Disruptive RE Broker

I never thought virtual tours were important when attached to a listing. The angles never captured the angles and views couldn’t get enough out of them to make a difference.

Will 2008 be the year of the video in RE? We have WelcomeMat and they also have a blog. They seem to be doing some pretty interesting things but I am not entirely sure just yet because I have not taken many vids myself and this is a problem. I gotta start plunking down videos to get a better understanding. I really need to hop on the V-train and learn how to get this started.

I need to get some equipment that will make the creating process a bit easier. Any ideas?

I just created a group on FaceBook. If you dislike how Realtor.com does business and treats professionals feel free to join the group. I am not a huge FB user but I wanted to see if this group could gain traction. See group here

I belong to three MLS’s in three states. This is what I pay.

MLSPIN (MA) $80.00 per quarter. * Most robust system in the nation. They serve about 8 states and could easily do the nation if they could land accounts. Private company that works with Boards. Grade: A

NNEREN (NH) $45.00 per quarter. * system is shit. Grade: D

Statewide (RI) $210.00 per quarter * Its NH. Live free or die! Grade: C

Rhode Island is out of control with fees. They fine for everything and its the worst MLS system. They don’t give a shit about members, they just want your money. Did I mention they fine for everything.

Search engine optimization is not rocket science - it is actually very simple. I have been studying SEO for 4 years now. Everybody knows the basics but the one thing that is rarely mentioned is how the number of pages your site has. I feel the more pages your site or blog has, the better your rankings will be.

How do I know this? Look around. High ranking sites/blogs have lots of pages. I think Page Rank has a lot to do with how many pages your site has - I really do.

Ask 9 out of 10 agents why the market is softer now than a couple of years ago and they will most likely say the reasons are:

Inventory is up, rates are up or sellers are not being realistic.

These facts might be true on some level but its really not the reason why the market took a hit.

The real reason is that in years past (since 2002 or so) anyone with below avg credit scores could get a loan and now these same people are getting flat out rejected. These people are the reason why prices went up. They didn’t care what they paid, they just wanted in!

Mortgage professionals didn’t give a shit and for the most part should not be blamed. The lending rules were bendable and they maximized what they could. Us Americans live for the dollar.

So who should be blamed? I say the blame should be put on those with poor credit who purchased. A persons credit history tells a story. Sometimes a credit score tells more than a persons college transcripts.

So to all the agents out in real estate land, when you tell someone why the market is not like it used to be, tell them the real reason. Now you know.

Word on the street is that if you have less than a 680 credit score you will not be getting a loan anytime soon.

This seems far fetched but in this market I am just not sure.

A few months ago I was doing all the things you do when you want to optimize your website so it gets high search engine rankings. I also submitted my site to Google’s site maps program and during the last week I noticed my site was not showing up in Google like it used to. I was very confused. I had been using site maps for a while and all of a sudden my rankings flopped. I figured something was wrong when I googled my domain name ‘InstaMLS‘ the root domain wasn’t showing up at all. I searched all over the net for answers and came up with very little info. I wasn’t even sure what to google to figure out what happened to my rankings which were really good before shit hit the fan.

Then I read this article that said do not submit your site to google site maps because site map registration may kill the rankings you have received naturally - those who linked to your domain. After I read this I removed my site map and guess what? Some of my pages were showing up again in Google. My root domain was showing up again.

Not sure if this is a coincidence but I am happy things are showing up again and I am not going to submit my site map again. I think if you submit you site map to Google you are giving them too much insight. I think the sitemap helps them more than it helps you.

Update: my site is really climbing the ladder again since I removed the Google Site map. Booya! Shit, I was getting nervous for a while. Top five for most of my keywords!

Last night was the reunion show for Led Zep in London. Check out the Gods of rock in action 2007.

I read a lot of blogs. In real estate, it’s hard to find good blogs. Why? Because agents think they need to blog about real estate - the way they see it. It gets old - fast.

I have a feed reader with lots of feeds but only read some of the headlines because most in re land are boring. Why? Because the content is boring.

I have 5 rules for real estate blogging.

1) don’t always blog about real estate. (straight re is boring)
2) don’t post about your listings or services unless you have something unique to say.
3) don’t blog like a local yokel. (most of your readers live elsewhere)
4) speak your mind.
5) sound personable and approachable.

Over the years I have found a few good real estate blogs but the one that falls within my three rules of real estate blogging is the Sellsius Blog. They do it right.

They get it.
They post great content. Short and sweet.
They post about various things.
They are very real.
They have a great sense of humor.
They don’t give a shit!