In the course of researching this month’s real estate email newsletter article I stumbled upon Diana Olick’s Realty Check column on the CNBC site, and I have to say I wish I’d found it long ago.  Each weekday she posts a short, well-researched blurb about some current real estate topic, from recently released housing reports to new legislation, and I found it to be an excellent source of up-to-the-minute real estate information.

One of the things I like about her writing is that she appears to have good insight into the issues and I think she tries to take a fair approach – she’s not out to spin the pros of real estate and at the same time she’s not someone who despises agents either – refreshing.   (I get so annoyed with people who act like they’re breaking barriers in the field of honesty, but if you read their stuff it turns out they’re as hopelessly biased as some of the industry ‘shills’ that they can’t stand.)

Anyway, are you tuning into something daily that keeps you on the frontlines of information that your clients may need you to know?  I understand that checking a bunch of blogs every morning can become onerous, but this is one little column that will take you about 90 seconds to read and will almost always impart something worth knowing.  I highly recommend that you give it a whirl.

Effective April 22, 2010, important new federal regulations went into effect regarding  how remodeling firms and contractors need to handle work done in pre-1978 housing.  Called the Renovation, Repair, and Painting rule (RRP), it requires firms and their employees to be certified by the EPA in order to do any work that disturbs lead-based paint on six or more square feet of interior space or more than 20 square feet of exterior space.

The rule does not apply to homeowners doing work themselves on their own homes, but anyone hiring a contractor needs to be aware of the new requirements.  In addition, property owners doing work on their own pre-1978 rental properties or any pre-1978 space occupied by a child care facility are subject to the new law.

This is an important change to make sure your real estate clients and any contractors you work with are aware of.  Here are some links to more information:

The EPA’s ‘Renovate Right: Important Lead Hazard Information for Families, Child Care Providers, and Schools’ pamphlet (pdf).

The main EPA page about the Renovation, Repair and Painting rule.

Here’s a link to the entire RRP rule, but it’s hefty; you might find the National Association of Home Builder’s summary of the new legislation a more helpful read.  (Note that they state that the regulation applies to pre-1978 homes inhabited or frequented by pregnant women or children under the age of six, but this is because there is currently a waiver that homeowners can sign to opt out of the contractor requirements if neither of those two conditions apply.  Effective July 6, 2010, the opt-out waiver option goes away.)

A Facebook business page (also known as a Facebook fan page) can be a great way to promote your real estate business, even taking the place of a standard website if you don’t have one yet.  (Facebook business pages are free, versatile and easy for non-techies to edit and add content to.)

The problem is that 90% of agents who want to gear up on the social media scale end up never getting around to it.  If that sounds like you, I recommend checking out Mike Mueller’s AreWeConnected site and possibly hiring him to set up your Facebook business page for you.  I haven’ t used this service myself, but I’m a fan of his own Facebook business page and I can tell he’s really active on there and on Active Rain; overall, he seems to really know his stuff.

Here’s the link:  http://areweconnected.com/facebook/ - if you scroll down the page you’ll see samples of Facebook business fan pages he has created.

Eyejot is a cool real estate marketing tool that agents can use for sending short video messages via email.  My friend and colleague Greg Perry (a self-made techie and one of the first local agents to become a powerful blogger) pointed it out to me a few months ago, and I just noticed what a great job he did of branding himself on his Eyejot page.

Click the graphic on the left to see his profile on Eyejot, and I highly recommend checking out this video about the Home Buyer Tax Credit deadline that he is sending out to his real estate clients today for an idea of the type of useful videos you could create.

Eyejot has a free option, and their premium option that allows longer videos and more branding is around $99 per year.  Check out Eyejot’s membership options here.

For your real estate marketing, you probably know that  you get more online traffic to your real estate website, blog, and social media pages when you use the same keywords in your page titles and text that people use in their online searches.  But… how do you know what keywords your prospective real estate clients are actually using?

(After all, our real estate prospects don’t always think like we do!)

Well, Google Trends is a great free tool that helps you quickly choose the best keywords and keyword phrases.  Here’s an example, using a screenshot I took when I was deciding on the title for this post:

By typing these keywords into Google Trends I can quickly see that ‘online traffic’ is searched for on Google more frequently than ‘web traffic’ or ‘website traffic’, so ‘online traffic’ is the term I should prioritize in my title and text.

You can do the same thing when preparing your real estate website, blog and social media pages.  For example, if you’re writing tips for home buyers, check to see if more people search for ‘home buying’ or ‘buying a home’ so that you can prioritize either the term ’home buying tips’ or ‘tips on buying a home’.

(Bonus!  Click here to see those two keyword phrases compared for you on Google Trends.)

(A slight caveat:  If you really delved into research, you might find that while the general public uses one term most frequently, your prospective clients use another.  However, this would take a ton of time, and if you just start thinking more about optimizing your website text and page titles with keywords using Google Trends you’ll be miles ahead of where you were.  Plus, it takes just a few seconds!)

To see how easy it is, check out our video showing how you can boost your real estate marketing using Google Trends:

Like this video? Subscribe to the Tools For Real Estate YouTube Channel!

Love Facebook?  Hate Facebook?  Have a personal Facebook profile, but not sure how to use it for your real estate business?

(All of the above?)

Regardless of which category you fall into, here’s what you need to know:  Having a Facebook business page (also called a Facebook fan page) is a great way for you to market yourself online as a real estate agent.  It’s free, easy to set up, and easy to keep updated with content such as links to interesting articles, photos, and even videos.

How much or how little you put into it is up to you.  But, here’s the catch… most real estate agents don’t know how to create a Facebook business fan page to begin with!

Fortunately, it’s easy.  Here’s a video I made showing exactly how to do it, along with tips on choosing the right title for your Facebook business page.

Are you getting questions about mortgage refinancing from your real estate clients?  I am, and I recently found a good consumer’s guide to home loan refinancing by the Federal Reserve Board.  One of the reasons I like it is that it  seems to clearly explain some mortgage topics that people commonly get confused about, including:

• Comparing home loan refinance options
• Understanding ‘no cost’ refinances
• Calculating when you recoup the expense of refinancing a mortgage
• Home mortgage prepayment penalties

There’s also a glossary of home loan refinance terms that’s highly useful.

The pamphlet dates from 2008 and is 29 pages, it opens up in just a few seconds via pdf – here’s the link at the Federal Citizen Information Center:

A Consumer’s Guide to Mortgage Refinancings

Yesterday I had to call ValueWeb to help out a client who needed his domain name pointed to a different server.  During my over half an hour on hold (starting out as caller number 44 – the horror!)  I was reminded of how important it is to choose a reliable company for domain names and hosting.  Here are the companies I use:

Buying Domain Names

Godaddy is where I buy all my domain names.  It’s easy to search for them, and at around $10 per year per domain name it’s a good deal.  More importantly, they make it easy for you to manage your own domains.

(Yesterday I was calling ValueWeb because we were not able to change the domain settings ourselves, and the request we submitted 4 days previously had not been carried out.  This cost me an additional 45 minutes on the phone.)  If the domain name had been held by GoDaddy I could have done it myself in about 2 minutes.

Tip:  You can often find discount codes for GoDaddy by simply Googling ‘GoDaddy coupon codes’, or if you just click on the graphic above you should get a domain name for $7.49.

Real Estate Website Hosting

I’ve tried a number of different companies, and I really like Hostgator.  They’re big, reliable, they have good pricing, and their technical support has always been able to help me without being snarky.

One of the main reasons I choose them?  They have phone support!  Many hosting companies these days only allow you to submit support tickets by email or online chat.  If you’re shopping around for website hosting as a real estate agent, I HIGHLY recommend you go with a service that allows you to also call in, like Hostgator.  Unless you’re in the top 5% to 7% of techie agents, you’ll end up wanting this option.

(For the record, I have one website hosted with GoDaddy and have never had a problem with them either.)

Tip:  When you’re setting up hosting you’re usually asked if you want Windows or Linux hosting.  Linux is usually a good default choice unless you know for sure your site runs on ASP.

And…  Hostgator often runs a special via a coupon code shown on their home page.

Looking for a nice way to reconnect with your real estate clients?  At this morning’s office meeting I heard from some agents who are popping by their clients’ homes to say hello and drop off a Hot/Cold thermal bag as a gift.  These bags keep items hot or cold for up to 3 hours, and are great for summer get-togethers and picnics.

Personally I’d be pleased if someone dropped one of these off on my doorstep - I don’t have any, and they look really handy.  You can currently get Hot/Cold thermal bags for just $2.38 each ($119 per case of 50) at the American Bag Company.

If you’ve been in real estate any length of time you know what a pain it can be to have to change the dimensions of a large batch of listing photos so that they’re the right size to use online.

Shrink-O-Matic is a free program that you can download to your computer and use to re-size multiple photos at one time simply by setting a maximum height and width.

Here’s a short video explaining where to get Shrink-O-Matic and how to use it.

Download Shrink-O-Matic Here