At the a16z Summit Alex Rampell, one of Andreessen Horowitz’s general partners, gave a presentation about real estate tech. It’s worth watching for those interested in high level trends shaping the future of our industry.
The post When Software Eats the Real (Estate) World appeared first on GeekEstate Blog.
For brokers or agents who want to integrate their websites with local Multiple Listing Services in lieu of a canned IDX product, the landscape can be challenging for a number of reasons.
Here are some of areas of concern to consider:
That opens up a great lead generation opportunity. Make sure they can find what they need on your website.
Bottom line: implementing the right MLS API can be daunting. It might be best not to delegate that project to a small web agency or techies who are not familiar with the labyrinth that is involved.
There are serious compliance issues that need to be addressed correctly. There is a massive amount of data, text and images, that needs to be imported and organized properly. And that data needs to be updated in a timely fashion. For real estate professionals, it’s unfortunate there are so many MLSs out there with different formats. Fortunately, there are data technology companies a broker or agent can use that have experience navigating through those differences and standardizing listing data for their website.
The post How to Choose A MLS API To Integrate Listings To Your Website appeared first on GeekEstate Blog.
If you’re running short on real estate giveaway ideas, this one’s for you.
Whether you’re trying to catch fish, corral cats or capture a lead, a lure is your best tool.
The problem is that, while we have a pretty good idea what fish and cats find enticing, not all real estate prospects value the same things.
Determining your preferred audience is step one in any real estate lead gen strategy. Step two is figuring out what this audience values and, finally, package that valuable information in such a way as to make it utterly irresistible to them. With that in mind, here are some real estate giveaway ideas to get you started.
For a website that makes marketing your business easy, be sure to learn more about LeadSites.
The distinguishing feature of premium content, as opposed to standard content, is that it can only be accessed for a fee.
Naturally, real estate agents don’t want to alienate potential clients by charging them for information, but the concept of premium content is still usable.
Instead of charging for the content, require contact information for access
Premium content is high quality, longer than other content and “exceptionally informative,” according to Techopedia, and most forms of premium content make great real estate giveaway ideas. Some real estate giveaway ideas include:
Finally, unlike standard content that you may use to drive traffic to your site, premium content’s goal is to turn the visitors into leads. Read digital marketing specialist Larisa Aslanyan’s post at LinkedIn.com for more information about why you need premium content offerings.
Again, you’ll want to tailor the premium content offerings to each audience segment. This is no time to be a generalist.
Ok, so you have your real estate giveaway ideas – how will you let people know about them?
Strategically-targeted Facebook ads are a good place to start. The best place to finish? A branded squeeze page, created to capture the real estate leads generated from your Facebook ads. Need templates? Here ya go!
Easily send leads to engaging website content with a squeeze page – part of LeadSites. Learn more about Squeeze pages
Tip: Don’t ask your squeeze page visitors for their life history. In fact, asking for minimal information is a proven winning tactic.
If the giveaway prize is enticing enough, a Facebook contest is a brilliant way to capture real estate leads or create brand awareness.
And, that’s where you should start the planning, according to marketing guru Neil Patel. What is your goal? Do you want to generate and capture real estate leads or create more awareness for your brand?
We’re betting it’s the former, but in real estate, these contests typically accomplish both.
To both increase brand awareness and generate new leads requires massive sharing by your primary audience. For that to happen, your contest “needs to harness the social forces that keep Facebook turning,” according to Patel.
And what are those forces?
The strongest and most obvious is the sharing of photos of ourselves, our kids and/or pets. Known as “User Generated Content,” or UGC, Patel claims that it can generate nearly 7 times more engagement than your own content.
Contests to consider for this include, naturally, asking your Facebook friends to share photos of themselves. Minnesota mega-agent Kris Lindahl has used this strategy a number of times with great success.
Each Halloween, for instance, Lindahl’s team hosts The Great Pumpkin Giveaway, which, by the way, won a Guinness World Records award for the longest line of pumpkins in 2016.
It’s a huge event, with thousands of Twin Cities residents turning out for the free pumpkins, music, food and more.
But he doesn’t stop there. At its conclusion, he runs a Pumpkin Decorating Contest on Facebook, asking those who snagged a free pumpkin to show the world how spooky it turned out after being carved.
The rules are simple (these come from his Facebook page):
“1. Decorate your pumpkin
2. Take a picture of your pumpkin
3. Like the Kris Lindahl Real Estate page
4. Post a picture of your decorated pumpkin in the comment section below this post
5. Share this post and tell your friends to like your pumpkin picture
The pumpkin picture with the most likes WINS the contest!”
The prize for this particular Facebook contest was “a $100 gift card to the winner’s store of choice!”
But his brilliance doesn’t end there. Check out his Winner Reveal video. The winner received 156 likes and Lindahl gained a ton of brand exposure.
We imagine he also garnered some real estate leads as well, but let’s take a look at other ways you can use a Facebook contest with your real estate giveaway ideas to snag yours. We’ve seen several of these work for agents across the country:
No matter how you do it, be sure to join a Facebook group or two so you have a wide audience for your contest.
If you’d rather not go through the hassle of a contest, consider a giveaway in exchange for contact information. Done right, with the right prize, these giveaways pay for themselves. The challenge here is coming up with real estate giveaway ideas that will incentivize people to engage with your content.
Although May is National Physical Fitness and Sports Month, Fatherly.com decided to hold a fitness-oriented sweepstakes in February of 2015. Credit for the success of this one obviously goes to the prize package: the 2015 FitBitSurge, a year’s supply of Lululemon apparel and “an everlasting supply of KIND bars.”
Entrants were taken to a squeeze page where they gave up their contact information for a chance to win. The results? More than 57,000 Facebook views, 49,000 email addresses and a nearly 86 percent conversion rate, according to James Scherer at Wishpond.
Your prize package needn’t be as extravagant, as long as it’s something your followers find valuable. For instance, target first-time buyers and offer an essentials box of items they’ll need when they move in.
“Your prize is one of the easiest and most effective ways to attract qualified leads. Choose it wisely,” warns Neil Patel.
From tickets to a local sporting event or popular upcoming concert to high-value gift cards, enticing prizes aren’t hard to come by.
For even more real estate giveaway ideas and incentive, check out Tyler’s post about an exceptionally clever holiday-themed Facebook real estate campaign.
Ready for an all-in-one digital marketing solution? See how a LeadSite can take your business to the next level.
Looking for other ways to generate leads? We’ve got 53 methods that are perfect for any agent!
Wow your leads with these holiday-specific ads – perfect for getting traffic during the slow season:
The post Lure leads with these real estate giveaway ideas appeared first on Easy Agent Pro.
[Editor’s Note: RealSavvy is a strategic sponsor for Geek Estate Blog, and this is a sponsored post. The company was first covered on Geek Estate Blog back in 2016. Their CEO Rick Orr is a Geek Estate Mastermind member. You’ll be hearing more about this company and products going forward as we move forward with Geek Build II.]
RealSavvy has built a platform to consist of five mission-critical technology elements:
Enough specs/details about their platform (if you want to read more, you are encouraged to read this post), let’s get to another couple examples of their work…
If that’s not enough, there are 3 other examples here, and another one here.
Their vision is to be the operating system for real estate by bringing enterprise-grade digital marketing (think Hubspot) and productivity tools (think Slack for home search) to agents, brokerages, and teams who have been underserved by technology for too long.
Interested in learning more? Shoot them a note..
The post A Couple More RealSavvy Website Examples appeared first on GeekEstate Blog.
Highlights: The average size of new apartments in the U.S. in 2018 is 941 square feet, 5 percent smaller than ten years ago, with studio apartments shrinking the most, by more than 10 percent; meanwhile, overall rents have increased by 28% over the same period of time. The average size of apartments regardless of year […]
The post As Apartments Are Shrinking, Seattle Tops New York with the Smallest Rentals in the U.S. appeared first on RENTCafé rental blog.
In our latest real estate tech entrepreneur interview, we’re speaking with Nathan Miller from Rentec Direct. He’s a recent addition to the Mastermind.
Without further ado…
What do you do?
My work in software development and real estate investing lead me to create Rentec Direct, a property management software solution serving over 14,000 landlords, property managers and investors nationwide.
I’ve always had a passion for efficiency and when I started investing in properties and managing them myself, I found inefficiencies every step of the way. I knew I wasn’t alone when I’d find himself fumbling with the keyboard and stacks of receipts every month futilely trying to manage my properties using spreadsheets. And I knew there had to be other landlords facing the same endless horror show. So with a drive to save myself and other landlords worldwide and fueled by a lot of coffee, I spent hundreds of early mornings (before my day job began) writing version 1 of Rentec Direct and made it available free to help other stressed out landlords. Nine years later, the passion project has grown into the third largest property management software system in their sector servicing over 14,000 clients managing over 400,000 units.
My vision endures as I continue to make advancements in customer experience, innovation and technology. Over the years, I have developed Rentec Direct in my own time and invested my own money into the company, making Rentec 100% organically grown and debt-free.
What problem does your product/service solve?
We empower property managers and landlords to take better control over their rental properties, finances, and tenant-relationships.
Rentec Direct helps our clients improve customer satisfaction, increase profits, and protect assets, while saving time and money. A lot goes into managing rental properties, from day-to-day renter relations like marketing vacant properties and finding new tenants to business management tasks of paying vendors and tracking your accounts. Rentec Direct provides all the tools to successfully accomplish all the duties required of rental professionals and investors, with property management software that will help clients find qualified renters, organize rental properties, keep track of income and expenses, and more.
One of the biggest benefits Rentec Direct offers the rental industry, is providing a software that eases a potentially tenuous relationship between landlord and tenant. By giving renters a way pay rent online through one-time or recurring monthly payments, renters are less likely to pay late fees. And both parties can avoid awkward rent collection and late rent conversation.
What are you most excited about right now?
I’m excited about leveraging our development resources to make all of our clients more efficient.
Imagine this — If our developers can spend 50 hours making a feature or improvement that saves every one of our clients just one minute of time every day, then our efforts are multiplied one minute times 14,000 clients = 14,000 minutes a day saved. Now look at that from a macro perspective of all of our clients as a whole. Our one time 50 hours of work just saved an aggregate 85,000 hours per year of time for all of our clients every single year. Now our clients get to spend more time doing something they love.
What’s next for you?
One of Rentec Direct’s core products is the tenant screening solutions offered to our clients. Tenant screening is the number one way a landlord or property manager can protect an investment property. By evaluating a rental applicant’s credit history, criminal background, and eviction history, a manager or landlord gets a clear picture of a potential tenant’s financial responsibility and rule-abiding behavior. Technology has given our clients access to instant reports, to make decisions quickly and efficiently to find the most qualified tenant and get the property occupied quickly and safely.
One service I am extremely interested in developing is extending the protection of tenant screening beyond the leasing process. A lot of landlords and property managers benefit from long-term renters, who stay at a property for years at a time. And while it’s nice to avoid the turnover costs associated with long-term tenancy, a person can change over the course of a few years. I want to provide a continued tenant screening service to our clients, that pulls a criminal background report of current tenants annually. Essentially, it would look to see if that have been any dangerous convictions on a tenant’s current criminal record, that weren’t reported at the time of the initial screening process. This would give a landlord or property manager an idea if it is a safe idea to renew a lease with the current tenant.
I have worked with clients, and have had personal experience, where a tenant checks out through normal tenant screening at the beginning of the lease. But after a few years, a problem happens, and we come to find out that the tenant was convicted of a crime after the initial screening process.
I plan to work with the industry to make annual tenant screening a normal and legal part of the leasing process to help protect investors and their properties.
What’s a cause you’re passionate about and why?
I am passionate about community development and engagement. I have lived in southern Oregon my whole life and want to continue to contribute towards my region. We live in such a beautiful area, I want to help my town by providing good jobs and making southern Oregon a great place to live and raise a family. I do this through support of SOREDI (Southern Oregon
Regional Economic Development Inc.), a non-profit organization dedicated to increasing the long-term prosperity of Jackson and Josephine Counties. SOREDI helps businesses prosper to advance economic opportunities compatible with community values.
Rentec Direct strives to motivate the future of Oregon’s technology industry with participation in the Rogue Tech Tour, an event hosted by SOREDI, which invites college students from southern Oregon to tour and network with the region’s tech companies. The idea behind this event is to promote southern Oregon tech based companies and encourage Oregon technology students to pursue careers in southern Oregon, instead of relocating to Silicon Valley or other technology hubs.
As a cloud-based software, Rentec Direct brings millions of dollars of business to Oregon with customers in all 50 states, the majority of which are not from Oregon. Rentec Direct prioritizes partnerships with Oregon businesses, including working with Campbell Consulting in Bend, OR, Generation Web Marketing in Medford, OR, and Zeal in Medford, OR., and Investor Carrot in Roseburg, OR.
Thanks to Nathan for sharing his story. If you’d like to connect, find him on LinkedIn here.
We’re constantly looking for great real estate tech entrepreneurs to feature. If that’s you, please read this post — then drop me a line (drew @ geekestatelabs dot com).
The post Meet the Real Estate Tech Founder: Nathan Miller from Rentec Direct appeared first on GeekEstate Blog.
[Note from editor: We publish a Weekly Radar for Geek Estate Mastermind members that’s more like Reader’s Digest or a college radio station than it’s like reading TMZ or watching the news. Our recommendations and synthesis come out every Friday morning along with member news to peruse. This is a wrap-up for the month of November with the a couple articles from each week.]
Mastermind Message
In addition to the Thanksgiving holiday, November included a member lunch in Seattle and our first gathering of folks in Chicago.
New Product
New Members
Member News
Transmission Topics
COZY ACQUIRED BY COSTAR FOR $68M
Big news out of the small landlord property management space with the news that CoStar (operator of Apartments.com) acquired Cozy for $68 Million. Congratulations to Gino and the team. The company was founded after their time at Flickr, who’s co-founder Stewart Butterfield joined Cozy’s board of directors and went on to launch the popular work collaboration tool Slack. I’ve been a customer since 2013 and worked with Cozy on integration during my time at Move. We’ll cover the announcement and its implications more in our newly launched series on Small Landlord Property Management Software. There are so many implications with this deal, but something to think about over the next few days is how it affects the portal space. Independent landlord listings comprise a unique set of rentals content not yet democratized on the web. While portals have become a necessary channel for large portfolios of apartment communities and mid-sized property management firms – many independent landlords still get the results they want from a red and white yard sign coupled with a Craigslist posting. Capturing those users via free software could be a massive win for CoStar, whose primary product line is business intelligence reporting. Also, while capturing that listing inventory could be an enormous win for Apartments.com, it could mean an even more significant loss for Zillow, realtor.com, and Apartment List. Bonus: my hometown investors from Bend, Seven Peak Ventures, were early investors in Cozy. -Greg
THE CONSUMER VIEW ON A BILLION DOLLARS IN SELLER LEADS
Mike Del Prete believes Zillow is sitting on a billion-dollar opportunity from their Offers business in seller leads alone. “Zillow says that since launch, nearly 20,000 homeowners have taken direct action on its platform to sell their home. Of those, it has purchased just about 1 percent of homes (around 200).” The company has a goal of 5% national market share for Offers which would require purchasing 10% of the requests it fields, though Mike says, “A more realistic target would be to only purchase around 1 percent of requests.”
The seller’s perspective: “If I know there is a 99% chance that Zillow will NOT buy my house, why exactly should I waste my time?”
Can a consumer product/service with a 99% rejection rate stand the test of time? It seems like a House of Cards scenario that will inevitably crumble. If you have a counterpoint, by all means, I’m all ears. -Drew
REFLECTIONS ON A FAILED APP LAUNCH
I learned that it wasn’t worth documenting features that we passed on in favor of focusing solely on those that we shipped. Secretly, I never fully bought into this mantra and tried to chronicle as many of the ideas tabled over the years. While agile teams shouldn’t spend development time looking backward – a retrospective centered on what didn’t work might be even more valuable than one focused on what did. That’s why I was happy to read App mistakes: the ten lessons we learned launching (& killing) our $200K mobile app. The product lead for Hotjar (a user experience and analytics application) breaks down the failure of one of their failed product launches in a step by step guide which even includes what they would have done differently the second time around. Those steps include: find out if your idea is something customers want, validate the concept, validate the user experience, consider the costs, define the MVP, get the MVP in front of users. Sounds simple when distilled into one sentence, but for anyone that works in product, this is a short read and worth your time. -Greg
LETTING THE DOOR HIT PEOPLE ON THE WAY OUT
I stumbled across this post from Mathilde Collin, the founder of Front, as people were tweeting out their favorites. But in her piece 9 Most Useful Pieces of Advice I’ve Received, the most relevant snippet for me right now came from Daniel Yanisse of the company Checkr: “Give generous packages when you let people go.” Mathilde argues that “Not only is it good for the person leaving, but it will also help your managers make tough decisions. It’s always hard to let go people, but if the organization needs it, then you have to make sure managers are empowered to make these calls.” I’m inspired by companies who are quick to move on from bad fits but do with generosity, empathy, and tact.
I noticed this week that the residential real estate brokerage office culture is infected by so much drama around where agents choose to work. I get that small business owners take employee (er, independent contractor) relationships seriously and personally – but the culture is in need of a dramatic shift to a place in which agents feel comfortable switching brokerages if it makes the most sense for them. You’d be surprised at how much pain brokers are willing to inflict emotionally and financially on agents who no longer want to work for them. It’s embarrassing and gross. -Greg
VACASA TO HELP MULTI-FAMILY OWNERS REACH TRAVELERS
One possible route to monetize multi-family vacancies is by putting inventory into the vacation rental marketplace. Joining Stay Alfred, Lyric, and Domicile, Vacasa is throwing their hat in the ring with a new apartment leasing offering to help multi-family owners and operate access traveler dollars. Transforming long-term inventory into sublets and short-term rentals are ripe with opportunity (though city regulators won’t like it much). Vacasa has a first mover advantage on the traveler demand side, they have a hard road ahead in the increasingly competitive landlord tech landscape. Vacation rental behemoth Airbnb has been in rentals since 2013. Once they go into rentals publicly, which is inevitable if they are maximizing shareholder value, they will be beyond a formidable foe. That said, Vacasa is smart to take the risk for the potential outcome to emerge as a power broker. -Drew
BOUTIQUE LODGING FOR THE WIN
My interest in the intersection of travel and real estate led me to notice Curbed’s article on a Silicon Valley-backed hotel startup with a mission of offering boutique lodging for less (in Miami to start). Life House delivers a boutique hotel experience at a discount price. They don’t own the supply, but instead work with “property owners [who] turn their buildings over to Life House, which then renovates, reopens, and reintroduces a new ‘locally rooted lifestyle hotel’ to the market.” As a direct-to-consumer travel brand, they have their work cut out for them on the acquisition side of a ruthlessly competitive industry. A big part of what excites me about the model is Life House serves as an alternative approach for building owners to consider when contemplating whether to sell or set up shop as a property manager. -Drew
FANTASY FRANCHISES AS A HOOK
HBO has Game of Thrones. Amazon is developing Lord of the Rings. And now Netflix has a major fantasy franchise of its own to compete: Chronicles of Narnia. Millions and millions of people love these shows and will drop everything to spend a few hours, or days, to watch. They’ll even watch multiple seasons in their entirety a second time. These iconic brands are “must have” hooks that prompt fans to open their pocketbooks even if they don’t watch anything else from streaming service X.
What is a real estate brokerage’s “must have” user hook? A CMA? The chance to see one of the 20 listings a buyer is interested in today rather than two days from now when the next agent can show it? A market report for a ZIP code? All are pretty weak hooks in my book. What can brokers offer prospective and current clients that they will truly love? I don’t have the answer, but I offer that up as a challenge to brokers/agents reading. -Drew
BOURDAIN BUSINESS BRILLIANCE
Writing about Bourdain is like remembering the puppy I had to give away to friends when I moved to New York City. I try not to do it too often. When I moved to New York in 2014, Anthony Bourdain had just announced plans to open an international food stall market at Pier 57, and I started making plans to visit every single day. Ultimately, the concept was abandoned, and then we lost Bourdain forever. However, it’s worth keeping his memory alive. “Not giving a shit has been a very successful business model for me.” “[Not having] a reputation to lose, is a huge advantage. From Kitchen Confidential on I made a really determined effort to not fuck up. I was very aware of that tendency. I’m a little more organized, my work is a little more rigorous than it needs to be because that was a regular feature of my whole life up until that point.” Read more in A Dozen Lessons about Business from Anthony Bourdain. -Greg
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In addition to connecting you with like-minded entrepreneurs, the Mastermind is where you’ll read the best exclusive content from Geek Estate’s curators, Drew Meyers and Greg Fischer. Each are publishing an original piece every week via The Weekly Transmission, covering the spectrum from shipping container co-living spaces to the battle for listing acquisition in the first iBuyer world war. 55+ Weekly Transmissions have been delivered straight to the inbox every week.
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The post November Monthly Radar appeared first on GeekEstate Blog.
