When to get a real estate web site or XSite specialist

Web developers and designers are available by the thousands. Gazillions. But hiring an industry specialist is probably the best bet, when you work in a specialized field. If all you need is an online business card, you can get anyone. Nearly. But if you want to do well attracting real estate related clientelle, for instance, there’s no substitute for someone with industry expertise. What really needs to go into a mortgage site? How can appraisers position their services for the people who will actually visit their sites? What can an agent do to stand out from the pack? For this, you need a real estate specialist web builder.

On top of that, of course, if you’re using an industry-specific platform, like an alamode XSite, it’s good to get someone who knows XSite capabilities and limitations, and who can exploit the one and bend the other. For that, you need an alamode XSite specialist.

Lastly, there’s making your site pretty, and there’s making it both attractive and effective. There’s doing a ‘little SEO’ and there’s optimizing it in a way that drives traffic, both from SEO techniques, and from an overall internet marketing approach. You can always get less, do less, and need less; but what happens when you need more? Make sure the person you involve is capable of taking your internet marketing to the next level.

If you need all of these things, and you can find talent that weds them together, get that person in your orbit, get them involved with your site and your marketing, and start reaping the rewards.

I recently took on my wife as a client. You’d think that’d be a no-brainer, but she’s got her thing, and I’ve got mine, and it just never occurred to me. When it did, our household income increased significantly, and she went from being relatively obscure to being fairly well known, in a short period of time. She’s getting offers from all over, and clients are coming in from half a continent away. She’s a hair stylist. What I give her is the kind of thing I try to give my clients. Granted, I spend a lot more time on her stuff than most clients want to spend on theirs.  But the point is that every hour I invest with her business makes our household richer. So essentially, it’s always worth it. I spend a couple of bills, and I make it back many times over, on a regular basis. That’s the whole point of marketing, is it not?

Should you get a new domain?

First, a domain should be keyword rich (more accurately, it should be search term rich). A bit has been written about this in our [XSite Marketing Knowledge Base], so we won’t repeat it in the blog.

The value, though, of a second domain is particularly applicable to the alamode XSite. The XSite allows you to point secondary domains to particular pages of your site – effectively creating domain-based landing pages. If you don’t have one that goes directly to your blog, you should.

The XSite, as currently configured out of the box, is based on the static business site model. Changes over the past few years have elevated dynamic sites (namely, blogs) into a superior position over static sites. In short, in terms of page rank and search engine placement, blogs and dynamic web sites are wiping out sites with fixed content that never changes. But it doesn’t have to be one or the other. A site with two domains, one pointing to a static home page, and one pointing to the dynamic content (the blog) can actually yield a greater marketing coefficient, to coin a term. In other words, the value of two pages is greater than one plus one. A little “custom thinking”, can give you a more custom XSite without much more effort or cost. You can do all this through the domains subpanel in the XSite wizard, or you can bring on a 3rd party domain from Godaddy.

It’s true that you can continually update your home page but, frankly, the whole point of a blog interface is that it streamlines that activity. Besides, don’t you want at least one static page that makes your “elevator pitch”?

So our answer is “yes”, get a secondary domain, and point it to the blog on your XSite. Then publicize your blog on your business cards, in your e-mail tagline, in Facebook, and on your coffee mugs. And when you get a domain, don’t get a vanity domain. Get one that’s rich in search terms.

Just another tip from Market Moose XSite marketing solutions.

Marketing – Social Networking – and USPAP

Does “Linking in” with Agents and Brokers Violate USPAP?

Appraisers live and bleed by USPAP. The Uniform Standards of Professional Appraisal Practice. Anyone that’s ever been through appraisal school knows that getting ready for the USPAP test is like nurses getting ready for the NCLEX. It’s gruelling, boring (for a lot of us), regulatory-based study, sometimes involving points as obscure, convoluted, or eccentric as the pecking order in a mediaeval bureacracy.

One of the concepts essential to professional appraisal practice, and central to the USPAP, is the “arms length transaction“. The key application, we’re looking at here, is that the appraiser is adhering to a set of professional practices independent of any influence by lenders, mortgage brokers, agents, buyers, sellers, or other parties or biases. So far, everything we’ve said is something every appraiser knows. So is the fact that sometimes there is “pressure”.

The desire to avoid the appearance of (or actual) violation of USPAP in this regard motivates some appraisers to question social networking techniques, in light of the incredible shift of the online atmosphere, the conglomeration of relationships, and the new marketing techniques brought on by web 2.0 – the social web – social media and social networking, from LinkedIn to Facebook. This new atmosphere of social and professional networking, and the marketing techniques that go with it, are more recent than USPAP and, as appraisers are confronted with this evolution of human interfacing, there are legitimate concerns. As real estate professionals “link in” to one anothers’ profiles, post comments to each others’ blogs, and participate in shared spaces, what are the implications for “arms length transactions”?

Consider the following internet marketing components:
(We won’t go into how these tie together and integrate into an overall and effective internet marketing plan. Right now, the point is USPAP).

• Including client testimonials pages on your web site, with positive comments from agents, brokers, buyers, and sellers
• Asking clients (e.g. lenders) to link back to your site
• Including “area professionals” pages on your site, linking to recommended businesses that may include agents, mortgage brokers, etc.
• Linking profiles in a social networking medium like LinkedIn or Facebook
• Being reviewed in social networking venues

These are some of the most basic internet marketing, search engine optimization, and social networking techniques. As part of an overall internet marketing plan, they’re proven, they tend to generate increased traffic, enhance search engine position, drive more clients to your site and, importantly, convert prospects/visitors into contacts/clients. But again, what about USPAP – does it allow this?

First of all, I’m no legal expert, and not a USPAP expert, despite having been through appraisal school. So, I’m not going to offer legal advice, or render a fixed opinion on USPAP and appraisal practice. The truth is, though, that however rigid USPAP may seem, how it has been interpreted and applied has varied, evolved, and will likely have to continue to do so, in light of new technologies. Just as with the concept of copyright – when you download a song on your IPOD, do you “own it”? Can you copy it, share it, upload it, modify it, keep it on multiple devices, convert it for use in your car or your home stereo, make a cassette copy, include it in a video, post that video to youtube, put the lyrics on your web site, or make a comical “take-off” version of it for a social media site? The definitive answer? There isn’t one. It’s not that clear. And it’s going to take time to work it out.

With Social Networking, there are lots of appraisers using it, and using it to even enhance, extend, and support their industry, to further the practice of ethical appraising, to foster ethical and appropriate exchanges of insight with other real estate professionals, to gain industry knowledge and local expertise, and yes to market their services. These appraisers seem to be ethical, conscientious, professional appraisers who are adhering to the standards.

Is there potential for violation? Yes. The same is true if you socially network by eating at the one diner in your town every morning, at the same table as a local lender, agent, etc. Or you attend the same worship service. Or your kids go to school together. So where is the line? The line seems to be in the intent, in the outcome, and in the actual conduct of the appraisal. That’s not a legal opinion – it’s just an external observation.

Personally, I’m an advocate of marketing your business. If marketing were a USPAP violation, you couldn’t appear in the same ad pack as a mortgage broker. But let’s go farther – how many of you are married to a real estate agent or loan broker? Do you file a joint tax return? Do you pool your income? Do you pay for marketing, for web sites, for whatever out of the same pool? Well, we always suggest you get an LLC anyway.** But that said, do you work in the same house? Perhaps  you don’t ever share the same clients – maybe one of you turns them away. But don’t you each give referrals then, to someone in the industry? See – if merely being “seen together” or collaborating in any capacity, is a USPAP violation, we’re all in a lot of trouble. Heck, some companies employ agents, mortgage professionals, and appraisers in-house!

At some point, whether or not you’re arms length depends on whether you’re actually doing the things we know you’re not supposed to do – namely, allowing formal or informal relationships to influence a determination of value.

I asked an experienced colleague to comment on this topic, presenting him with the questions, issues, and examples above. This is what he said:

To begin with: The single most common appraiser objection (to anything) is “it’s not USPAP compliant”.  This particularly comes up whenever you discuss good business practice because USPAP is vague enough that many people interpret it to mean that you have to run a sweat shop to be a legal appraiser.  It’s a Fear, Uncertainty, and Doubt thing.

What about the marketing techniques I’ve mentioned?: What you’re describing here is just good business practice.  You see this anywhere you find good businesses.  Testimonials, references to other services, etc.  That’s just taking good care of your clients.  To interpret “arms length” as a precaution against that would mean you couldn’t do business (at least not professionally) in the ways the rest of the world does good business.

So what might a real violation look like?:  An “arms length” transaction is one that’s not particularly close to home.  In other words, you’re doing the transaction at an “arms length” – not in each other’s arms. Ahem… If the mortgage broker kept taking the appraiser out to lunch to discuss home values on the active loans he’s working or offered kickbacks for meeting value that’s an entirely different situation.   I believe the “arms length” stipulation is there to prevent an appraiser and lender or mortgage broker from getting closely involved with each other to the point where there’s either a financial incentive to meet value OR some other kind of incentive (like a close relative).  That would not be an “arms length” transaction because it is not be one that was purely influenced by the market.  There are other factors influencing that transaction.

In summary: So how would a testimonial or link (a different form of testimonial) alter the “realness” of a transaction?  And how significant is that really? Then, also keep in mind that many appraisals don’t have anything to do with the loan market.  While the “arms length” stipulation would still apply, there’s no incentive for an appraiser to meet value in the non-lender market.  Just some food for thought.

Related Links:

Pressure: (Note: we endorse the contents of these or any other articles)
Lender Pressure and Appraiser Independence-Gimme Shelter
Appraisers Under Pressure

**LLC (Limited Liability Company)
(Protects your assets, while minimizing your paperwork. Taxes: can still file Schedule-C).

Do Not Use Commas or Apostrophes in Blog Titles

This is not unique to the XSite, actually. An apostrophe is interpreted as programming code by lots of applications. In the case of blog titles, the main thing use of apostrophes and commas will cause is that the link for your XSite blog entry (on the right) won’t work. And you sooo want it to work.

That link is probably one of the most important links on your site, if you’re blogging regularly. It’s the link that social networkers will use to link back to your post, if you’re not just blogging, but you’re implementing an effective internet marketing plan.

You are blogging regularly, right? If not, read [this post] – you’ve got some work to do.  But remember, effective blogging is part of a whole. Blog 5-minutes a day – that’s the goal for that part of things. The rest, is making your blog part of a plan to grow your business.

XSite on Linux – quite possible

I’m a netbook fan. I’ve got one of the smallest ones – the EEE PC 900A. Atom-powered, no hard drive (all solid state), and my current favorite piece of hardware. Mine runs Linux. The whole point of a netbook is web-based applications – cloud computing – not installable software. Since I do it all on the web, I don’t care about compatibility, or operating systems. The Linux/Windows/Mac debate is dead, as far as I’m concerned.

But I do use XSites. So, do I get another netbook just for Microsoft Internet Explorer? Perhaps. But not while I’ve got a choice. And I’ve got several choices:

In the previous blog post, I went over several methods of managing your alamode real estate XSite with Firefox. In this post, I’ll hit the main methods of managing with Microsoft Internet Explorer (IE) but in Linux!

IES4Linux: This method uses Wine, a well known Windows Emulator for Linux, but it streamlines the approach mercifully. In the words one one reviewer, “No boring setup processes. No Wine complications. Just one easy script and you’ll get three IE versions to test your Sites.” Here’s the page.

Microsoft actually helps: Serdar Yegulalp explains how to “download a virtual machine image from Microsoft that contains a preactivated installation of Windows XP, preloaded with your choice of Internet Explorer versions.”

Manual Methods: other methods involve manually setting up windows or IE in a virtual machine or Wine.

Disclaimer: Keep in mind that alamode doesn’t support these methods (neither do we, so don’t ask , so if you have an XSite issue, you’d better have a buddy check it in a supported, native version of Microsoft Windows to verify it occurs everywhere before calling technical support. That said, if you’re adventurous and interested enough, it looks quite doable. Comment on this post if you’ve already been down one of these roads (or have another method) and have had success.

Macintosh: incidentally, some of these methods (e.g. virtual machine) should work fairly well in Macintosh and other OSs too.

Want to Administer Your XSite in Firefox?

There are a lot Firefox browser fans out here who don’t like using Microsoft Internet Explorer or even Microsoft Windows. Naturally, we want to use Firefox, and perhaps even Macintosh or Linux for our XSites.

In fact, the only reason we at Market Moose internet marketing solutions keep Internet Explorer around is for alamode XSites customization and optimization.

Occasionally, the complaint of an absence of Firefox compatibility with the back end (works fine on the front end) comes up in a forum, and is listed as a reason to go with an inferior real estate site platform.

Where there’s a will, however, there’s a way. There are all kinds of things that any software company – alamode included – won’t support – that’s to be expected. But there’s a difference between “unsupported” and “doesn’t work at all”. It’s like being a beta-tester. If you’re willing to put up with a quirk or two, you can do things that others won’t be doing for some time. Case in point: I’m writing this XSite blog entry in Firefox, right now!

So here’s a set of options for you managing your XSite in Firefox.

Disclaimer: Keep in mind, no one makes any guarantee that everything works with these methods, that everything does what’s expected, or that all results are predictable. We’re just saying that we’re administering some alamode XSites with Firefox and, for you diehard Firefox lovers out there, we’ve gathered some nice methods. If you use any of these methods, we point to the more detailed instructions on the sites linked below to help you (not only does alamode not support any of these methods, but neither do we . That said, there is discussion on those sites, if you have trouble. Our stuff all worked great on the first try – no hitches at all.

There are several overall methods that we can comment on:

alamode XSite in Firefox Method 1: Install the User Agent Switcher plugin, and set it to IE7 within Firefox. This works for lots of things. I used a user agent toolbar for Firefox in 2004, because my university was IE only. These plugins simply fool any web site you designate into thinking you’re logging in with Internet Explorer. If you’re willing to live with a quirk or two, it works great for every day editing. This is what I’m using right this moment. This is not, however, a comprehensive solution to all XSite administrative functions, so we’ve also included some other methods.

The above is the only native Firefox and XSite solution that we’re going to discuss that will work in Windows, Macintosh, or Linux (Yes, you can manage your alamode XSite in Linux, brother!). The other native method, involves hand-modifying Firefox, and just isn’t simple, practical, or elegant like using an easy-to-install plugin. At the bottom of this article is a table showing what works and doesn’t work with method #1.

The other solutions, require Internet Explorer to at least be installed on the computer, so you’ll either need to be running Windows, or running IE in a virtual machine (or Wine) if you’re a Linux user.

alamode XSite in Firefox Method 2: Install the IE Tab plugin for Firefox. This method simply opens selected pages “in Internet Explorer” but as seamless Firefox tabs. In other words, Firefox will use Internet Explorer’s engine to open  your XSite, if you tell it to, and will display it entirely within Firefox itself, without opening IE as a full browser window. It’s just another Firefox tab. So, yes you’re using IE, but you’re also using Firefox. If you’re not ditching IE because you’re using Linux or another non-Microsoft operating system, but you are using Windows and do have IE installed, this should (note the disclaimer above) mean that the alamode XSite’s admin login and tools act exactly as they would if you opened a new IE window. Can’t swear to it – I’m using method #1.

alamode XSite in Firefox Method 3: Install the IE View plugin for Firefox. This is quite similar to method 2, but just allows you to right click any page within Firefox and tell it to open in an IE window. Not as elegant, but if you’re a purist, and want to use Firefox for everything but XSites, and still never click on that darned blue ‘e’, well this will take care of you. Furthermore, disclaimer above noted, this should mean that XSites work exactly the same way as you’re used to, since it’s really opening it in an IE window – just doing so from Firefox.

So, Firefox fans and alamode XSite users, remember you heard it first at Market Moose, you can quite easily manage or administer your alamode XSite in Firefox, including Linux and Macintosh versions.* Don’t expect tech support to troubleshoot in Firefox – be good – if you have some kind of issue with your site, always test it in Microsoft Internet Explorer before giving them a call.

Notes:

* Keep Access to Windows and IE: There are surely other ways to use XSites in Linux and Mac, if Firefox is not your preference. See the links below for getting IE to work in other Operating Systems. However, as with Firefox, don’t think that alamode will support it. Once you change operating systems, you’re probably on your own, unless it’s really an issue in IE on Windows, too and not specific to your OS or browser. If in doubt, before calling alamode tech support, have a buddy test for your problem in a supported version of Windows and IE. If it occurs there, too, you’re surely good to call. In any case, you’ll want to keep some access to Windows and IE.

* About Internet Explorer 8: This is Microsoft’s lean version of the browser designed to try to keep up with Firefox. I uninstalled it immediately, once I tried it with the XSite. The admin interface just didn’t work. Either use IE 5.5, 6 or 7, which are supported by alamode, or else (for the slightly more adventurous) go with Firefox. Remember Vista? Yeah, some of us have had enough with Microsoft – I was just curious. Our advice? Keep it at IE7 and don’t upgrade to a new version of IE.

Method 1 (User Agent Switcher) Further Notes:
These are the results of our tests. Keep in mind, we think all of the things that don’t work with method 1 will probably work with the other methods. In fact, we’re proofing and correcting this article with Method 2, just to say we could. And we uploaded the graphics with method 3. Method 1 is basically for the regular content maintenance and contact functions of editing your blog and other pages, sending e-mail, and checking stats or contact info. For full-time management (and certainly for your applications, xsellerate marketing, and credit card processing), you’ll need to rely on one of the other methods. Good news for appraisers is that, if you manager your contacts in Wintotal instead of the XSite, that part’s taken care of.

Relevant Links:
Firefox Video
Firefox Home Page
Alamode XSites
Firefox vs. IE
Using IE in Linux
Using IE on the Mac