HomeSellerExperience.com

After much research on our end regarding selling our home, one of the most interesting things we’ve found is technology has seriously encompassed the real estate industry. True, technology has taken over the way we live and has affected the way society communicates and businesses operate, but the real estate industry has to be the most diverse and welcoming sector to using the newest and most advanced technology resources available. Not only are realtors simply using technology to promote their business and listings, they understand it and know its dire impact on their success. I’m not just referring to the Internet, I’m also referring to how realtors use mobile handheld devices and contact management software. Besides filling out a listing contract or putting in an offer on a home, little is done on paper. Everything is done via the Internet, over the phone (usually a PDA or Blackberry), or through email.

When we first listed our current home, our first agent only utilized the online MLS system. His website said it was current as of 2006, but it looked like something from 1995.  The agent was a one person team and seriously lacked the ability to promote the home through other online resources. Our second agent had their own website, but it was part of a larger realtor network (Coldwell Banker) and thus the home was promoted via the agent’s personal site as well as locally, regionally, and nationally. Still, it seemed as if there were more avenues that could have been utilized to promote our home besides the MLS, paper listings, and the sign in front of our home.

Being an IT professional, I asked our second agent about using CraigsList.org. The agent looked at me as if I was crazy and said, “Umm..What is that? Is that like an Ebay thing?” I didn’t think anything of it as CraigsList still mystifies some people, but after looking at the enormous amounts of listings, I figured it could only help. I gave her a brief synopsis of what the site’s purpose was and told her to check it out. Thus, after a few days, I listed our home on CraigsList.  No offers, but I did get about 3 phone calls about the property. I knew the site had some usefulness to it and heard a lot of success stories about home seller’s actually getting an offer from the CraigsList posting.

We also saw while browsing potential homes for us to buy, a majourity of homes had a dedicated website address. The address was typically their address.com (123mainstreet.com). Why would this be effective? Well, when I would see a home on the MLS, I would usually query the address on Google.com to find out more information about it such as schools, taxes, location, etc. For those that had a dedicated website per their address, that website often came up first on the search pages.

Another thing that realtors are using is blogs (or weblogs). Just like this site, a blog allows someone to post information to their liking on a website that essentially is an online diary. From my research, agents that utilize blogs have disting