Finding a place to host your real estate website or blog is one of the first things you’re confronted with as a new agent, or at least as soon as you’ve decided to get a serious online presence (for many agents that second part comes later on, but it shouldn’t).   After trying three other web hosting providers, here’s why we recommend Hostgator for real estate agents:

Good uptime and industry leader:  Hostgator has been around since 2002 and has a 99.9% uptime guarantee.

24/7 customer support, including by phone:  The phone support option is huge for real estate agents -- I just don’t recommend using a web hosting provider that relies only on email or chat.  I know that might sound funny from someone who runs an online-based marketing service, but even being more techie than the average real estate professional, if one of my sites is down I want to hear the warm breath of an actual mammal on the other end of the phone as soon as possible.

Hostgator has good phone support etiquette:  Twice in the past two weeks I’ve had long calls with support as they investigated an issue (this is not typical, by the way, and one of these issues was due to a mistake on my part).  Both times I noticed that when you’re on hold they check back with you every couple of minutes, without fail.  There must be some kind of timer that notifies them to check in after a set period of time so that you never feel abandoned.

The support techs are helpful and don’t make you feel stupid:  Even though I’m pretty techie and can hold my own with some of the web-spiel, there have been times with other companies when I felt like the support department was sure I was a doofus.  (Numerous studies have concluded that this is not the case, I am happy to report.)  The Hostgator reps have always been polite and dedicated to resolving the issue I was calling about.

Hostgator has reasonable pricing:  This is not the most important criterion, since we all know that cheaper is not always better, but it’s nice that their pricing is very reasonable.

If you have any questions about real estate website hosting, drop us a line or leave a comment below.  And here’s the standard affiliate link disclosure:

Just so you know, the link(s) to any companies on this page may be our affiliate link, meaning we get a small share of any purchase price if you buy from them.  We think of it as a way for people to say “thank you” for our resources and the time we’ve spent with our toes curled into fists of frustration with the wrong providers, but if you prefer to not use our affiliate link you can always Google the company name and go directly to their site.  It’s all good!

I always advise agents to use more than one marketing mode in order to reach all of their clients, and those different tools can build upon each other as well.  Here at Tools For Real Estate we find that the agents using our real estate email newsletter service who have the best email open rates are often the ones who touch base with their clients in other ways as well, whether it’s through an occasional phone call or by supplementing with a gift like the magnets we’re mentioning here.

By the way, we’re not an affiliate of House of Magnets, just a fan based on what we know about them so far.  We’d love to hear your feedback if you end up using them.

They also have a tool for determining the number of days between two dates -- click here for that calculator, or on the image above for the future date calculator.

(Of course, keep in mind that ultimately you’re responsible for determining timelines correctly, regardless of what the calculator comes up with. )

Do you sometimes lose track of when the various housing and economic reports are coming out?  It’s easy to do, but since newspapers start buzzing as soon as the Case-Shiller housing numbers or new unemployment figures are released, it’s good to know in advance what’s coming up.  That’s where MarketWatch.com’s economic calendar page comes in handy.  It shows you the time and date of  each upcoming economic report release, and provides the previous report’s data for comparison.  For example, coming up this week are the Cash-Shiller home price report for January, pending home sales data, and the unemployment rate for March 2011 -- all numbers that are likely to affect the real estate market.

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.

• 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

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.

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.

You can look up condo complexes on the HUD website using their FHA-approved condominium complex search tool.

Next time that happens there are two things you can do to end the mystery.  One is to simply Google the phone number, which often brings up information about the caller.  The other is to run the number through the search feature on the Who Calls Me website. 

I used Who Calls Me for a number I received a call from yesterday evening and found a long stream of complaints from the public, as well as directions for getting off of their call list.  (It was from a marketing firm that supposedly engages only in research, so they are apparently exempt from the Do Not Call regulations.)

Hey, anything we can do to make life simpler for real estate agents these days…