Listing syndication is back in the industry purview: GLVAR (Greater Las Vegas Association of Realtors) is stopping facilitating the syndication of listings to 3rd parties (notably, Zillow and ListHub).
Thus, agents/brokers who want their listings on Zillow (and elsewhere) will have to either manually upload them or provide a XML feed (which will likely cost them money in development costs).
The goal of this post is not to debate the merits of syndication. I’ve always been in the camp of “If the goal is to sell the damn listing, then you should put your listings anywhere/everywhere that attracts potential buyers.” I still am.
The goal is to highlight the fact that GLVAR’s decision adds development complexity, head-ache, and dollars to the live’s of its agents/brokers. A few thoughts:
Postlets no longer exists, as it’s been rolled into Zillow Rental Manager. Does this news signal a new opportunity for Syndafeed and vFlyer?
MLS/website vendors should, in theory, be able to generate an XML feed for their broker/agent clients. Which vendors currently offer that functionality as a built in feature for your clients? I’m thinking I need to do a 2018 version of the 2007 post.
Will we see the comeback of developers wanted to build custom XML feeds?
Why hire a real estate assistant? Well, if you want to increase your earning power next year you need to decrease all the little, yet time consuming stuff you do every day.
You know, posting on Facebook, entering your listing info into the MLS and anything else you do that takes you away from real estate lead generation.
It may sound counter-intuitive, but agents we’ve spoken with claim that their incomes actually increased after they hired someone to take on the administrative details of their business.
Let’s free up more of your time in 2019 – time you can spend cultivating relationships, diligently following up on leads and making more money, rather than getting burnt out with all of these little chores.
For a harder working website that isn’t hard to use, be sure to explore LeadSites.
How to know when it’s time to hire a real estate assistant
Real estate coaches used to counsel their clients to consider hiring when their income reached a certain threshold. Others used the number of annual transactions as a barometer.
In reality, it’s time to hire help when some of the more mundane yet important tasks consistently fall to the bottom of your to-do list.
This is what prompted Rhonda Abrams, author of “Hire Your First Employee” to hire an assistant.
“I realized that if I had help to take over the tasks that someone else could do, I could work on tasks that only I could do,” she tells Jennifer Gregory at Intuit.com. “It hit me that I could actually make more money by hiring someone.”
What to delegate
You’ll need a job description for your new real estate assistant and that will include a list of duties. For the next month, keep track of what you do on a daily basis. Spread over a month, you’ll have a clear picture of which duties you can delegate to an assistant.
These might include:
Adding contacts to your CRM
Posting to social media
Coordinate transactions
Following up with current clients
Answering emails
Accounting
This is a short list, but it should get you started on making your own.
And, don’t confine the assistant’s duties to just the menial tasks that take up your time. If there is something you truly dislike doing, put it on his or her plate (as long as it’s something an unlicensed real estate assistant can do legally). Don’t like blogging? Have your assistant cover it.
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For additional ideas of duties you may want to pass on to your real estate assistant, see Julie Beall’s list at Active Rain and this one at therealestatetrainer.com. You can, for example, use their fresh set of eyes to see what is and isn’t working on your real estate website.
You now have the bare bones of a job description. To flesh it out, you’ll need to start your ad with a job description and decide on the qualifications the job requires. Find examples at wizehire.com and indeed.com.
Where to find the perfect real estate assistant
Do you need your assistant to be in-house or is a virtual worker sufficient? With today’s technology, working virtually with others is a snap.
While there are several companies that offer real estate-specific virtual assistance, one of the better-known is Real Support, Inc.
Tip:Some of the virtual assistant companies have decided to branch out with various offerings other than administrative assistance. We’ve looked into some of these offerings and while their VA services are solid, the ancillary services (such as blogging, website development and marketing) are often sub-par.
Low on funds?
If you’re concerned about finances, you may be able to get away with a smaller hourly pay rate with the promise of a percentage of your commission as a bonus with each closed contract.
Or, consider hiring an intern. This is an especially good move for agents working in college towns who can offer to train a student about real estate marketing, technology or the business side of the typical real estate practice.
See samples of ads for real estate interns at glassdoor.com,
Tip:“Unpaid interns cannot do any work that contributes to a company’s operations,” according to Caron Beesley at the U.S. Small Business Administration’s website. So, plan on paying your intern.
In July of 2016, Beesley claimed that “the average hourly rate for paid bachelor degree-level interns is currently $16.21.”
Another way to keep the cost of hired help at bay is to hire freelancers on as as-needed basis. Check out this ad at indeed.com. It appears that the agents are looking to fill a roster with freelancers who can set their availability and “pick up flexible shifts.”
Some of the jobs the freelancers can accept include assisting agents with showings and open houses, posting to social media, delivering documents and keys, meeting vendors at listings and “picking up client gifts.”
Finally, consider hiring a virtual assistant from overseas. Be aware that many are English-language challenged, but they’re ideal for tasks such as data entry, research and others that don’t require communicating with clients.
Although the hiring process will be far more labor-intensive than hiring an American, you will most likely pay far less for assistance. You can find these freelancers at upwork.com, mytasker.com (based in India) and fiverr.com.
You need to dump the menial tasks onto someone else if you have hopes of taking your real estate business to the next level. Free your time to focus on the profitable tasks and you’ll realize a brilliant return on your investment.
The Builders are the visionary, private group of investor donors that fund all of New Story’s R&D, innovation, staff, overhead, travel, etc. The Builders enable our 100% promise, and give us the capital to pioneer solutions (e.g., 3D home printing, software products, etc.) There are now 42 Builders, mostly comprised of CEOs, top executives, managing directors, founders, entrepreneurs, family foundations, corporate partners, and investors. We will share who these leaders are after you apply.
Our goal is to scale the membership program to 60-70 Builders (with annual recurring revenue of $4M-$5M+) by the end of 2019, and we need someone to help make this happen! You’ll be working on our Growth Team and reporting directly to our CEO. For about 80% of your time, you’ll:
Manage and grow relationships with existing Builders
Curate excellent experiences for Builders and corporate innovation fund partners
Increase the pipeline of new Builders and new innovation project funders
Create strategic funding proposals/campaigns for the innovation fund
The other 20% of your time will be used with your “team of founders” value working on other strategic initiatives.
You will aim to build a curated, sustainable, and world-class program of top leaders and strategic partners that will enable New Story to pioneer more innovative solutions to exponentially scale our impact.
You will have admin support, you’ll work in collaboration with our Chief Brand Officer and brand team (video, copy, communication, design, etc.), and you’ll work with our COO and Ops team on proposals for new innovation and R&D proposals/campaigns.
ABOUT YOU:
The right person is reading this and saying, “wow, that’s me!’
You’re an Excellent Relationship Builder
You have the unique ability to build strategic relationships and become friends with extraordinary leaders. You can’t help but go above and beyond after you meet someone that has the potential to accelerate the mission you’re working on. You’re obsessed with thoughtful follow-ups, detailed planning, expressing gratitude, having empathy, and being creative about how you can add value to others.
You have Uncommon Potential
You have big dreams, and you are incredibly determined to make a significant impact. This role is for someone that will become a future executive, be on a management team, or might even start their own organization in the future. You have an entrepreneurial spirit with an insatiable drive to get better and deliver your best possible work. You will work closely with Brett and the co-founders on some of the biggest ideas and most strategic relationships at New Story over the next few years.
You have Excellent Communication Skills
You are confident when talking with and presenting to CEOs, top executives, Managing Directors, founders, entrepreneurs, family foundations, and investors. You will be an outstanding representation of New Story’s mission, team, and all of our top stakeholders. These opportunities excite you, and you love the hustle that goes into being overly prepared and confident in your communication with senior leaders.
You’re Tenacious and Humble
We look for team members who have a combination of personal humility and intense professional will. We constantly learn from each other, admit our mistakes, and have the drive to better ourselves every day. You have a very high standard of excellence in all that you do and you’re obsessed with learning and growing.
You have a Founder’s Mentality (Team of Founders)
At New Story, we never use the word, “employee.” People do not join New Story for a good job. Team members join New Story because they want to be part of creating a built-to-last organization that will impact tens of millions of people in need around the world. You’re a builder and owner with the mentality of a founder.
You’re Strategic
You know how to analyze the situation, do your research, ask the right probing questions, identify the opportunity, then connect all the dots with an intelligent, compelling pitch.
You’re Brave
You’re not afraid to swing for the fences. You love trying new creative ideas even though the ideas might not work. You’re smart enough to know to take a calculated risk, that might not work, improve through learning, and then move on.
Creating and curating excellent experiences (vision nights, trips, gatherings, etc.)
Increasing the pipeline, and then working with Brett to secure new Builders
Creating strategic funding proposals/campaigns (e.g., 3D home printing, other innovations)
Working with the brand team to create new content for Builders and the innovation fund
THE MUST HAVES:
Unquestionable alignment with New Story’s core values
Success in building a program, movement, special project or new venture
3+ years of experience in business development, strategic account management, sales, growth or marketing that directly produced exceptional results
Sophistication and confidence. You will be interacting with top leaders and you need to be able to earn their respect by being prepared and confident in what you’re communicating
Ability and desire to travel about 25% of the month to mostly LA, NYC, SEA, CHI, ATL, SF, and to Haiti, El Salvador, and Mexico
Proven track record of working well in a collaborative team setting and resourcefulness to help outside of your role
Unwavering determination and work ethic to be the best possible version of yourself and to intentionally grow as a leader
An incredibly high level of self-discipline and winning daily habits
Filling up an empty studio when you’re short on cash is not as hard as it would seem. Don’t settle for old and dusty furniture, but rather use your creativity to transform any old pallet or box into a chic, attractive piece. Use these budget-friendly tips to figure out how to furnish a studio apartment without […]
We sure hope you didn’t sink a ton of money into your Facebook real estate video marketing over the past couple of years. If you did, it was no doubt because of the amazing stats the platform was posting as a lure to add additional advertisers.
Guess what?
They were lying.
They will now have to face a federal district court judge in California in a case brought by a number of very (and justifiably) angry advertisers who relied on the fuzzy numbers for their Facebook ad campaigns.
Back in 2016, Facebook finally admitted that it had been fudging the numbers about how much time users spent watching videos on the platform,” according to business writer Issie Lapowsky at Wired.com.
And, it wasn’t a tiny fudge either. Plaintiffs in the case obtained Facebook insider documents showing that the “time spent viewing” numbers were “inflated between 150 to 900 percent.”
Not only that, but at Facebook, they knew about this little problem long before they let any of their advertisers know.
Just a warning – don’t believe everything you read about the effectiveness of real estate video marketing.
Trying to find a professional real estate website that won’t break the bank? See how a LeadSite can help.
“Video” doesn’t mean the same thing to all people
Indeed, while researching the effectiveness of video in marketing your business, you’ll need to take what you read with a grain of salt and dig deeper.
For instance, when you hear or read real estate agent advice urging you to start creating videos, ask yourself some questions:
Who is giving the advice? If it’s a video production company or anyone else who stands to profit from you, be skeptical of statistics they offer and wonder which ones they left out.
Are the statistics you’re reading specific to the real estate industry?
For instance, although the following statement isn’t about video marketing, it’s one that should made you think twice when you read it:
“Still think you don’t need social media to advertise your business? Maybe that’s true, but according to Realtor.com, 91 percent of realtors are using social media to some extent.”
Your internal alarm should go off and question number one should be: “does the fact that 91 percent of Realtors use social media mean that social media is effective?”
Second question: “which social media?”
Third question: “using it for business or personal purposes?”
Final question: “can you quantify ‘to some extent?’”
When it comes to real estate video marketing, the truth is that it isn’t the end-all, be-all.
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Real estate consumers don’t particularly care for real estate video marketing
When they asked homebuyers how they searched for homes, the fewest number said they used online videos.
In fact, only 26 percent of homebuyers watched online real estate videos—10 percent fewer than in 2017
So, the already-low popularity of real estate video marketing is actually dwindling.
Even more important is that those surveyed found photos to be more than twice as useful as virtual and video tours and also found detailed descriptions “more useful” than video.
A note of caution: the NAR may be over-inflating the popularity of real estate virtual tours. We noticed that, in the study, it appears that respondents could choose between “useful” and “very useful.”
The responses they chose to highlight are mixed between the two choices, so without seeing the full study, assume that the virtual tours statistic may be even lower than stated.
“Video” encompasses a gazillion genres
Well, maybe not a gazillion, but there are a number of different genres — some more popular than others — all grouped under the term “video” by folks trying to market them to agents or by those just too clueless to question what they read.
In reality, it’s not just real estate that isn’t a hot topic in video, it’s any type of business-produced video.
Don’t get us wrong; the growth and popularity of online video is phenomenal. But, it’s stagnant or dwindling for certain genres (like real estate). So, if folks aren’t watching online videos produced by businesses (marketing videos), what are they watching?
Movies, TV shows, news and sports, in that order.
Here’s a picture to prove it, courtesy of Limelight.com:
We’re sure you’ve heard the one about Millennials hating all content but videos, right?
It’s a myth.
Yes, they love video, but their list of preferred genres according to Oath.com’s Video Genre Preference Study, has “finance” (which real estate is typically lumped into) waaaaay down at the bottom.
But, don’t rule out real estate video marketing completely – consider “branded videos”
Believe it or not, there are still ways to get leads with video. So, what’s a “branded” video? First, it’s not an advertisement for you or your company, not overtly anyway. Branded video “doesn’t sell anything, in fact, most of this content doesn’t even mention the brand at all,” according to the video pros at DemoDuck.com.
It’s not meant to sell, it’s not meant to advertise. It IS meant to help humanize your business to your target audience.
It gives your brand a voice
Big corporations are using (and have been for some time) branded videos brilliantly. Think about the best Superbowl commercials you’ve seen. In fact, think “Budweiser” and you’ll understand what we mean.
Although this Superbowl spot from the King of Beers is longer than most branded videos, it was recognized as among the Top 10 branded content videos on YouTube.
In a real estate context, the best branded videos might be of the “explainer” variety.
“95 % of people have watched an explainer video to learn more about a product or service,”
according to a WyzOwl.com survey of online consumers.
A British real estate company does an excellent job of getting the message across about full-service vs. discount brokers in its branded explainer video, here.
When considering the production of branded video, keep these tips from the pros in mind:
These videos should be laser-targeted to a specific audience
The content should be entertaining
The content should be authentic
Appeals to emotion work well
The videos should be somewhat short, “usually under 60 seconds,” according to the pros at DemoDuck.
Overall, keep in mind that branded video doesn’t mean you slap your brand all over it. It doesn’t mean you slap yourself all over it. It means you fade into the background.
Office space build-out permits in Austin can take up to 30 to 45 days, and even longer for larger more complicated projects.
When searching for Austin office space for lease you need to ensure that you give yourself enough time to see all the options as well as allowing enough time to build-out the spaces if necessary. Ideally at least 6-12 months before your ideal move in date depending on the size space.
It’s possible, however not likely to find an office space for rent in Austin that is already built out EXACTLY the way you want. Most spaces are at a minimum going to need new carpet and paint. If the scope of work is larger (e.g. involves mechanical, electrical and plumbing changes) then a permit is going to be required, and that is when you have to comply with the city of Austin building permit services department requirements.
When applying for a permit you have to have all your plans put together (e.g. site development plan, engineering plans, architect plans, etc). The building construction manager, architect and / or your contractor will be able to guide you through this process.
If you are doing a full office space remodel then expect it to take 30-45 days from the time you submit documents to the city to the time they approve the permit.
Don’t think that just because you submit plans that the city will automatically approve them. In many cases the city of Austin will reject them on the first pass. To avoid this all you can do is be very diligent and communicate with the construction manager and architect before submitting plans.
Why Does it Take So Long to Get an Office Space Build-Out Permit in Austin?
Nobody really knows the answer to this however what we keep hearing is that the Austin commercial plan review department is understaffed. What you need to keep in mind is that only you have your best interests in mind so you need to stay engaged with the architect and construction manager (if you have one) the entire time.
Listing syndication is back in the industry purview: GLVAR (Greater Las Vegas Association of Realtors) is stopping facilitating the syndication of listings to 3rd parties (notably, Zillow and ListHub).
The 
Office space build-out permits in Austin can take up to 30 to 45 days, and even longer for larger more complicated projects.