HomeRun Homes Rent to Own Homes Blog

My photo

HomeRun Homes is a centralized marketplace which helps people Find or Sell a Rent to Own Home, both Nationwide and Globally to the thriving Rent to Own Market. http://www.lease2buy.com
Showing posts with label home staging. Show all posts
Showing posts with label home staging. Show all posts

February 9, 2011

What Are The Hottest Real Estate Internet Trends?

Hi Everyone,
   Glad you could make it back with us today.

   Today, I'd like to discuss some of the hottest Real Estate trends on the Internet. Some of them will be familiar to you, and some of them will be new ones that will surely become a part of the mainstream for Real Estate on the Web.

   The first "trend", if we can even call it that, since it has become super-mainstream, is Social Media, such as Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, etc. Earl Miller of 5Star Investment Group, feels, "that the hottest Internet real estate trends are social media", and says that, "Studies have shown that 90% of all buyers that are looking for a home will start their search on the Internet.", and that, "The old way of doing showings on properties with a Realtor are really fast becoming outdated. People want to see more of the property in a smaller amount of time before they actually drive out to see it." One of the many services that capitalizes on the soaring popularity of Social Media is "Tweetlister.com", which, "takes MLS listings and turns them into tweets, then allows agents/brokers to schedule them to tweet to selected Twitter account", as explained to us by Lloyd Chrein, an individual that is familiar with the service. There are numerous other utilities and services that piggy-back on Social Media, but that would encompass an entire Blog post by itself.

   Another hot trend is the Housing Search experience on the Internet. Paul Gleger, Director of Communications Office for HotPads.com, says that he is seeing a, "Particular emphasis on creating a granular and personalized housing search experience.", which he says is being done through, "interactive map technologies, neighborhood search filters, integrating the social graph into the search process, and there is an especially strong growth in mobile tools." Along the same theme, Sam Debord, a Managing Broker/Realtor with Coldwell Banker Danforth, says that one of the biggest Internet trends in Real Estate are, "tying in localized services to MLS listings.", and that, "Every web site has home listings with photos, but the more advanced real estate sites have a suite of features from multiple vendors/providers all on one page." Debord says that, "Users shouldn't have to click around to find these features, they're all on one page.", and he gives examples such as map search, area maps, Google street view, walk score, census data, school data, and pricing history. As Debord says, "Many different data sources, but no need to search around."

   Video Tutorials are also becoming increasingly more popular, and as Christine Schwalm, an Interior Designer that specializes in home staging for Realtors says, the videos she creates are, "Nothing fancy." Schwalm says that she shoots it, "with a flip camera and don't do much to edit the footage." She informs us that she does, "A one take video that lasts several minutes that follows the realtor around the space as he/she explains the property. Home buyers know that it is fairly easy to manipulate pictures, so the videos do a more accurate job of selling the property--and featuring the realtor."

   The final trend leans more toward the lending side of the industry, and Dave Galanter, President of freeMortgageFix.com calls it, "DIY Mortgage Modification". Galanter says this is a free online utility to assist homeowners in, "preparing a Mortgage Modification Application which complies with HAMP guidelines as well as individual lender's own programs. It works in a way that is very similar to Turbo Tax, with helpful hints and prompts.", and says that he is, "quite sure it is the best assistance for the DIY Mortgage Modification Applicant on the web."

   There are some exciting trends on the Internet for those of us in the Real Estate industry. I hope these have been helpful. I'm sure we missed a few and we'd love to hear about them from you.

Have a Great Day, and Happy Rent-to-Owning !
Regards,
Rob Eisenstein
HomeRun Homes Blog http://blogging.lease2buy.com
HomeRun Homes Website http://www.lease2buy.com


TAGS: #realestate #socialmedia

May 12, 2010

Great Real Estate Deals, Home Staging, Rehabbing....

Hi All,

Happy Wednesday to everyone.

It's been an exciting week at the HomeRun Homes campus, and to all of you who have thanked us for bringing you such a deluge of quality responses to your Ads...you are quite welcome. Our goal is to bring traffic to our website so buyers or sellers can find you, and you can Find a Rent to Own Home or Sell a Rent to Own Home. Basically, we are just doing our job, since we work for you!

We wanted to re-emphasize a fantastic article, called: "7 Cities With Great Real Estate Deals", which runs down some of the hottest returning markets. If you read through the article, you'll see that there are a lot of unpolished gems out there. Further, you will see our name mentioned in the article for Atlanta, and also for Orlando, Florida (and Central Florida), since we believe that these are two of the hottest markets right now.

This leads me to the next item, which is that our 8-Year anniversary is around the corner. We originally got our start buying and rehabbing homes in Central Florida (Read our full background here: http://www.lease2buy.com/rent-to-own-homes.php). One of the first homes we renovated is this one:



We will tell you more about this in the coming weeks, as our June anniversary approaches, along with some fantastic offers...stay tuned for your exclusive opportunities to be announced here in our company Blog!

The last item that we wanted to discuss is Home-Staging, which has gained quite a bit of momentum in the recent market. For example, I have a neighbor who was stuck in his home for 8 months, he could not sell, and he was not in a position to Rent to Own the home. I had a Home-Staging company get in touch with him, and they came in and revamped his entire home. During his next Open House, he got a few offers, and he is actually in contract now. This is a handy service. Are you a Home Stager? If so, please tell us more about your work.


Have a Great Day, and Happy Rent-to-Owning !