The Unconditional Blog

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Archive for the ‘Agent Tips’ Category

2

Accuracy of property listing data

Posted on: May 16th, 2011 | Filed in Agent Tips, Buying / Selling a home, Website searching

The NZ Herald today published an article “Revealed: NZ’s top homes for sale“. The article utilised search data from Realestate.co.nz which is publicly accessible to search out the most expensive top 20 properties currently advertised on the website.

The article highlighted a property which was advertised on Realestate.co.nz for sale at an asking price of $17.5m. This was the price which the agent had sent through to our system, and therefore this is the price we displayed for the property.  The property upon investigation is actually for sale at $1.75m.

The NZ Herald has had to make a update to its online article to reflect this error presented in the article, the print article though was published based on the data presented on the website at that time. To be clear Realestate.co.nz was not approached to provide this information.

Now clearly this situation is not satisfactory – it is not satisfactory to the property owner as very people will be interested in looking or enquiring about such a property at that extreme price level; and not satisfactory to the prospective buyers who may question the accuracy of data on the website.

Running the website of Realestate.co.nz is a challenge of extensive data management. We display over 74,000 residential properties for sale or rent at any one time, around 700 new listings are added on an average day together with around 500 changes to property details. These additions and changes are provided by the total of over 1,050 offices subscribing to the website who send data to us electronically all the time.

If we were to start to review every listing coming in everyday to look for mistakes or accuracy of information we would need to employ an army of reviewers. That however is not the real issue. The key issue is that it is not possible for us to review or audit any of this data as we are not in a position to know any details of specific properties. The listing agent who is providing a service to the vendor is responsible for the accurate collation and publishing of this information on the web and in print.

Such situations as these are deeply frustrating to us. We act immediately we are informed of an issue or if a complaint is made to us. We investigate and communicate with the agent concerned and take immediate action, in this case to correct this price. In other cases we often remove the listing pending any investigation to ensure that no misleading or inaccurate information is displayed on the website.

The key thing is this regard is the importance for all agents and salespeople on behalf of their clients to proof their listings and in that way ensure that every advert whether on the web or in print is accurate and a true representation for the property they are marketing on behalf of their client.

 

 

 

 

4

Changing focus of enquiries to property listings

Posted on: April 29th, 2011 | Filed in Agent Tips, Website searching

The web is a vast repository of data. The key is making sense of it and providing that information to those who rely upon it to run their business. In the case of real estate our role at Realestate.co.nz is to not only run a popular and comprehensive website for real estate listings to support the advertising needs of our customers – real estate agents, but also to share key data of the behaviours and trends we see in the use of the website.

A key outcome of great value to real estate agents is leads – strong prospects made up of both vendors and buyers. Such leads can come from a variety of connections from the website. The most eagerly anticipated lead is from an email sent from the website to an agent regarding a property. Second only to this is a phone call originated from the contact details of the listing agent displayed adjacent to the listing.

These would generally be regarded as the most significant lead generation mechanisms from the website, however there are others. Each listing generally has a link from the webpage of the listing on realestate.co.nz to that listing on the agent or office website. Additionally each agent and office has their own webpage on the site which has links to their own website or social media platform; again providing an opportunity for enquires to be made by clients to agents. Many of such leads may result in the opportunity for agents to make listing presentations as prospective vendors use realestate.co.nz to profile agents. This profiling allows a vendor to establish the professional capabilities by reviewing the approach an agent takes to profiling, promoting and displaying a current clients’ listings.

One trend that has been noticeable and is demonstrated by the chart below is the extent to which realestate.co.nz is acting as a referral site to agents own websites.

In March of this year just under 400,000 instances of referral links were made from realestate.co.nz to agents and offices websites, this is up significantly on the 317,000 in March of last year.

This trend of increasing referral to real estate company and agent websites potentially points to greater researching on the part of serious property buyers, seeking comprehensive facts regarding properties and agents. This trend is only likely to continue in the future with the growing focus of buyers and sellers to online searching.

It is interesting to note that this trend could be a factor behind a recent number of comments made by real estate agents that lead generation from their own website has been growing – this could well be the result of serious enquiries originated from realestate.co.nz and then referred onto their website. A core principle of realestate.co.nz since the start of the company back in 2006 has been to provide as comprehensive and easy access for consumers to communicate with agents using whatever medium they choose – this now appears to be more through referral links than any other form.

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When it comes to searching for property nothing beats the ease and functionality of the web – true?

Posted on: November 12th, 2010 | Filed in Agent Tips, Featured, Website news

Searching for a home istock - croppedThat fact holds so true and has been validated in consistent research and usage – especially as everyday close to 100,000 unique visitors check out property information online in NZ (on realestate.co.nz we average of 22,000 per day) – far in excess of any print media. They love the ability to refine searches and be notified of new properties; as well as view dozens of photos, maps, videos and property statistics; all from the comfort of their couch or desk.

Having said all of that, there comes a time in the process of house hunting when printed information is invaluable.

The printed page is still one of the best ways of sharing vital information in a close group of people. In the case of open home viewings, I know from personal experience the ease of grabbing a set of printed details for each of the properties we are going to visit. From listening to our customers this is often their experience as well. It is interesting how that contrasts with earlier responses I remember well when the response was “we are a website – why would you want to print details?”

To help just such people (I suspect more than we might imagine!) we have made some tweaks and added some technology so that now you can print details of an individual listing in a nicely formatted pdf file that can be shared with your friends and partner.

pdf printThe print function lies at the top right of every listing page (and has a clear highlighter saying “New PDF”) – depending on the browser you use, it will create and download a pdf or it may open a new tab showing the document.

In addition to collating all the information presented on the listing – photos, address, specifications and a map; we also have added the latest data of viewings for the listing. These statistics are presented in a chart showing the number of viewings of the property day by day over the past month as well as where those viewings have come from, anywhere around the world.

Sample pdf print of a realestate.co.nz property listing

Listing view stats(By the way these charts are accessible for any listing and are updated dynamically – just click the link in the top right hand side of the page marked “listing viewed xx times”).

So whenever you want to grab a record for a property and scribble some notes, then you can now use this great tool and have all the information laid out in an easy to read format.

We do however ask you to act responsibly and not print excessively! – we don’t wish to be the cause of environmental devastation as our print media colleagues are!

1

Putting your house on the market this spring? – 5 key tips

Posted on: September 27th, 2010 | Filed in Agent Tips, Buying / Selling a home, Featured

For sale signOver the next 3 months we are likely to see over 35,000 new property listings hit the market. Over the same period the likely number of sales will be around 15,000. That would assume that there is roughly a 50/50 chance of selling your house this spring, that would be right if it were not for the fact that today there is over 56,000 properties on the market. Now you can see the challenge - how to ensure that your house gets bought and becomes one of those sales stats and allows you to move on - as opposed to being part of the high inventory of unsold homes.

Success in real estate in today’s world relied far more on the web. Research from just a couple of months ago reaffirmed this fact.

We decided that we should provide some useful advice around helping sellers get the most out of online marketing and took the opportunity to quiz a leading global expert. Simon Baker was CEO of Realestate.com.au for most of the last 10 years and in that time built it into the leading Australian real estate website. In this video interview I ask him to share his thoughts  as to the best way to market your home.

Simon sums up the tasks in 5 easy tips:

  1. Check out your prospective agent online - do they understand online marketing? - how do they present themselves and their clients listings online? - how effective and efficient are they at responding to enquiries online?
  2. Make sure your listings are featured on a wide range of websites - every website should be available to all agents
  3. Make sure the online presentation is high quality with comprehensive information
  4. Standout from the crowd - take advantage to give yourself and your property an advantage - use premium listing adverts, they are incredibly cost effective
  5. Keep a close with your agent to web performance - viewing, enquiries, responses

Good luck with selling your home this spring - but don’t leave it to luck - give yourself the upper hand!

17

The first week is crucial in selling your home

Posted on: September 20th, 2010 | Filed in Agent Tips, Online marketing, Website searching

There are enumerable phrases such as “the early bird catches the worm” or “you only get one bite at the cherry” or “first in – best dressed” – so it is with real estate, where based on research a new phrase can be adopted:

“Missed the first week and you may have missed the market”

A simple piece of analysis has been undertaken as shown in the chart below. Aggregating the daily viewings data of a sample of 1,079 properties listed on the website over the past 3 months from around the country shows that the most active period is the first week. Fully a quarter of the total of the first 2 months viewings takes place in those first 7 days.

Visits to listing by days on the market Sep 2010

The reason for this is not difficult to appreciate, active buyers are already subscribed to receive email alerts of new listings, realestate.co.nz has over 100,000 customers with email alerts set up. In addition for those eager to watch the local marketplace saved searches always show the latest listings as the default on realestate.co.nz – no need to filter by latest, we do it for the customer.

This buyer behaviour is critically important for agents and vendors to understand fully as it needs to drive a set of key actions:

  1. Getting all the photos ready and uploaded before a property is listed – you can never have too many photos, there is no restriction on realestate.co.nz on the number of photos, we also host videos which can be a great way to view listings
  2. Ensuring the listing is well presented in an emotionally appealing description that provides loads of facts about the property and the local area
  3. A clear indication as to the price expectation of the property – buyers are eager to understand if the property is affordable within their budget
  4. The #1 photo which is the one included in email alerts is the best – the best at selling the property’s best features. Often this is the view of the front of the property, professionally photographed from the road

Get these four essentials right and you are ensuring that your property has the greatest chance of grabbing that viewing audience. Get it wrong or decide to change some details after a week and you could already have missed the boat. This is especially true when it comes to price. A reduction in price of a property posted in the 2nd or 3rd week to reflect a weaker market is less impactful than getting the price right at the outset before someone rejects the property in their mind.

I am grateful for the US real estate company Redfin who first wrote about this analysis last month in an article titled you only get one chance to make a first impression, the story was then picked up by the Wall Street Journal .

3

Real estate marketing – practical online advice

Posted on: September 20th, 2010 | Filed in Agent Tips, Featured, Online marketing, social media, Website searching

iStock_000000504669XSmallThe recent “Future of Real Estate” conference held in Auckland provided us with the opportunity of sitting down with the keynote speakers and interviewing them to provide some global perspective to the opportunity emerging in online marketing.

Blogging

Joel Burslem is a highly regarded consultant with a background in online real estate marketing which has included stints at Inman News, Prudential as well as 1000 Watt Consulting where he currently works. In this interview I seek to better understand Joel’s perspective, advice and insight into blogging from the standpoint of a real estate agent.

Search Marketing

No successful business these days can ignore the importance of search marketing and search engine optimisation. For real estate this is ever more important as the future of lead generation for agents will likely come from online referrals and evaluations. To achieve standout requires a deep appreciation and understanding of search. For the conference we invited Charles Coxhead to speak on this key topic. Charles has an extensive experience in this area and in this interview I speak to Charles and get him to share some of the critical issues and advice around this subject.

Online Marketing

With such an excellent line up of speakers, we grabbed the opportunity to have a panel discussion with Joel Burslem, Charles Coxhead and Simon Baker. This free flowing discussion starts off looking at the dynamic shift in real estate advertising from print to online as witnessed around the world. It then goes on to talk about the priorities for real estate companies, offices and agents in their online presence and marketing, covering the tools of Facebook and Google Adwords, amongst other things.

We split the session into 2 videos covering the 20 minute discussion:

Part 2

0

How best to promote your property to attract buyers?

Posted on: August 6th, 2010 | Filed in Agent Tips, Buying / Selling a home, Featured, Online marketing

Question marks croppedThere would not be many days go by when this question is not asked of me by friends and more importantly real estate agents. I am also sure it is a key question asked of almost all agents by vendors.

The reason why I believe that this issue is gaining greater focus is a convergence of market and media.

The property market is alive.. but not as yet firing on all cylinders – this year is beginning to look like a 65,000 sale year – as compared to last year which was a 69,000 sale year (but of course a long way away from 2003 which was a 120,000 sale year). This slow pace of sales is resulting in a high inventory of unsold houses on the market – today some 56,844 listings for properties for sale are featured on the website, equating to over 11 months of equivalent sales. The market therefore is tough for sellers – raising a property’s profile when there are so many others on the market is a challenge.

The other factor is media – the facts are clear and the trend is undeniable – more people, more of the time search online for property for sale. There will come a time when everyone will use online – today it is close to 80%. That does not mean that print advertising is dead, it just means it is not so relevant anymore and is no longer a necessity. The web is therefore the prime media for searching and finding property. However there is an interesting aspect of the web that is its greatest benefit and and at the same time its greatest challenge.

Tall poppies smallAs companies and individuals have found over the years the democratisation of the web means the advantages of scale are removed and everyone can promote themselves and their products and services to the 1.3 billion people connected online in our world. So the issue is no longer one of being online, it is about being visible and being found online. In the context of real estate listings online it is the question of how to stand out from the crowd – to be the “Tall Poppy’.

Everyone of the 1,800+ suburbs across NZ has an average 31 properties on the market – all such properties have anxious vendors keen to see how capable real estate agents address the issue of creating standout in this online world. The answer is that the smartest agents are already preempting this question from vendors and add into the marketing proposal a Premium Featured Listing on Realestate.co.nz and similar offerings on other websites. These standout adverts ensure your property is seen by prospective buyers who can’t fail to see the impact these premium spots offer.

Residential Flyer Vendor RE image fileOn Realestate.co.nz Premium Featured Adverts are restricted to just 3 per suburb and appear at the top of each suburb page. In this way the listing sequence of the results is not disturbed which from research we know is a serious no-no! As well as this exclusive featuring on the chosen suburb page the property is also featured in the district and region pages as well as one of 6 properties featured on the home page in rotation.

The results of this scale of advertising are significant – on average this type of advertising raises daily viewings of a listing by 10 times – so a normal 12 views a day turns into 120 a day. The adverts are featured for 14 days and clearly in that time the property is likely to be seen well over 2,000 times. To see the actual impact try clicking on the home page and review the daily traffic for any listing by checking out the viewing stats through the link marked “Property viewed xx times”.

The cost of this Premium Featured Advert is just $250 (inc GST) for 2 full weeks – compare that to the typical print advert which barely lasts for a day or so before falling victim to the recycling bin whilst the online advert is working hard 24 hrs a day for 14 days – added to which you know exactly what you get in the true number of viewings from online – facts impossible to glean from a print advert of a property.

Fancy trying this impactful advertising for your property – tell your agent what you want and he can arrange with us, or if you like, contact us and we will arrange through your agent.

1

When in doubt ask “WWGD” What would Google do?

Posted on: June 17th, 2010 | Filed in Agent Tips, Real Estate Industry News

What would Google do? - Jeff Jarvis, NZ Real estateThe previous post on the subject of aspiring new real estate publicly proclaim their intention to seek a license, posed the question “There has to be a better solution” than using the old medium of public notices in newspapers. Well the fact is there is a better solution.

That better solution lies in the answer to the smarter question:

What would Google Do?

This is both a smart question, but also the title of a great book written by the excellent commentator and leading light for the future of business – Jeff Jarvis.

The answer as to “what would Google do” in this situation is as follows.

The purpose of the REAA insisting that aspiring real estate agents / salespeople make a public notice of their intention (I am making this assumption and I welcome and encourage input and feedback from the REAA) is to allow anyone who has an objection to raise that objection so that it can be heard and in so doing ensure that the industry solely comprises people with high public standing.

So what I am suggesting is finding a way to make the intentions of aspiring real estate people public. In this way  so  if there are people who have genuine concerns, then those concerns can be heard. So here is my suggested solution.

A website is built onto which all aspiring real estate salespeople register their details. This can also provide them with the opportunity to use the web to link to referral documents and repositories of information which will support their status – specifically profile pages on LinkedIn, their own website or Facebook profile (if that is appropriate).

Having aggregated this database on a single site on the web, the key thing is making it easily found. This requires search engine marketing. The key to successful search engine marketing is the link economy and contextual content. Hosting this website / database as part of Realestate.co.nz would provide both of these requirements straight off. Realestate.co.nz is a highly Google indexed site for all matters concerning NZ real estate, this would provide this service instant visibility in Google search.

In addition the use of keyword marketing using Google Adwords would ensure that peripheral searches around keywords such as “new agents” “agent profiles” “public register” would point back to the database and direct those who want to be know who is seeking appointment a direction to take to find the answer.

Further using the standard tools of the web, would allow anyone to set up email alerts or RSS feeds filtered to locations or names so that should anyone have any reason to be alerted to as to a person’s aspiration, technology can come to the rescue.

Should anyone have any concern around privacy then they should address that to the REAA, after all it is their requirement that people have a obligation to openly disclose their public request for “approval” – if they have nothing to hide they have nothing to fear.

This functionality is very simple, it is more importantly far more effective than using the 19th century mode of public notices in newspapers – surely the real estate industry can be seen to embrace new technology with all its benefits and efficiency.

What I have described is what is needed and is in my judgment the answer to the question “What would Google do”? – the question is now posed to the REAA – would you like us here at Realestate.co.nz to build it?

Here is an open public offer to the industry and the REAA – we will build this system and database and undertake the search engine marketing activity around it. We are an industry owned website and in our judgment this is in the best interests of the industry – those in it today and though keen to enter its ranks – at the very least we can save a significant amount of wasted money propping up dead sections of newspapers.

3

Announcing the arrival of aspiring new real estate agents

Posted on: June 17th, 2010 | Filed in Agent Tips, Featured, Real Estate Industry

Speaker lndscape expandHave you ever wondered what would happen at a wedding if the celebrant / minister when uttering the words (Does anyone know any just cause..?) actually had someone leap up from the back row screaming “I DO“!!

There is that momentary hesitation which is then quickly exhausted as silence pervades the audience gathered together for the  happy day, and the service resumes as normal.

So what has this to do with real estate? – well let me explain.

Has anyone noticed that the newspapers have suddenly started carrying a large number of adverts in the Public Notices section from aspiring real estate professionals seeking to publicly proclaim their intention to take up a career in real estate. They are proclaiming in effect “Does anyone know just cause … as to why I should not be regarded as suitable to hold the position (license) of a real estate agent / salesperson”?

The key question I am keen to ask is – does anyone read these notices ? The fact is there is a legal requirement under the regulations set out in the Real Estate Agents Act 2008 for any person wishing to enter this profession to place an advert in one of an approved set of newspapers, in fact the requirement is to place 2 adverts.

What purpose does this process serve ? – certainly in today’s world of shrinking newspaper readership it is almost impossible for it to be seen as a viable means of allowing the general public to make a challenge to someones application to hold a license. There could be a better argument that the process would be better served by featuring a list of prospective applicants on the Real Estate Agents Authority (REAA) website or on the industry website. At least this approach would be in the knowledge that visitors would have context to the issue. In addition given this context a Google search for the term “Applicants for new real estate license in NZ” could then provide a link to such a list (a detail search on the current results show not one reference to any applicant or newspaper notice).

The sole beneficiary of this approach appears to be the newspapers who in the case of the major metropolitan dailies are charging around $500 for the privilege. This is the potential for a cool extra $1m for the newspapers given a typical flow of new entrants into this industry each year. This on top of the $555.75 levied by the REAA for a new application for a license and the fees for the education standards required to apply for a license (c. $1,000+) certainly has raised the financial barriers to entry into the industry.

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Architecturally designed or designed by an architect

Posted on: June 11th, 2010 | Filed in Agent Tips, Architecture & Construction, Featured, Online marketing

Warren_&_Mahoney_House_of_lightIn the world of real estate marketing, as with any form of marketing creating standout is critical so as to generate awareness and interest. When it comes to homes, the design style is so important and this is often what is highlighted by real estate agents in the marketing description.

However as is ever the case with all marketing – accuracy is key and this is why I am happy to post this open letter from the Chief Executive of the NZ Registered Architects Board – Paul Jackman who naturally has a concern to ensure that in describing homes for sale as “architecturally designed” or “designed by an architect”, that they are just that.

I took the time to review some of the over 600 listings on the site today that include the keyword “architect” in the description – the vast majority do reference the name of the architect in question or in some cases use the word in contextual description, ie “bring along your architect” or “sits amongst architectural homes in the area”. That having been said the important note of Paul’s letter which was published recently in the Real Estate Institutes monthly member magazine is key – an architect is a professionally qualified individual who is bound by professional standards and this is at the heart of the professional industry, to have the term “architect” misused is of concern to the profession.

Was the architect an architect?

Every profession lives or dies by its reputation. If the public perceives a profession to be honest, they assume its members can be trusted. This confers huge benefits when doing business. But if a profession is perceived as dishonest, every member of that profession pays a price in lost business.

For a long time now architects have been deeply frustrated by real estate advertisements claiming that properties for sale were designed by a named architect when actually the person named is not an architect at all. These advertisements potentially deceive buyers, given that a house designed by an architect may carry a price premium. Typically puffery is used like, to quote a real case, “Immaculately detailed, the house was designed by renowned Christchurch architect Ray Hawthorne.” Mr Hawthorne may be renowned, but he is not an architect.

Only about 5 per cent of New Zealand’s residential properties are designed by architects. The rest are designed by others, sometimes called architectural designers, who either are trained in drafting or self taught.

In some cases the vendor is deluded about his or her house. The vendor thinks the house must have been designed by an architect because it has some unusual features or looks funky. The real estate agent is told this and blithely places the advertisement. In some other cases the real estate agent may be just trying to talk up the price.

Either way, this will not do. The Real Estate Agents Professional Conduct and Client Care says (6.4) A licensee must not mislead a customer or client, nor provide false information.

Also, under the Registered Architects Act 2005 it is an offence for anyone to claim to be an architect who designs buildings unless he or she is registered. Only architects are entitled to use that title. A person pretending to be an architect can be fined up to $10,000.

Real estate agents need to check before placing advertising claiming that a named person is an architect. This can be done in seconds via the online New Zealand Architects Register at www.nzrab.org.nz. A search facility allows you to enter any name and then find out if that person is registered in New Zealand. There’s also a listing of former architects, incase the person who designed the house is retired or deceased.

Real estate agents should take this seriously. The NZRAB has laid complaints with the Advertising Standards Authority and the Commerce Commission. At the time of writing, the Real Estate Agents Authority was also investigating a breach and further complaints will be laid whenever more breaches are detected.

Architects work hard to gain their professional recognition, and so naturally they get grumpy when others try to cash in on that. Also, they fret when houses of, as they see it, dubious merit are falsely credited to their profession. Architects are asking real estate agents to show the same care as one would expect from any professional group.

Paul Jackman

CE New Zealand Registered Architects Board

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