IPhone 3g Brings Location Based Services to Real Estate

With the advent of the Iphone 3g, the fact that it is now a 3g based phone with gps capabilities, a whole new set of applications are coming to consumer that will offer capabilities never before seen in a mobile phone.  LBS – Location Based Service, are services based on where you are located at the time.  For example, lets say that you want to look for some homes that meet a specific criteria, lets say for this example, 3 bedrooms, 2 baths, 1200 square feet no more than $200,000.

You will be able to put in this criteria and hit a button to locate you at that moment and it will pull up homes within a specified range that meets your criteria.  In addition, as you continue to drive, the list will update based on your new location being recorded in real time.  This is a new concept in real estate that many Real Estate agents do not have a full grasp of, at least not yet.  The younger crowd of agents, or agents with technical background have a good grasp of how this works, and is becoming mainstream.

Real Estate as well as other industries are changing as technology changes.  The world is becoming smaller and smaller as location based services start to come out of their shell.  As the technology changes, people will need to change they way they do business to keep up to date with the advances in technology.  Soon you will be able to do things like place an order for groceries as you pass by your local grocery store, be feed information to your phone regarding your interests such as movies, concerts, various shows and the information will ask you if you would like the info input into your calendar for future reference.

The future is coming, you just need to make sure you are ready for it.

GPS Enabled Cameras the Wave of the Future in Real Estate

I knew it was a matter of time before someone came up with a gps enabled camera.  This little add on will make a huge difference in the field of real estate.  Now, you can capture that photo of that home you are trying to sell, and at the same time, have the coordinates of that photo saved with the photo.  Now this sounds like no big deal…right, wrong, and here is why.  One places like your local MLS or or real estate search sites, you will pretty much know where that property is, but if you just upload that picture to other picture websites, now the location is locked in.  You can upload the photo anywhere and stand a larger chance that someone looking to buy a home will find that photo with its exact location on the planet.  In addition, auto gps systems can now use thistype of data (I was actually working on putting my listings together in a file to download on TomTom units, but I was a little to late), for prospective home buyers to program in homes to look at as well as the next generation location based services introduced or at least made popular by the IPhone 3G.

GPS chips are fairly inexpensive so I am not sure what took so long for something like this to come about, but none the less, it is here and only great things will follow…stay tuned!

Technology and Real Estate…Starting to Merge

The days of dragging that huge MLS book ended years ago, and the Internet, that 900lb gorilla has emerged.  With the Internet available, the world of finding homes, property statistics such as past sales, other sales around the target property, have become simple at worst.  Now a new technology is starting to arise for the standard consumer, the Internet based smart phone.  The smart phone can allow you to do all your searches for property while on the fly through the web or wap browser of your phone.  Many companies now have mobile specific sites to show information from.  The website detects that you are using a mobile browser and automatically switches over to the mobile based site.  Pretty slick, huh.  But wait there is more.  An even new technology is starting to emerge known as 3G.  3G is third generation network that is suppose to allow download speeds of that similar to broadband, you know, that wifi speed you get at home.  I have not seen this to be the case, but it is much faster than the prior generation.

With this higher speed, all sorts of new technologies will arise, location based home searches (via gps or cell triangulation), social networking, and I predict soon to be video chatting.  Wouldn’t this be great to be out looking at a home, find the home that a client is looking for, start them up on the video chat and walk thru the home on the fly for them to see.  Now that would be amazing.

With the Internet and other technologies emerging almost daily, although a Realtors job is getting more efficient, it is also getting more complicated.  With everything that is on the verge…some Realtors will be overwhelmed while others will great the change with open arms!

Tablet PC Make Life easier and Contract Writing Faster

Ok, so you have a laptop, or do you.  One thing I have noticed as I teach classes in my office to other Realtors is that they all do not have laptops.  In fact, some of them have never had a laptop.  They all do have computers though, but a laptop is kind of what you need in today’s market.  You will need to flexibility to bring the listings, virtual tours, multiple photos to the client, and can not expect that the client will go to you.  So with that in mind, you go out and buy a laptop.  But wait, there is this other device that looks like a laptop, but has a swivel screen and comes with some kind of digital stylus.  Oh, that is what is called a tablet pc.

A tablet pc has been around for a while but never really had a good application to go mainstream until Realtors got a hold of it.  Here is what you can do with a tablet pc.  Download all of your contracts and addendum’s.  Through the use of a program called Microsoft Journal, you can convert the contracts into documents that you can write on within the tablet pc thus giving you the ability to capture signatures right then and there.  After you complete the contract, get all the signatures needed, the software will let you email the completed form to whomever you need to thus concluding the transaction on your half right there.  Wouldn’t that be fantastic to get all that done, the offer off to the listing agent, and a digital copy of the contract with your clients signatures…you bet it is.

So if you are off looking for a laptop, don’t forget to include tablet pc’s in the mix.  They will take some getting use to, but as soon as you do, your productivity should go through the roof, and impress a few clients as well as agents along the way.

A Blog to Rule all Blogs

Blogging is the way of the future…Realtors, whether you realize it or not, will need to be bloggers.  Here is why.  Blogging is a means of accomplishing several things for little to no money.  A blogger will create a readership, similar to newspaper, help create relationships with the readers, and help establish yourself as an expert in whatever topic you chose to write about.

Like anything, blogging will require dedication.  You can’t just write once and expect the world to be at your feet.  You need to continue to write about interesting topics that people will want to read about and eventually other bloggers will pick up your work.  It is basically self replicating in a sense.  The more interesting things you write about, the more people will want to read what you have to say and will begin to connect you with your topic, in this case, real estate.

Blogging is very simple to do, you just need to do it!  So if you have a topic that you like to write about and you think that you could stay at it time and time again…start writing…the benefits will be at your feet after not too long.