Buyers: Why Work With a Realtor?

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I have been getting many comments and request from my previous, 29 Ways It Pays To Work With a Realtor. Therefore I decided to elaborate on the subject.

In today’s market the popularity of selling or buying on your own is increasing due to the fact that you can “save” a ton of money.  And let’s be honest, the more money that stays in your pocket the better it is for you and your family.  I understand the logic behind this, however without a Realtor many costly mistake can happen, which may cause you to spend more than you anticipated.ready_to_act_buyer

As a buyer, many decide not to work with an agent directly.  They go from open house to open house, or they browse the internet looking for homes and speak with the listing agent when they want to see a property or if they have questions.  Truthfully, who better to find out about a property, than the agent who is selling it?   Many decide to purchase a home with the Listing Agent due to the fact that they believe they will get a better purchase price.

Here are some things to think about as buyer before you decide to go the “on your own” route:

  • Do you have the time to look at listings each and every hour trying to find the right property? Keep in mind Realtor.com/ Realtor.ca is approximately 24 hours behind the board. Meaning if a listing comes out at 9am today, you wont see it until tomorrow.  Can you afford to miss out on the home of your dreams because you don’t want to speak to a realtor?
  • The listing agent is hired to work on behalf of the seller.  If they are looking out for the best interest of the seller, who’s looking out for you?
  • The listing agent is hired to work for the seller, and in regards to price, getting the highest price possible for the seller is one of their goals; therefore you have no one to negotiate on your behalf to truly get you the lowest price possible.  Also think of it this way, the listing agent gets a commission for selling the property.  If they bring the buyer (you) they get a higher commission.  The higher the purchase price, the higher their commission. Therefore there are 2 reasons why the listing agent will always try to get the highest price for the property they have listed.
  • If the listing agent is there to sell the property, what type of home inspector will they refer to you? One that will do a thorough job? Or one that will provide results that will allow the sale of the home to go through?

These are just some things to consider when you are a home buyer and are thinking about doing it on your own.  Now there are some buyers who have gone this route, and have come out successfully.  Having said that, as a buyer it does not make sense to go this route.  You deserve to have someone to stand in your corner and be on your side.

Email Tracking? Friend or Foe?

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Emaбаннер-3il tracking allows you to see if the person receiving your email has opened it or not.  In real estate, where prospects and leads are very private, this is a very good thing to have in place.  Email tracking, will track where other not the recipient has clicked/opened the email.  This is a process that happens in the background, therefore the recipient may not even be aware that their actions are being tracked.

By tracking your open rates and click through rates, you can determine who is an actively looking at what you are sending them.  This allows you to zero in on your focus and spend follow up time on those who deserve it the most. You may also be able to determine when a leads motivation or time line has changed, if there is a significant difference in their open rates.

By tracking the click through and open rates, it gives you insight into your clients needs, motivation and allows you to follow up with the best approach.

There are tons of email tracking systems, however the one most widely used by Real estate agents is Fabusend

 

 

Social Media Best Practices

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Social media is an effective way to increase your brand awareness and potentially your transaction per year.  If done correctly, you will most definitely reap the benefits, however if you do it incorrectly, it can do more harm than good.

Before you go crazy with the postings and scheduling updates, ask yourself these questions.  This will help you come up with a viable plan of attack (so to speak).

  • What does your audience most like about you?
  • Who are you trying to target or reach?
  • Who do you want to do business with?
  • Are you easy to find on social media?
  • What are your competitors doing?
  • What do your clients expect of your brand?
  • Are you happy with their expectations? If not, how can you change their expectations?

Once you answer these questions, you will have a better idea or dare I say vision of how you would like to proceed.

 

Stay tuned for more social media best practices posts.

 

Who Likes Free Images? WE DO! So Where Can You Get Them?

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For those of you who do online marketing, you know how much of a pain it can be to constantly have to pay for photos.   You may need a photo for your blog posts, your websites, an advertisement, etc.

I’m sure many of you know the sites you can use to find photos, but did you know there is a whole bunch of sites that you can use to download stock photos for FREEEEEEE!

We at Real Estate is Our Passion, love to make things as easy as possible for you guys. So here’s a list of free websites that you can use.  Many of these sites have great high res photos that can be used for business or for personal use.

1.  Pixabay

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2.  Pexels

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3. Unsplash

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4. StockSnap

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5. Gratisography – this site has very unique pictures with an artistic flair

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6. Negative Space

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**Note this article will constantly be updated as we remove and add in new website that have LOYALTY FREE PHOTOS for you to use.

When Is The Best Time to Post on Instagram?

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instagram-time-post-debate-man-repeller-joseph-amar-emojis-2Instagram is the 2nd most active social media platform.  If you are not on Instagram, we highly recommend that you START TODAY.  Instagram users, most often use their mobile device when using this platform.  Instagram is a mix of photos and videos. You do have the ability to drive traffic to your site via your profile or if you choose to create sponsored ads. Instagram is the 2nd most popular Social media site today.  Users use the platform all day every day.

 

There is no perfect time of day to post on Instagram, however users are encouraged not to post between 3:00pm – 4:00pm Monday to Thursdays.

  1. The best days to post are Monday & Thursday.
  2. Videos any day at 9 p.m.–8 a.m.
  3. Experiment with 2 a.m., 5 p.m., and Wednesday at 7 p.m.

General best times to post on Instagram:

  1. 8–9 a.m.
  2. 2 a.m.
  3. 5 p.m.

It is recommended for you to post at various times of the day and night and see which posts are seen the most and tailor your posting times accordingly.

 

**Sourced By: Hootsuite & Hubspot

When Is The Best Time to Post on Facebook?

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when-is-the-best-time-to-post-on-facebookIf you’ve been posting on Facebook to drive traffic to your site, you will need to know when is the best time to post.  Facebook users use facebook everyday, all day.  They visit facebook from desktops as well as their mobile devices.  But in order to take advantage of  best time to post, you must know what those days and times are.  You might have realized your posts get more clicks or reactions when you post on a certain day of the week or during a specific time slot.  Posting when the majority of your network is online and on Facebook will most likely increase your click ratio as well as your conversion ratio.

At Real Estate is Our Passion, we decided to do the research for you.

The best times to post on Facebook are as follows:

Saturday & Sunday= 12:00pm – 1:00pm

Wednesday 3:00pm – 4:00pm

Thursday & Friday = 1:00-4:00pm

 

Therefore if you can’t post everyday or throughout the day, make sure you are posting during these peak hours.

 

**Sourced By: Hootsuite & Hubspot

AND OUR WINNERS ARE……

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Giveaway-Winner

 


Before we get to the winners, we just wanted to send out a huge Thanks to those who stopped by our booth at RealtorQuest!.

We have chosen 3 winners.

3 Months Free of Service: Kimme Myles of Royal Lepage Real Estate Services

6 Months Free of Service:  Dawn Christie of RE/MAX Real Estate Services

and the bigger winner of the day….

Getting 12 Months Free of Service is

ARIF SIRAJ of HomeLife Miracle

How To Drive Traffic To Your Website For Free Part 2: Kijiji

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Using Kijiji is a great way to drive traffic to your site. It is an effective way to have those not in your network learn about your product or services.

Kijiji is a free online classified site that is used in Canada.  For those of you that are not familiar with Kijiji, here are some useful facts (sourced by kijiji):

Kijiji Quick Facts:

  • Almost 55% of Canadians use Kijiji on a monthly basis – that’s more than 17 million unique visitors each month!
  • 2 ads are posted every second on Kijiji
  • More than 83 million ads are posted on Kijiji every year
  • Over 1.6 million new ads are posted each week on Kijiji
  • Over 7.5 million live ads on Kijiji right now
  • Kijiji is Canada’s largest classifieds site

What are the largest cities on Kijiji?

  • Toronto
  • Montreal
  • Calgary
  • Edmonton
  • Ottawa

What are some of the most popular categories?

  • Buy and Sell
  • Cars & Vehicles
  • Real Estate
  • Services
  • Jobs
  • Pets
  • Community

Kijiji is very easy to use but they do have some ground rules:

  • No duplicate or similar ads (slightly edited from original)
  • Local ads only
  • Ads should be posted in the right category/ most relevant category
  • No links to other classified/dating/job websites
  • No keyword spamming
  • No prohibited items
  • No slanderous statements

 

Please follow the next posting, which will show you how to post on Kijiji

 

How to Increase Traffic To Your Website For FREE Part 1 : Facebook

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Driving traffic to your website can be very easy and inexpensive; if you know what to do and what to use.

Facebook is a great way to drive traffic, if you have a a lot of friends or likes on your business page.

If you do not have a lot of friends or likes, I highly recommend that you increase your network. Or you can use Facebook’s paid advertising option. (We will post later on this topic).

A great way to increase your network on Facebook is to allow Facebook to connect with your email addresses.  Facebook will see if they can find any of the email addresses from your provider to email addresses of Facebook users.  If there is a match, it will send a Friend Invite to those found.

Once you have increased your network, you can start posting on your business page with more regularity.  Driving traffic to your website with Facebook is very easy by posting on your business page, and linking to specific pages on your website.  The process to linking to your website, is the same regardless of what type of post you are creating.

Please follow the steps below to post on Facebook while linking to your Website

  1. Go To Your Website and Find Which Page You Want to Link To – this can be a listing, a landing page, a blog post, etc.
  2. Copy the URL of the Website Page You Want to Link To
  3. Open Your Facebook Business Page
  4. Paste the URL You Just Copied Into Your Status section
  5. Facebook Will Pull The Link From The URL You Pasted.  Once It Has Been Pulled, Please Erase the URL You Pasted
  6. Now Write an Attention Grabbing Headline in the Status Section to Attract Your Friends and Network to Click on the Link