Resonant Blog » Hyper-Local

Going Hyper-Hyper-Local: Creating a Building/ Subdivision Specific Site

mlapeter — Sun, 01 Mar 2009 20:05:49 +0000

I’ve been listening and reading quite a bit of Larry Kendall’s “Ninja Selling Real Estate Course“, a system “based on a philosophy of building relationships, listening to the customer, and then helping them achieve their goals.” So far, it’s been excellent, and one of the first changes I’m trying to make is quality over quantity when it comes to prospecting.

I’ve decided to cut the size of my farm in half, to about 500 condos, and focus on providing them the most relevant information possible. To that end, I used Google Sites to create a building-specific (or subdivision depending where you live) owner’s hub, with some past sales and current listings in their building. View an example here: Portside, San Francisco Real Estate Information

I exported the data from the MLS and pasted it first into Numbers (Apple’s version of excel) to quickly make a few charts, which I saved as an image and inserted into the owner’s hub. Then I re-pasted the data in a google docs worksheet that so it would show on the owner’s hub.

Most importantly, I created a form allowing building owners to contact me for the full sales data (only partial sales data is posted on the owner’s hub due to both MLS regulations and so owners have a reason to contact me). This is the call to action, and the point of the whole thing.

Finally, I created the postcard below, using postcardservices.com and their variable-data printing to customize the card for each of the three buildings in my farm (this building is called “Portside”):

Using A Digital Printer to Go Beyond Custom Names on Postcards

mlapeter — Sat, 21 Feb 2009 21:46:56 +0000

When it comes to building your brand in a particular neighborhood (or “farm” as they call it in real estate), old fashioned postcards are still an effective way to go about it. In some ways, they’re almost more effective as less and less real estate agents use them and go online instead. I’ve had great success reaching buyers online, but when it comes to sellers in my neighborhood, I get relatively few.

While customizing a postcard with the recipients name is nothing new, I suggest trying a more comprehensive customization I used at my old brokerage. I called it a “lettercard” and I worked with my digital printer, www.postcardservices.com, to create a stock background below that they kept on file:

Then, I created a mailing list of five large condo buildings in my neighborhood, totaling about 1,000 people. I created a custom letter for each building, with building specific news and sales data, and then sent the text file to postcardservices.com. They combined it all, and after the first time it only took me a few minutes to get everything ready, while providing sellers with custom info they actually wanted:

Don’t Just Use Google Maps…

mlapeter — Thu, 22 Jan 2009 02:40:38 +0000

… Make one! The ability to create custom google maps is not new, but not nearly as common as you’d think by now in the real estate industry. Whether you focus on a neighborhood or a specific subdivision, you can quickly and easily use google maps to create a hyper-local resource that you can provide to your farm or use to attract buyers interested in the area. Local, accurate information from a local human is one of the biggest advantage we can provide as real estate agents, and it’s one of the hardest areas for national brands and huge search sites to break into.

You can use google maps (or a few others that are out there) to map condo buildings or subdivisions and include photos, amenties and sale price ranges. You can use the the place-mark pins as I have, or you can draw shapes on the map for subdivisions or bigger buildings.

You could make a “buyer’s tour” for out of town buyers, perhaps highlighting desirable (or especially undesirable) areas, and including points of interest with your own personal commentary. Why not have the first point start at your office?

To get started, sign in or create a google account then go to maps.google.com. Then click “create new map” near the top left corner, and start plopping down points of interest. Once you’ve created your map, you can then embed it on your site or link to it by clicking “Link” near the top right corner and cutting and pasting the code they provide.

Google Maps: maps.google.com