TECH + SOCIAL
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How to select the best real estate CRM
Courtesy of many years spent collaborating with Australia’s leading estate agents, we’ve learned their key considerations when selecting a new CRM. The industry’s best all agree that having a high-performance database paves the way to repeated success, referral business and growth. Wondering what factors to weigh up prior to committing to a new CRM? Here’s a snapshot of key selection…
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How to successfully outsource your IT
We can outsource almost everything in our lives, from our accounts to our cleaning. But how do we go about finding the right IT solution for our real estate businesses? First things first: when it comes to outsourcing your IT you’re looking for a managed service provider. This is instead of a ‘break it and fix it’ option, where you’ve…
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Yes, video is the future – but may not get you leads!
In recent years, agents have begun to utilise the power of video to attract vendor views and help convert them into property inspections. Real estate agencies have also utilised video to better present their team, expertise and results. Video is effective for its ease in capturing the attention of property buyers and vendors. It is one of the most powerful…
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Why cybercriminals target real estate offices, and how you can avoid it
Cybercrime now outweighs drug trafficking as the most lucrative form of crime, and the real estate industry is fast becoming a preferred target. It’s no surprise considering the amount of money and wealth of personal information behind real estate transactions, or the fact that the industry is worth around $16 billion in Australia alone. It really is a gold-mining opportunity…
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9 hacks to increase your Google ranking in FY2019
Achieving page one ranking on Google is more competitive than ever as brands look to online marketing as their main sales channel. As Google regularly updates its algorithms, brands cannot rely on the same tactics to get ahead of their competitors on search engines. Here are nine ways to improve your ranking. 1. Get your URL on reputable sites Back…
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The Future of Work: Special Report
Cloud-based virtual real estate brokerages, offshore labour, and designing and building emotionally and intellectually intelligent buildings will dramatically change the way agents work in the future, experts say. The days of real estate agents existing solely in a bricks-and-mortar office are already dissolving, with US cloud brokerage eXp Realty hitting more than 10,000 agents and uplisting on the Nasdaq Stock Market late last month. The agency…
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Office of the future: Nick Boyd
Our industry has seen a remarkable transformation already: new emerging brands, new property portals offering referral fee leads and new customer service platforms introducing AI technology, just to name a few. Many of these advances and changes stem from external resources trying to either create positive steps in our industry or take a slice of the pie. All these changes…
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Augmented Reality: The Personal Touch by Diana Dugan
How long have you been in real estate? I’ve been in real estate for 10 years. I initially joined local franchise agencies in the Bayside area before starting my own company in 2011. It seems like only yesterday I branched out on my own, with a lot of nerves but also a lot of ideas and determination. How did you…
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Agents put to the test at Digital Live
Last year 100 agents embraced a six-month challenge that would see their online footprint assessed, improved and put to the test. It was a program devised to teach all the essential digital media skills and offer the mentoring of the finest coaches. Known as Digital Live, it’s now back, bigger and better, for a second year. Here’s an insight into…
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How agents can overcome ‘digital fatigue’: Justin Nickerson
The new wave of proptech disruption is seeing both residential and commercial agents introduced to a myriad of new technologies to streamline their sales process, showcase properties more favourably and reach new buyers (such as Gavl, Purplebricks, REALas, Next Address, StoreMatch, OpenAgent, Snaploader and Sellable). Auctioneer Justin Nickerson explains what agents should consider when choosing the latest quality tech to…
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How efficiency can give you the edge: Evan Broadbent
Finding and implementing new processes can benefit agents significantly, not only through increased revenues or margins but often by providing their clients with a better level of service, cost savings or – even better – both. Currently, most agencies use a CRM software that assists them in the listing and selling process. This type of software has come a long way…
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How to Stop Making Noise and Start Adding Value on Social Media
Let’s face it: real estate agents aren’t well beloved by the public. Which is a pity, really. As a nation who’ve built their wealth variously on the sheep’s back and on real estate speculation, you’d expect that homeowners would have more reverence for the role of the negotiator. Real talk is: the responsibility of improving our industry’s reputation lies with…
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Kylie Davis: Could Robots Rescue Real Estate Franchises?
The franchise model is being disrupted by technology that’s making it easier than ever for individual agents to run their own show more flexibly and efficiently. But could bots – backed by AI, automation and big data – come to the rescue and help the big real estate brands deliver new value to agents? To explore this idea, let’s look…
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Style and Substance: CoreLogic revamps Signature Reports
Following the release of CoreLogic’s improved Signature Reports, the country’s largest property analytics and data provider now gives agents the power to add custom content to their Signature Comparable Market Analysis Report within their RP Data Professional account. CoreLogic product manager Mike Salway said that Signature Reports now give agents the opportunity to upload custom PDF files to their Signature…
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Kylie Davis: What makes big data so big?
Every real estate agent has a database – even if it’s just the names of people you’ve formerly done business with sitting in your mobile phone. From old-school Rolodexes to high-end computer programs that automatically send emails and respond to queries, a database is an essential tool in every agent’s kit. So when the conversation turns to the concept of…
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Listing presentations critical to a first-class digital profile: Dick Karlsson
If the mission is to sell real estate, then the currency is the listing presentation, explains Dick Karlsson of DIAKRIT. And it’s an arena where Australian agents often fail to impress. Mr Karlsson will be covering this topic and more as he offers his specialist insight at Digital Live 2018. Vice President of an international company renowned as an authority…
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Aimee Engelmann: How to Prepare for Offshoring
Outsourcing basic office tasks to the Philippines has recently gained a good deal of attention. The benefits are compelling and the idea of freeing up your team to focus on more important aspects makes complete sense for many, but the practical details may put others off. Aimee Engelmann explains the tools you’ll need in your office to manage the virtual…
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3 Ways To Leverage Your Database Contacts: Tiffany Wilson
Successful real estate agencies cultivate a loyal client base. The service you provide your clients is not merely a transaction, but the start of an ongoing relationship. Building a solid database requires a huge amount of time and effort. Once you’ve captured potential leads, it’s your job to take full advantage of these contacts. Using digital marketing to leverage your…
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Eddie Cetin: 5 Emerging trends in technology
With 2018 well under way and the summer holidays a fond memory, it’s time to refocus your attention on your business. What can you do today, this week and this month to maximise your results? Eddie Cetin looks at five ways to use technology paired with practical prospecting to own your area. It’s all too easy to fall back on…
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Message received – texting gaining popularity
Texting is becoming a more common and acceptable communication avenue between real estate agents and buyers, with a US survey indicating the right text at the right time could speed up the selling process. In a study of more than 500 consumers and 350 real estate sales professionals, cloud-based mortgage finance platform Ellie May found over three-quarters of consumers believed text…
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This is the slowest pace of change for the rest of your life: Greg Dickason
Wow – how much digital change happened in 2017? We saw the arrival of Amazon, the launch of the Google Cloud Platform in Australia, the rise of voice with Google Home and Amazon’s Alexa, Tesla’s model 3 was delivered, and Google’s Waymo self-driving car fleet passed the 4 million miles on public roads. We saw ransomware attacks demanding payments in…
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5 Ways to Improve Your Instagram Account: Tiffany Wilson
Instagram is one of the fastest growing social media platforms. As of December 2017, there are 800 million monthly active users who are posting up to 95 million images per day. Catching the attention of audiences on Instagram is becoming harder than ever before. It is essential for real estate agents and agencies to optimise every part of their Instagram profile and content to cut through the…
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Say hello to Diana, the real estate agent of the future
Bayside buyers and vendors can now meet face-to-face with Diana Dugan without leaving home, after the Beaumaris real estate director launched the country’s first augmented reality property website. When you log onto dianaduganproperty.com.au Diana, the company director, is smiling back at you from her North Concourse Beaumaris virtual office, ready to lead you through the website with voice recognition technology.…
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The Rise of Facebook Advertising In Real Estate: Chris Rolls
While the industry is addicted to the reliable stream of buyer leads these real estate portals send them, the downside is that it costs more to market a property online in Australia than many other places around the world. This cost is borne in most cases by the seller of a property, but many agents also claim that the high…
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Cyber Liability Insurance: the Safety Net Real Estate Agents Need
At long last, the wider public is starting to realise that hackers aren’t hooded movie villains – they’re real people doing real damage across the globe, especially in Australia and especially to small businesses. Real estate agents, in particular, are prime targets for cyber-criminals due to a combination of factors, including the amount of valuable client data they hold, a…
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Your Wish is Their Command: Kylie Davis
For every dollar we save on the new connectedness, we need to spend $20 on learning the skills and make the time in our day to ‘do’ it. In this space, the efficiencies we’ve been promised with the technology are not yet being realised, our most precious commodity is now time and focus, and the effort often hardly feels worth the…
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Update Before You Innovate: Kylie Davis
People now spend nearly an hour a day on Facebook and social media, scrolling through posts and chatting on Messenger. This figure is up from 20 minutes a day back in 2015 and is a number Facebook is intent on increasing further. Kylie Davis therefore asks the question: Why do agents still invest so much time and money in outdated…
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What metrics actually matter in Facebook advertising?
Facebook ads are an effective way to reach potential buyers and sellers while building brand equity. Facebook metrics give insights into how well your ads are performing but, as Greg McCutcheon from Real Estate Bookings explains, quantity isn’t always better than quality. Important metrics are those that provide you with deeper insights into how your social media marketing is performing. For…
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The New Web: Anton Babkov
UNDER THE LEADERSHIP OF ANTON BABKOV Siteloft provide website infrastructure for over 500 agencies around Australia. And their research has found that more people visit your site to find out about you, than to find out about your listings. On paper, it makes sense: turn your website into a mini portal and promote current listings to generate more enquiries. But…
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Thrive app wants to help us unplug from our smartphones
Samsung has just partnered with the ‘Queen of Sleep’ Arianna Huffington to launch the Thrive app which helps people limit their smartphone screen time. The app blocks all communications except for those on a ‘VIP’ contact list, and will send auto replies to let non-VIPs know you’re on a vacation from your phone. Users can additionally track their overall and…
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Rethinking Video in the Social Media Age
If you’re not already convinced that social video is where you need to be, consider this: Eight in 10 Australians are now on social media 81 per cent of them prefer to access social media on a mobile device Video accounts for more than half of all mobile traffic See a pattern here? With that in mind, here are five…
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Talking Technology with John McGrath
What are the tech tools agents will need in the future? For prospecting and listing, a solid CRM database system which categorises customers to allow you to send only relevant messaging to each client will be important. Curation of messaging will become more and more significant as people get bombarded with information. The next big thing will be predictive algorithms…
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Great Expectations
Technology can help you to create the best possible experience for your clients. Here are a few questions to ask yourself when deciding on the right technology to elevate the client experience and effectively position your business for the future. 1. DOES IT MAKE INFORMATION ACCESSIBLE? You don’t need to control every bit of information that flows to your clients.…
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10 Productivity Apps Leading Agents Use Every Day
New generation agents are mobile agents. With fewer physical hours in the office, collaboration with their colleagues is still critical to success – as is their desire to nurture more relationships with prospective clients. You might be wondering: how do these uber-agents keep all their plates spinning? How can they be fast, accurate, connected and productive whilst being outside of…
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