With the market like it is right now, you may want to take the time to build up marketing impact when the daily work of real estate isn’t all-consuming. Are you interested in finding new ways to advertise your listing online to improve that home’s chance of selling, while boosting your own visibility?

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)

Orson Scott Card on the Fannie/Freddie melt-down: “Would the last honest reporter please turn on the lights?” | BloodhoundBlog: National real estate marketing and technology blog | Realtors and real estate, mortgages, lending, investments.

Interesting blog quoting an excellent author on the current state of US affairs.

This interesting little tiny home is built on the top of a billboard support. I find it interesting, since just the other day (being the alternative housing nut that I am)… I looked at a billboard with the surrounding platform and thought to myself, that would be a cool place to put a tiny house… as long as you didn’t have to climb to the top with an armload of groceries.

And voila! Someone else has already developed that idea into this cocoon-shaped house. Kinda cool. See a larger version of this house on Flickr.com.

Although all the houses (and features) aren’t directly related to Tiny Homes, I just love this website, aptly named “Off Beat Homes” which displays unusual homes, details and treatments. I particularly like the idea of a tiny house with a fairytale styled roof. (Isn’t that sweet?!?!)

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.

Another crazy house located today:

Found at archinect.com.

Right now, as I write this, the Space Ship House on a mountain in Chattanooga, TN is just about to go on the Auction Block. If you want to see inside this interesting house (not a “little” house or a “tiny” house, mind you at 2000 square feet), you can visit the ebay auction page.

So, if you are interested in living in a house that’s only accessible with an electric staircase that pushes itself to the ground, if you always wanted to BE Captain Kirk, or if you just want a really odd shaped interior, without trying to make your home’s footprint really small… this might be your thing.

The only thing standard about this house is the “three bedrooms, two baths” designation!

After Lowes’ Katrina houses, we now have IKEA’s flat-box shipped house options. But, they aren’t available in the US — at least not yet.

These little gems aren’t inexpensive, however. And one development in northern Europe is using the BoKlok  homes, clustered, in neighborhoods. To learn more, read this Realtytimes.com article.

Although I love the tiny houses, and I like the idea of high-efficiency home production, these houses hold little charm. To me, they look like boxes — and ugly ones at that.

To each his own, I guess.

A client sent me information and photos of the smallest house in Toronto, Canada this week. She knew I have a thing for tiny houses, and she said this one should be right up my alley. The house, purchased for $139,000 last year (according to a report from Reuters), has recently been revamped and is now back on the market for $179,900.

It boasts (or should I say “whispers”?) 300 square feet of living space with a tiny back patio. If small living is your thing, this might be your next house!

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I’ve been following the LiveScribe Pen product since it was announced several months ago, and it occurs to me that this would be a great way for real estate agents to record meetings (and take notes) with both buyers and sellers.

How cool would it be to tap on your notes to “replay” the list of features that a potential buyer wants (when you didn’t quite have time to jot them all down?)

Personally, I’d love a way to hook this into a phone so I could take notes while consulting with a client and have the conversation “searchable” when I’m reviewing notes and completing tasks (with the client’s permission of course).

The chat-boards are already talking about my ideal paper solution — a Moleskin pocket sized notebook with the dot-pattern. Now THAT would be an awesome portable solution for this pen-and-paper loving tech-geek!

If you have a FaceBook account and want a chance at winning a pen — before they are available for sale, join the LiveScribe group. (Find out how here.) They go on sale at the end of this month.

(I’m getting a technology itch again, dang it!)

I’ve become somewhat of a connoisseur of small spaces, not merely because I’m building one, but more because I thoroughly appreciate them. I love tiny spaces that are huge on benefit, utility and beauty. Design matters when you build small. Materials matter. Finishes matters. All the details matter.

With that in mind, I’d like to share a few tiny space concepts that I’ve recently discovered that have not yet reached WickedBlog’s pages:

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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.

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Simplicity is the key to effective communication. When you give someone your business card, you want them to remember your name, what you do and be able to contact you (or recommend you to someone else). You also hope that your meeting (in person or virtual) is a memorable one.

If you have a business website or a blog site, you don’t need to go into detail on your business card, you just need to give them a way to get more information. That’s enough.

I’ve dropped using a physical address on my own business cards. After all, in my business, does it really matter where I live and work? Nope. It only matters that people can call me, email me and visit me online to learn more — if they are so inclined.

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If you are building your first independently hosted blog for your real estate business and you have decided to go with WordPress, you have already made a great decision.

Now, there are some other items to consider:

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In addition to the Real Estate keyword help I offered in an article on WickedWordCraft.com, I also found this cool “right here, right now” tool from SEO Book. Give it a spin!

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Nope, not always. (But it is much more often than it should be!)

I just spoke with Russell Springs broker and real estate agent Kim Byrom of Lake Cumberland Properties who is the first real estate agent that actually tried to help me find a new office space. She is NOT the first one I contacted. In the future, she will be.

Kim asked qualifying questions, got my name and number and said she would give me a call back. I believe her. I told her how much I appreciated her help and that she was the first real estate agent of the five I’d contacted that was interested in helping me. She said that most of the office space rentals were not listings so she helped people as a public service. She went on to say that it strengthened the community… etc, etc.. and I found myself in awe. She said all the right things. She’s service-centric! I love it.

Yes, I work with Real Estate agents all day, every day. Yes, my own clients are overboard on the customer service. That’s one of the reasons I work with them instead of working with other agents and brokers in their zip code.

But locally, it’s always been hit and miss with real estate service and it was really nice to talk to Kim after what I’d endured on this one inquiry already today. It was refreshing and I told her so.

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If you are a remote services provider, a virtual assistant or a freelancer, you may be interested in cutting corners on software costs — so long as you keep the best, most effective tools in your “virtual” shed.

I recently joined a panel of other remote consultants and virtual assistants for a RemoteProfessionals.com teleconference on starting to work with real estate professionals. During this free “how-to” seminar, I also distributed a handout listing what I consider to be the “Essential Open-Source Products” for those in this business.

If you would like your own copy of this PDF… (more…)

I have a client, a Realtor, with a particularly hairy situation. This genuinely nice individual has managed to become entrenched in the mire with a unethical builder. Normally, I’d find this situation incredible — but I’ve watched it develop and it has made me wary of such situations for my other clients.

I know that times are hard for many in the industry right now. I know that people are running scared as the houses sit and the inventory increases. Builders are hard hit, real estate professionals are starting to struggle, even the general public is starting to worry and sweat what Forbes Magazine is calling a Recession Dead Ahead. But, as I read over the letter that this particular builder is now posting all over the Internet, blaming the Realtor and the broker for all the problems he and his family are experiencing, I just have to shake my head. (more…)

I’ve been worried about the financial status of most individuals in the US. I’ve also been seriously concerned about the “creative” financing techniques for home buyers for quite some time — which have led to the current problems with rampant foreclosure rates. And I’m ever-frustrated with our credit-enamored society and its “enjoy now, screw my future” mentality.

And then this about the stock market dance from NPR this morning. So now the federal reserve is going to artificially “prop up” the mortgage industry?

Geeze! It makes me crazy.

I nominated two of my own clients for the RISMedia 50 Days of Leaders recognition. I’m happy to say that Diana Beam of SmoothMovesForSeniors and Miguel Berger of TechValleyHomes have placed in the top 50 Realtors in the states. (more…)

WordPress is extremely user-friendly. If you have ever hand-coded or altered or edited any HTML, it’s a snap. If you haven’t — you really need the easy-to-use interface… like WP. And widgets improve the ease of use factor.

What’s a Widget?

Widgets are tiny programs, usually with specific functions that people add to their desktops or (in the case of WordPress) their websites.

What Do They Do That’s So Cool?

Widgets allow individuals to customize the look, feel and function of the chosen platform quickly, easily and (usually) without the need to touch a single line of code. Read this article about the general concept of widgets and how Coldwell Banker has a desktop version to show new listings in a tidy little package.

Do People Really Use These Things?

Comscore, a digital data tracking service, recently launched “Widget Matrix” to track widget saturation across the Internet. According to the report on widget popularity, the top ten most popular of these little snippet sized programs reached an audience of over 177 thousand unique visitors and in North America alone over 40% of all Internet users visited a website with a widget. The most popular type of widget? Photo-related (think randomized shots of your current listings with “click to view full description” capability).

How do I use them?

Widgets allow you “drag and drop” functionality in many cool features for your new WordPress site — and you can select those and install, activate and customize them yourself. It will give you the ability to be creative and to add new “stuff” without calling a webmaster.

It also gives you the ability to turn off, activate and move around your site’s content to your satisfaction. Once you get it the way you want it, a single click on the “save” button in the widget dashboard and it goes live!

How Do I Use Widgets on My WordPress Install?

First, select a pre-widgetized theme. If the theme you love doesn’t offer widget capability built-in, you can get it widgetized by a code-jockey or you can widgetize it yourself (which is what I did for mine).

Widget-Ready WordPress Themes

Download the WP Widget Ready Theme Pack (15 megs) of over 100 themes.

How to Use Widgets – a step by step guide for beginners

Widgetizing Your Own - http://automattic.com/code/widgets/themes/

Making your own Widgets

Finding Cool Widgets

http://www.widgetbox.com/

http://widgets.wordpress.com/

http://www.widgipedia.com/ - Widget supersite (but not for WP specifically)

Turning Plugins into Widgets – Here’s how!

Learn more about widgets:

How to keep widgets from slowing down your WordPress site

Real Estate Widgets:

http://www.thegoodblogs.com/wordpress_widget – the good blogs widget

http://patrick.bloggles.info/wpwidgets/ – several widgets offered here.

http://www.ozpolitics.info/blog/wordpress-plugins/#links – I like quite a few of these widgets — like the aggregate RSS feed widget (I need this for my own blogs).

Good Storm Widget for Sales on your Blog – http://mecommerce.goodstorm.com/blogwidgets

Category Replacement Widget

Clock Widget

Cluster Map Widget