Praise for HouseLogic

The small but dedicated staff of HouseLogic, and the Web design and development team at Brooklyn, N.Y.-based Huge Inc., scored a compliment from tech consultant Robert Hahn in a piece for InmanNews. Hahn offered encouraging words for my colleagues, who’ve been working overtime–and then some–to build a site that promises to inspire and inform home owners.

At the REALTORS Conference & Expo last weekend, many NATIONAL ASSOCIATION OF REALTORS members got their first look at HouseLogic. Hahn quite rightly said the site’s launch may have been lost in all the talk about the REALTORS Property Resource. But the beautifully designed HouseLogic — which aims to mobilize home owners on issues that matter to both REALTORS and consumers — deserves attention in its own right.

“The heart and soul of HomeLogic.com is political advocacy,” Hahn said. “If NAR is successful here, HouseLogic will permanently change the landscape for Realtors.”

Interesting Developments at the Board of Directors Meeting

By Brian Summerfield, Online Editor, REALTOR® Magazine

There was a lot of ground covered during the Board of Directors meeting Monday at the 2009 REALTORS® Conference & Expo. Here are some of the highlights:

• The REALTOR® Property Resource (RPR): Attendees got a guided tour of this impressive new site, which ultimately aims to cover pretty much every property in the United States. RPR will be a massive database that will allow NAR members (and only NAR members) to search properties across numerous criteria, from school districts to tax info. Users will also be able to gauge the value of a property based on home improvement projects, site conditions, and comparables. Call it contemporary. Call it cutting edge. Just don’t call it an MLS. Read more

Listing Videos: They’re That Easy

By Robert Freedman, Senior Editor, REALTOR® Magazine

Making informative and even entertaining videos of your listings seems like a complicated undertaking involving a professional camera, lights, editing equipment, and a lot of knowledge of how all that equipment works, but in fact you can be uploading videos tomorrow without too much trouble.

I’ll be talking about this at 1 p.m. today at the NAR Expo booth at the 2009 REALTORS® Conference & Expo in San Diego. Maybe you won’t be posting videos tomorrow when you’re back at the office but you’ll certainly see that it’s pretty easy to do. Read more

Learned Over Lunch

By Sarah Trzepacz and Jennifer Cavendish

In a conference this size, you have to make choices about the sessions you attend. The cool thing is that even when you miss a session, you don’t necessarily miss the lesson. Take today’s lunch for example, when we grabbed a bite at the San Diego Convention Center. While sharing a communal table, we stumbled into an energetic conversation among several REALTORS® who had just attended the “Mobile Technology Guide for 2010″ session with Max Pigman.

They shared  their excitement about the business potential of  technology and social media tools, and discussed how they could be used to build relationships with clients new and old. While several already used sites like Facebook and Twitter in their personal lives, none had yet deployed them as business tools.  However, inspired by Pigman’s presentation, they were all enthusiastic about taking the leap. Read more

Real Estate iPhone Apps Gaining Traction

By Todd Carpenter, Social Media Manager, NATIONAL ASSOCIATION OF REALTORS®

Better Homes & Gardens Real Estate launched an iPhone app today. True to their brand, the app adds the flavor of the magazine by including tips on how to live green, make over a room, or tackle an entire remodel. BH&GRE also added a neat camera function to allow an end user to take pictures of homes they like, geo-code them, and send them off to one of their agents. Toss in RedFin’s more utilitarian but awesomely executed app, and both brokers and brands throughout the industry have two fine examples of how to execute a mobile application.

That’s great for big companies, but what about the little guys? Here’s a list of cool apps I’ve found that real estate pros should consider running. Read more

Looking Good, REALTOR.org!

By Brian Summerfield, Online Editor, REALTOR® Magazine

If you regularly visit REALTOR® magazine online, chances are pretty good that you also check out our sister site, REALTOR.org, from time to time. In case you haven’t seen it yet, NAR’s official site got a design refresh yesterday, and it’s already getting some props in the RE.net. Deservedly so, too–kudos to our REALTOR.org colleagues on a job well done!

Trick-or-Treat, Zillow Style

By Katherine Tarbox, Senior Editor, REALTOR® Magazine

Looking to maximize on Snickers and Milky Way bars this Halloween? Zillow.com has put together a guide to the best homes in Seattle and Los Angeles for trick-or-treaters based on property values, population density, a walking score, and safety. “There is a common belief that wealthy neighborhoods are the Holy Grail for harvesting the most Halloween candy,” Zillow’s Whitney Tyner writes. She claims that their calculations have produced a list of neighborhoods where children will get the most candy while doing the least walking (is this really a good thing?).

REALTOR®2.0: Getting Started in Social Media

By Todd Carpenter, Social Media Manager, NATIONAL ASSOCIATION OF REALTORS®

The world of social media, as applied to the world of real estate, is about five years old. Yet we are only now reaching a critical mass of agents who realize this is not a fad. As with mobile phones and e-mail, social networks and blogs are becoming mainstream tools for REALTORS®. If you’re ready to get started, here are three excellent resources to get the ball rolling.

1. Look at this post. Read more

Web Traffic Trends Point to Highly Educated Buyers

By Erica Christoffer, Contributing Editor, REALTOR® Magazine

Several bits of news have popped up in the past week, reminding us just how significant real estate Web sites have become in today’s market and in today’s online culture.

Last Friday, Time Magazine released a list ranking the 50 Best Web Sites of 2009. Several real estate-related sites made the cut.

This, coupled with recent findings published by the Nielsen Company that shows traffic to the top U.S. real estate Web sites is up, points to the continued growing interest in real estate on the Web. Read more

Game Changers: The View From the ‘Summit’

By Brian Summerfield, Online Editor, REALTOR® Magazine

Yesterday morning, a panel of real estate experts that talked about the notion of “game changers” — that is, disruptive ideas that will completely change the way things work in the industry — at the NATIONAL ASSOCIATION OF REALTORS® 2009 Leadership Summit in Chicago. With NAR CEO Dale Stinton moderating the session, each speaker offered a brief take on what trends might be game changers in real estate.

John Tuccillo, a business and economic consultant and a former chief economist for NAR, kicked off the discussion with advice to “change the game before the game changes you.” Read more

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