Posts by "Kelley Koehler" http://www.housechick.com Kelley Koehler, aka the Housechick, is an associate broker and branch manager for Thompson's Realty in Tucson. Consistently at the forefront of emerging real estate trends and techniques in her own business, Kelley provides frequent training and coaching on integrating blogging and social media techniques into successful business practices for agents, brokerages, and associations nationwide. You can find her thoughts on real estate and technology on her personal blog at KelleyKoehler.com, or more often find her on Twitter as @housechick or on Facebook.

I know you don’t have all the answers to improving your business.  I know there are things you want to learn:  to provide better service to your clients, to close more business, to figure out what Facebook has to do with real estate, to finally get your SOI and contacts under control.

Luckily, for every answer you don’t have, there is someone who has already figured it out.  And the place to find those people and learn that stuff?  The place to share the answers that you do know?

RE BarCamp!

BarCamp is an ‘unconference.’  It’s a gathering of people in the same industry sharing ideas, starting discussions, getting questions answered and basically supporting each other in the effort to improve.  And this is the real estate version.

The third annual RE BarCamp Phoenix is open to one and all.  It’s an absolutely FREE day of learning and sharing.  All you have to do is RSVP (so we know how many to plan for) and then show up April 8th prepared to ask some questions and get some answers.  On whatever topic is most important to you and your business.

Sound good?  Thought so.  Go ahead and RSVP here, and put it on your calendar now.  Don’t worry if you don’t have a Twitter ID or a website — you don’t need to be “techy” to get something out of this event (though we will have lots of techy folks there if that’s something you want to learn more about).  Vital details are below.  See you there!

Date: April 8, 2011
Time: 8:30am – 4:30pm
Place: Scottsdale Stadium | 7408 E Osborne Road, Scottsdale, AZ  85251
Cost: FREE!

What to expect: A little bit of chaos followed by a day of opportunity to learn how to improve your real estate business by participating in discussions with others in the industry.  The schedule is made in the morning – when you show up at registration, you’ll be asked if you want to pitch a session.  Come prepared with an idea or two that you would LOVE to learn more about.  Don’t be scared to pitch something — it’s a discussion, not a presentation! Once the schedule is made, you’ll plan your day and attend whatever sessions interest you most. Hit a room, listen to the questions and ideas being tossed out, and then add your own!

What to wear: Think casual. Think comfortable. You’ll be both inside and outside interchangeably. If there’s a session you want to see and the chairs are all full, you’ll want to be able to sit on the floor so you can take part.  This is at a baseball stadium, after all.

What to bring: An open mind, a topic or three that you’d like to know more about, and a friendly attitude.  BarCamp is about sharing ideas, which means discussion and interaction with lots of your peers.  There’s no wi-fi provided, but you’re welcome to bring your own laptop if it makes you happy.  I prefer to lug around the smaller weight of a pen and notepad than to carry my laptop bag all day.  I do, however, bring my phone charger because my smartphone gets a heavy workout that day!  Also, you’re on your own for lunch, so bring a little cash for a nearby restaurant or brown-bag it and enjoy a little sandwich and sun at the stadium.

Nearby parking: Last year, the front lot filled up FAST.  Check this map of nearby available parking for the event.

Nearby hotels: Coming in from out of town?  The after-party is worth an overnight stay.  You’ll get to rub elbows with the same great people from the event, chat with new and old friends, and network with a collection of agents all trying to help each other improve the real estate business.  Here’s a list of nearby hotels.

Posts by "Kelley Koehler" http://www.housechick.com Kelley Koehler, aka the Housechick, is an associate broker and branch manager for Thompson's Realty in Tucson. Consistently at the forefront of emerging real estate trends and techniques in her own business, Kelley provides frequent training and coaching on integrating blogging and social media techniques into successful business practices for agents, brokerages, and associations nationwide. You can find her thoughts on real estate and technology on her personal blog at KelleyKoehler.com, or more often find her on Twitter as @housechick or on Facebook.

Did you get an email to take a survey from AAR last week?  I did!

And like a good little member, I completed the survey.  However, there were some descriptions on there that were kinda phrased oddly, and some questions I didn’t really understand, especially where I was asked to differentiate between a statewide MLS and some other options.

One thing mentioned on the survey that I felt wasn’t well explained was RPR.  Have you heard of RPR?

RPR is the Realtors Property Resource. NAR has this venture capital fund called Second Century Ventures.  From this fund, NAR invests in new technologies and initiatives to support their REALTOR® membership.  One of those projects is RPR.

The idea behind RPR is to make this HUGE library of information about property as an ultimate research resource for REALTORS®.  (Try saying that 3x fast…)  We’re talking a mashup of public records, tax information, mortgage and lien information, zoning information, flood maps, details of prior transactions, neighborhood data, demographic and psychographic information, school districts, maps, trends, reports – and they’d love to include all the information from all the MLSes across the country as well.

Can you imagine all that information in one place?  You log in once and have all of that at your fingertips.  No more having to go to five different sites to do your property research.  Everything you want to know about a house is all in one place.  You can get more and better information to your clients about houses quickly, all from one single website.  Fast.  Easy.

And don’t confuse RPR with a national MLS.  There are no offers of compensation in the system.  It’s just a gigantic collection of data.

And free.

Did I mention free?  Yes, free.  And only available to members of the National Association of REALTORS®, of course.

Like any big new idea, there is controversy.

First is about access.  The RPR folks say this resource is intended for REALTORS®, not for the general public.  The more cynical among us think RPR will give access to the public eventually.  RPR says no.  This is a REALTOR® resource only.

Second is about participation of MLSes.  Not every MLS is wanting to give their data to RPR at this point.  One of the big fears from MLSes is that RPR will make the MLS less necessary, which makes an MLS a little scared for their survival.  And historically, MLSes aren’t big fans of giving away their data and information – something that is changing slowly in this new online information age.

Third is about money.  RPR is intended to be free to members of NAR, but collecting all that data and maintaining the program costs money.  The fear is that eventually RPR will have to find other funds – like asking for an increase in member dues or selling access to the data.  Right now, RPR plans to stay afloat by selling reports about the data – by selling analytics and trend information to people like lenders, servicers, insurance companies and government entities.

Dale Ross of RPR addressed some of those issues, which was covered on the AAR blog earlier.

RPR is in beta right now, and not yet fully complete or released.  You can keep track of RPR’s progress on its Facebook page or blog.

Posts by "Kelley Koehler" http://www.housechick.com Kelley Koehler, aka the Housechick, is an associate broker and branch manager for Thompson's Realty in Tucson. Consistently at the forefront of emerging real estate trends and techniques in her own business, Kelley provides frequent training and coaching on integrating blogging and social media techniques into successful business practices for agents, brokerages, and associations nationwide. You can find her thoughts on real estate and technology on her personal blog at KelleyKoehler.com, or more often find her on Twitter as @housechick or on Facebook.

Sometimes, what’s possible with high-tech real estate outpaces our ability to fully understand it. Take, for instance, the ability to have a MLS property search on your website via IDX.

IDX says that I, as an agent, can have a copy of the MLS on my website for my site visitors to search, as long as I follow the IDX display rules. (There’s a more comprehensive explanation of IDX in this post.)

I use a special kind of IDX where it allows search engines like Google to look at the information in the MLS on my site and put it in their index. Sometimes, this causes confusion among my fellow agents. They go to Google and search for their listing address, and sometimes my site comes up displaying their listing. And that can lead to some angry calls and misunderstandings. Those of us that dabble in the high-tech end of real estate are familiar with this scenario.

Agents who use indexable IDX services are not advertising other people’s listings – they’re displaying an MLS search according to the IDX rules. Every MLS can create their own set of rules regarding IDX and what must be displayed and disclosed – contact your MLS to get a copy of the rules for IDX, if you’re curious. Most of the IDX rules I’ve seen state that the agent must disclose the listing brokerage, among other things.

I’d encourage you to get and read a copy of the IDX rules for your particular MLS. There are sometimes malicious sites out there that really *are* stealing your listings and not obeying the rules. Every once in a great while, I run across one of those sites and report them to my MLS. Once you understand the rules for your particular MLS, if you ever Google your listing address and someone else’s site comes up, you’ll know how to tell if that’s allowed or not.

Posts by "Kelley Koehler" http://www.housechick.com Kelley Koehler, aka the Housechick, is an associate broker and branch manager for Thompson's Realty in Tucson. Consistently at the forefront of emerging real estate trends and techniques in her own business, Kelley provides frequent training and coaching on integrating blogging and social media techniques into successful business practices for agents, brokerages, and associations nationwide. You can find her thoughts on real estate and technology on her personal blog at KelleyKoehler.com, or more often find her on Twitter as @housechick or on Facebook.

IDX at work on housechick.com

I have the good fortune this year to be on the NAR MLS Issues and Policies Committee.  Sounds thrilling, right?  Later in August, there’s a sub-group meeting where we’ll discuss such exciting topics as RSS feeds!  And IDX regulations!  And PDA applications!

It’s important work, but a bit dry.  So bear with me here while we look at one of the basics: IDX.

IDX is short for Internet Data Exchange.  In a nutshell, an IDX agreement means that agents can display listings from the MLS on their own site.  Because IDX rules exist, agents and brokerages are allowed to have home searches on their websites.  Sometimes, IDX is called Broker Reciprocity – every brokerage wants a home search on their website, so they’ve agreed to allow each other to display the other brokerage’s listings.

Simple enough, right?  But there are lots of rules.  Display requirements being one of them.

As a buyer’s agent, I want a property search on my website because people online might find a home on there and call me.  It generates potential clients to have an IDX – a property search – on my site.  BUT, I need to be clear when I display those listings that they aren’t mine, that they belong to some other broker.

As a listing agent, I want my listing to be displayed on as many sites as possible, so I agree to let anyone display it on their site according to the IDX rules.  I want to promote the property for my seller as widely as possible, and IDX is one tool in my arsenal to help me do that.

Each MLS has their own set of display requirements, and NAR has an IDX policy as well.  Typical requirements include disclosure of the source of the data, clear representation of what broker has that listing, and sometimes also display requirements of a fair housing logo or the IDX logo.

Luckily, if your brokerage doesn’t provide you a property search, or if you want something with advanced features, there are lots of services out there to help you.  These companies are called IDX providers. They had to sign agreements with your MLS in order to access the data and, usually, have been audited for compliance with all the rules.  So if you find an IDX provider with access to your MLS, chances are they are fully compliant with the regulations, and you can just plug it into your website relatively painlessly.

I know both the Tucson MLS and ARMLS are using the FlexMLS system, which offers an IDX you can put on your site.  In Tucson, that’ll cost you $240/year currently.  Or you can just Google “IDX Providers” and find a whole host of people that can help you put a property search on your site.

Posts by "Kelley Koehler" http://www.housechick.com Kelley Koehler, aka the Housechick, is an associate broker and branch manager for Thompson's Realty in Tucson. Consistently at the forefront of emerging real estate trends and techniques in her own business, Kelley provides frequent training and coaching on integrating blogging and social media techniques into successful business practices for agents, brokerages, and associations nationwide. You can find her thoughts on real estate and technology on her personal blog at KelleyKoehler.com, or more often find her on Twitter as @housechick or on Facebook.

Image courtesy of Flickr user quapan

My computer is dying a slow, painful death.

There’s this terrible grinding sound when I turn on the power and then it just wheezes and drags as I try to do even the most basic tasks.  It’s going to die very soon.  One day, it just won’t power up, or maybe I’ll be in the middle of writing an email and it will just go dark.

But I’m not worried.  I’m not frantically getting all my important files and photos off of it before it dies because of a service I discovered a few years ago that, quite honestly, is the best thing I’ve ever purchased to take care of my data.

It’s called Carbonite.  And no, I don’t get any money by referring them to you.  I’m just so delighted with it as a user, that I tell everyone who will listen about it.

Carbonite is an automatic online backup service.  It runs quietly in the background on your computer, and automatically makes a backup of your data and files and stores them online for you.  When you’re not using your computer, Carbonite goes through the folders on your computer, finds which files have been changed since the last time it looked, and then uploads them to your account online.

Automatically.  You never have to think about making a backup onto a thumb drive, or starting a program to make you backup.  It just happens.  Constantly.  And you never have to think about it.

So when your nephew is visiting and drops your laptop and breaks it – if you have Carbonite running, you can get all your data back onto a new machine in a matter of hours.  When you get a nasty computer virus and now your computer won’t turn on and you really need those listing photos you took yesterday and stored on your hard drive?  You can go to your Carbonite account online and get them from one of the computers at work.

It’s the best $55 I spend a year, for the peace of mind that my data, my photos, my documents, the information I use to run my business – are all safe and secure.  And that it happens without me even having to think about it.  No thumb drives, no remembering to backup, nothing.  Automated backups, secure online access from other computers.  It’s a beautiful thing.

Posts by "Kelley Koehler" http://www.housechick.com Kelley Koehler, aka the Housechick, is an associate broker and branch manager for Thompson's Realty in Tucson. Consistently at the forefront of emerging real estate trends and techniques in her own business, Kelley provides frequent training and coaching on integrating blogging and social media techniques into successful business practices for agents, brokerages, and associations nationwide. You can find her thoughts on real estate and technology on her personal blog at KelleyKoehler.com, or more often find her on Twitter as @housechick or on Facebook.

Photo by John Sartin

I’m selling my house.

The last time I sold my personal residence and moved was 2006. Remember 2006? In Tucson, we were just cresting off the top of the peak of the bubble. Inventory levels were just starting to rise and home sales prices were starting to level off. My house sold in 10 days for full price and I scoffed at their repair list.

Selling in 2010 is a whole different ballgame. And I know this – I’ve been an agent for 7 years, I’ve seen the shift up and down, walked buyers and sellers through the process. So I knew what to expect: longer time to sell, more buyer demands, lowball offers.

What I didn’t expect was that I am less immune than I thought to the negative messages we are bombarded with by the media, by our friends and neighbors, by our own experiences in the real estate market. What I didn’t expect was the anxiety. The need to reach out to my friends at the office and have them reinforce what I already knew, to run my decisions through an objective filter. How much more so do my clients go through the same experience, the same fears and anxieties?

More than ever before, our role as a trusted advisor to our clients involves managing their anxieties, their stress, their expectations and frustrations.

More than ever before, it is our obligation to keep our clients informed about local market conditions, so that national media outlets don’t supplant our superior local knowledge.

More than ever before, it is our responsibility to stay in touch, to keep informing, to keep assisting and helping our clients to make confident, informed decisions.

And to meet these increased responsibilities, we need the right tools and systems in place to make sure it all gets done, and that it gets done as efficiently as possible.

More than ever before, it’s time to invest in our tools and systems as agents, to seek out new solutions, to challenge ourselves to learn something new so that we can be more effective. To use a transaction management system that works for us, not makes our life harder. To use a contact management system that keeps us in touch with our sphere of influence on a regular basis, not on a random guess at a schedule. To understand our calendars and email and photos on our smartphones. To learn how advanced features in the MLS system can help our clients find the right home and keep our business moving forward.

It’s time to tackle that learning curve, to examine our business and systems and make improvements. It’s a difficult market out there – which means we have the opportunity to address those difficulties, and put systems and tools in place to minimize them.