Rudy Bachraty’s Real Estate Blog

Real Estate Strategies - Social Media, Marketing, Technology & Mobile

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How can I submit open house information to Trulia?

Written by Rudy Bachraty, Social... | October 7, 2009 8:28 AM Using Trulia

No comments | 160 views
To submit open house times for the listings branded in your account, follow the steps below.
Sign into your Trulia account.

Hover over My Trulia and click on Listings.

Click on the Edit Listing Details located under the listing photo.

To add an open house time, click Open House Times.

Enter the appropriate dates.

Click Save Updates.
Please allow 24-48 hours for the changes to take effect on Trulia
Happy Birthday Trulia!

Written by Rudy Bachraty, Social... | September 25, 2009 5:04 PM Using Trulia

No comments | 126 views

Today Trulia turns 4 years old! Thanks to all of you for your support over the years.

See our official birthday blog post on our corporate blog.
Trulia Voices - There's a New Mayor in Town

Written by Rudy Bachraty, Social... | September 15, 2009 7:19 PM Using Trulia

No comments | 224 views
Trulia launched a new initiative today for our growing Trulia Voices real estate community with close to 400,000 real estate professionals – The Trulia Mayor program. The idea is to identify and highlight a local trust worthy community advocate for each state who has served as a local role model and who has led by example within the Trulia Voices community. The program is launching with 5 mayors from 5 states.

Each Trulia Mayor will receive special Trulia Mayor benefits as well as gaining some new community responsibilities. We believe the Trulia Mayors can help bring the community closer together while increasing the quality of the contributions within Voices. All in all, a win-win for everyone involved.

Some of the benefits or super powers as we like to call them include frequent roundtable meetings with Trulia team members, insider access to our roadmap, sneak peeks on projects and the have ability to provide feedback for key strategic initiatives. Additionally, each mayor will have a Mayor designation badge by the middle of next week, will be promoted through out the community and will be sources for Trulia PR and media opportunities and more.

As every great superhero can attest to, with great power comes great responsibility. That being said, we do look at our mayors as superheros because they have each done something remarkable on Voices – they have gained the trust of the community by providing quality real estate insight and knowledge to consumers and fellow real estate agents alike.

Moving forward, we would like the mayors to continue being active within the community by answering questions, blogging and helping others. We hope to see the mayors expand their sphere of influence outside of the Voices community as well, both online and offline via their social networks. To help this outreach effort, we will help each mayor co-host local Trulia sponsored networking parties, webinars and educational events in their area and more.

Without further adieu, the new Trulia Mayors are:
- Josh Boggs (San Antonio, TX) – Owner of Exposed Homes – Trulia Pro
  Josh moved to San Antonio in 2000 and has flourished in his new found home. Having a strong background in financial management, consulting and multi-family property management, residential real estate consulting was inevitably waiting for him right around the corner. Believing wholeheartedly about reviving what is now considered a long lost art in today’s business world, Josh has brought his passion for helping people, valuable experience, sense of humor and enjoyment into his real estate career to hopefully remind his clients and potential clients that customer service is still alive and kicking in his domain. He now owns and controls the marketing company eXposed Homes located at Keller Williams and are barreling through their 3rd year of operation.
- Maureen Francis (Birmingham, MI) – Associate Broker at SKBK Sotheby’s International Realty –Trulia Pro – 2008 Trulia MVP
  As a top producing Realtor in Birmingham, Michigan, she, and her husband, Dmitry Koublitsky, have been selling residential real estate in some of Metro Detroit's most affluent suburbs since 2001. The couple met in Ukraine, where Maureen worked as a consultant on projects for the US government, The World Bank and The United Nations, after serving in the first group of US Peace Corps volunteers in the former Soviet Union.   Maureen and Dmitry have built much of their business through technology, by using the web to help them to unite buyers with sellers. Maureen was recently recognized by the Women's Council of Realtors for her use of technology, and she has received awards for blogging over the years. Maureen blogs at www.miOaklandCounty.com. 
- Deborah Madey (Rumson, NJ) – Broker/Owner of Penninsula Realty – Trulia Pro – 2008 Trulia MVP
  Deborah is a social media enthusiast with more than 2700 comments in Trulia Voices. See her Trulia profile here: http://www.trulia.com/profile/DeborahMadeyNewJersey/
- Alan May (Evanston, IL) – Realtor at Coldwell Banker – 2008 Trulia MVP
  Alan brings a casual sense of humor to his postings (as you can tell from his ever-changing Elvis-inspired icons), here on Trulia and has has been a regular contributor to Trulia Voices since 2007 which lead to him becoming a Trulia MVP for 2008. Additionally, Alan has contributed to several other real estate related sites over the past few years.   Alan has been a Realtor with one of the top Coldwell Banker offices in the Chicago area for almost 10 years, and has been consistently an award-winning agent, as well as one of the top producers in his area. He's a low-key agent, and views himself more as a consultant, than a salesman.
- Carl Medford (Fremont, CA) – Agent at Windermere – Trulia Pro
  With the motto of, “Helping You Write The Next Chapter In Your Life,”™ Carl is one of the "next generation" of Web-based REALTORS. Carl typically transforms any local coffeehouse into an office; meeting with clients in any location and conducting business while enjoying the best coffee available! Instead of focusing on a specific neighborhood, Carl has earned the distinction of being a "Regional Expert," tracking trends and critical information in multiple markets, thus bringing the broadest possible expertise and service to his clients.
-  In addition to being a REALTOR, Carl is a licensed general contractor and also owns "The Next Stage," a fully professional and accredited home staging company. Lastly, Carl has developed “The Ultimate Home Buying Experience,™”. He is featured weekly in “Real Estate Reality” in the Real Estate section of the San Leandro Times and Castro Valley Forum newspapers."
We're very excited by this program and look forward to seeing how the community embraces it. As always, all feedback and observations will be considered for future growth and expansion of the Trulia Mayor program. If you want to be one of the next Trulia Mayors, share your thoughts on why in a blog post on Trulia, standout within the community and be remarkable – we’ll notice.

In Related Mayor News:

Did you know the Gavin Newsom, the Mayor of San Francisco, is active on Trulia Voices? Check out his question to the community - When deciding where to live, what local information do you want at your fingertips?

Craig Newmark of Craigslist even re-tweeted Mayor Newsom's Trulia Voices Question - pretty cool.
Where does Trulia get sold homes and assessor records information?

Written by Rudy Bachraty, Social... | August 27, 2009 9:57 AM Using Trulia

No comments | 259 views

Trulia licenses the sold homes and assessor records information that you find throughout our site. We have over 10 years of historical transaction information available on Trulia.

Trulia's data provider compiles public record information from local assessor, tax collector, and recorder offices across the US for single-family homes and other residential property types. Our property data includes property attributes (e.g. beds, baths, building area, lot size) and historical sales records since 1996.

If you have verified that the public record data with your local jurisdiction is correct, but the data displayed on Trulia's website is not correct, please click here and complete the Ask a Question form to contact us and provide the correct information (e.g. attach assessor documentation or a link to the correct information on your county assessor site) so that we can correct the error and share this feedback with our data provider.
Hot New Trulia Profiles Launch

Written by Rudy Bachraty, Social... | August 10, 2009 2:01 PM Using Trulia

No comments | 702 views

Last week we launched an update for our Trulia Voices profile pages. Based on consumer and agent feedback and testing, we streamlined your Trulia profile to create a better user experience. Take a look at the highlights below and please keep the fantastic feedback coming so we can make your Trulia experience even better.

Building your online identity:

Business Card 2.0 - contains all your key info including name, company, locations, Web sites, occupation, views, contributions and contact info

New listing module - provides higher visibility for your listings

Tabbed format - easy access to more information

Trulia activity stats - shows your contributions for Helpful Answers, Answers and Blogs

Real Estate Resume - Highlight your accomplishments and add your client testimonials - First impressions matter!

Trulia Voices Q&A - All your contributions appear on your profile to create a library of real estate content highlighting your knowledge, experience and opinions

Expanding your sphere of influence

Share - Use the Email, Facebook and Twitter social media tools to share your profile easily

Views - Active on Trulia? Now you can see how many of people have seen your profile

Scaling your business

Open “Contact Me” form - for even easier ability to be contacted by consumers and referral agents

Have you updated your new Trulia Profile today?
Trulia - Top 100 Websites of 2009 by PC Mag

Written by Rudy Bachraty, Social... | July 28, 2009 3:05 PM Using Trulia

No comments | 223 views

PC Mag names Trulia in their Top 100 Websites of 2009! It’s a great compliment to be mentioned along with so many other great companies such as Craigslist, Wikipedia, Yelp, TechCrunch, Engadget, Lifehacker, CNET, Amazon, DIGG, The New York Times and more. Kudos to the entire Trulia team for all your hard work, creativity and dedication.

According to PC Mag:

“Deciding upon our list of 100 sites is a months-long process. We solicited Web site nominations from every corner of the Web—PCMag and AppScout readers, Twitter followers, Facebook friends, our own staff, and more. A small committee of our own experts then evaluated each nominated site one by one, judging it according to its content quality, design and originality, to arrive at our two lists of 50 Web sites”

Thanks PC Mag!
Trulia Continues to Climb

Written by Rudy Bachraty, Social... | July 21, 2009 1:10 PM Using Trulia

No comments | 100 views

Via Inman News:

“Trulia.com, which cracked the Hitwise Top 10 in December, was the ninth-ranked site in the real estate category by market share in April, and sixth in May. By displacing RE/MAX Real Estate from the fifth position, Trulia.com became the first newcomer in the top five since February.”

Thanks for highlighting our growth Inman!