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General Real Estate

How Real Estate Agents Can Benefit From Semantic Search

by Bill Gassett on May 8, 2013 · 4 comments

Semantic Search Explained

Semantic SearchWhen I was growing up, last century, buying or renting a house in the laid-back city of Brisbane was a relatively straightforward, low-key affair. You asked your pals who was the Realtor in their community and you visited their office sometime in the week.

There were two implicit statements in this approach that, with time, have been completely lost. First that the Realtor was the most trustworthy person to do business with in the community when it came to buying or renting property, they were the ones with all the knowledge, expertise and vested interest.

They knew the community inside out, knew their business and worked to build up their reputation. Second that the Realtor’s interests and yours were roughly aligned. Yes, they wanted to make money, but they were not out to rip you off and as long as you understood that then the entire relational exchange was a little like two friends agreeing on a deal.

In retrospect it all sounds naively rustic, counter-intuitive to how we expect the world to run today when every deal needs to be inspected from every side and even then there is a good chance that something had been missed. Trust and alignment of interests seem to be notions that belong to a bygone century, not our fast-paced, digitally-enabled world.

Yet that’s where we’re headed towards in the 3.0 phase of the web that’s presided over by Google’s semantic search. As search gradually transits from an engine that provides probably answers to a search query that we then have to go through individually, ourselves, to one that provides answers, trust becomes a key component.

To work semantic search needs trust. It needs our trust in the veracity of the results it gives us and it needs, itself, to be able to work out the trustworthiness of the answers it provides. So a search, for instance, using Google Voice on mobile for “the best Realtor in Hopkinton” should produce a handful of choices that don’t just happen to be Realtors but are actually “the best”.

The way Google’s semantic search does that requires activities on its part that entail such complicated concepts as “entity extraction”, “relational identification”,  specific “data types”, “strings”, “alphabet sets”, and “arrays”. The end result however is that when it provides an answer that answer is trustworthy and for the Realtor using search to get prospects that’s pure gold.

Disregarding all the technicalities of this new search the question from a Realtor’s point of view is what does one have to do to make the “trustworthy” list? The answer to that is much easier to get a fix on than the mathematics of semantic search:

Semantic Search For Real Estate

Real Estate Semantic Search1. Establish Yourself. Not all Realtors are equal. Some specialize in rentals and others in high-end properties. Some will only deal with residential properties and others will focus on business properties. Your digital presence, anywhere, has to make this crystal clear.

2. Tell Google where you are. If you post content about Houston and happen to be active in Philadelphia you’re not really helping Google understand where you are no matter what you say. There are a number of ways to establish location including using Google Local for Business, your Google+ profile, your Google+ Page, your LinkedIn profile, your website, your blog and every digital presence you have which permits you to establish your location.

 A good example of what a Realtor can do to establish trust within their community and surrounding area is to create a community page that establishes their expertise. Check out this community page that covers Shrewsbury Massachusetts Real Estate, schools, demographics and other town data that a perspective buyer or seller may be interested in. Would you not agree that a page like this builds trust and expertise surrounding the town of Shrewsbury MA? If you are a Realtor this is one example of how you can build your credibility.

3. Tell Google what you do. If you’re buying and selling golf courses but only blog about the daily life of a Realtor you’re making it really hard for Google to establish your expertise. By all means write about your daily woes but also write about why not every golf course is a sound investment, for instance. How one goes about getting the finance necessary for buying a golf course and what are the signs that a golf course is a good investment.

4. Tell the world what you do. Don’t just write. In the age of connectivity time is critical and no one has a lot of it to spend on reading all the time. Videos, Gifs, pictures and Tweets, all form a rich tapestry of content that helps create a more granular picture of who you are and what you do.

5. Connect the dots. The semantic web is social. The sharing of your content across social networks, the connectivity you make between the people you meet and the content you share, all form part of a complex matrix where what you share, who you are and you do become part of a very detailed picture.

All of this of course presupposes two things (again). First that you have a very carefully worked out content creation strategy that allows you to slice-and-dice your ‘message’ and inject it into the content you create. Secondly that Google’s semantic search is good enough to piece it back altogether.

Google is getting there with the second. To win in the semantic web you’d better make sure you’re there with the first. Keep in mind while the example of semanti search here is a real estate agent, this works the same whether you are a lawyer, plumber, or other industry.

David AmerlandThe real estate article above was written by David Amerland who is one of the foremost experts on the subject of search engine optimization (SEO). David Amerland is the author of ‘The Social Media Mind’ and the best-selling ‘SEO Help’, ‘Online Marketing Help’ and ‘Brilliant SEO’.

His books on online marketing, SEO and the social media revolution have helped thousands of entrepreneurs build successful online businesses. When he is not busy writing he advises companies and start ups on social media strategy and gives talks about the social media revolution on the web.

He maintains his own blog at http://helpmyseo.com where you can find practical SEO and social media advice and spends more time online than is probably healthy.

You can follow both David Amerland on Google Plus  and Bill Gassett on Google Plus where you will find both using this great social media tool to create relationship with others and share content worth reading. We both hope to see you there!

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How Google Plus Can Help The Real Estate Industry

by Bill Gassett on February 18, 2013 · 24 comments

Using Google+ As a Real Estate Agent

 

David AmerlandThe following article is written by David Amerland who is one of the foremost experts on the subject of search engine optimization (SEO). David Amerland is the author of ‘The Social Media Mind’ and the best-selling ‘SEO Help’, ‘Online Marketing Help’ and ‘Brilliant SEO’. His books on online marketing, SEO and the social media revolution have helped thousands of entrepreneurs build successful online businesses. When he is not busy writing he advises companies and start ups on social media strategy and gives talks about the social media revolution on the web. He maintains his own blog at http://helpmyseo.com where you can find practical SEO and social media advice and spends more time online than is probably healthy. You can follow him on Google+ or Twitter @davidamerland.

There are few industries in the world that quite share as many challenges when it comes to online promotion as the Real Estate one. The busy realtor who struggles to carve up enough time to spend with potential buyers and sellers and still run his business, also has to contend with the demands made by the transition of marketing from traditional to digital.

Google Plus Real Estate SearchThere is a paradox here that must be addressed. While for most industries the transition from offline to online means greater opportunities and an increase in ROI due to the efficiencies achieved through the web, for the real estate industry as a whole it presents a real challenge. Real Estate, a proposition that is hyper-local, has to, somehow, also work on a global scale. Homes being sold in Texas may find buyers in Idaho. Villas in Florida can be bought by holiday home seekers in Britain.

Those looking to relocate from one State to another, or even one country to another, have to be able to find what they want outside their own search bubble. The realtor is expected to have a powerful presence in local search, achieve high rankings in global search and still run a business that has no regular hours and is plagued by a volatile target audience.

For realtors the only answer to the challenge represented by ‘online’ was to either specialize and hyper-localize in terms of both sellers and buyers in which case the issues raised by the complexity of being found through search became somewhat easier, or to put enough time and money into the digital part of the real estate business and hope the ROI worked. Either way the solution required curtailing the ability to work properly by either committing to a smaller, deeper part of the market or a greater expenditure of money. Both choices come with inherent risks.

Now however, there is another way.

The power that lies in “connecting the dots”

Real Estate Google Plus ConnectionsGoogle+ is frequently called in the media “Google’s Social Network” but it is a lot more than that. It is a set of powerful socialization tools that allow the creation of social signals right across the web. In order to quantify this a little let’s look at what is also frequently mentioned in the media as the “competing social network” to Google+ – Facebook.

The listing of a villa for sale in Florida posted on Facebook may get a little bit of interaction with some of those who see it, it may get re-shared a few times, particularly if it is a spectacularly appointed or expensively priced villa, but its finding a buyer has about the same chances that traditional, one-off print advertising offers or worse as at least the latter can lie around for a while the former will get buried in the stream within a couple of hours or so.

The chances then of the right person seeing it, at the right time, with the right mindset, are so slim that they hardly do justice to the effort involved in posting it. Now look at that same listing posted on Google+. The data is indexed by Google. The search engine notes that the listing is for a villa in Florida. It sees that those who interacted most with the listing come from Britain. It notes that the person who posted it frequently blogs about villas, engages in posts about real estate in Florida and interacts with realtors and clients who are based in the State.

The next thing you know a potential buyer doing a search on Google for moving services to Florida sees, in the suggested results on Google search, the name of the realtor who sells villas there. A different person using Google’s UK index to look for “luxury homes in the US” also sees the name of the realtor selling villas in Florida. And, if the realtor has done his homework and linked his G+ account with his website, they also see, each time, a thumbnail of his picture next to the suggested content that appears on Google search.

What has happened here is that by creating a breadcrumb trail of activity the clever realtor has engaged Google search to act as his personal real estate billboard, complete with publicity picture, when it’s relevant to the search query.

No more time wasters

Google Plus SEOThe key here is relevance. Search only works when it creates what is increasingly called, contextual value. There is little point in having your real estate listings show up on a search for Florida someone is carrying out as a school project, for instance. Here Google+ and Google become almost synonymous in purpose and the bridging link is data. But the gift is not just granted, you need to work for it.

The data you input in your Google+ profile, the connections you make, the interactions you have and the posts you place there are all part of an increasingly visible digital footprint that begins to define ‘you’ as an entity in Google’s search. That means that what you do and how, locally and globally begins to now make sense the way humans would understand it and machine search, in the past, didn’t. Which also means that you are then more likely to have a targeted audience in Google search than ever before.

If all this sounds like you can finally begin to achieve more in the digital world, in real estate, with less it’s because that’s exactly what it is. The caveat is that you will need to invest time in a content creation plan that will, in its totality, help create as complete a picture of you and your business as possible, link your website to your Google+ profile and behave online with the authority and expertise and generosity of advice and engagement that you do offline.

Do all this and suddenly the job of being a realtor will begin to sound a lot less demanding than it currently is. The time for using Google Plus For Real Estate is here! If you are a Real Estate agent reading this article don’t get lost in the shuffle! Google Plus can be a Realtors best friend if you know how to use it properly!

If you are in the Real Estate industry whether is be a Realtor, mortgage broker, or home stager make sure you join the Google Plus Real Estate Community. There are great discussion daily on a wide variety of topics related to Real Estate and how you can grow your business!

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A Look Ahead to The 2013 Real Estate Market

by Bill Gassett on December 15, 2012 · 4 comments

Underwater Nation: A Look at the New Year

 

Jared DiamondThe following article is a guest post from Jared Diamond who writes on a multitude of personal finance and economic topics. He enjoys sharing insights with broad audiences. Jared serves in a consultancy role with a dynamic set of personal finance companies. The views expressed in this article are those of Jared Diamond and do not necessarily reflect the views of Massachusetts Real Estate News.

According to a recent report from Zillow, more than 30% of the U.S. home-owning population is underwater on their mortgages. This is a grim outlook for the real estate market despite increasing property values, which we can attribute only to the shortage of homes built within the last 12 months. As 2013 looms, will these upside-down homeowners weather the rough economic storm or will they list their properties and try to move on?

The fed is desperately trying to come up with a solution to rescue those individuals who are drowning in negative equity in hopes to free up some of their finances. The logic is that those individuals will then turn to the marketplace with their newly freed funds and bolster the sluggish economy with it. But the fed may be in no position to bail anyone else out with the looming fiscal cliff.

Real Estate 2013It’s great that home prices are rising, but it will provide little relief to the still-crippled real estate market as we move into 2013. Although some markets are seeing sales gains, the current environment may not have enough of an effect on potential buyers as they weigh the pros and cons of investing in a home. Primarily, will the property’s value increase enough to outweigh any potential for negative equity?

But as property values go up, even slightly, so do the ambitions of property owners who may feel they can capitalize by asking for higher selling prices or increasing monthly rents. As such, commercial and residential renters should look to lock in low monthly payments by securing long-term occupancy contracts before prices go any higher in the upcoming year.

“That might be problematic for some rent-to-own properties,” says Brian McNerma, credit consultant with rent to own property listing service, HomeStarSearch. “Sellers will try to make up for their financial losses by passing the negative equity on to potential homeowners.” But not all property owners are underwater on their mortgages, he insists, and he urges those interested in lease-option to research the contract and the seller carefully.

Renters unable to escape higher monthly rents, however, just might consider making the long-awaited home purchase.Record-low interest rates and affordable prices are definitely enticing to new home buyers, but they do little to help those currently upside-down on their mortgages. Therefore, the number of home sales in 2013 – while trending upward slowly but surely – will be greatly limited by those who can’t afford and cleanly walk away from negative equity and start anew.

Bad Mortgage DecisionIn fact, those affected most by negative equity are young owners who purchased homes with low down payments and didn’t have a chance to see equity improve before the housing bubble burst. Now they’re left with financial security enough to maintain the mortgage, but not enough to get out from underneath it.

Despite rising property values, the market is far from healthy. Even with seeming upward trends in major markets, it’s important to look at the other factors that influence those trends prior to making the assumption that things are going well.

The slow growth however, is good long-term as it allows potential buyers to establish down payments, build credit, and take advantage of various financing options without housing becoming too unaffordable. The market depends on this type of behavior, which is much more stable than the easy credit days prior to the recession.

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Maximum Real Estate Exposure

by Bill Gassett on October 19, 2012 · 5 comments

Maximum Real Estate Exposure in Massachusetts

 

As a top Massachusetts Realtor, one of the things I am constantly keeping aware of is how to make sure my clients properties and my business itself are marketed to the fullest. There are so many Realtors that don’t pay any attention to SEO or Social media. Anyone who uses social media and has an understanding of SEO knows that it takes a lot of time and effort.

There are many so many Real Estate agents that just don’t want to bother with it. Their mantra when marketing a home for a client is I will put it in the multiple listing service (MLS) and hopefully it will sell. Not this guy! In order to be the best in your field you have to stay two steps ahead of the competition. My repertoire consists of using multiple blogs and websites to draw traffic to my clients homes.

Real Estate SEOMaximum Real Estate Exposure is a combination blog/website that I designed with the intent to provide my clients with online Real Estate exposure they could not find anywhere else. In the Real Estate industry the internet has become a dominant search tool for those who are looking to purchase a home. Survey after survey says that over 90 percent of all buyer’s find their next home by doing some kind of online search.

Real Estate Exposure Via Google Searches

As a Realtor who always tries to stay up to speed with the latest innovations and technology, I recognized this trend years ago when search engines started to become a popular vehicle for folks to find a home. As a casual observer one of the clear signals of how the Real Estate business started to evolve was the move away from print media. If you looked at a newspaper five years ago on a weekend it would be filled with Real Estate advertisements. If you look at that same newspaper today there is barely anything there.

Clearly print media is not the place people go when they are searching for a home. The internet changed all of that! A buyer looking to purchase Real Estate today will more than likely do one of two things when they are first starting to look for a home. Most buyer’s will either go to one of the popular Real Estate search portals they have heard about like Realtor.com, Zillow.com, Trulia.com or will do a Google search and punch in something like the town, state and the word Real Estate or homes for sale.  A buyer may also find the address of a property they are interested in and just punch that address into Google.

Search engines have revolutionized the Real Estate industry because consumers are now empowered with most of the information they need at their finger tips. Years ago when I got into business this was not the case. Back in the 1980′s Realtors were the gatekeepers of info. When a buyer started their home search they typically would give their search criteria to their Real Estate agent and based on those needs and wants the Realtor would suggest the properties they should look at.

Today on most occasions they exact opposite occurs. Buyer’s today will more often than not tell the Realtor they are working with what properties they would like to visit. The Internet changed how the Real Estate industry works and how a Realtor conducts their business.

As a home seller this makes it vital that your home looks it’s absolute best online.  There are vast differences in what Realtors do to market properties. Unfortunately many seller’s find out the hard way that all Realtors are not created equal. If you want to maximize your chances of selling your home for the most money in the least amount of time, you are going to want to make sure you have hired the very best to represent you. Just like any other industry there are some very good agents and some you may find do not live up to anywhere near your expectations.

As a home seller one of the most important things a Realtor should focus on is the presentation of the property. You should expect that the photography the Realtor provides is outstanding. There should not only be an abundance of pictures taken of both inside and out but the quality should be exceptional as well. This is an area you do not want to skimp on.

You have one chance to make a great first impression online. You should also expect that the description of your home is well written and depicts accurately all the best features you would like to emphasize to a buyer. Lastly buyer’s today love video as a medium for looking at homes. You should make sure the Realtor you choose has some kind of video presentation.  In a sea of competition you want to make sure your home stands out from the crowd.

Exposing Real Estate Through Social Media

Using Social Media For Real EstateOnce the photography is done and the ink is dry on the descriptions of your home a web savvy Realtors job has just begun. While search engine exposure is vitally important, the next area you can’t discount is all the social media tools that are at a Real Estate agents disposal. Without a doubt the number one tool in for creating maximum online exposure is a well indexed Real Estate blog.

A blog forms the back bone of all of my social media efforts. A good way to describe a blog is a mini website for a property. With a blog you can do almost anything you can think of. What I like to do is create a place where buyer’s can visit and find out just about anything they would want to know about a property I am marketing. You will see exceptional descriptions, photography, a link back to my website, a video tour and an embedded Google map showing the exact location of the home. See Walden Woods Milford Massachusetts for an example of the type of marketing I am referring to.

Once you have the content in put together you then start work on your social media campaign. Some of the places you will find my clients properties exposed besides my own websites and blogs include:  Google+, Facebook, Twitter, Linkedin, Youtube, Active Rain, Daily Motion, and Pinterest.

The combination of search engine optimization (SEO) and social media are very important part of any Realtor who expects to be at the pinnacle of their industry.  Without a doubt having well optimized websites and blogs have been one of the biggest factors in my success as a Real Estate agent.

If you are thinking of selling your home or condominium we represent sellers in the following communities scattered in and around the Metrowest area including Ashland, Bellingham, Blackstone, Douglas, Framingham, Franklin, Grafton, Holliston, Hopkinton, Hopedale, Medway, Mendon, Milford, Millbury, Millville, Northboro, Northbridge, Shrewsbury, Southborough, Sutton, Wayland, Westborough, Whitinsville, Worcester, Upton and Uxbridge.

Whether you are selling a condominium under a 100,000 or a million dollar plus home we treat everyone the same. We expect that our marketing is going to be top notch.

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About the author: The above Real Estate information on Maximum Real Estate Exposure was provided by Bill Gassett, a Nationally recognized leader in his field. Bill can be reached via email at bill@remaxexec.com or by phone at 508-625-0191. Bill has helped people move in and out of many Metrowest towns for the last 25+ Years.

You can see my Google+ Business page for Maximum Real Estate Exposure here.

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Home Warranties vs Home Insurance

October 5, 2012

Tweet Home Warranties vs Home Insurance: What you need to know.   The following article is a guest post from Kaitlin Ziessler who is a blogger for American Home Shield. Her goal is to inform readers about the differences between home warranty and insurance plans. Other topics she blogs about include appliance repair tips and [...]

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What is Real Estate Title Insurance

November 29, 2011

Tweet Real Estate Title Insurance Explained When purchasing a home one of the things that buyer’s will be asked is whether or not they want Real Estate title insurance. Often times I find that home buyer’s lament over this decision because of the expense involved. Real Estate title insurance is certainly not cheap! While title [...]

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Homeowners Insurance: Getting The Right Insurance Coverage

July 10, 2011

Tweet Homeowners insurance is not optional if you have a mortgage and is a very important decision you must make in order to protect what will most likely be one of your largest investments. To get the right amount of coverage at the most affordable rate for your home, condo or rental property, you should [...]

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Disclosing Murder Suicide or Haunted Homes in Real Estate

April 12, 2011

Tweet While working as a Massachusetts Realtor over the last twenty five years one of the questions that always seems to come up is whether or not a Realtor is obligated to disclose a murder, suicide, haunting or other type of paranormal activity that may have occurred in a home or other Real Estate. Wikepedia [...]

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Considerations For Renting or Selling a Home

January 26, 2011

Tweet Suddenly out of the blue you have found out that a new position has opened up within your company and they are asking you to relocate your family to the other side of the country. The job opportunity is too good to pass up so you decide to take the position. You realize with [...]

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Bed Bugs in a Home Near You?

January 18, 2011

Tweet What are Bed Bugs? Lately, there have been many news reports about the growing problem with bed bugs.  As a Realtor working in the Real Estate  industry it is always important to stay up to speed with current laws and issues facing both buyers and sellers of homes and other property. Like any other [...]

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