RealtyTechBytes.com

At last! The perfect answer to the “what should I buy?” question!

Jerry Kidd — Mon, 20 May 2013 02:00:18 +0000

I am often asked “what ______ should I buy?” (Fill in the blank!) While I appreciate the vote of confidence that the person asking the question has in my opinions, it does put me on the spot.

Many times I haven’t been keeping up with the gear i’m being asked about and because of that I feel an obligation to get up to speed just to answer the question.

Of course this takes time for me to accomplish and if I don’t take the utmost care in my response, I could give out information that doesn’t serve the person asking! That would make me feel bad.

I’ve finally found something that I can whole heartedly recommend and that is the website http://thewirecutter.com/! I ran across this the other day and I think that these guys are on to something.

They only review and recommend the BEST products in a particular category. They do occasionally review a next best or less expensive item, but in general, they report what in their opinion is the best available product.

They support their work by placing a few ads on the site and they also make some commissions if you buy through their links on the site. You might feel that this causes a conflict of interest. If you do, check out this explanation on their site:
http://thewirecutter.com/2011/10/how-to-use-the-wirecutter/ In my opinion they have removed any objections that I may have had.

Take a look and see what you think. From now on, when anyone asks me “what ______ should I buy?” I’m going to reply “Go check out http://thewirecutter.com/! I’ll be happier and I’ll feel like I’ve pointed the person asking in the direction!

-Jerry

Realtytechbytes.com by Jerry Kidd is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NoDerivs 3.0 United States License.
Based on a work at www.Realtytechbytes.com. Did you know that I have arranged for readers of my blog to receive licensed software for free? And that there is something new everyday? Click on the link to go to the blog and look for Give Away of the day in the sidebar.

At last! The perfect answer to the “what should I buy?” question!

iPad app to create the perfect living space

Jerry Kidd — Mon, 13 May 2013 02:00:59 +0000

I ran across a cool iPad app the other day and the more I work with it the more I like it.

This could be the perfect app to tell your clients about because it will let them visualize, on an iPad, what their living space could look like, or even better, I think it would be perfect as a tool to help home buyers visualize what the home that they are looking at could look like when they purchase the home.

It’s called Homestyler by Autodesk (The same people who make the industry standard design software Autocad).

Here is what they have to say on their website:

SNAP A PICTURE OF A ROOM TO CREATE YOUR OWN 3D HOME DESIGN PLAYGROUND

Place high-quality 3D models of real furniture products in your rooms
Hang light fixtures from your ceiling
See how rugs, paintings, mirrors and more look in your space

GET INSPIRED, GET ADVICE, GET FEEDBACK

Browse the Design Stream for pics
Share your designs with friends and family through FB and email.
Comment on and “Heart” designs within the Design Gallery

CONNECT WITH A PROFESSIONAL

Browse Portfolio Pages of professional designers in your area.
Find designers who have the style and expertise you need.
Get answers to your specific product and design questions or to get help on a bigger project.

The app is free and once you have it installed, you can take a photo of a room, change paint colors of the walls, add carpets, name brand furniture, chandeliers and a variety of other tools to make the room look like you (or your clients) would like.

You can share your design with others and also connect through the app to design professionals.

It’s worth a look, and it’s worth telling your clients about, as it just may help you close a sale!

-Jerry

zipLogix releases a Java free update to zipForms!

Jerry Kidd — Mon, 06 May 2013 02:00:25 +0000

If you are one of the many California REALTORS® who use zipForms 6 Professional to create contracts, then you are probably at the end of your rope when it comes to the nearly incessant Java updates of the past few months.

If you are a Mac user you have discovered that Apple shuts off the old Java platform until the new one gets installed. Of course this makes it impossible to use zipForms 6 Professional until you have not only downloaded the the update, but also installed it and activated it.

If you are a Windows user then you may have experienced slightly less difficulty with the program, but even so, you have been inconvenienced by it none the less.

I’m not here to discuss why frequent updates are necessary or even to discuss whether Java should never be used again, but I am here to tell you that zipLogix the creator of zipForms has released a new solution called zipForm Plus (beta)! This was released on May 1st, 2013.

You can find it by going into zipForms 6 Professional as you always do (REALLY C.A.R.? How about a direct link that won’t require that old clunky interface?) and looking for the “Try zipForm Plus Beta” button (See above)

You can learn more about the product by looking at the 3 page Getting Started Guide

You can also watch a short video here (But turn off your speakers so you don’t have to listen to the awful music…don’t worry there is no voice over just really bad music!)

This upgrade to zipForms has been long overdue and in my opinion it is going to be one of the best things to come along since zipForms first came out!

After looking at it a few times I have a couple of suggestions for zipLogix and C.A.R.

Give me a direct login that I can use with my C.A.R. credentials…don’t make me use the old interface to get to the new one!
Stop charging me for access to the existing zipForms 6 mobile app …unless you are using Flash in the zipForms Plus (Beta) there is no reason not to use the same interface for iPad access. HTML 5 works perfectly well on iPads too. And if you are using Flash on zipForms Plus, may I respectfully suggest that you stop? HTML 5 is capable of replacing Flash.

But, all in all, this is a marvelous upgrade. Agents, you owe it to yourself to try it out. If you do try it and don’t like it for some reason you can always go back to the old Java based interface…but you no longer get to complain about it!

-Jerry

Test your real estate sales price knowledge – San Francisco style!

Jerry Kidd — Mon, 29 Apr 2013 02:00:35 +0000

If you are fortunate enough to own an iPhone then you know that the App Store has thousands upon thousands of games that you can load onto your i device. Some are free and some are not. Some are educational but most are just a way to pass some time.

Today I’d like to tell you about a recent release of a game that is both educational and fun and may even help you if you are thinking of buying or selling a home in the City of San Francisco.

It’s called Just sold and you can get it for free here: https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/just-sold-san-francisco/id549190215?mt=8

“Just Sold” leverages the actual sold data of homes in all of San Francisco’s neighborhoods and presents that data in a guessing game style. You’re shown a picture of a home that has recently sold and are presented with several possible sale prices. Your job is to figure out the actual sale price.

I’m not much of a gamer, solitaire being about the extent of my gaming, but this one held my attention for over an hour recently. I discovered just how little I actually knew about housing prices in The City. If you are at all interested in what is happening price wise in San Francisco, and don’t mind being entertained while you add to your knowledge, give it a go.

You might also want to pass this along to your buyer and seller clients to help them understand the San Francisco market too!

This game was brought to you by Theo, Inc. who have also brought you TheoTour and myTheo. Theo is a San Francisco based developer who is committed to bringing useful iPad and iPhone apps to the real estate community, and even though Just Sold is a game, it fits in quite nicely with their ongoing mission!

-Jerry

Realtytechbytes.com by Jerry Kidd is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NoDerivs 3.0 United States License.
Based on a work at www.Realtytechbytes.com. Did you know that I have arranged for readers of my blog to receive licensed software for free? And that there is something new everyday? Click on the link to go to the blog and look for Give Away of the day in the sidebar.

Test your real estate sales price knowledge – San Francisco style!

Kudos to zipLogix and Docusign!

Jerry Kidd — Mon, 22 Apr 2013 02:00:45 +0000

Back in November 2011 I lambasted zipLogix (Maker of zipForms6) and Docusign for not having a solution for iPads that seamlessly integrated the two services. (You can read it here if you wish: http://realtytechbytes.com/shame-on-ziplogix-and-docusign)

Recently I revisited creating contracts on the iPad since I was prompted to renew my annual subscription to the zipForms6 mobile edition. ($12.95 per year, currently prorated to $12.45)

Much to my surprise (and delight) Docusign is now integrated into the process. Here is how it works: after you have completed writing a contract in zipForm, just look for Signatures in the tool bar and tap on that. A drop down box appears that gives you the opportunity to select the signing method of your choice. You can use zipLogix Digital Ink®, TouchSign or (drum roll please!) Docusign!

Just above the Docusign selection is the place to enter your Docusign credentials, so be sure to do that first. Then when you select Sign with Docusign, you are given the chance to select the documents that you want signed, the signers and their roles and then off to Docusign it goes.

A new tab opens up in the familiar Docusign interface where you can do all of the usual Docusign activities such as select signers, add roles, change signing order and so on. But, the cherry on top is this…since the integration is so complete, all of the commonly used initial and signature blocks are already in place! (For the most common documents that is, some lesser used ones will still require you to place the appropriate initial and signing blocks.)

You’ll want to verify that everything is as it should be and then hit Send. (Verify that the initial blocks on Liquidated Damages and Arbitration are as your Broker wants them to be for instance).

Your work is done!

Congratulations zipLogix and Docusign…I KNEW that you had this in you! Now, when can we see the same functionality on my iPhone?

-Jerry

Mobile Website Design – 4 Things You Need To Know!

Jerry Kidd — Mon, 15 Apr 2013 02:00:48 +0000

Do I Really Need A Mobile Website?

The latest stats are truly staggering. According to CBS news, there are more than 5 Billion cell phones in use worldwide, and about one billion of these are capable of connecting to the internet.

In fact, there are more internet-connected mobile devices than there are desktop and laptops combined.

Because the use of mobile devices is steadily rising, it’s important that every real estate professional consider building a mobile-friendly website. Those that don’t, risk losing business to those that do… it’s just that simple.

If your mobile website is easy to find, attractive, easy to navigate, and offers your essential business information, you stand a good chance to gain a new client.

If you have a mobile device handy, you can click here or scan the QR code above to see my mobile website.

What Makes A Mobile Website Different From The One I Have Now?

Designing a mobile website can be a real challenge because there are so many inconsistencies between the devices used to access your website.

Some, like smartphones, have very small screens and others, like iPads have larger screens that can view sites in “landscape” format.

Some can view Flash-video content, and some, like the devices from Apple, cannot.

Some have relatively fast processors, and full-featured browsers, and some have neither.

Most do not have a full-sized keyboard, if they have a keyboard at all. Because of this, it’s important your mobile site be optimized for “touch screens.” This segment represents the fastest-growing segment of mobile devices, and nearly all of the new devices in production use touch-screen technology.

In general terms, here are the main things to consider when designing your mobile site:

Your site should have a “flexible” layout… one that expands or contracts depending on the size of the mobile screen viewing it.
The layout should not require the user to scroll left-to-right, nor should it require them to “zoom-in” or “zoom-out” if possible.
Your site should be easy to navigate through the user’s touch screen.
Your contact information should be easily found, and all of your phone numbers should use the “Click-to-Call” feature.
Each page of your mobile site should be optimized to yield a small file size. Many devices have slow processors and will “slow to a crawl” if your page sizes exceed 75kb.
If your clients come to your business location, consider adding an interactive “Google map” or some other functionality that will make it easy for your mobile visitors to find you.
Don’t use “Flash” for any element on your mobile site. If you do, some users simply will not be able to see it. Instead, consider either removing the “dynamic” content altogether, or simulating the effect through Javascript. Most mobile devices are Javascript-enabled, and will properly display the content.

Do I Need To “SEO” My Mobile Site?

SEO, or Search Engine Optimization, is a set of techniques used to improve the “search engine ranking” of a web page, relative to a set of “keywords” or phrases.

The top search engines deliver different results to mobile visitors, so it is important that you optimize your mobile website just like you would your regular website.

The good news, however, is that the search engines like to rank mobile-friendly websites higher in the results. As a result, creating a mobile website will give you a better chance of getting search engine exposure.

It’s not my intent to teach you Search Engine Optimization, it’s far too complex a topic for this short blog post. However, I would recommend that you create unique content for your mobile website instead of using your existing content as-is.

In addition to seeing that your content is unique, it should also be succinct. Mobile visitors are typically in a hurry, and don’t require the full content displayed on your regular website.

How Will People Find My Mobile Site?

After you’ve built your mobile site, you’ll want to ensure that it can be found by your target market. Fortunately, some exposure can be achieved automatically.

Some website owners choose to put a “clickable link” on their regular site that reads something like, “Click Here for our Mobile Site.” If the visitor clicks the link, the mobile-friendly website is displayed.

Personally, I don’t like this approach. It forces the visitor to see the “non-mobile-friendly” website, and only displays the mobile version if they are fortunate enough to find the aforementioned link.

Instead, you can employ a “user agent redirect script” on your regular website. This way, your website will determine which “user agent” (just a fancy way of determining which browser is being used to access the website) is being used by the visitor. If it detects that a “mobile browser” is being used, it automatically displays the mobile-friendly version of the website.

This is far better as the visitor will see a pleasing layout right away… one that is optimized for a mobile device and one that can be easily navigated.

Still, I would suggest you provide your visitors a way of seeing your regular website if they really want to. Many “user agent redirect scripts” have a specific function that allows the script to be bypassed. If yours does, you can add a link to view your regular website.

In addition to using a “user agent redirect script,” I do suggest you optimize your mobile site for the search engines (SEO), and do your best to ensure that your current customers know about your new mobile site.

Some ideas include…

Sending out an email newsletter that “unveils” your new mobile site
Alerting your “fans” (via Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, etc.) about your new mobile site
Making a blog post about your new mobile website and asking for comments/feedback.
Including a QR Code on the back of your business card that takes the user straight to your mobile site.

Of course, there are many other ways to market your mobile site, but these ideas will certainly help you jumpstart your marketing efforts.

I hope you found this information helpful, and I hope it helps you when designing your mobile website.

If you’d like professional help, I’m here for you. I’ve been building quality mobile websites for several years now and would love the opportunity to build one for you!

If you’d like to see how I can help, give me a call at: (925) 272-0743 or visit (looks best on your mobile phone): http://www.mobilistpro.com and complete the online form to request more information. When you contact me I’ll be happy to show you some of the sites that I have built for others. And unlike websites built for the desktop, mobile websites can be surprisingly affordable.

I look forward to talking with you and will do my best to help you increase your web exposure, get new business and outperform your competitors!

-Jerry

Realtytechbytes.com by Jerry Kidd is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NoDerivs 3.0 United States License.
Based on a work at www.Realtytechbytes.com. Did you know that I have arranged for readers of my blog to receive licensed software for free? And that there is something new everyday? Click on the link to go to the blog and look for Give Away of the day in the sidebar.

Mobile Website Design – 4 Things You Need To Know!

Know more about your area with a few taps

Jerry Kidd — Mon, 08 Apr 2013 02:00:12 +0000

One of the ways that we, as real estate professionals, can distinguish ourselves from the thousands of others in our market are is by having great knowledge of our area.

For us, knowing about housing prices, what’s available and what has sold is easily accomplished through the MLS. Sad to say, it’s also available to our clients through various easily found web sites.

For us to be truly in the know we need to be able to tell our clients what it is actually like to live in the areas that we are showing to them. If we live in our market area, we probably have that information at our finger tips, but do you know the demographics of an area? Can you get to the census data quickly? Do you have historical weather information at hand? Keeping up with all the various bits of information can be daunting, so that is where today’s recommendation comes into play.

Sitegeist, a FREE app for both IOS and Android phones draws from publicly available data to present a visually appealing (think infographic style) look at:

Age Distribution
Political Contributions
Average Rent
Popular Local Spots
Recommended Restaurants
How People Commute
Record Temperatures
Housing Units Over Time

All you have to do to use the app is to let it know where you are by dropping a pin on a map. The app does the rest quickly! I’ve had some fun checking out various places that I have lived…and vacationed!

Get the IOS app here: https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/sitegeist/id582687408?mt=8

And the Android app here: https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.sunlightfoundation.sitegeist.android

Let me know what you think!

-Jerry

Property Search for FB Business pages

Jerry Kidd — Mon, 01 Apr 2013 02:00:45 +0000

By now I am sure that you have a Facebook personal account. And, if you are serious about using the social networking giant in your business you also have at least one Facebook business page.

Having a business page is no guarantee that you will get any business or leads though. You need to have compelling content on the page and you need to have some sort of lead capture mechanism in place. Then you need a way to drive traffic to the page. (Build it and they will come just doesn’t hold true for most Facebook business pages)

One of the more traditional things that you could add to your business page is Property Search. This will certainly help you provide relevant and compelling content. If you are already paying for an IDX search on your agent website, then by all means contact your provider to find out how you could add it to your Facebook business page. Most IDX providers also have Facebook Business page add-ons available.

But, if you don’t have IDX elsewhere, I may have the perfect solution for you.

RealtyPlug is suite of online marketing tools that is only $10.00 per month. They have a very good deal available currently that is free for the first 15 days. No credit card is required, so it is truly free. At the end of the 15 days you are given the opportunity to continue on to the paid plan, or if you didn’t like the service you are under no obligation to continue. I like this approach because I tend to forget to cancel a service during the trial period and I end up getting charged. Since RealtyPlug does not ask for a payment method until AFTER the trial period, there is no danger of that happening!

From their website here is what you get for your $10.00 a month:

RealtyPlug is a powerful and easy to use real estate marketing platform that helps you attract more online traffic and leads. For just $10/mo you can:

I’ve installed the free trial on one of my Facebook business pages and you can see it here: Golf Course Living by Jerry Kidd

I haven’t taken the time to customize how the search appears, but the tool is fully customizable so that you can make it match your business page’s appearance or that of your website. You can add headers, footers, backgrounds, change font colors and more. If you know how to code in html or css then you can do it yourself, or they will do it for you for a fee, currently $100.00.

Go check this out. The price is right, it works well and may be just what you need to add some useful content to your Facebook page!

If you do go to my page to check it out, please “Like” my page while you are there!

-Jerry

Got passwords?

Jerry Kidd — Mon, 25 Mar 2013 02:00:38 +0000

How many passwords are you juggling these days? How many different logins? What about the question of which login and password did you use with which website?

I often wonder if I am the only person going slowly nuts trying to juggle all of this and still be effective at what I do, and then I just remember the folks that I work with on a daily basis. Everyone that I know, that uses computers, struggles with this.

It seems that many of us just use the same passwords for as many different sites as we can. The problem with this is that if one site gets compromised and your password is revealed to the world, then what would stop a hacker or identity thief from trying that same login and password combination on every bank website? I wonder if they would eventually find your bank account and access it…

Since popular sites like Netflix get compromised, and lists of user names and passwords get posted online, the risk of using the same password everywhere is huge!

When I was servicing computers (a long time ago) I used to look under keyboards, telephones and lamps to see if the user’s password was written there…and many of them were. It seems that we like to write those things down so we don’t forget them. I even recently saw a little book from a stationery store that was specifically designed for the user to write down all of their logins and passwords. Can you imagine the chaos that would ensue if that book ever got lost or stolen???

Think about the time spent on trying to remember the correct login and password sequence for all of the sites that you use for business … now add the sites for banking and shopping and pretty soon it becomes overwhelming.

Recently I was invited to join Dashlane (Here is YOUR invitation…just click here) a FREE service that installs a plugin on your web browser that stores your login and password combinations using AES256 encryption security. The info is stored locally and they do not keep your data on their servers. You can sync your data across multiple machines and even your smart phone. Now, when you visit a site for which you have stored the login and password, you get automatically logged in!

If all it did was manage your logins and passwords, it would be a great product. But, it also fills in every web form that you encounter while surfing around. It will store your credit cards and make online shopping easier and it will alert you if one of the sites that you log in to gets compromised. You can also see where you have used the same password on multiple sites (C’mon, you KNOW that you’ve done that!) so that you can make the necessary changes.

This gets my highest recommendation. PLEASE go check it out and make your life on the web easier.

FTC Notification- If you click the link above, I will earn referral points at Dashlane. If you don’t want me to earn referral points, then just go to dashlane.com. Either way, you owe it to yourself to check this out.

-Jerry

Easy way to improve your computer productivity

Jerry Kidd — Mon, 18 Mar 2013 02:00:07 +0000

The other day I was working with an agent at her computer in an attempt to do something that wasn’t too complex. Our conversation went something like this:

Me: Right click on that and select “Save”

Her: How do I right click?

Me: Seriously?

Her: Where is the right click button?

At this point I want to pause the conversation and point out that she was using a laptop computer with one of those touch pads built in. This particular model did not have the usual two buttons mounted somewhere near the touch pad, so in order to perform a right click she needed to hold down the control key and then tap on the touch pad.

Let’s resume the conversation:

Me: Hold down the control key and then tap on the touch pad

Her: Where is the control key

Me: it’s the one marked CTRL

Her: Oh.

Here is my observation. If she had been using a mouse instead of the touchpad, we never would have needed to have the conversation at all. When I asked her why she didn’t use a mouse, the response was that she didn’t need one…the laptop had the touch pad. I won’t bore you with what transpired when I asked her to show me how she clicked and dragged with the touchpad. Suffice it say that it wasn’t a very pretty demonstration.

After that experience I conducted an informal survey around the office as I watched agents working with their laptops, and came to the conclusion that the touchpad has done more to kill productivity on laptops than Solitaire has!

And that brings me to the point of this post. Get a mouse for your laptop. In fact, get a wireless mouse so you don’t have deal with cords. As a further point, get one of these wireless mice: Microsoft Wireless Mice (Quick note, if you buy one through this link I’ll earn a VERY small commission. Click or don’t click…it’s up to you)

Here is what will happen if you do: Your productivity will go up as you will no longer hate your laptop because you’ll be able to easily do normal everyday functions on your laptop without the aggravation caused by those d@mn touch pads!

-Jerry