Real Estate Blog

For real estate buyers right now it’s a crazy time. The fear of making the wrong decision can be paralyzing at times, so having access to information is critical.

I thought I’d share some of the tools I’ve been using in my own search.

What’s Happening on the Ground?

Trulia.com

Trulia generates its reports from its internal database of property listings (most of which are pulled from its relationships with real estate brokers). Inventory is admittedly incomplete, but it’ll give you a good sense of the trajectories of the local markets.

Cyberhomes.com

Cyberhomes, on the other hand, gets its data from its records on over
100 million US properties. Their neighborhood overviews are a little slow to load but can give you a overview of what a zip code is doing and see the overall direction of the market.

Get the Big Picture?

Altos Research

Altos reports are real time market intelligence that deep dive in to what’s really going on in your market, right now. As a buyer, you can also get a snapshot of the trends in any given market. Altos founder Mike Simonsen claims their reports lead the Case/Shiller Index by three months.

Foreclosures

Understanding the volume of foreclosures, bank owned properties and auctions that are hitting your is key to gauging where prices might be headed in your local market.

RealtyTrac

The 800lb gorilla in the foreclosure space. RealtyTrac has a fantastic amount of information despite a clunky web site. There is a monthly charge to have access to this data - but it’s well worth it, especially if you’re looking at these opportunities seriously.

ForeclosureRadar.com

California buyers may want to look at ForeclosureRadar, a “professional grade” search tool that tracks all foreclosure activity in the state. Designed mostly for Realtors and investors, it’s a fantastic tool that gives you unparalleled data and analysis. Too bad it’s not available outside of the Golden State, yet.

Bonus - Find Homes on Auction

Also, if you’re interested in getting homes at auction, check out Zetabid.com. Right now they are running auctions in California, Florida and Illinois.

Trulia, Cyberhomes, Altos, RealtyTrac, ForeclosureRadar

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5 Great Sites to Help You Better Understand This Crazy Market

That’s right I’ve scored a new gig at Cyberhomes.com. It’s official. Actually my title is the official part: Director of Social Media. Very exciting given the fact that Cyberhomes is such a major player in the online real estate search.  If you don’t already know, they have extremely deep and rich data around more than 100 Million homes in the US. Also layered over the home ownership data you’ll find neighborhood stats, school info, home sales, and rental info.

If you are a fan of me or Cyberhomes I would appreciate you joining our newly created Cyberhomes Fan Page on Facebook. I’ll be using this page to highlight Cyberhomes events, conventions, meet-ups etc.

Also please follow me on Twitter: @cyberhomes.

Since I’m asking favors, I would also like you to investigate a program Cyberhomes has created to help real estate agents gain market advantage.

Cyberhomes Neighborhood Expert^TM - A bundle of exclusive tools for your zip codes.  The package includes your Local Ads on local home searches, current market data, offline marketing materials and slick co-branded property reports.

Cyberhomes Good Reading: Good reading includes writers from BusinessWeek, Money, Bankrate.com, Wall Street Journal and more. In good reading you’ll also notice a new Cyberhomes blog held down by Lauren Baier Kim & Janine Sieja.

See Sellsius coverage of my new gig.

Other posts you may enjoy:

• Does Your Real Estate Blog Need a Side of Widget?
• Cyberhomes PDF Report Aids Real Estate Agents with Local Market Statistics
• Cyberhomes Neighborhood and School Data Now Available
• Add Cyberhomes To Your Real Estate Website, Blog or Single Property Site

More here:
Cyberhomes Here I Come!

Google Insights for Search is a fantastic new tool that allows you to dig into Google’s search volume patterns to find trends.

While I think there are a lot of ways you can use this tool (see agentgenius.com), I think that for most marketers the geographic breakdowns will be one of the most interesting - mainly because it can help identify brand awareness in any particular location.

Let’s look at the national brand awareness of the big search portals:

Strong Nationwide (Near universal brand awareness)

Realtor.com

Yahoo! Real Estate

Regionally Strong (Strong in specific regions; east, west, south, north)

Zillow.com

Trulia.com

Confined Awareness (Searches confined to single States)

Cyberhomes

Frontdoor.com

Poor roost.com did not have enough search volume to show any results.

(h/t Sellsius blog)

View post:
Digging in to the National Real Estate Search Scene

When Trulia launched its new ad network (see Trulia Launches First Online Real Estate Ad Network) it was an attempt to leverage their network of advertisers while providing a way for third party publishers to showcase their advertising inventory to larger brand advertisers.

It’s a proven business model that works well across the Net, as evidenced by the success of networks like Glam Media and Federated Media and niche networks like the Deck.

And to give credit where credit is due, it’s also a concept in the real estate space that blogger (and occasional FOREM contributor) Erik Hersman first brought up in his post on Realty Thoughts over a year ago (see The Need for a Real Estate Specific Ad Network).

(BTW - Erik walks the walk too and just built a fantastic ad network for the automotive vertical for Piston Media Group.)

So while Trulia’s network may have been the first, surely it wouldn’t be the last…

Yup, sho nuff.

Competitor Cyberhomes just announced they’ve partnered with ad-network provider Adify to launch a competing ad platform that they are calling their Real Estate Vertical Advertising Network.

How many ad networks is too many? At the recent EconAds seminar the question was asked “Is it a good time to start an Ad Network?” The answer:

Now’s as good a time as any to start an ad network business, several panelists said. It’s like starting an Italian restaurant in New York. The good ones will thrive.

So whose business will last? Trulia or Cyberhomes? I suppose it depends on the depth of the advertising relationships both sites maintain and to what degree they are successful in getting publishers to sign up.

There’s no question there is a glut of unsold advertising inventory available these days with so many ad-supported web sites having been launched over the last couple of years. We’re also seeing dollars being shifted into web based advertising like never before So the one that’s able to marry those two needs might very well have a great business on their hands.

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Related Articles at Future of Real Estate Marketing:

• My-Currency Wants to Use the Wisest of the Crowds
• Real Estate Marketing 201
• PropertyQube Comes out of the Box
• 3daybid Spams Social Networks
• New Inman.com Site Goes Live

Excerpted from:
Battle of the (Ad) Network Stars

As a real estate agent looking to keep buyers and sellers on your website, blog or single property site, you realize the importance of providing local data that provides transparency to your market. Nevertheless finding the right data can be a daunting task. Not only does the data need to be accurate and updated often, but it needs to be presented in a way that encourages consumers to interact with it.

Today I’ll be sharing the Cyberhomes Smart Frame which will allow you to search by city or zip code then retrieve a unique URL to be framed into your site without cost. Although before I do, let’s review some of Cyberhomes strengths:

+ Over 100 million searchable properties with AVM
+ 575,000 records updated monthly
+ School scores
+ City boundaries
+ Neighborhood charts and graphs
+ Interactive heat maps

Ok, now let’s look at the steps needed to get the Cyberhomes Smart Frame on your real estate website or blog:

1. Go to CyberhomesPro.com and sign up for a free account.
2. Once your account is created, click “Get Cyberhomes Smart Frame now“
3. Enter your market area. (i.e. City & State or Zip Code)
4. Copy the Smart Frame URL provided (If you are using Cyberhomes Smart Frame on your single property site you can simply add this link to your navigation.)
5. Use the code below, replacing Insert Smart Frame URL Here with your Cyberhomes Smart Frame URL provided in step 4.

 <iframe src=”Insert Smart Frame URL Here” frameborder=”0″ width=”100%” height=”1700px” scrolling=”no”></iframe> 

Now you can insert the iFrame code into a page on your Website or blog. Keep in mind the width of Cyberhomes may be greater that your site. You can restrict the width of our iFrame by changing the width tag in the HTML provided. If you would like more information on including Cyberhomes Smart Frame on your site, watch this video:

And now for an example:

 

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Add Cyberhomes To Your Real Estate Website, Blog or Single Property Site