All websites are based around a content management system (CMS) which is the platform that your real estate website is structured/built-on and which allows you to update website content. In real estate, basically all products offered by real estate web development companies are built from the software company’s own in-house CMS. A CMS they have spent years building and one they will not easily change and never hand the IP over to their clients.

From my experience the average real estate website costs around $6,000 to produce and then requires a monthly hosting and support charge of around $150 per month. If you decide you’d like to end your relationship with this company then your $6,000 is a sunk cost. Lets assume you stay 2 years with that software company then the actual cost of your solution is $400 per month. So you’re leasing (at a ridiculous price) a website from the software company indefinitely and at the end of the lease you receive nothing.

It does not stop there, as the web development company will find other ways to bleed money from you. If you require any type of change to the site then the company will quote what ever fee they feel fit (and some of the fees i’ve heard have been outrageous). As a site owner you either pay this fee or go without the site enhancement. As you can imagine this type of arrangement is very counter-productive for your online solution, as you can’t tweak SEO (or have specialist 3rd companies complete this), you can’t install 3rd party software on your site, and your likely to avoid enhancements because of the excessive cost involved.

So what are the alternatives? Unfortunately because of the technology involved in powering a real estate website and also maintaining the data exports means there are not too many solutions. However, there are a few companies in Australia who offer alternatives to an in-house CMS.

One alternative is to have the software development company build your own CMS. This way you own the IP of the CMS and have the ability to move your site if the relationship ever ends. In most cases your site will be build from a popular frameworks (eg .NET, PHP, ColdFusion) so finding another developer will not be an issue. The only downside to this solution is that it will be costly to build your own CMS system, in the proximity of $20,000 to $70,000.

There is one solution which is cost effective and will provide you with freedom and choice. That is to use an open source CMS which is free to use on a General Public License. These open source CMS are usually owned by a not for profit organization of web developers and designers, who’s goal is to share code amongst a worldwide community of developers in an effort to provide a free and powerful CMS for websites. PHP is an open source language and a few CMS build upon PHP include Joomla, WordPress, Drupal, CakePHP and Codeigniter.

Pro’s from using an Open Source CMS over an in-house CMS:

1. It’s FREE – Open source CMS are free so you never have to pay for the core software which your website is built on. You then never need to pay for an upgrade to the open source CMS.
2. You own your site – Because open source CMS are free means your website will work on any server located anywhere. This means once your site is build and you decide to end your relationship with your development company you can easily copy your website and install it on another server.
3. Far Superior – Open source CMS systems have 100’s of developers and designers Worldwide who contribute code and ideas to the system. On a monthly basis the organisation running the CMS will decide on what pieces of code are to be added in the next update. In-house CMS usually have 1 to 2 developers who work full time on improving the software.
4. Open source CMS are upgraded every 2 to 3 months – The best ideas from the 100’s of developers who have contributed code will be added to the CMS core, tested by the organisation and deployed in the next update. This means you can continually update your CMS with a stronger more powerful and feature rich CMS.
5. Less bugs – All of the 100’s developers who have contributed by adding code to the core CMS will then thoroughly test the updated Beta version of the CMS and quickly find any bugs it includes. Once again an in-house CMS might have 1 – 2 people testing it before it goes to market.
6. Endless Supply of Functionality – The way an open-source CMS works is that the CMS provides the core structure for the website. You then install plugins,  add-ons and widgets which provide additional functionality which the core CMS does not include.
7. Endless supply of developers and designers – If you end your relationship with your web developer then you can easily find 1000’s of developers and designers who can take over managing your website.
8. Freedom to Update – You or 3rd parties can have access to update the files for your site, meaning you can source cheap enhancements to your site through your existing developer or other developers.
9. Choices for pre designed Themes – If you have a budget and require a website for less than $100 (with no ongoing fees) then this is possible through an open source CMS. Check out Woo Themes a CMS theme selling site.

My advice for next time you’re looking around for a new real estate website is to make sure you’re first question is…….Do you use an in-house CMS? If they answer yes then hangup, if they answer no ask…..Do I own the IP for our site and if we end our relationship am I free to take our website at no cost?

If they answer yes to the last question then you’re onto a winner and you are truly undertaking an investment when you purchase a new website.

Over the past year or so we have seen the rise of Real Estate Agents using Facebook to promote their business or personal profile. The best of you continually add informative and fun content to your page and have seen a steady rise in fans. But there is a disturbing trend to this and this shows complete mis-understanding of how to market yourself online.

If you are a real estate agent who has a page on Facebook and you are reading this, I am going to give you some advice, and some of this will hurt a little, but here goes.

Preaching to the converted

Let us say you have a fan page on Facebook and you update this page daily, you deserve a pat on the back and get one social strategy point, however if you have a website and do not do the same, you lose that point, why? Because you are preaching to the converted on Facebook, they are already a fan. Your first strategy should always be on your own website, this is where the whole world is waiting to connect with you and my guess is that your advice is not the most amazing real estate advice on the planet, where all of your fans spread your word and get other people to join (this is the holy grail of social marketing). The only true way to build your Facebook page is through your own business or personal websites blog and then to select appropriate articles to post onto your Facebook page.

Rachelle Hirt Real Estate Agent Miami Beach Florida

We recently built a site for a local agent in Miami, Florida. Her name is Rachelle Hirt and she wanted a site to market celebrity style homes in and around the Miami area. She has only just started, but she has the right strategy and will learn quickly from any mistakes she makes, but off the bat, she has the right strategy.

Her Facebook Page is here (you must be logged into Facebook) and I advise to follow her, just to see what she does and the content she publishes on both her website and Facebook Page.

Her site is fun and bright and she posts regularly and doesn’t push everything to her Facebook page, she selectively chooses what to post and push.

Note: The website cost just over $1,500 including theme, setup and design elements. Talk to your web developer about doing the same.

Different strokes for different sites

Another thing you must understand is content, if the only thing you post are ‘amazing new homes’, ‘get in quick’ and feel good market news, then you lose another point. The one true reason people will choose you to sell their home, is that they see you understand the local market, you understand technology, they trust you and most of all they like you.

Understanding the local market
Post local sales information and try to break it down as best as possible by property type, bedrooms etc. The more it relates to people the more they will trust that you understand the local market, Talk about property types that are selling well and ones that are not, give people advice on how to get their homes ready for a sale, smart renovation techniques that buyers are looking for. You understanding the local market gets your foot in the door.

One thing to avoid is ideology posts or comments, unless your market is mainly conservative or progressive, do not risk it. Stay away from horoscopes, and religion too. In most cases these only impress the minority, and just alienate the rest.

Understanding Technology
If you think it is cute to tell your potential vendors that you are a technophobe, then get with the program, you are and will be left behind. You dont need to know quantum physics to understand how a browsers works or how to resize an image, there is a world of information online that can help you to better understand the business you are in and the technology that you use. Spend some time online learning how to get the most out of your web browser, mobile phone, tablet device and computer. Understanding and possibly helping vendors out will impress them in more ways than you think. This is your business now, get it!

Trusting you
Start being honest on your website and Facebook page, display content that helps and hinders you, good or bad, thin or flush, this content makes a trust difference between you and your competitors.

You as a consumer would know that good advice is brutally honest advice. If you believe it when the salesperson tells you every dress you try on you look fabulous in or that Donald Duck tie you wear to work makes you look windswept and interesting then you are naive and in the case of the donald duck tie – an idiot

But tell me, how many vendors are easy these days? Very few! In most cases vendors are well armed with a good dose of information and an equal distribution of mis-information. You need to be honest and tell them what will work for them and what will not. You need to also post information on your website and Facebook profile that works against you selling more homes and always make a corresponding comment with bad news.

This comment should not be that you always disagree and why (you must always give a valid reason to disagree), but should be informative and sometimes brutally bad for your own motives.

Liking you
You are awesome right? You mum and dad thinks the world of you, you can do no wrong, in fact you dream of receiving the greatest person of the year award each year. Here is one lesson you must learn when publishing to any website or social media platform. People love self deprecating humor, it gives you a human side to your electronic life. For me, luckily it comes naturally. There are two types of self deprecating humor, the first is first person and this is where you let people know your stuff ups and remind them of this on occasions in the future.

Some of the readers may remember when I got ‘done’ big time years ago by a member on this site on April Fools Day. My default position was to try to repair the embarrassment, but I learned a long time ago (2001 to be precise) – this only makes things worse, so I embraced the fact that I got caught out and just went with it. The lesson from this is always to distrust your own motives and just let the world know that sometimes you stuff up.

The second variety of self deprecating humor and a great example of this type of person is Sam Newman. Yes, there are people that dislike him (most of whom rarely watch or engage with him), but overwhelmingly he is liked.

Sam Newman says some of the most ridiculous offensive things and should be “banged to right” on occasions, but one thing he does magnificently, is when someone makes fun of him and his positions, he laughs, he doesn’t fight back, he doesn’t get angry or show negative emotions, he laughs at himself!

So when people make a comment on your website or social profile (that is not overly abusive) display it publicly, laugh it off, or at least explain why you do not agree. If you are one of these people that blocks or deletes negative comments then you are already a failure and need to get over yourself or your business.

Finally, enjoy your social profile, don’t treat it too seriously, make sure you mix the informative with the fun.

Different Content – Different mediums

Your final strategy should be to not always post information to both mediums (blog and social) keep the mix a little different, otherwise why would they follow you on both your website and social platform? Keep the social posts a little more fun with articles from across the spectrum, if you do post funny stuff, make sure it will appeal and not offend (you can save the offensive for direct messages on Twitter – Anthony Wiener tells me it is very hard to get caught out with this strategy).

So post regularly and make 100% sure your website blog is the king when it comes to your marketing strategy! Make sure your title of your post is informative and describes exactly what the article is about, this is important for subscribers as they scan for articles that interest them.

Titles are everything

Given that we use technology differently today than we did even a year ago, speaks volumes in how we must communicate effectively. Today we are overloaded with so much information, that we care more about the time it takes to scan and read, be it your Facebook News Feed or your blog Feed, titles are everything and if you use Facebook, you should already know this. I cannot emphasize how important titles are. Here is good and poor example.

Poor: Property prices continue to rise. Comment:For who, for what? This is not personal or direct at all.
Good: Mosman, Neutral Bay Sydney see steady rise in apartment sales. Comment:This is going to appeal to homeowners or potential buyers in this area. It mentions location and property type.

How to get the ideas and motivation for writing articles

I use Google Reader (help here) to subscribe to hundreds of different websites. I create folders for these subscriptions. Here are some examples of these folders. Apps, Client, Company, Design, Style, Real Estate News, Technology, WordPress, Social, Travel.

Everyday hundreds of new articles from all of the sites I subscribe to come into my reader. I do not need to waste time jumping to each article. I scan them for ones that interest me and this is usually in the title. Sometimes I write an article about this news, sometimes it inspires me to write something else. The great thing about Google Reader is that it saves me so much time and if you organise it well, it can also save you money (daily deals etc).

If you havent got Google Reader (or similar) then you are missing out on a great little program.

Footnote: One thing that always amuses me is friends on Facebook who ‘accidentally’ click on what is obviously adult spam on Facebook. These are little posts on your news feed with images that have titles that are of the erotic nature, that one of your friends ‘accidentally’ clicked on.

What is more amazing, is that they do not know how to delete this immediately and leave it for me to ponder why this married man (or woman) of three is doing looking at this stuff anyway. Human nature is a wonderful thing isn’t it

Let us begin with one of the basic essentials that everyone needs, but few really put much thought in to.

Web Hosting

Some agents will never have to worry about web hosting, because their provider handles it for them, and often their website cannot even be moved to different hosting. Sites built by providers like HubOnline fall in to this category and they handle all technical issues.

Other real estate websites can choose their own hosting, which can give the agency a bit more flexibility and possibly even save some money. You do have to be cautious however because web hosts vary from professional companies run by people who have plenty of experience to sole traders working from their garage with no staff.

What to look for in a web host:

• Beware unlimited hosting. Avoid any hosts that say that they give you unlimited storage or bandwidth (data transfer). It is impossible for either of those to be unlimited (unfortunately no one has invented the infinite hard drive yet) so it is just a gimmick to pull you in and is a bad sign about the quality of the host. Unlimited email addresses or databases however are fine.
• You get what you pay for. You could pay as little as $2/month for your hosting, but when it is your business’s online presence at stake, is it really that important to save a few bucks? These hosts overfill their servers so your site is fighting against all the others to try and serve pages. For a standard agent’s website you should expect to pay between $10 and $15 per month for standard hosting.
  Many hosts offer business hosting which is usually more reliable and has better support. If you put a lot of effort in to your site it may be worth looking in to for added peace of mind. Expect to pay $20 – $35 per month.
• Host Locally. It is generally a good idea to host your website in Australia, rather than the US or Europe. Since most or even all of your visitors will be Australian, they will view a website which loads faster if their request do not have to go halfway across the globe. Despite this, International hosting can be cheaper because domestic bandwidth is more expensive than in other countries.
• Do not pay too much for your domains! There are some ‘reputable’ companies that sell .com domains for over $75/year and .au domains for $140/2 years. You should not be paying more than $15/year for a .com, .net or .org domain and no more than $30/2 years for a .au domain.
• Backup, Backup, Backup! Always perform your own backups. Most web hosts do say that they perform backups however there is no way to know if they actually do, or if the backups will work when you need them. There are far too many horror stories of people losing their entire websites because a server failed and wiped all their data. Most web hosting control panels make it easy to download a backup of your site so there is no excuse not to create a backup from time to time. You should do it after any major changes and at least once every month or two. For larger sites I usually configure backups to run every night automatically and store the backup in offsite storage.
  If you don’t have a recent backup, now is a good time to get one. If you have trouble, ask your host for help.

If you have any questions about the issues this article raises, feel free to comment on the article or email nick@luxuryhomesaustralia.com.au and I will try to answer your web hosting questions.

Here is what Jonathan has to say about this week’s launch of Property Observer “I have been writing about property for more than 25 years, and I’ve learnt that getting passionate about property is easy. Getting it right is trickier. I intend for Property Observer to be property central, providing the essential news and analysis on the ins and outs of property. We will cover the capital cities, up and down the coast, and inland to the regional towns and the bush.

We will offer plenty of authoritative coverage about the homes we live in and the investments that top up our incomes.

Property Observer will showcase the best houses and apartments and all the big-name buyers and sellers. We will also keep a watchful eye on new developments, and the plush over-55 developments that seek out the growing band of empty nesters.

Property Observer will capture the changing seasons – we will write about snow homes, vineyards, fishing lodges, marinas and even the occasional beach bathing box. We aim to be of interest to the owner-occupier and the investor, given that population and investment funds are more fluid than ever.

I intend for commercial investment property to be a key component, especially the opportunities on high street – retail neighbourhood shops, small strata offices, pubs and industrial strata. All are suitable for the self-managed super fund investor.

The website will offer wisdom on winning ways with property commentary from key economic and industry practitioners. We won’t overlook the property fundamentals, conveyancing clues, legal rulings and tax advice.

We want input from readers on market prices in their local patches, facilitating shared knowledge through dialogue, so let us know about your stories, insights and properties.”

It’s not just about bricks and mortar, as Property Observer will personalise property with interviews of the movers and shakers.

We want our readers to get wisdom, not clichés. And that way we’ll all be the wealthier.”

The content is excellent and a great assistance for real estate agents writing blogs as it is full of relevant data, analysis and commentaries.

You can also follow Property Observer on Twitter – @Propertyobs Make sure you subscribe to the email alerts too.

Though this won’t be cheap, as to be considered as a potential TLD purchaser you must lay down a USD185,000 deposit and then pay an annual renewal fee of USD25,000. This does sound like a lot of money but when you think of the potential revenue (through the sale of domain names) then it could be a very good investment.

If we look at real estate the most searched term in our industry then .realestate will be the most highly prized TLD. Whoever succeeds in purchasing .realestate will then be able to sell domain names like www.australia.realestate, www.sydney.realestate, www.london.realestate, www.cheap.realestate, www.beach.realestate, www.luxury.realestate and so on. The potential revenues are extraordinary but this will come at a cost, as these domains are likely to be auctioned to the highest bidder. Meaning the likes or REA and Domain are tiny fish in a worldwide pool of potential purchasers for .realestate.

So how significant will the introduction of TLDs like www.anything.realestate or www.anything.properties be to the real estate industry? Some analyst suggest that people’s reliance on search engines will be diminished as instead of typing in “Sydney real estate” into google they can go to www.sydney.realestate. The same could be said for real estate portals as why would you go to REA or Domain to look for real estate in Sydney when you can simply go to www.sydney.realestate. In theory this could well be the case but in practice this does not always happen. It relies on the purchaser of these domains to hold all the content in that area/type eg Sydney. If all available property in Sydney does not appear on www.sydney.realestate then property seekers will have no choice but to continue using Realestate.com.au and Domain where they’re assured the largest representation of Sydney real estate will appear.

One thing is certain though. Those real estate agencies who get in first and purchase their suburb.realestate will have a significant advantage over their competitors, as these domains will certainly drive web traffic to their business.

A broad range of real estate industry professionals attended the event including executives from The Professionals, Ray White, Laing & Simmons, RP Data, Fairfax, RE Uncut, real estate portals, software companies, mortgage brokers, real estate trainers and agents from across Australia and New Zealand. To help launch the event Jeff Turner a very popular real estate and social media presenters in the US and a seasoned American RE BarCamp contributor attended the event.

The day started with the attendees getting together and deciding what would be the topics for the morning’s 8 breakout groups. Moderators were then decided and 4 groups ran for 1 hour followed by the next 4 topics for another hour. After lunch the afternoon group topics were set, moderators allocated and the groups ran again for 1 hour each.

Some popular real estate topics included:

• CRM Systems
• Mobile phone technology
• WordPress
• Real estate portals
• Sold data sharing
• Social Media
• Lead Generation
• SEO
• Online marketing

I discussed the event with numerous attendees and the feedback was amazing, most commenting the event was relaxed, informative and they couldn’t wait for the next BarCamp. At this stage the organises are thinking (but are open to any suggestions) it will be a bi-annual event and are hoping to expand it to other Australian cities later in the year. Special thanks is needed to those who put the event together and include:

• Peter Brewer
• Lara Scott
• Tatiana Mijalica
• Peter Fletcher
• Ben Stockdale
• Greg Vincent

What’s important about these BarCamps is that they’re not for profit and community run, meaning anyone is welcome to be involved and help with planing and running BarCamps. If you’d like to help with the next Sydney event or bring RE BarCamp to your city then feel free to contact any of the guys and get involved.

Well done to all and I look forward to the next RE BarCamp!

Over the past decade we have grown exponentially and we can safely assume the number one position in technology blogs for real estate agents in Australia.

Over this time I personally and I am sure other contributors have learned some valuable lessons in relation to blogging.

Distrust your own motives

The first thing I think of when writing a post is to distrust my own motives. I actually now carry this mantra through life. No one wants to know how great I think I am or my company is, nobody cares about how many sales we make or how much much better we think we are than our competition. Always when writing for your blog think about who your audience is and what they want to hear – not your intended payback.

My audience and target is real estate agents, I also do business with a number of real estate portals and sometimes I think for a second about being a little bit more measured – but only for a second, you see that was my motive kicking in – certainly avery selfish and human trait. My job is not to serve their needs, in fact, my job is to call them out when I think it is warranted.

So, when writing an article, or even in real life conversations, always distrust your own motives and try to understand alternative viewpoints.

Comments

For every single comment, good or bad, publish it! In nearly a decade on this site we have blocked only 2 comments and both would have landed me in court for defamation. One of them was written about a contributor here on Busienss2.com.au that made so many outrageous claims that it could have ruined the reputation of someone immediately.

But think of this, over 9000 comments have been published and two refused – there have been some measured nastiness, some are personal and some have attacked and even ridiculed me. But I publish all comments, why you may ask?

Dissenters are your best weapons for popularity, people who do not agree with you or others, call out your motives, make fun of your lack of understanding on a subject, call you a hypocrite and yes, even make a fool of you. These are the people that get conversations going, they engage others and in the meantime make your site more popular – so thank them!

Responding to comments

Never abuse your audience, always engage in a way that shows respect, you may have lost them forever as a customer but you can at least hold your head high in your dealings with them. If you do not agree with them tell them and always explain why in a measured disciplined manner.

Write local

The world is filled with articles about iPads and National Sales Results or Trends, talk to your audience about what matters to them, local sales data, local politics, local business – keep it local and relevant to your audience and you will reap the rewards long term. Robert Simeon, always published local sales and auction results, even from competitors – he is obviously a conservative, but so is his the majority of his audience and at the end of the day (pun intended Robert) he is one of the most popular real estate bloggers in Australia – so love him or loathe him, his position and views have created an audience his competitors can only dream of.

Build your contributors

The wonderful thing about WordPress and other blog platforms is that you can allow others access to write articles, we currently have around 20 contributors with a core group of 4 or 5 that regularly contribute, yes some are a little slack.

I set some ground rules and one is that no-one is allowed to blatantly plug their own products or services, overall all I do is a little line editing for some of the contributors. Seasoned pros like Glenn Batten, Greg Vincent, Ryan O’Grady need no editing, however some need a little help. You can assign varying permissions such as Editors, Authors or Contributors and each of these have different permissions (some can publish directly and some going into a pending state.

You can now even as a Guest publish on our site by clicking here

As a real estate agent, I would engage local businessmen, councillors, legal experts etc on your site, they wil benefit and so will you by the added content and engagement from more people on your website, in short – do it!

Start Today

If you havent started your own blog – you can get something up in a few hours for free over here at WordPress.com, once you have some decent content, you can aso talk to your developer about getting a hosted WordPress website under your own domain.

Good luck!

In Australia we have two Real Estate portals who maintain a duopoly on internet real estate listings.

Both of these Portals need Real estate Listings to remain valid. Without this Content, they would be nothing.

Both of these Portal’s majority interests, between them, control the vast majority of Australia’s print media, the traditional advertising platform of the Real estate Industry.

When they were just Print publications, they relied on sourcing their own content at their own expense (news and other articles) to keep their publications Valid. Real estate took advantage of this by buying Ad spaces in their weekly real estate sections.

Now their real estate sections have gone to the web. The listings have become the content, the content that keeps their sites Valid. But it is no longer at their expense, it is at the expense of the content providers- The Real Estate Agents.

The News Papers, The Television Stations and Other Publishers Pay for Content. The major Real Estate Portals in Australia country Charge for Content.

From the IAB (Internet Advertising Bureau) Executive Summary for 2010, Advertising Revenues on the web in Australia have exceeded 2 Billion dollars, with the Real Estate again being the leading category for classified advertising.

So my question is…Is the Real Estate Agents Listings Content included in this figure, the figure that makes the category so high on the list. Are the Listings, which mean everything to a subscription based Portal to be Valid, Advertisements or Content?

Because if they weren’t there, there would be no website.

I ask this because it’s the content of a site that brings visitors. Time and time again I ask people-Why do you only go to these Portals to search Real Estate? The answer is, always, because they believe they have all the listings.

And they have all the listings because they have traditionally had control of the market place through their old system.

Like the Gaddaffi’s and Mubarak’s of the industry, they stay in power because the people that make them powerful, for now, know of no other way. That is until someone asks the question.

If you don’t want to support an old paradigm, stop complaining about it and look outside the cave. Like the energy from the sun, the internet is free and it thrives on Content to be Valid. If everybody had to pay to put stuff on it, it wouldn’t be there.

By the way, these thoughts and words are purely my own and in no way reflect or are endorsed by any other person or entity but myself, because I, too, am free.

Fully Integrated Solution
A full integrated solution basically means that your real estate website is also your blog and users of your website can both browse property listings read up on local issues, property news, taxation and get property advice. Some agents are also giving outside authors (lawyers, surveyors, builders etc) certain privileges to post directly to the agents website further enhancing the user experience and of course the authors profile).

To me, if given an option the fully integrated solution is the only true option for agencies – as you only need to promote one website and chances are, your real estate website already has a decent audience.

External Blog
This is a blog (website) which exists externally from your main website. It is not the most desirable entity, but if you are an individual agent that wants to make a name for yourself outside of your agency, then this is a decent solution. For real estate agencies that want to have a blog, talk to your developer about getting a fully integrated solution. There are a number of great platforms available to you from Drupal, Expression Engine, Movable Type, Text Pattern, WordPress and Joomla.

All of these have large development communities and are pretty simple for your developers to setup. If you want to dip your feet in – you can also get a free website at www.wordpress.com (different to the software www.wordpress.org). This is probably best for the individual agent and best of all – you can one day upgrade to wordpress.org for your own self hosted solution.

New Agency Website
If you are getting a new website talk to your developer about getting a fully integrated solution, they should have no issues doing this (unless they don’t want to) and make sure you choose a platform that best suits your needs from one of these great solutions - Drupal, Expression Engine, Movable Type, Text Pattern, WordPress and Joomla.

If your web developer does not have the tools to do this – or informs you they are rolling something out in the future (almost always means never) then you may need to look for a new developer.

The great thing about all of these solutions about is that they are open and portable, so if your developer sucks you will never have any trouble finding a new one.

Be Mindful
One thing to be very wary of is companies that have their own in house CMS systems, some are half decent, most are deplorable and they nearly always end in tears (if you ever want to leave). Thankfully most developers have left those days behind them, but you still will find a few handing onto the old business model. To them it is more about trapping you into a solution, so you can never leave.

Flexible
All of the platforms mentioned here can do everything that any other CMS can do for your real estate website. All of them have tools that can easily add extra features and they all have large development communities to share ideas and code. So don’t be afraid to jump in.

But if you think about it from the perspective of the person sitting in front of their screen searching for their dream home then the old chestnut ‘less is more’ holds true – it’s far better to turn up fewer listings but ones that are more perfectly suited to their search.

We, at Nestoria, have an interesting perspective on this because we’re a vertical property search so we integrate listings from agents via the portals. We have a responsibility to both our partners and our users to make it as quick and easy as possible to find the right property using our search tools. It saves everyone time and our partners money. For the agents who list with our portal partners it means that we match their properties up with the most likely buyers or tenants. So everyone’s a winner.

Over the last four years we’ve built up an audience of around two million visitors a month and from monitoring and analysing how people use Nestoria we’ve learned a huge amount about what makes a listing more enticing. But we, and our users, can only work with the information that we’re provided with, which is why I wanted to say something to this audience about what, in our experience, makes the best listings.

Straight Talking. Vagaries about the number of bedrooms or bathrooms a property has are time wasters for property hunters – most people know what they need or want when it comes to the basic facts, so it’s best to supply as many of them as possible so that every lead counts.

As much information as possible. This point follows on from the first, but extends to providing details about a property’s other key features (parking, access ,square meters) and plenty of up to date images – photos make a property easier to fall in love with online.

Price and address are two details sellers don’t always want to provide. These are the reasons they should be: The main concern about showing your address online is security, but it’s not much different to having a big FOR SALE sign strapped to your letter box, and the more information you can provide about where the property is located the easier for buyers to work out if it’s appropriately located for transport or schools or other amenities they deem essential. If there’s no exact price on a property then that’s a good reason not to include one, but a between price is a lot better than POA because it will ensure your listing attracts buyers who can potentially afford to do more than just dream about it. Time is precious for all players in this industry.

Embrace technology. Business2 has plenty of good suggestions for ways to do that, be it embracing the tablet and social media Sobox is a good example or creating video walk arounds, and both sellers and buyers appreciate the fact that you’re on top of the latest ways to help them move.

Search is one of the web’s most powerful tools, and we’ve spent a lot of time working on a mathematic algorithm, that we call Nestoria Rank, which helps us decide the best way to order our listings for each different user. If they’re already used the site even before they enter a search query we’ve tailored the way the listings appear to their tastes; and even if they’ve no history with us we use a listings freshness, relevancy, usability, comprehensiveness and quality to determine where it deserves to appear on the list. So if you’re interested in your listings appearing at the top of that list then these are some of ways you can improve your chances.