emongoo blog

web 2.0 is?

What is 'Web 2.0'?  Well here are two definitions:  Wikipedia & O'Reilly .  Basically web 2.0 is being classified as 'user or community driven' websites.  Letting the general public place information and ideas on your website or websites that gather information from the community.  Blogs are examples of the web 2.0 concepts. 

In looking over the web and blogs out there many websites that just have 'cool' things are classified as web 2.0.  Maps, tagging, blogs and etc. are all used to make up a web 2.0 website.  The race is on for websites to step out and come up with new features.

The issue I see is 'ease of use'.  So many sites are coming out with all the 'bells and whistle' but how easy are they to use?

That is a struggle emongoo faces every day.  We try to come up with new and exciting features for our users to use and at the same time keep them simple.  Please let us know if we are succeeding in this goal.

The newest feature is our 'property comments'.  We have decided to incorporate a new feature to our detail page ( the page where the info of the property is shown ) where anyone can make a comment about the property.  Why do this?  Well in the good faith of web 2.0 we are creating a 'community driven' experience on our site.  The comments can be used to let the owner know about photos, errors on the listing ( aka pricing ), spelling errors or to just share an opinion.  We came up with this because many of our members were getting 'feedback' emails.  This way buyers or lookers can just give feedback and others can see the comments and the owners replies. 

We will be monitoring this so please keep your feedback or comments appropriate.  Please no crude words or rude comments.  The purpose of the comments is to help the owner sell and for the buyer or looker to be able to voice a mature opinion.

Technorati Tags: emongoo, real estate blogs, for sale by owner, real estate, FSBO, Real Estate Marketing, Real Estate Blogging, Real Estate Blog, Real Estate Blogs, Real Estate, Web 2.0

and the women have won...

Thank you to real estate marketing blog for telling us about the new Microsoft adCenter Lab.  It is a fun BETA tool.  Basically what it does it analysis your online or website users. 

I ran a query for emongoo.com.  Sellers look...Women rule the real estate world!

This shows us that 98% of all traffic to emongoo.com is female.  If you are a seller then make sure your property is showing what the women really want to see.  This is something we at emongoo have been saying for a long time to our clientele.  Women are the searches of online real estate.

The graph also shows that the largest age group on emongoo.com is 25 to 34, aka young families.

The below image is in regards to general online for sale by owner real estate traffic:

Now I used the key word 'for sale by owner real estate'.  The chart didn't change much at all when using just 'real estate' it did however when I used just the key word 'for sale by owner':

Women still win, but there is a spike in 'female' traffic when comparing 'for sale by owner' and just 'real estate'.

Now this is a BETA website and the results may vary, but it is a cool little tool.  We can say that for the data Microsoft pulled for emongoo.com they are very close.  We do have primarily women on the site, not sure if it is in the high 90% as Microsoft may say, but it is high.

Again the Microsoft BETA site can be found here:  http://adlab.microsoft.com/DPUI/DPUI.aspx

Technorati Tags: emongoo, real estate blogs, for sale by owner, real estate, FSBO, Real Estate Marketing, Real Estate Blogging, Real Estate Blog, Real Estate Blogs, Real Estate, Web 2.0, Microsoft

'the future of real estate...'

I have been watching this blog over the last few weeks and since my last post was about 'blogging' I thought I would post this blog out there.

The blog follows a lot of what I spoke about in my last post, minus perhaps the comments.  It is a new blog so we will have to see where it goes from here.  The blog does a good job of keeping up with the ever changing real estate world and new sites and ideas that are out there. 

I posted my first comment on this blog on a post about 'topix.net'  The blog owner has not yet posted my comment.  Take a look at the blog at:  http://realestatemarketing.wordpress.com

To read my comment click below.

blogs blogs and more blogs..

(I have had a lot of questions in the last few weeks about how to know if a blog is quality and can be trusted.  I will do my best to give some pointers in picking your next favorite blog site.)

Behold the power of the blog!  Did you know there are over 42.3 million blogs on the Internet today and over 30 % of people surveyed say they read blogs and more and more people are turning to blogs for daily news and information?  Wow! 

Well what about real estate?  Where are good blogs to learn about real estate?  How can you be sure the information you are reading is current and accurate? 

There are some simple things to remember when reading real estate blogs:

1.  Who is the writer?

When reading a blog about for sale by owner styles of real estate it is fair to say that a real estate agent will not give you the unbiased understanding of real estate as a for sale by owner.  If you are reading about investing then it is fair to say that someone who hasn't invested in properties themselves may not be your best source.  Many blogs have 'about us' or 'about me' pages, check them out and see who the writer is.  Now remember anyone can put up a website and anyone can put up a website and pretend to be someone they are not so do some research.  Great site to do research on about writers are www.yahoo.com and www.technorati.com

2.  What does the writer know?

I have never been to North Dakota, never known anyone from North Dakota, never read a single thing about North Dakota, but I have a blog called www.northdakotarealestateinvesting.com.  Do you see the problem?  When reading blogs make sure the writer knows what they are talking about.  Everyone can have an opinion, and opinions are great, but if you are giving information you need to know the facts.  Local real estate investors and professionals can really help when it come to understanding a certain area of the country.  For example www.curbed.com
seems to do a good job on keeping the people of New York up to date on ever changing issues in the  New York area.  Blogs that specialize on one or two markets tend to be more reliable then general blogs that try to cover all the real estate topics out there. 

3.  Comments

Okay so I have given you two ways to make sure you are getting the good stuff, but I am big enough to say that maybe just maybe a writer with no real estate knowledge can start a real estate blog and have wonderful content.   A blog writer from New York may have all the information out there about Rigby, Idaho real estate market place.  But there is one sure way to know if the blog you are getting info from is quality or not and that is comments. 

Comments are a great way to see if the information you are getting is quality.  Read the comments, see what others are saying about issues.  Now oddly enough there are a lot of blogs out there that are not built to get comments, but only to share a writers opinion.  With that said blogs that's main purpose is to provide you with information should be receiving comments.  Company blogs, (like emongoo's or even zillow.com's or even IBM's blog) are not necessarily built to receive a large amounts of comments, but are meant to keep clients up to date and in some cases give tips.  ( like this post you are reading ).  In the world of real estate there are millions of blogs that claim to know all there is to know about the industry but they just may not.  Read the comments see what people are saying and make good judgment calls.

4.  Content is King

Simple enough, make sure there the blog is always updating content.  I have ran across blogs that haven't had new posts posted for months and in some cases, even years.  Odds are the writer lost the steam and has moved on to greener pastures, as should you.

There are a lot of good real estate blogs out there.  One that I just ran across is www.thehousingbubbleblog.com .  Now the writer is focused on the ever debatable topic of the 'bubble' in real estate.  thehousingbubbleblog.com seems to get a lot of comments each time a new post is submitted.  One that was submitted less then 2 hours ago already has 46 comments on it.  (pretty good for a Friday afternoon)  A place that one of our staff members here at emongoo.com found to find real estate related blogs is, www.pubsub.com.  Not only does pubsub.com list out blogs on real estate topics, but they also rate them to give you an idea of the quality of the blog.

Now with all the above said there is still not a  magic way to know if a blog you are reading is good one or not so do your research and always, always get a second opinion.

Technorati Tags: emongoo, real estate blogs, for sale by owner, real estate, FSBO, Real Estate Marketing, Real Estate Blogging, Real Estate Blog, Real Estate Blogs, Real Estate, Realty Blogging

46 to 75 what?

If I were to tell you that I just deposited 46 to 75 million dollars in your bank account what would you do with it?  Would you take the money and build one dream home? 

Well I found a post on http://www.aipodcasts.com/ about the Ten Most Expensive Homes in the US. 

The interesting part about the post was the way you can look at these homes.  By using 'Google Earth", a free satellite imaging program provided by Google, you are able to see an aerial view of these properties.

"Here is a collection of placemarks showing the ten most expensive homes  (click here to download the file.  You must download Google Earth to use this file.) on the U.S. market in 2005 according to Forbes Magazine. Each placemark shows you the location of the houses in Google Earth. The placemarks also contain some details about the houses, their prices, and a photo. The houses were priced at the time between $46 Million and $75 Million.”

This is an interesting way to look at the real estate out there. 

If you don’t have Google Earth, click here to download it.  This is a free program provided by Google.

emongoo goes back to college

All it takes is a full time job while going to college full time  with wife who also goes to college full time and a daughter about to hit toddler age and I begin to realize that anything that makes life easier is worth its weight in gold.  Take this desire to make life easier for ourselves and everyone we can, couple it with the power of emongoo and we can make a lot of things, a lot easier.

Lets start with finding housing while at college. I don't know if the college town where I live is just a bad example of college towns or if they are all the same. Up here it is hard to get the info on the apartments I am interested in.  It is also annoying to drive around town and look at all the possibilities.  This is where we make it easier. First we take the powerful searching tools emongoo offers, customize it for finding college housing and... boom... echoice is born. echoice is the new, free choice for listing and searching college housing options for any town in the country.

Ok, so we made it easy to find properties, but what about the real truth. Ever have one of those apartments where they are great at advertising a brand new club house with workout equipment and a pool and free laundry facilities, then you move in and find that the club house is no where near as brand new as they said and the club house is only open three hours a day?  We wanted to make it easy for anyone to voice their opinion about the real conditions of where they live. How do we do that? evoice.   evoice is a free community message board put together by emongoo that anyone can use. If your apartment is awesome, talk it up, if not, warn everyone else. We want to give the power back to the people.

Check it out today. Go to echoice, search the apartments. You can get all the info you need plus up to twenty photos of the place you are interested in. After that, head over to evoice and see what people are saying about it. Then sit back and relax cause life was just made a little easier.

If you have an apartment then place it on emongoo.  Go to echoice and place your apartment for free.  This is a new service of emongoo and we are looking forward to its growth.  It is 100% free, so pass on the word!

your home...

There has been a lot of talk over the last few months about how the real estate industry is changing. Perhaps nothing is changing more in the industry then the way real estate is sold.

emongoo, as many of you already know, offers much more then just a place to list your property. Our services offer the ‘do it your selfer’s’ a way to not only save money, but sell properties with more confidence and in a much faster amount of time.

In the past sellers have had two options in selling real estate, sell it on their own or sell it with a real estate agent.  The average 'for sale by owner' approach costs $80.00 per month and leaves many real estate questions unanswered.  On the other hand selling with a knowledgeable real estate agent on average will cost $13,200.00 (Source: National Association of Realtors).  One of the emongoo services, ‘ultimate for-sale-by-owner coaching' offers sellers a third choice that combines the knowledge of a real estate professional and the savings of a for sale by owner approach. 

The ‘ultimate for-sale-by-owner coaching' coaches are trained by real estate agents, marketers, investors, interior decorators and real estate attorneys and offers an average savings of $12,000 over traditional real estate agent costs. 

emongoo coaches help property sellers with the following:

- Understanding the real estate paperwork for all 50 states

- Marketing of the property to attract potential buyers

- Preparing and fixing the property for sale

- Getting the property priced correctly

- Time management of selling the property

- Open house training and preparation

The more information you have the better you are prepared. And there is nothing you should be more prepared for than selling your largest asset, your home.

 

The Real Estate Guys are coming!

emongoo.com is excited to announce in the next coming week we will be including the "Real Estate Guys" www.realestateguysradio.com real estate news and information on emongoo.com. 

This new feature will help our members be more in-tune with the ever changing real estate world.  Both articles and pod casts will be used to inform our end-users about the world of real estate.

While at the L.A. Convention center I had the great opportunity to talk with Robert from the "Real Estate Guys".  I have attached our conversation to this post.  Please allow a view moments for it to download.

Download reg_emongoo.mp3

You guys do that?!...

Last weekend we unveiled the ‘Investor’s Corner’ at the Learning Annex Real Estate Expo in Los Angeles. The Expo was perfect, as they packed a hundred or so vendors and tens of thousands of investors into one location. It showcased the top real estate investing minds in the country all in one location, from Donald Trump, to Robert Kiyosaki, to emongoo. emongoo? Ok, maybe we aren’t a top real estate investing mind, but we do have a service that these real estate minds don’t: an investment property finding engine. 

There are many ideas and strategies about how to get rich off of real estate and there are many companies willing to help. They offer great knowledge and insights on what property types to buy and how to make them profitable; however as far as finding the properties go, it is up to the investor. 

This is where we can help. Once you know what you are looking for simply fill out an ‘Investor Wanted’ and let emongoo do the rest. After meeting with a seasoned investor in LA who understood the time this service would offer and how valuable it really is to an educated investor his reply was: You guys do that?!! Yeah, I’ll sign up!

Here we come L.A.

I attended the Learning Annex convention in San Francisco this weekend and it was quite an event. 

The event was focused on real estate and real estate investing. Names like, Donald Trump, Robert Kiyosaki, George Foreman and Anthony Robbins were all in attendance.   I had the opportunity to not only learn, but to speak with many of the speakers at the convention. 

My main purpose in attending this convention was to investigate the potential for emongoo.com and our clients.  Needless to say emongoo is heading down to the next convention in L.A. on April 8th through the 9th.  If you are interested in attending this convention click here.

What does emongoo have to do with a real estate investment convention?

Simple.  People need a place to sell their investment properties and people need a place to buy their investment properties. 

It makes a lot of sense for someone to buy a $250,000.00 'fixer upper' spend $100,000.00 fixing it up and sell if for $400,000.  That is a profit of $ 50,000.00.  Now if that person doesn't have a cost effective and proven system in selling this property (like emongoo) then they are forced to use traditional methods.  So now they have bought the property for $ 250,000.00, spent $ 100.000.00 on repairs and have placed it on the market for $ 400,000.00.  But wait they are using traditional methods of selling this property so now they have a $24,000.00 commission to pay out, now the profit from this property is only $26,000.00.   Yes it is a profit, but what happens if the repairs cost $120.000.00? 

Now my point is not to say that traditional methods of selling investment properties are ineffective, my point is that there are now more effective ways to sell properties then ever before.  When selling your property on emongoo.com not only are you getting all the necessary tools to sell your property, you are also saving thousands and thousands of dollars in the process.

emongoo will be at the L.A. convention center on April 8th through the 9th and we will be educating people on how emongoo can help sell properties more effectively than any other traditional methods available.