who gets the listing (duh :-) )

Here are a couple of easy ways to keep up to date:

Set up a Google search alert at www.google.com/alerts?hl=en. I have one for "Real Estate Internet Marketing" and "Virtual Tours" sent to me daily.

Subscribe to Inman News at www.inman.com. I believe the price is $149 a year, but they send you daily alerts with the latest technology. The only caveat: Sometimes they get ahead of themselves, so you have to sort how the relevant from the hype and fads.

Read RISMedia at www.rismedia.com. While not a pure Internet resource, they do report on a lot of Internet activities and developments.

Our newsletter next week will focus the importance and use of Single Property Websites, aka Custom Domain Names.