Chicago Signature Properties

By Arin Agase

Welcome to Agent Reboot; A six hour boot-camp that focuses solely on marketing techniques and technology in real estate. If there is one conference I recommend, this is it, folks! (And no, Chris, it’s not because of your hair).

As a (proud) second year attendee, I’ve learned how to build a better business, transform my marketing strategy, and discover valuable insights to an ever-evolving industry. As Marketing Director, it’s crucial that I stay ahead of competition, and ensure the best apps for an agents’ productivity.

Professor Roll-Call: (“Bueller, Bueller, Bueller…”)

Chris Smith: ‘Inman’s chief evangelist’ AKA boss (Whichever you prefer)
Katie Lance: ‘InmanNext’s contributing editor & director of social media’ AKA boss
Jimmy Mackin: Founder, MLSApp.com & Frugyl
Darin Persinger: Founder, ProductivityJunkies.com
Jay Thompson: Dir. of Industry Outreach & Social Media, Zillow (congrats on day 9!)
Jim Marks: President & Internet Anthropologist, Virtual Results
Stephen Pacinelli: VP Real Estate Events, Move, INC.
Glen Sanford: eXp Realty LLC

It wouldn’t be possible without them! Thanks for leading great conversation.

Conference Highlights:

Below, I will highlight my favorite takeaways from the day. If I had time to share the entirety of my notes (five pages) I would…

Sponsor Giveaways: Yes, thanks to Zillow, I scored a $100 gas gift-card. And yes, I win bragging rights! Thanks for picking me, Chris!

Social Media statistics:

• 64% of twitter users say they are more likely to buy from the brands they follow (Follow @ChiSignature)
• 51% of Facebook users say they are more likely to buy from the brands they follow (Follow Chicago Signature on FB)

App Frenzy: Read my previous article on top RE apps for agents here

Facebook Marketing:

With 300-400 hours spent annually on this platform, it’s important you’re getting educated, so you can get traffic.

-Lists: Facebook.com/bookmarks/lists: Put your most valuable connections into a list. They are more likely to do business with you, or better yet, refer business to you. Putting a list-system in place will help you stay organized and reach out to the right people.

-Find Friends: Don’t be insulted, we know you have them… Facebook.com/find-friends-browser: Connect with new people, and find mutual friendships that allow for potential referrals.

-Daily 5: Facebook Engagement: Write on 5 walls (Facebook walls, people) from lists you created above, send 5 private messages per day, and engage in 5 private chats per day. This is a great strategy for busy agents!

-Cover Photos: Create a cover-photo that tells a story. See what Chicago Signature Properties is doing…

Video Marketing:

Live Action: In front of the camera, be careful with your hands though! (See hilarious example below)

Screencast: Move around a website with an audio voice-over. Apps: Mac: Camtasia, Screenflow, and Screenr

Video Tour: Get in front of the camera

1. Have an energetic, fun opening and introduce yourself
2. highlight things in the home, (don’t do a walk-through) – highlighting your favorite features will spark curiosity in clients
3. Give a call to action “If you want to have a private tour of this home, call or email me” – and post a link to the youtube page

Testimonies: Testimony videos are genuine. The number one thing a client is looking for when purchasing/renting a home is trust. They do not care about the technology, website, social media, etc. They just want to be able to trust you (remember this!)

Challenge: Get 3 testimony videos: Past clients, a buyer/renter you just closed on, and add that to your closing process.

Google:

Google Alerts: Set up alerts with key words (use quotes) “Chicago Real Estate” or “Chicago Breaking News” so you can break stories first to clients.

Google Plus: Sign up your business for Google Plus (If you’re not familiar with it, it’s best you dive right in and learn as you go) Follow Chicago Signature here

Google Map: Embed maps on your web-pages using GoogleMaps.com (choose from a variety of views)

Google Chrome Extensions: Download this browser so you can use applications (Hootsuite, Pinterest, Twitter, etc) without leaving your current site!

Content Strategy: Have a plan

A content strategy doesn’t have to be an exact-date calendar. Use it for a plethora of ideas.

4 Categories:

Local: Favorite feature of a listing, story of a past client, highlight neighborhoods.
National: Economy news, local vs. national, compare home prices, articles.
Community: School holiday calendar, downtown holiday dates, best places to get a burger, story of a re-location client, etc.
Personal Interest: Favorite winery, Chris’s hair (had to), favorite pizza joint, etc.

Fun Idea: 30 photos: Go through your local neighborhoods, and take 30 photos (coffee shops, cool apartments, gardens, etc) and you now have 30 photos for 30 days to share with Facebook fans!

Sorry I couldn’t share everything, but hopefully you learned something new today! Thanks Agent Reboot for a phenomenal conference. See you next year!

By Arin Agase

Inman Next is changing the face of real estate. So much in fact, they are currently my favorite classroom in adapting the latest real estate technology, research and information. As a Marketing Director, it’s important to stay ahead of comprehensive real estate knowledge that will be favorable to both clients, and agents. It also allows our company to stay above our competition.

InmanNext has done a remarkable job of forming a community where responses are immediate, conversation is unlimited and where real estate professionals come together.

Chris Smith and Katie Lance (InmanNext ‘professors’) excel at collaborating informative webinars with exclusive statistics, practices and guidance. If you haven’t attended one, make sure to check upcoming here. I cannot stress enough how informative they are!

I recently attended “Top 20 Apps for Real Estate Pros“: Here’s what I learned:

Mobile phones are important:
-303 million Americans own a mobile device (how times have changed!)
-26.6 million house-houlds are mobile only
-63.2 million Americans own a smart-phone
-35% have internet access

Believe it or not, technology simplifies our lives. We buy smart phones with the intent of convenience, engagement, and, well, normalcy! We want to fit in…

Apps are built to facilitate productivity, amongst many others: Here’s a list of Inman’s favorite real estate apps: (Make sure to check these out!)

Productivity:

Clear: A quick to-do list with heat technique (most important, red) – Very simple interface.

DropBox: Bring your photos, docs, and videos anywhere and share them easily. Never email yourself a file again!

EverNote: Help remember and act upon ideas, projects and experiences across all the computers, phones and tablets you use.

Content Creation:

Insapaper: Save long web pages to read later, when you have time.

Zite: Zite delivers all the great news, articles, blogs, and videos you want – and helps you discover new stuff that you’ll love.

Video:

Game Your Video: A fun app that allows you to edit while filming. Recommended for Facebook pages and blogs.

Tout: Take quick 15 second videos. Content is created in a digestible format. (Example: ‘Tout’ someone a birthday message on Facebook/Twitter, opposed to writing)

Google:

G-Whiz: Access all your Google apps/documents/calendars/photos/etc in one place.

Google Currents: Your blogs ‘most read’ content. Example: Huffington, Forbes, Inman.

Photography:

Instagram: Instagram is a fast, beautiful and fun way to share your life with friends through a series of photos.

Sketch ME: Turn any photo into a pencil line drawing (Ex: Agents who do renderings of homes)

Camera+: Capture photos instantly with some great controls, add cool effects and share them with your Facebook, Twitter or Flickr friends on-the-fly!

Social Media:

Facebook Messenger: Never miss a Facebook message again! (Arrives like a text message)

Hootsuite: Managing multiple accounts, as well as a scheduler tool.

Foursquare: Share your experiences (with photos, tags and thoughts)

Communications:

Viber: Make calls/texts internationally without getting charges from provider. (I love this developer) Perfect for agents working with international buyers, and sellers.

Skype: Free video calls internationally!

10 Mobile Apps Realtors Should Be Using
By Arin Agase

With a whopping 57% of people doing searches via mobile, it’s essential to have the best mobile apps that are conducive to your client needs. These applications are constantly changing with a fast-paced tech world, so make sure you stay up to date on the latest and greatest! Below are 10 mobile apps that are helpful to both the realtor and client. Please share what your favorite apps are in the comment section below.

*Images are above numbers

Dictionary of Real Estate Terms

1) Dictionary of Real Estate Terms: A foreign language to most! This app allows you to understand real estate lingo. Be in the know at $6.99 and discover over 3,000 terms in their database

Panorama

2) 360 Panorama: Enjoy a panorama view with any photo you shoot! Great to send to clients, website, marketing materials and more! Very easy to use. $.99

Glympse

3) Glympse: “Share Your Where” Share your location with anyone for a specified amount of time. Ideal for “lost clients” or to send an approximate arrival time. Free application

Drop Box

4) Dropbox: “Simplify Your Life” After you install the Dropbox application on your computer, any file you add to your drop box will automatically add (and save) to your computers, iphone, ipad and the Dropbox website! You can take all your files on the go wherever you are! Free application

Tour Narrator

5) TourNarrator: Capture client feedback about properties while using photos, notes and voice recordings during or after a showing. $1.99

Ruler Phone

6) RulerPhone: Ever have a client say “I don’t know if my bed will fit there?” Just pull this application out and measure away! Measure anything your iPhone, iPad, or iPod can take a picture of! Only $3.99

Color Snap

7) ColorSnap: Capture colors and match them to Sherwin-Williams paint colors for free! ColorSnap allows you to take pictures (or use your library photos) for an exact paint code! Have a client that’s in love with the wall colors? Send them the code, that’ll impress them! You can also adjust colors.

Where

8 ) Where: One of our favorite applications. If you’re at a showing and a client asks you “where” something is. Use this application to find nearby daycares, car washes, religious locations, you name it! Free application!

Speak 4 it

9) Speak4it: Speak4it is the original multimodal voice-driven local search app. Just press the “Push to speak” button and say what you’d like to find. You can even point to a spot on the map and ask what’s there. (via apple store) It’s a free application!

Trulia

10) Trulia: An easy application to search for nearby homes for sale, apartments for rent and more! We love that you can contact the listing agents on the go, check out more features here:

Let us know which applications you’re using in the comment section below! There’s thousands!

Real Estate and Technology: Agent Reboot Chicago
By: Arin Agase

I recently attended Agent Reboot, an informative seminar focusing on technology in real estate. Technology is ever-changing so this seminar was a great way to respond to agents/consumer needs via technology. The panel consisted of the below:

15 mobile tools that will make you stand out
• A Wordpress interview with Brian Gardner (partner, copy-blogger media and founder, Studio Press.
• 5 must do’s to optimize your Facebook for business
• Capturing people’s attention with video
• Lifestyle branding: why it matters by Sherry Chris. (CEO, Better Homes and Gardens Real Estate)
• Widgets: Picking the appropriate widgets for your website
• Improving lead conversation
• Tools and technologies you need to know about (blogging, social media, tablets and mobile)
• Consumer wants
• The importance of the Ipad in real estate

As you can see, the conference was loaded with professional speakers, as well as useful tools and information that will stay with me. I recommend all real estate marketing professionals attending at least one/two conferences a year. A lot of tools/tips are shared that will make you stand out from your competition.

Agent Reboot was one of my favorite real estate conferences thus far, so I wanted to share some of my favorite findings. If you’re interested to hear more tips, feel free to tweet me (Arin) at @ChiSignature.

Some unique numbers:

Video Marketing:
73% of home-owners would be likely to list with agents using video. Only .8% are actually using. The consumer doesn’t trust you; video helps identify who you are and gives them a sense of comfort and trust.

You Tube attracts 490 million unique visitors world wide per month, and we spend around 2.9 billion hours on You Tube each month… It also is the 2nd largest search network (after Google)

The conclusion: Create videos! It helps your SEO rankings and provides a unique twist to consumers. You saw the stats above, they like video.

Media Marketing Idea: Get in front of the camera for a live tour! Yes, you! Show off your listing with you in the mix… and provide a call to action. People get an immediate sense of trust once they see someone.

QR Codes: The conference touched on this multiple times because it’s the up and coming trend! If you don’t know what I’m referring to, see here. If you’re currently using this, make sure your website is:

• Optimized for mobile:
• Blog friendly:
• Clean/fresh Website

I’m curious, are you using QR codes in your business? (Comment below)

A Social Media Must: Time is money, money is time

Hootsuite:
If you’re not using Hootsuite, start! Hootsuite is a platform where you can monitor keywords, as well as multiple social media such as: Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn, Foursquare, Wordpress and more! When you’re utilizing Hootsuite, it allows you to update everything at once! It saves me a lot of time and I use it in my daily marketing efforts. There are other sites like this, but Hootsuite is a personal and Agent Reboot favorite.

As you can see, the conference was full of knowledge and tips that I will definitely carry with me for awhile! If you’re curious to hear more, tweet me (Arin) at @ChiSignature. And don’t forget to attend a few conferences of your own this Summer, they’re definitely worth the money and time!

Up, up and Away: Apartment Rents are Rising
By: Arin Agase

As the foreclosure crisis continues, millions are being forced out of their homes looking for new places to live. And the millions that moved back home from 2005-2010 are ready to get back to the rental world, resulting in an economic shift. In the hottest rental markets, 2011 will see the largest rent increase in history! (Last year at this time, rentals were decreasing a mere 4%, what a difference a year makes!). (Via CNN) With fewer rentals on the market, prices will sky-rocket.

People have seen too many friends/family undergo a lot of stress and heartache with the downsides of home-ownership causing them to rent instead of purchase.

But Chicago isn’t alone, New York has seen an increase of 8% (averaging to $2500 for a studio apartment) and San Francisco projects an increase of 20% in 2011. (Via Crains)

Looking for an apartment? Don’t stress, let Chicago Signature Properties take care of all the work! Our agents are natives of the city and very familiar with downtown residential living.

River North 2 Bedroom

South Loop 2 Bedroom

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