The California Department of Real Estate (DRE) has recently adopted a new regulation clarifying the law that requires DRE license numbers on business cards and all other solicitation materials intended to be the first point of contact with consumers.  The licensing law came into effect on July 1, 2009.

What this means to you as a REALTOR®
You must list your license number on all marketing correspondence.

• Business cards;
• Stationery;
• Websites owned, controlled, and/or maintained by the soliciting real estate license; and
• Promotional and advertising flyers, brochures, email and regular mail, leaflets, and any other marketing or promotional materials designed to solicit the creation of a professional relationship between the licensee and a consumer, or intended to induce a consumer to contact the licensee about any licensed services.

DRE’s new regulation also states that the following items are not solicitation materials under the license number requirement:

• Advertisements in electronic media, including radio, cinema, and television ads, and the opening section of streaming video and audio;
• Print advertising in any newspaper or periodical; and
• “For Sale” signs placed on or around a property intended to alert the public the property is available for purchase or lease.

If you have a real estate website you need to have your DRE License number displayed on it and it must not be any smaller than the smallest type on your page. You may also want to consider adding it to your LinkedIn, Facebook, Twitter, etc. accounts as well since you never know how someone will first find you on the web.

Some clients have questioned if they should have their DRE number in their email signature that is sent from your IDX solution. I don’t believe this is necessary since it is not technically a first point of contact. The person is receiving your emails because they have already been to your site. You may want to verify this by visiting the CAR website.

Sources: California Business & Professions Code section 10140.6 (filed September 25, 2008); Section 2773 of Title 10 of the California Code of Regulation (filing with the Secretary of State still pending).

SmarterAgent has developed the ability to search publicly available MLS listings from a cell phone. Potential Buyers can locate properties by GPS, address, zip code, or city; see details including price, square footage, beds/baths, and taxes; map properties closest to them; even see pictures! Your branded information comes up with the listing so you get the call. Once the buyer has found a listing they are interested in, they can simply push a button and they will be connected with you so you can provide more information.

Visitors can download the service to their phone from your website and anytime they search for listings and request more information, all leads will go to you. If someone is using this service, they will probably contact you from the convenient application rather than trying to contact the listing agent shown on the yard sign. We’ve surpassed the talking house and moved into an era of communicating that is cutting edge.

If you would like assistance setting this service up on your website, please contact us and we can help you get it integrated. SmarterAgent typically charges $250 (one time set-up) and around $39.95/mo if paid annually. They have been known to offer specials, so check with us first.

SmarterAgent.com – Mobile Phone Real Estate Search Demo

You may also want to visit their website for more information regarding Real Estate searches on mobile phones

First of all, let me explain that to have a ‘mobile friendly’ site, you do not need the .mobi extension. The .mobi extension is ultimately no different than .net, .edu, or .com, except that it is intended to house a mobile friendly site.

There has been a lot of controversy over the advantages and disadvantages of the .mobi domains as well:

The main advantage to .mobi is that the pages under the .mobi domain are expected to be fully customized for the mobile phone’s browser. This means that the site has been built with the mobile phone’s browser in mind and will look good on almost every mobile platform.

However, having two separate domain names for your website creates two separate internets – one for mobile access and one for normal internet viewing, dependent entirely on the device used to access them. Keep in mind, this means maintaining two separate websites/domains, one for standard browsers and one for mobile browsers.

The other thing to consider is that web sites can automatically detect what platform a visitor is accessing the site through. Go to google.com on your phone, you end up at m.google.com. Its hassle-free to the end user. For this reason, you do not need .mobi to have a mobile friendly site!

Also, domain name extensions become successful when lots of people use them and recognize them. There are still many people who are not familiar with .mobi and will not think to type it into their browser.

It seems to me that .mobi is not a domain extension for the typical website owner. Unless you plan on spending some time and money on making your business all about mobile web applications it’s really not worth it!

This is a test. Please ignore.

You may want to add a new link to your Navigation or promote the fact that visitors can now search for foreclosures on your website. Another strategy may be to add a page on your site specific to foreclosures and/or create a quick search form that will allow visitors to start searching from there (the latter will take some programming knowledge or you can hire us to help). Here are a couple examples: Coldwell Banker Grass Roots Realty and TopSpaces.com.

Many buyers and investors are looking to search for foreclosures and short sales due to their perception that these will offer them great deals. You may also want to look at anyone who has signed up for listing notifications of these types of properties and notify them of properties that are not necessarily foreclosures but simply well priced homes.

Basically anyone who has downloaded this free application can pull up a map, based on where they are standing (or driving) and it will display the typical information that you find on Zillow. This includes homes for sale (as well as the usual Zestimates, sold history, etc). If someone is out and about and sees a house for sale, they can simply click the app and it will automatically determine where they are standing (using GPS) and let them know what the listing price is for any homes around them, provided the agent took the time to get that information on Zillow. You can even see additonal photos that have been uploaded.

I would imagine savvy home sellers will know of this application as well and expect you to be keeping their listing data updated in Zillow so they get this additional exposure. For more information about this new application visit the following pages.

• Zillow’s New iPhone Application
• May 12th Update on Zillow’s iPhone Popularity
• Download the App

“For real estate professionals, Zillow Advice offers another free way to promote your services to local home buyers and sellers. If you read a few Discussions and Answer a few Questions you’ll get the hang of it quickly. My tip for real estate pro’s is to subscribe to e-mail or RSS alerts for topics and locations you specialize in. And be sure to fill out your profile page so people know how to reach you if they like your advice!”

Similarly, if you were not already aware, Trulia offers this service as well called “Trulia Voices.” If you have not done so already, we would strongly recommend establishing accounts with both of these services and responding to questions as often as possible. We would also recommed setting up a Google Analytics account (or similar stat tracking account) to determine how much traffic these sites are referring to you.

Article: “SEM Bootcamp: How Search Engines See Keywords“

Want to show up higher in results on search engines like Google? We can help. Zillow has a lot of “Google Juice” and we want to share it with you. By using Zillow and Search Engine Optimization (SEO), you, too, can boost your Google search results.

Don’t be scared – it’s pretty easy.

Here are 3 tips:

1. Post your listings on Zillow with good links to your site – Zillow is one of very few sites where your listings actually improve your Google ranking. To enjoy this, make sure your listings on Zillow link to your Web site – preferably with links to the exact listing pages on your site.
2. Join the Zillow Professional Directory – When you create an active profile on Zillow, it will automatically load into our “Find a Pro” directory. Make sure the link to your Web site from the Zillow Directory is accurate so your ranking on Google improves. Join the Directory
3. Update and optimize your Zillow Profile – Complete or update the “About Me” section of your Zillow Profile. In your description, use keywords that you want to be recognized for in Google and link those words to your Web site or blog. By using links to your Web site within Zillow, your profile gains authority in the search engines. Update My Profile

Bottom line: The more active you are on Zillow – through your listings, profile, directory, or discussions – the better your Web site or blog performs. Learn more about how to ensure that your listings are helping you to rank in Google.

As always, thanks for using Zillow.

We want to thank Zillow for allowing us to reprint this information on our site.

In addition to helping your site possibly rank better due to the inbound links, there are several other benefits as well.  You are helping your seller get better exposure for their property and visitors who find your listing on Zillow’s site can click through to your website – increasing your traffic. In the upcoming weeks we plan to expand more on this subject so check back in the next few weeks for updates.

You may want to spend the extra money and have a professionally produced video that you can use to promote yourself. This is just one more way visitors to your site can ‘connect’ with you before actually meeting with you, helping you stand out from others. See the video below for an example.

There may be some videos on YouTube that you can embed on your site to help showcase an area. There are a few sites I know of that link to this video about Tahoe.

It may take a little time to learn how to do a ‘great job’ at posting your own videos, but this is a trend that is only going to get more popular and can more than likely benefit your overall business. There are several companies that can help you produce your video or even shoot and host it for your. One such popular full service company is Turn Here. If anyone has had a positive experience with a web video company and would like to share them with others, let us know and we will add them here.