I have been the developer for the New England and New York Real Estate Journal for almost 2 years now. When I first came here I was skeptical to the fact that I would have enough work to keep me busy. I came from a company where I was head web developer and managed 300+ websites. Limit myself to a couple websites? That is crazy I will be bored out of my mind! Little did I know the demand of the real estate markets technology needs.
When I heard about QR Codes (Quick Response Code) I thought it was just another fad. But one day I picked up our paper and flipped through and start noticing a pattern. Almost 1/3 of the ads in the paper had a QR code attached to it. It was time to put my preconceived notions to rest and start paying attention to this. As I looked into it more beyond our paper, I noticed the real estate industry is QR code central! They really expand it to anything and everything. I have seen it on for sale signs, business cards, bumper stickers and even novelty expo items to name a few. I read a funny blog article on someone who had a QR code on the side of their car which someone was trying to scan while driving. Well they ran into a Lamborghini and tried to stick the guy for the bill. So a tip not just so you don't run into any Lamborghini's but add the URL as well as not everyone uses them or wants to.
Social media has been around long before Facebook, Twitter or LinkedIn but the concept has always been the same. The glory of these tools is it blows any of the old methods out of the water. People make the mistake of saying it's stupid or pointless or more commonly "I don't need to hear what Joe Schmoe ate for dinner." Yes you do! Small posts like this allow you to interact with the client and open a relationship. Real estate is one of the biggest purchases in some ones life. It is hard to make that purchase if you don't trust or know the person you are buying it from. When I bought my first home I went through 3 agents before I found one that I could trust and allowed me to get to know them. Know how I found her? Facebook and my friends! Now I happily live in my first home and still talk with the agent who I recommend to all my friends. If an agent can use social media to sell someone one of the biggest purchases they will make in their life then imagine what you can use it for.
In this day and age if you don't have a website, well simply put... Goodbye. Before I make any purchase or deal with any company one of the first things I do, as well as many others, is visit the web and see what they have for a website and what people are saying. Not having a website or having a poorly developed website can deter the visitor and send the wrong message. Congratulations, you just lost a sale before the person even picked up the phone. Roland Hopkins, founder of the Journal, just wrote an article that directly correlates to this. How would you like to come in everyday and open your email and have a list of leads in front of you? When you properly manage, advertise and promote your website with the addition of Social media, QR codes and other forms of web advertising the leads will come rolling in. It's just that easy. Our websites are built with WordPress which allows anyone to do small-medium updates without any coding knowledge. Just think you could be posting a ground breaking on the job site and it's pictures 5 minutes after it happened from any smart phone or tablet device.
In the end it all comes down to your website and keeping it up to date, fashionable and promoting it with all the tools the web currently offers. NEREJTech offers all these services and more. We constantly are researching and keeping up to date with the latest trends and tools the web offers or is going to offer. There is nothing to big or small. So contact us today and let your website work for you!
George Whitcher is the web developer and IT specialist at NEREJTech, Norwell, Mass.