Featured Listings
Here’s a list of a few of the best online resources for advertising yourself… er… I mean your listing. Be sure that you have your listing FEATURED on your own home page. By doing this, any incoming links “for more information” will lead to the index page of your website. So, even if the home sells, you still have a link that’s live and is helping you. And when you sell a home, you will have other “featured” homes listed for the incoming traffic to review.

Landing Pages
You may want to add a landing page that gathers the “from” URL and customizes your website to say, “If you were seeking the featured home from Craig’s List, it’s already sold… but we have these great homes still available! And then list the home you do have featured in a thumbnail format so they can click for more information.

Localized Online Classifieds
Most popular websites for free (or extremely low cost) real estate classified ads today:

http://www.kijiji.com
http://www.craigslist.com/
http://www.backpage.com
http://www.tenant.com/
http://www.nfafn.org/
http://www.usfreeads.com/
http://www.freeclassifiedads.com/
http://listsomething.com/
http://www.nocostclassifieds.com/
http://www.postlets.com/
http://www.facebook.com (Free “MarketPlace” ads)
http://www.trulia.com/
http://base.google.com/
http://www.oodle.com/
http://www.local.com/
http://www.propsmart.com/
http://www.vast.com/
http://byownermls.com/
http://www.livedeal.com

Many of these websites have an expiration day- so don’t forget to renew!

(photo by mconnors of morguefile.com)

You may also enjoy looking at these unusual home and building photos, courtesy of HotHomesOfUtah.com (now this is an interesting way for a real estate group to draw in traffic to their website, bump up their rankings and amuse the general public, all at the same time!) Or, you may want to look through these pages of strange houses and these oddities.

You also know that you don’t have the time to send messages to people on MySpace (and you don’t really want to). So, if you can just find the right tool, the right technology, that elusive “thing” you are missing — you can conquer this Web 2.0 frontier. Right?

Sorry. The answer is No.

There is no holy grail — despite all the products and services out there promising to help you conquer it. I hate to break it to you, but many of those companies are trying to sell you something that helps their bottom line, not something that helps yours.

The GOOD news is that competing in the Web 2.0 world really isn’t that difficult, you just have to understand what the term means to you (and your business) and what it can mean to your clients (and your ability to serve them).

If you want to create your own Real Estate Fiefdom online, you must start with the basics.

3 C’s of Online Success: Content, Collaboration, Creativity

Content is Still King
Content will always be the most important aspect of the web world. No matter what new technology emerges, it’s the content that keeps visitors coming back. What changes is the approach, format and delivery of that content. Web 2.0 followers merely take excellent content and incorporate new and developing technologies as quickly as they are made available.

If you don’t have information people want or need, it doesn’t matter if they can collaborate or how creative it is – they still click away to another site to find what they seek. So the first task is to determine what your target market wants and deliver that information to them in an un-complicated, easy-to scan, digestible format.

Take the time to update your content regularly. Please, please, please (with sugar on top!) review your property descriptions and eliminate overused, tired words. Offer original articles on your local market, particular neighborhoods, and/or working with a real estate agent instead of merely “subscribing” to the same content that thousands of other agents are using.

Your website should offer information relevant to your market that showcases your services and indicates your personality. If you need help, get it — but don’t “buy” your content from a generic source.

Collaboration is Queen
Web 2.0 is an invitation rather than a presentation. It’s like the difference between watching the Superbowl on TV and attending the Superbowl. Most people prefer to BE a part of the experience, rather than passively watching others have fun. Your visitors are no exception.
Consider the difference between a static “website” and a blog. The website looks the same day after day, week after week, month after month. The blog offers regularly updated information. Readers are encouraged to “chime in” and participate in the discussion by agreeing, disagreeing and/or adding additional information to the topic. Most blogs link to a network of other ideas and information across the web which increases the value the site for any visitor. Your site is now a resource!

Web 2.0 replaces the classic elitist, “powers that be” approach to information. Compare the Hardbound Encyclopedia Britannica to Wikipedia. One is static, quickly outdated and produced by a small number of people. The other is dynamic, constantly updated and produced by individuals world-wide.

Good content is still the first requirement, but encouraging people to add to that information, share their own views, and become a part of the discussion makes good information more enticing.

Always encourage cooperation on your site. Give your visitors the ability to participate and reward that participation with your gratitude. Thank them personally (online) for their comments and offer them a link back for their trouble (most content management software offers this option automatically).

Creativity is Your Court
Creativity and the ability to present information in an entertaining and unusual way will give you an edge. If two sites have great content and encourage collaboration, but one is creative and the other is flat – the creative site will always win more visitors and will capture more online “buzz.”

Collaborative creativity is no longer bound by geography or even personal knowledge of the parties involved. People are taking sites that encourage showcasing creativity (like YouTube) and pushing those creative limits even further.

For example, Mia Rose. This guitar-wielding girl did a YouTube recording of an original song. She was then joined by others (virtually) to create a full band. A great Web 2.0 example. The members of this impromptu band never met… and with the availability of the new technologies, they didn’t need to! Each added something to what existed, “mashing” it into a new, superior creation.

Although there is some question on the veracity of this young woman (some are calling her a “Lonely Girl” Clone), the fact is that this type of creativity IS now possible!

So, take the time you currently spend looking for the holy grail of real estate online marketing and go build your own little real estate kingdom!

Just make sure your site is filled with excellent, useful content. Encourage your visitors to participate in conversations and to explore by offering ways to collaborate on a creative site that is attractive and easy to navigate — if you want to capture a larger audience and keep them.

The housing market slump has been fueled by the wave of foreclosures resulting from those “creative” mortgages in our recent past. Last week I talked with Jeff Aicken, a loan officer with Century Mortgage in Louisville, Kentucky to get a professional’s view in layman’s terms on what happened, how it happened, and what real estate agents can do now to make the situation better for their clients and for their own bottom line.

Before coming to work for Century, Jeff had worked for a company that handled loans in a way that didn’t mesh with Jeff’s own views. With this experience, he shares both sides of the “easy financing” coin with us.

Angela: Tell us about being a mortgage loan officer, Jeff.

Jeff: I started in the business in 2004 and immediately fell in love with it. I liked helping people and enjoyed the loan industry.

Angela: You don’t work for the same company now that you did, why did you change?

Jeff: I had some bad experiences with the type of company that gives lenders a bad name. I didn’t like working in the “close, close, close!” environment and I don’t think that “selling” a loan is as important as serving my clients and that wasn’t the best philosophy to have while working for my former company.

Of course I want to make money, but service should come first. The money follows the service.

Angela: I couldn’t agree more. How were the loans handled differently in the “bad” company?

Jeff: When I first started, the pick-a-payment option loans (Neg Am), Alt A and Sub-prime loans were being pushed. There were few loans that conformed to the traditional 20% down, 30-year fixed, full documentation loans that require good credit and an extensive qualification process.

Angela: I understand the negative amortization term, but can you explain “Alt A” and “Options” loans for me?

Jeff: Alt A means “alternate to A credit loans” and this is where there is a qualified buyer, but something is missing that prevents a traditional loan. For instance, they can’t prove income or they have a high loan-to-value ratio. There’s one piece missing.

Option ARM programs were the bulk of my business at the old company and these came in four flavors:

1. Minimum Payment
2. Interest-Only Payment
3. 15-yearPayment
4. 30-year Payment

These were popular and I found that I was being pressured to sell this product not because it was best for the client, but because it was most lucrative for the mortgage company. That’s one of the things that really discouraged me. It was so bad, in fact, I almost left this career.

There were also Sub-Prime loans. These were “really shouldn’t have a house” loans, but because the Fed was giving money away so cheap, these individuals could now get a loan.

Angela: So the Neg Am loans, SubPrime and Option ARM loans were all bad, or they were just being handled poorly?

Jeff: They aren’t all bad, they are perfect for some clients — like investment savvy folks. But, these loans caught many by surprise when they came due at the five year mark. This, coupled with the softening of the market and lower house values left many people with new, higher payments that were unmanageable. The interest rates adjusted to 5% higher or more and people who had been used to living at the old rate had difficulty making their payments.

These loans were readjusted monthly, that’s where the minimum payments came in. So, the individual who secured the loans was making a payment as if the interest rate was 1.25% when the actual interest rate during this period soared to as high as 7.5% and continued to rise.

This is where the negative amortization came in for the loan-owner. Although the homeowner could make higher than minimum payments in the first months of the mortgage, few did and once a year the minimum payment was adjusted up to 7.5%.

Angela: Can you run me an example scenario with actual numbers that shows the negative amortization and how that happens?

Jeff: Sure. Lets use a nice round figure. For a $200K loan, if the minimum payment was set at 1.25%, then the first year the payments were $666.50 per month. The second year, that could go up to $716.49, the third year could also go up an additional 7.5% and this would continue until the fifth year, when the minimum payment option was lost.

At this point, on that same loan, with the rate at 7.5%, the actual payment would soar to $1,398.43 per month (and even interest-only payments, were now at $1250.00!)

The difference between the two figures represents the negative amortization for the first five years, when the minimum payment didn’t meet the interest service for the loan and added more to the principal of the loan.

Angela: That’s quite a difference in monthly payments! Aside from the horrible impact on the individuals holding these loans, how does this impact the housing market as a whole and your industry in particular?

Jeff: The real estate market correction was needed. That, along with the adjustment in the way loans are being handled, has eliminated the “riff-raff” from the mortgage industry. Over 110 lenders have gone out of business this year, many of whom were pushing the riskier loan options. Companies like my own are doing quite well. In fact, September was the best month for Century in the past eleven years!

Angela: So this “correction” has removed individuals — and companies — from the loan industry in the same way it is cleaning out the real estate industry. What advice can you offer real estate agents currently working in this market?

Jeff: The best advice I can give a Realtor is to team up with a good lender. I know that sounds self-serving, but let me explain why…

A bad loan officer can make a good deal go sour. Right now, real estate agents and sellers can’t afford to lose a sale because a service provider didn’t dot all the i’s and cross all the t’s.

A good loan officer will make recommendations to help all parties. For instance, rather than dropping the price of a given home, they may suggest offering more seller’s concessions toward a new loan.

Angela: How and whom does that help?

Jeff: It helps everyone involved. For a $150K loan, for example, with no points at 6.5%, closing costs and title insurance may run $1880. If the seller will contribute $1830 to “buy down the rate” (i.e. have the seller pay the points and therefore reduce the overall interest rate) everyone will benefit.

This helps the buyer because the monthly payment is reduced. At 6.5%, the buyer’s monthly payment would be $948.10. At 6% interest that payment is $899.33, a savings of $48.77 per month every month of the loan.

If the seller had merely dropped the price of the house overall by that same amount, the buyer would only realize a benefit of $11.56 per month.

The real estate agent is paid based on the sales price, so he/she benefits from not dropping the sales price.

The seller and the agent benefit from a larger pool of potential buyers because more people can qualify for a lower monthly payment.

Even the lender benefits by building a relationship with both the buyer and the Realtor. Working together to help everyone involved builds long-term, mutually beneficial relationships. We can help to sell a house that might not otherwise be sold or work with a buyer that may not have otherwise qualified. It’s gratifying.

Angela: That makes sense. Thanks, Jeff, for taking the time to talk with me today. I appreciate your insight and I’m sure my readers will too.

Jeff: My pleasure, Angela.

If you want to speak to Jeff yourself, you can contact him by calling 502-753-4120 or visiting him on the web at: http://www.cmcloans.com/jaicken.

(photos courtesy of gracey, cohdra, and ppdigital at MorgueFile.com)