1. Realtor.com - if you have “Showcase Listings” (and you should)
2. Trulia
3. Zillow
4. Craigslist
5. Company Website
6. Personal Website
7. Facebook
8. Twitter
9. OpenHouse
10.  In your MLS (Hampton Roads market - REIN)

I’m sure I’ve missed a few?  Please comment if you know of more.

1.   Darker color background - helps bring out the colors in the pictures
2.  Moved the property info to the front page, so it is always visible no matter which pictures you are looking at
3.  New program being used for the video portion of the tour, videos are less jumpy than before
4.  Picture details on slideshow are always present (they came in and out before giving less time for the viewer to read them)
5.  Slideshow controls have instructions when hovered over
6.  Overall design is a cleaner look

You can check out this tour to see the new design.

Any comments are welcome.

1.  Font sizes are larger

2. The Quick Access panel on the left side is gone, this gives more space space to see activities and contact information.  There is still a tab at the top of the page for utilizing the quick access function.

3. Many different “Mass Edit” functions have been added including Mass Mark Done and Mass Add to Contacts.

4.  The Traditional “Help” Section is gone.  It is now call “Self-Help Topics”  This takes you to the TopProducer Campus where there is more than the traditional searchable help that you are used to.  There are also videos and help topics by catagory (for when you don’t even know what to search for).

Leave a comment with what you think about the new updates, and I’ll be sure to send the folks a TopProducer a note with your comments.

MLXChange Pro has a few features like client management and a scheduler, but the most important feature is the websites.  These are not full blown websites that you can build your online presence on, however they do allow agents to interact with their clients during the home search.  By creating “Client Gateways” you have much more control of your clients online activity and it gives them a way to organize homes that match their search criteria.  By communicating better with your clients online you are joining web 2.0.  As buyers are more and more web savy this is an important feature for agents to learn.

You may be thinking, “I don’t even have a website, how can I use this technology?”

The “Floor Duty Scenario”

The old way:  A buyer calls in interested in a particular property.  For whatever reason, that home doesn’t work for them, but you offer to send them an e-mail with similar properties.  You can save the search for them so when new properties come on the market they get an e-mail update.  This method has served agents well for many years, but it has it’s flaws.  There is no way for the buyer to organize their property matches, if for some reason they missed an e-mail or deleted it there is no way for them to know that there was a property match and most important, you, the agent have no idea if they even opened the e-mails.

The new way:  Send the e-mail list to the buyer and explain to them that you have set up a client gateway for them to organize the homes.  They can tag a home as a favorite, maybe, or reject it.  Notes can also be added to homes that the agent can read.  Agents can also be more proactive in the search by recommending particular homes.  On the back end, agents can tell when the last time someone logged in (or if they are not logging in) so you can tell how “hot” a buyer might be.

There is one downside to MLXChange Pro.  It does not allow a buyer to search on their own, which may turn off some buyers.  A typical web savvy buyer wants to be in control of their search - they can control how they organize, but they can’t control how they search.  There appears to be a solution to this downside in the near future.  According to the REIN’s April Newsletter “Navigator”, there will be an option to upgrade to MLXchange Professional “Plus” for $10 a month.  This upgrade will allow registered users to do their own search.  Considering this is $15/month less than the active agent websites this should be a great way to intergrate MLS search functions into the custom websites that CFC Web Services Designs.  I will give a full report on this feature as soon as it is available.

Feel free to leave any comments on your experience with MLXchange Pro.

The cost of sponsored ads on search engines such as google or yahoo has nearly doubled in the last few years and real estate websites want to sell banner ads and more on their site with the hopes that a visitor will click on your ad.

The good news is there are many ways to drive traffic to your website for free.  If you have listings your opportunites are a lot more.  Posting ads on free classified sites like craigslist.com and kijiji.com are a great way to get started.  Always put a link for more information or photos or a virtual tour on your ad to drive viewers to your website.  Postlets.com is also a great tool as it feeds it’s information to several websites.

Some agents argue that we shouldn’t put our listings on sites like zillow.com because they are our competition.  Sites like these are here to stay so you might as well get used to them.  And Zillow is a free marketing tool for your listing and your listings deserve as much exposure online as they can get!

If you don’t have any listings there are still free marketing opportunities for you.  Craigslist.com has an agent advertising section.  You can also join free real estate directories to help drive traffic to your site.

Unfortunatly to really get exposure on search engines you either have to spend some money on sponsored links, or have a website that is really optimized.

I’m always on the lookout for new opportunities and will post what I find on “Morning Coffee”