I recently took the car for a spin and had a look around Sydney to see what real estate agents are doing as far as real estate signage in front of homes for sale (and a couple of rentals). So I took a camera and a photographer (thanks Janett) and spent a day across Eastern Sydney and the Inner West.

So here are 50 signs that we came across snapped. It is clear that their is not a lot of innovation here and if agents are wanting to differentiate themselves, then they are not doing it with their yard signs.

Some signs look really good but the lack of information on some signs is a worry.

Here are some things to think about:

Website Link It was hard to find a direct link to any listing. Some agents did not even have their own website link on the signs.

Yard signs are great for agency promotion, but if the user actually wants information, they can be next to useless if they are not attractive and informative. After all you want these to lead to a contact and hopefully a successful result.

Sale signs must haves

• Offering: Is it For Sale, For Rent or For Auction?
• Agency Branding: Clean and easy to identify with phone number and logo.
• Property Photo: A great sized photo, that captures the essence of the offering.
• Website Link: Where can the user get more information on this listing? Preferably a direct link to full listing on YOUR website.
• Bed Bath Car: Bed, Baths and Car.
• Bullet Points: A couple of features.
• Contacts: Name of people to contact.
• Inspection Times: When is it viewable.

So lets view the signs Read the rest of this article »

14 Comments »

Realestate.com.au have released a new website guide to selling. The new site is very comprehensive and well thought out with a great deal handy tips and guides. Sections include Preparing to Sell, Choosing an Agent, Advertising your Property and Presenting your Property.

Yes, there is a fair amount of advertising skewed to realestate.com.au but they are clearly number one across most segments in the online real estate space in Australia and so it makes sense. There are one or two doozies, such as “Should I buy or sell first?” (seriously).

Some articles have accompanying videos, which are quick and clean and very well presented by Comedian Lawrence Mooney and rumoured to also run a 10 week television campaign which will run in Melbourne and Sydney.

Agents will want to be familiar with the materials that potential clients will arm themselves with on this site. Overall this is a very good resource.

So this site seems to be a significant investment for REA in Australia in 2009 and it will be interesting to note whether vendors use this new website.

PDF brochure file download. Guide to selling

PDF brochure file download. Agents Checklist

13 Comments »

Seattle based Internet marketing firm SEOMoz launched its new Trifecta tool this week. This tool tries to measure the importance of a website, it collates a number of factors including Google Page Rank, incoming links, news articles and traffic sources – such as Alexa.

It is a pretty rough guide, but in principal it should work reasonable well. Many companies want this space, because with it comes advertisers….and they pay. Google, Yahoo and MSN are all getting in on the act as well.

This survey is all about real estate, and what they have tried to do is put together a big list of all of the major players in the market, you can read it here, however a list is provided below. Australia’s own Realestate.com.au is actually ranked number 4, which is pretty impressive.

Read the rest of this article »

12 Comments »

How do you know how much to spend marketing real estate?

Some interesting survey data that just became available should be of help. A video marketing company in the US surveyed 1,304 real estate agents to see how much they spent. There isn’t a lot of info here, but what there is is gold.

One thing that jumped out at me: The agents surveyed said a significant portion of their listing budget was spent on newspapers, even though only 20.4 percent said they think this medium is “effective.”

Yet, 49 percent felt that online ads were “very effective.” The reason more agents aren’t putting their money where the results are is that they feel the vendors want print advertising.

Read the press release.

Read the eMarketer story.

25 Comments »

Google (in the US of A) have added Google Real Estate Search to their Google Maps application. Now you can search for real estate in America on Google Maps. The data comes from their Google Base application, however it seems they are going to add data from other sources also. You can try it out by going to http://maps.google.com and then adding (left sidebar) Google Real Estate Search under see more maps!

Here are some articles on this subject:
Google Maps is Going To Be My New Real Estate Search Page
Google Maps Adds Real Estate Search
Another Hint at Google Real Estate?

There are certainly interesting times ahead. I have no idea why Google has not released Google Base in Australia, but they should get their act together and release it shortly. It is not as if it would be a hard thing to do (add country, regions, suburbs) and I cannot wait until it does happen.

No Comments »