This week the Inman Connect technology conference was held in New York, where every year the real estate industry gets together to discuss trends and the market. This has become more international as the years go by, when in the beginning it was focused for US realtors and now many global companies and real estate enterprises are seen in this event.

Inman Connect

The speakers are from the technology industry, but give their opinions on the real estate market and how they see it evolving for the coming years. So the industry listens to them from service providers, banks, real estate brokers, mortgage brokers, real estate franchises and government institutions, everyone in the same place looking to work together and find partners. We have seen this past years that working with a common goal as an industry we might stand a chance to stabilize the real estate market.

Next tuesday you can find the presentations from Real Estate Connect in the Inman site, during those days REBarcamp NY was held one day before ICNY. Where you could hear most of the speakers from the Inman conference so you could get an appetizer of their talk, but the most important aspect of it was that speakers and attendees could share their experiences in a lay back environment with out paying an entrance fee.

Realtor Social Network

There where parallel events to ICNY, like RainCamp and a workshop held by PropertyPortalWatch. Where the discussions revolved around important events and statistics of the real estate market, but also discussions on new tools to measure your reputation on the Internet or the effectiveness of your web initiatives.

RainCamp NY 2010:

• Twitts from #RainCamp
• A good post from RainCamp.

REBarcamp Ny 2010:

• Twitts from REBacamp NY o #rebcny.
• In the  Facebook Tweal_Estate there is a good ammount of information, nice work guys.

We hope that next time we will be at the event to provide more insights into what was happening during the those days in New York, for now Twitter will have to do…..just for now.

Since May 2009, real estate giant Coldwell Banker has been promoting their video channel on Youtube by the name On Location. The person in charge of promoting and marketing this initiative by one of the main real estate franchises in the United States is Michael Fischer.

We have nothing but to tip our hat to Michael, his job and effort haver really shown on what Coldwell banker is offering to their clients and partners, this is a true must follow by the industry.

What is really interesting in the service are the functionality it offers a person browsing for a home on the video channel. It shows on a map the most basic things when you are searching for a property to buy or rent:

1. Properties listed in the surrounding area searched.
2. Realtors that have properties listed in the area.
3. Real estate agencies office´s in the whole city.
4. Public information of the area.

This is a great example on the use of a viral channel such as video, because there is a lot of information that a user can share to its peers. By far a great execution of a marketing and business strategy by a real estate company thus far.

There a bunch of video sites focusing on providing video channels for real estate like Real Estate Shows and FrontDoor,but this are merely services to upload videos or animations. But this will not have the audience that Youtube can provide.

Vídeo channels for Latin America real estate.

In the Spanish speaking countries we have BienesRaicesVideo, that offers the full service of filming and streaming real estate videos, they are offering an outlet for marketing and promoting real estate in Latin America and Spain, but they are not doing it by user generated content.

The problem is the digital divide that Latin America is facing right now and that creating content is not the “core business” of realtors and real estate agencies.

Delivering content is a fundamental part in providing “Add on” value by real estate agents.

Creating an open tool to publish real estate videos, where realtors can have a way to upload their real estate video listings so they have a digital showroom; would be a great opportunity to motivate the creation of original content from the real estate industry, showcasing the current properties in the market.

Since most people now, know how to use a video camera, it is not like personal publishing on a blog that takes time and practice. Anybody can make a mini documentary on a property.

But for now YouTube reigns supreme for Viral videos and there is no one to stand in their way. For now……..

These last days have been hard for all the country in Mexico. But specially for those of us that are living far from our homes.

So this last 2 weeks we have been gathering a couple of sources of information regarding the H1N1 Swine Flu that is spreading in Mexico. We hope that these links help you look at more information that can affect you and your relatives. Twitter has been our main focus, since we can get data diretly from people living there day to day activities. Lots of information out there regarding new theories for the widespreading of the Influenza, but we are not going to fill you with “conspiracy theories”.

Twitter users updating information from the Mexico Influenza H1N1 outbreak.

• http://twitter.com/garydenness
• http://twitter.com/cancuncanuck
• http://twitter.com/rivergirlcancun
• http://twitter.com/mexicoreporter
• http://twitter.com/mrlsmexico
• http://twitter.com/eluniversal
• http://twitter.com/mpoppel

There is also a mashup from Google Maps, that is quite helpful.
View H1N1 Swine Flu in a larger map

It is our hope that you stay updated every day with these couple of sources and that it can help you avoid problems when traveling or going to Mexico. The only thing now that we can do is stay put and let the goverments implement a solution. But it is our part to have information and not be told whatever they see fit.

The economy has been hit hard by the economic crisis and know the outbreak, which the mexican goverment and international institutions are trying to solve. The current enviroment does not help the local, national and international sellers or buyers doing business in Mexico. We hope that they can come to a solution fast so the mexican economy can recover from both situations.

This does not look good for the real estate market, since we have seen the number of search´s declined this couple of days, regarding buying or renting a home or apartment. We have to wait and see how the demand is growing or shrinking for the real estate market in Mexico, which right now is living some chaotic times.

The only “optimistic” thing for now is that realtors will have some more time in their hands to stop and think of improving their marketing on the Internet, since now they have seen the impact from social media into the day to day lives of normal people.

Our support goes out to the people living in the affected areas and to those that are suffering from the outbreak for a quick recovery. We wish you all well.

Even thought it is Easter weekend, a post in Varbuzz caught my attention, so I decided to post something today. It referred to an Inman contributor, criticizing “socialmedia” and its lack of power to close a sale.

There are several points the realtor mentioned that are worth explaining:

1. It was by a post in her Blog, that she was contacted by a lead interested in buying a house.
2. She engaged the contact on-line, by sending emails and replys in her blog.
3. This generated an appointment to look  at a house and 9 others after.
4. The agent has not sold a house to the lead, because the prospect is indecisive or is suffering from “paralysis from analysis”.

Her argument is that all these tools have not helped her close a sale and it is true, because up until point No.3 that is the only thing that “socialmedia” will generate for anyone. Nothing more nothing less, period.

A sale is the labour and art of any real estate agent. This is what we have to take in and assimilate, because I do not believe that any web real estate site or realtor social network will by itself make a sale, we still have not arrive to this goal. Do not get me wrong, everyone (realtors and service providers) wants to arrive to this point and we are working hard to develop the technology that may enable this.

For the time being these tools provide a bilateral conversation wth out restrictions,  this post has exposed that there are a lot of realtors that still do not know the limitations of “socialmedia”. We can collect a lot of information from our prospects and leads that are interested in buying or renting a home, it is impossible to portray exactly the intentions of the lead. But we can get a better idea of what is going on their minds lately and understand their current situation in order for us to offer them a better experience in buying real estate.

This is achieved by maitaining an on-line conversation with your prospects, exchanging ideas and experiences, that will enable the realtor to close a sale…..not make it for them.

Maybe that is the reason why the sale was not made, hesitation from the realtors part. It may well be that the prospect was looking for more information and also the realtor could spend more time to get to know the lead. Having  time to maybe filter out the prospect or find out more her true intentions of buying.

So this is our recommendations to jump start your social media experience:

Social media Tools for real estate.

• Choose a name to identify yourself in all the social networks. It is important to have consistency in how people will relate to your on-line persona and find you in all this “socialmedia”.
• Create a simple web site. If you do not have one, we can provide you with it. Just by signing in at FronteraEstates, this is the link for your free real estate web site.
• Exchange links with friends/family/associates, to better your chances in appearing in google or getting your site indexed.
• Create a Twitter account. If you would like to follow us, so we can get to know each other, here is our account twitter.com/fronteraestates o @fronteraestates.
• Build a Fan page in Facebook.
• Know that you are feeling confident, open up your own Blog. You have several sites like wordpress, typepad, blogger and many more.

Attitude in engaging prospects and leads.

• Do not be pushy.
• Do not sell in every comment, post or reply.
• Give more than you receive.
• Do not friend or follow everybody, look and find people that are your target audience and people you admire.
• Be specific about what you say.
• Transparent.
• Have a good time and have fun doing it, people will notice it.
• Be patient, this is a marathon not a sprint.

I think that with this list you can get started in using “socialmedia” tools to create contacts and leads in our local real estate market.

We wish you luck and if we can help you out any way we can, please post a comment.

Happy Easter everybody.