Top 12 Real Estate Predictions for 2008

TOP 12 REAL ESTATE PREDICTIONS FOR 2008:

1.) Google corporate jets will feature scrolling AdSense banners on their sides, or tow signs behind them as they fly over beaches.

By the way, you won't need a crystal ball for your sellers

with

Obeo HomeSite and Obeo StyleDesigner.

(Available after January 21st)

2.) Redfin will give away Snoopy Catch-'Em kits to each lister, with free linkbait.

3.) ActiveRain will provide free umbrellas to each Realtor at its site to protect them from getting soaked by falling prices.

4.) Pat Kitano at Transparent RE will move into a new glass headquarters in Pomona, CA. To stimulate the local economy and discourage the proverbial rock throwing, Pat will hire displaced mortgage brokers to police the grounds for any other offending projectiles.

5.) RISMedia’s Annual Leadership Conference will undergo a format change, a cross between Big Brother and Survivor. Hosted by David Hasselhoff, it will only be available by satellite subscription service.

6.) Zillow will use street teams to meme their brand and have street team members carry bells and buckets to enhance cash flow.

7.) The crew at Sellsius, inspired by their successful '08 nationwide blogging tour, will form a Band of Bloggers - like Brian Setzer's, only bigger and more verbose-and go on tour to over 1,500 real estate brokerages, playing at lunchtime in the parking lot.

8.) Inman TV will host a reality series of the Sellsius tour, partnering with Teresa Boardman to vlog and blog the performances.

9.) Trulia Voices, not to be outdone, will go out on a choral tour featuring songs with lyrics based on answers to questions posted at the site. Performance MP3s will be posted free at their site and will also be available as ring tones.

10.) NAR CEO Dale Stinton will go on a consumer-based diet including non-fat technology commodities.

11.) Upstart on line real estate community Wannanetwork will be bought by Donald Trump and leased to AT&T, forming a worldwide network of networks.

12.) Obeo and Krispy-Kreme form a strategic alliance to enhance delivery of its donut-on-a-stick incentive to all eligible-and hungry-Realtors attending their sales presentations.

Obeoair is at NAR this week, so check us out or email me for details!

...what we got, you want!

Obeoman

steven.stearns@obeo.com

Want Cream? Milk the Cow !!!

(Free Cash Cow ! - found at istockphotodotcom)

Okay, ReMax North Central and all other Realtors: for the next couple of days, the blog here will offer a summary of great ways to get your marketing program moving - all crazy and most for FREE!

Start out knowing if you want the cream, ya gotta milk the cow:

-8 out of 10 buyers are on line;

-10-12 months-the amount of time people spend looking on line when they are getting ready to move;

-Right now - 2 hours from now-the amount of time the empowered Internet consumer will expect to hear from you, the Realtor when they find you on line.

-Realtors are Number One - with the Internet consumer - 80% of on line consumers will use the first real estate professional they talk to

Be ready for the empowered Internet consumer:

First, get your listings online at Obeo: 1 million visitors a month can't be beat - the first-class on line statistical reporting and photos you can keep using! -And don't forget to link your own website to Obeo for maximum traffic!

Second, distribute your tours on free sites using postlets : create a flyer with your great Obeo photos and spread the word about your listings at these other key sites for FREE:

backpage.com
craigslist
edgeio
Google Base
HotPads
LiveDeal
Oodle
Propsmart
Trulia
Vast

Third, start blogging and be the neighborhood expert: for free at blogger.com .

Blogging is how you tell your buyers about where you live, the fun you have there, who else lives there, where they can live around where you are and why they should buy a home there. Blogging is a conversation - so talk to these people in your blog like neighbors over the fence about what is going on where you live - after all, they will be your neighbors.

Fourth, get in an online community and get engaged : like activerain or wannanetwork. You'll find other Realtors at these sites, ideas for your blog and better yet, buyers and sellers looking for information from Realtors!

Get another bucket-this one is full - and check back tomorrow and the day after for more FREE marketing tools and ways to make the market happen for YOU!

Obeoman

steven.stearns@obeo.com

RAVE ABOUT OBEO!-THANK YOU, ELIAS PAPADOPOULOS OF REMAX!

More great results with Obeo we like to hear about - from his blog at activerain:

OBEO will give you an edge on your Listing presentations....
For RE/MAX agents:
I started to use OBEO listing websites about 3 months ago and it has helped me secure my last 5 listings. Now most of the agents in my office are using it too. Go to www.obeo.com to check it out.
For under $200 you get a professional photographer to come out and take high resolution pictures and 360 panoramas, a street.com website for your listing, a realtor.com upgrade and 10 mini diskettes of the tour.
If you go the extra mile and provide them with a floor plan you can even drag and drop furniture in to the different rooms of the house!
Check it out, you'll love it and your sellers will too.

Elias.
(Elias Papadopoulos Boston, MA-REMAX )

How does your blogging grow?

Disclosure: I am a member of the WannaNetwork Forum.

Inman News' recent three-part series on social media is sparking questions about what is advertising, the value of content-and who decides.
The rub comes in the second part of the series. Author(s) Jessica Swesey and Glenn Roberts Jr. mention all the usual big players: ActiveRain, Google, YouTube, RSS Pieces, Groundswell, Robin McKnight-and the not-so-big WannaNetwork, created by Tony Sena, a Las Vegas Realtor.
McKnight comments ActiveRain is getting bloggers noticed because of the relevant content on the site. By comparison, she said the agents using WannaNetwork "...were using it to advertise and Google never trusted it because of the quality of the content just isn't there."
Whoa - them could be fighting words. But here, the weary-fingered blogging expert McKnight appears right -relevancy and timeliness of content can push a blog up in a search engine. Content is still king. Credibility still is a keystone in what I call the "information is more important than influence" game.
But what if something different is going on at WannaNetwork - granted the blogging tools are a bit limited, but the forums are lively and anyone who looks there will see business is being done.
Hmm. Making money without SEO or blog content. Happened before the web, why not now in the web? This alone will probably not put Google out of business, but it does highlight the constantly changing realities of new emerging markets and web-resident consumers.
Roberts points out in the final Inman piece today that Web 2.0 and the way it works "...can lead some of these web sites and tools to jump from oblivion to immense popularity while others dim to virtual obscurity in viral fashion..."-Newer ways of doing new business may not be immediately obvious to those watching, reporting or blogging about it. And not getting the right information out could put a damper on a pretty good new thing – whatever it is at the moment.
Inman is giving a broad view of what is happening right now. Wright has a presence at WannaNetwork and has some great blogging tips posted there in the forums. Sena is developing a networking community. And Google is getting bigger, of course. Blogging? Perseus.com reports after randomly surveying eight leading blog sites: “...1.09 million blogs were one-day wonders, with no postings on subsequent days.”
Maybe information can be kind of like the Emperor laughing because he knows he has no clothes on.

If you can hear him laughing.

Thanks for stopping by,
Steve
steven.stearns@obeo.com