Chad Stephen Albert

Rebate, kickback.... Pretty much illegal in most states - Mon Jun 2 2008, 14:16

Hey, I love to have sellers basing their home value off of Zillow's "Guesstimates". Makes it a lot easier for local professionals whom access the same information. There is such a high level of inconsistency in the way Zillow prices homes in my area that it can create havoc for a seller, and when it's not too far off I can use it for reference. There's one property in my area that Zillow valued at 20K less than it sold for a year ago, and others that it values at 30-40K more than market value. Good luck getting mortgage approval these days at 20K more than market value. Go ahead and roll the Guesstimate dice, and see if it's right.
Quite a bit of the issue comes down to quality of service. Clearly, there a lot of people that felt the service was not up to the level of compensation, but there are many people that do. If you have plenty of time, and the desire and/or the ability to market your home yourself, hey go for it. It depends on whether your time more than money, or money more than time. The majority of FSBO's are not doing the right things to get their home sold. If they did, there wouldn't be so many of them listing after trying. There are so many conflicting books and theories about selling your own home that it can be very confusing for a seller. Plus, it can be difficult to get access to pre-approved buyers.
Hot markets make it easier for sellers to sell homes themselves. Slower markets make it more difficult. Sellers think they'll get more money from selling their homes themselves, and buyers think that they can lowball FSBO's because there's no commission.
The long and short of it is that you always have had a choice in the services you buy. You can get legal services from Johnny Cochran, Alan Dershowitz, or on freelegaladvice.com, or from a paralegal selling legal forms out of a van. You get what you pay for, and there's rarely that good a deal. Hire a discount agent, and there's a good chance you will get discount service. Shop very, very carefully and you may find that incredible discount agent. Think of it like shopping at WalMart it's OK for some stuff, but do you go there for specialties? Mostly not.
There will be changes in the business models in real estate. And those changes will be positive for both the agents, and the consumers. Service models will be increased, and the brokerages will be more service oriented, and vertically combine the services provided to the consumer. All of the little real estate television shows out there now are dramatically impacting buyer expectations. Brokers will be more focused on service provision than on selling skills.
Agent websites are great examples of how you will see changes to this paradigm. Agent websites will need to be focused on the consumer, providing clients with relevant content and increased service options. Today, most agent websites are focused on highlighting and marketing agents, not providing relevant, consumer oriented services. That will change. - Fri May 30 2008, 20:34

What kind of website? Are you looking to create an RSS feed of the content of your site, or are you trying to add RSS feeds from other websites? - Fri May 30 2008, 20:50

Have somebody dress up as a house, with your logo's all over it, walking around passing out water bottles and business cards - Fri May 30 2008, 16:42

I am not sure what are referring to when you say "branded" email, and in what context you are using it. I personally use personally branded email in several ways. For day to day use and business communications, I really recommend using Google Apps for your domain. GApps will provide you with GMail's services and features (which are absolutely incredible in the flexibility they give you), with your personal domain. For example, my main domain is ChadAlbert.com. My main email address is Chad@ChadAlbert.com. The user interface on the web is branded with my personal and company logos, and I have branded signatures that are attached to all the emails I send. GApps is a free service provided by Google, and it also comes with Google Docs, Google Calendar, Google Sites, and Google Pages, all branded with my personal and company logos.
I am not crazy about mass email marketing, and reserve it specifically as an opt-in newsletter service for people who actively choose to receive the information by email, which they can sign up for on my website. The newsletters I do send out are personally written articles and updates, which are on a custom template built with an html editor, or desktop publishing software (check out Scribus, it's free and open source), then placed on the email. Whatever you do, send out your mass emails or newsletters from a different domain than your main domain. This reduces the chance your main email domain will get blacklisted by servers and email providers. I use Chad@ChadAlbertOnline.info for newsletters. The extra domain will cost you about a buck (for.info addresses) at GoDaddy.
Depending on the type of website you have, and what your hosting situation is, there are several options for newsletters and mailing lists that can be installed on the servers. I personally use and highly recommend HostGator for self hosted sites. I use a couple of programs together to create and manage my opt in mailing lists. Pommo, and Mailman are the two main ones, but phplist is also pretty good. Mailman and phplist are 1 click installs from HostGator. I pay Hostgator $10 a month for my hosting, and I get all kinds of incredible free tools that the real estate web companies charge $20-40 a month for (for each service). I did the math, and by self administering my services, I get over $400 of services for $10 bucks a month!!!!!!
Here's an even better idea than email: litter your site with RSS feeds for all the different things you would send out emails about. Consumers today are sick of email ads and mass mailings, plus delivery is not guaranteed. RSS works, and if you promote it heavily, it gives you the ability to deliver the specific content they want, to be delivered when and how the user wants to consume it. Plus, more and more people today are using blackberries, iphones, and windows mobile devices to get their email. These devices frequently won't show html content, or the pictures included will not automatically download to the device, so most of the message is lost or ignored, and deleted off the handheld, never to be seen on a desktop. Feedburner is an awesome way to brand your RSS feeds.
Check out ChadAlbert.co/newsletters to see the opt in for my newsletters - Fri May 30 2008, 16:35