This one from a limited-service company listing (not that they’re the only offenders, but it seems like a contributing factor:)
… will not be available for showing till 2-19-07. …
I can’t tell you how valuable that information is in August.
Seen something you just can’t believe? Send it through and we’ll run with it!
Technorati Tags: Bad MLS Remarks
Popularity: 10% [?]
This afternoon I was asked why a home in Palm Valley, one of the more sought-after destinations in the Southwest Valley, would sit on the market for three weeks with very little traffic. As my seller put it, homes still are selling, aren’t they?
As you saw earlier today with my sales map post for Palm Valley, homes indeed are selling. But compare that map of solds to this map of currently active homes, not including the builders’ inventory of new and spec homes. Homes are color-coded by price, as that is how they are sorted every day by buyers searching the Internet for homes.
Where you see the stars, there are multiple selections. Press the plus sign to increase the magnification and you’ll see the markers separate. Keep pressing and they keep multiplying.
Often the reason why a home is sold, or even shown, deals more with the general real estate market than the house itself. Marketing can do much in terms of positioning, but marketing can’t make competing homes disappear. If a buyer searches in Realtor.Com for Palm Valley homes (or another IDX-based portal), they will have more than 240 homes through which to sift.
And so my marketing focuses on what can be done outside the MLS in an effort to provide the greatest amount of exposure to the largest number of buyers:
If someone Googles PalmValley homes for sale, the first thing they will see will be a craisglist entry for a beautiful Sedona model. That’s my listing, right at the top of the search engines. (Another Palm Valley listing should be up there in the very near future.)
If someone Googles the address of another listing, this one at 3892 N. 146th Drive, the first six listings are all of this home for sale. And not all are even for my own property site; some are for sites that have linked to the property site, taking it national as it were.
Open houses give buyers access to the home for a three- or four-hour window on either a Saturday or Sunday afternoon. The marketing I do provides buyers access to the home 24 hours a day, 7 days a week. No appointment necessary, at least not until they’ve decided they are serious about purchasing.
Because at the end of the day, it’s not the number of people who view a home that matters. It’s having the one person who is serious about buying the home come through the front door that counts.
Technorati Tags: real estate marketing, Palm Valley real estate, homes for sale
Popularity: 9% [?]
This one will be the last in the series … from now on, the sales maps for Arrowhead Ranch and Westbrook Village will be weekly, most likely on Tuesdays. Ventana Lakes and Palm Valley maps will be monthly, usually the first day or two of the month. I work all over the Phoenix real estate market, but these areas are where I spend the most time.
If you live in a subdivision not listed above and would like a map of solds, simply send me an e-mail with the request and I’ll put the data together for you.
Technorati Tags: Goodyear Arizona, Palm Valley, home sales, Phoenix real estate
Popularity: 10% [?]
I’m certain that Mr. Swann found a much easier way of doing this, and frankly the effort isn’t quite worth it for a small file such as the one I just worked through. But I have to say, using a .csv file to upload the property data in ZeeMaps beats the heck out of typing and coding all of the entries. Not to mention, I’ve lost that annoying “Description” line.
Without further ado, here’s last month’s sales in Ventana Lakes, an active adult community straddling the border between Peoria and Sun City.
For the record, I’m not going to post for every subdivision in the Northwest Valley. But if I think an area is under-represented online … get ready. With the joy of ZeeMaps, there is no limit to what can be farmed electronically.
Technorati Tags: Ventana Lakes, real estate marketing, Phoenix real estate, Phoenix homes sales
Popularity: 8% [?]
When I first started my website, I lit $500 on fire and signed up as an exclusive agent for ZIP code 85345 with Homes.Com. Tobey and I spent the next year silently smiling at those looking for homes in 85345, all to no avail.
At the time that I signed up, I was told that as added incentive if I didn’t receive even one legitimate lead through Homes.Com, I’d get a free year for my banner ad. I didn’t get a lead. And, as you might expect, that promise of a free year went by the wayside as well.
I don’t know if Jene is still with the company but that’s not the point. I’ve now told this story to at least a dozen agents from Homes.Com after the past year. Now, given that they are looking for additional money from me, don’t you think someone … anyone … would try and address this concern? The closest I came was one agent who said, with absolute truthfulness and absolutely no tact, “You really believed that? You should have known better.”
Well, now I do know better. Now I don’t let the conversation progress much past hello.
As I learned on Friday, while in the process of asking yet another agent how many times I must say no before someone makes a note of the response, there is no great lead system in place for this fine sales folks. Rather, they’re surfing the web and calling agents more or less at random. Not to mention calling ad infinitum.
If anything, there’s a positive to be found in the situation in that my Internet marketing must be working if all of these sales agents can find me working independently of each other. But, for the love of all that is holy, can’t someone at Homes.Com buy a contact management program so they can see how many times they’re trying to bilk the same person?
If they can’t manage this much, why in the world would I spend my money with them? And if anyone from Homes.Com is paying attention, which I highly doubt, please glance at this post before calling. The answer is no. It will remain no. Thanks for playing.
Next thing you know, I’ll receive daily calls from SEO folks promising me the top page of Google for such crucial search terms such as “Phoenix Realtors who Exploit Beagles for Financial Gain.” Lord knows that will drive the traffic like nothing else.
Technorati Tags: real estate marketing, Homes.Com
Popularity: 7% [?]
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