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Many Realtors involved in social media have flocked to Google Plus. If you are interested in improving your SEO you better start utilizing Google Plus as it will become a big factor in ranking.Google Plus is a great way to learn, network, and meet fellow Realtors from around the world.

If you are interested in meeting new people to circle in large quantity you are going to need tools to help managing the people you circle.  Just like in Twitter I choose to unfollow people who don’t follow me back so I do the same thing with circles if someone is not going to circle me back I am going to uncircle them. In order to do this easily you need to install a few chrome extensions I recommend below.

• Uncircle Inactives This extension will help find people who are not active within so many days.
• Uncircle Uncirclers This extension does just what the name says, it will uncircle people who don’t uncircle you back.

I would love to hear what Google plus extensions you may be utilizing. Please comment below.

Danny Nappi is a tech-savvy real estate broker who enjoys sports, poker, travelling and beaches when not selling real estate. Danny specializes in selling Tampa Florida homes and Brandon Fl homes

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Well since I make a living in the real estate market you know I am bullish on the Tampa Florida real estate market. But forget about me does it make sense for you to invest in the real estate market? Let’s have the facts speak for themselves. Let’s think of every stock market bubble and why they crash. It is because of speculation; everyone wants to cash in with fast returns from the latest hot stock and the stocks become overinflated and eventually people panic when they find out their over-inflated stocks are not worth as much as they thought and pull out to try and recoup their losses ; but it is to late the damage is done. This is exactly what happen in the Tampa real estate market and through the US beginning in 2005 and 2006 and one of the reasons why the real estate markets collapsed. You had people speculating based on news of great returns in real estate so everybody and their mother went out and bought two, three houses.

Let me ask you this question, how many experts in the media were predicting a real estate market collapse in 2005 and 2006? I don’t remember too many do you? But now all you hear is bad news in the media day after day on how terrible the real estate market and to an extent yes it is true (nobody was predicting when we would hit the top but everyone is an expert on when the bottom is going to hit) .

But while it is bad for home owners who are upside down, is it really bad for first time buyers and investors? I have a theory whether you want to call it a conspiracy theory or what but I believe there are powers at be controlling what is spued out from the media who want the market to stay down because they are building the real estate portfolio and will cash in down the road. Mark my words there will be a day again when all the media can do is find great news about how the real estate market is and that is when those powers at be will cash in on their portfolios. So don’t let the media tell you what you should do, do your own research and ask yourself this question, if today is not a good time to buy real estate then when is?

Don’t get me wrong I am not blaming the media for the woes of the real estate market but they sure do like to point out all the negatives about the market. Why don’t you hear stories of the first time home buyers who now can afford to purchase a home when a few years it would have been impossible? That my friends is just not sexy to the media so you just don’t hear about it.

The great financial wizard Warren Buffet once said buy when others are fearful. Are people fearful in buying real estate now?  Yes people are because they are afraid of the market going down even further. If we all had a crystal ball most would have sold their homes before the real estate market crash. Now everyone is pretending they have a crystal ball but no one really knows when the bottom will come or if it is already here.

Please check out this article on the top ten cities for rental investment opportunities Tampa is ranked #9

So what do you think? Is now a good time to buy and invest in real estate?

Danny Nappi is a tech-savvy real estate broker who enjoys sports, poker, travelling and beaches when not selling real estate. Danny specializes in the Tampa Florida and Brandon real estate markets.

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How do you know when the time is right to hire a full time assistant? I have always wondered what those full time assistants are doing behind those locked doors when the Realtor is out of the office. Do they really have enough work to keep them busy full time? This has always deterred me from hiring a full time assistant because I worried that I would be paying for their time on Social Media sites like Facebook or Twitter – which don’t get me wrong – I love social media, but that doesn’t mean I want to pay for someone to be on it for their personal enjoyment.

So over the years I refused to hire a full time or even a part time assistant. And forget those assistants that other agents want to share, I have secrets you know! Let’s face it no one could do what I could do any better than I was already doing it, right? Or maybe I was wrong, or just a little too type A and afraid to relinquish control, or maybe a little a both.

And then it happened – I was finally too busy to take care of my holiday mailings, too much going on with work, family and I couldn’t get it all done. So i was forced into hiring my first “Virtual Assistant” and soon after I was addicted to better leveraging my time.

I soon realized that there were many tasks that I really did not have the time to do well, and by putting them off or not getting them done at all, I was doing a disservice to myself and my clients. Once I was able to realize that my business life made a change for the better. I no longer have to do the tasks that I do not enjoy as much and can put my focus on my clients needs and selling real estate or doing other things I enjoy.

The benefit over hiring a virtual assistant is that I don’t have to pay for a full time assistant and worry about not giving her enough to do  to keep her or him busy. And I don’t have to  worry about things like my assistant playing on the computer with games or social media websites.

Another great benefit of a virtual assistant is that they are out of the box trained – no training is required, they can just jump in and hit the ground running and you can be off better leveraging your time as soon as you hire your virtual assistant.

Crystal Tost has been a Calgary Real Estate Agent since 1997, Crystal is always looking for a better way to leverage her time in her business and through the use of modern technology it can be accomplished. To search MLS Calgary homes for sale.

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For anyone serious about ranking well in the search engines then social media needs to be part of your gameplan. Google really wants a share of the social media market and is not going to give up until it suceeds. What better way to leverage themselves in social media then incorporating social into their algorythm. You may already have seen in google results little icons that show some of friends who like particular websites.

Google already has begun incorporating social into their search results and is only going to get bigger. This is why I believe it is important for real estate agents now more than ever to network with other real estate agents, local bloggers and businesses to get your name out their in social media circles. Google Plus is going to be a big factor in my opinion on how your website comes up in the search results and having a social media prescence is going to be vital.

What are some ways to gain more likes, plusses, and retweets?

• Recently I came across a new site called Linkdip which I found from Arizona Realtor Dean Ouellette who also runs a blog productivity tools . Linkdip is a social network which allows people to share each others websites, tweets, Google plusses,Diggs, etc. They also have a feature which I haven’t utilized yet where you can get real estate backlinks. I highly recommend this site for Realtors looking to optimized their social presence and get a jump start on the rest of the pack. There are already many top Realtors using this site like Dean Ouellette , Jay Thompson and more.
• Another way to increase your social media is to have your friends and fellow bloggers create a social media sharing group on it’s own; although it would be a lot easier to have all of you join Linkdip who has systems in place.
• Writing informative content that people will naturally share is still the best way to gain backlinks and social media shares and likes.

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In Calgary many real estate agents have been a little slow moving on adapting and implementing new technology into their business models. After all it was not that long ago that Calgary Realtors would walk around with a catalog full of printed listings to showcase the newest listings to their clients. (yes printed weekly if you could imagine) A beautiful catalog printed in black and white low res front images of the houses relying on the comments to created any sort of intrigue. There was no email in business and the fax machine was still a fairly high tech and unappreciated form of communication at the time. Hard to believe that these dinosaur times were only 15 or so years ago.

A lot has changed since then and so much has changed for our Calgary real estate industry. Today’s tech savvy consumers have demanded a higher level of service and a fast means of keeping informed. Back in the day it was hard being the only tech savvy real estate agent around, constantly trying to change the stubborn ideals of my colleagues, most just nodded and pretended to understand what I was talking about on those weekly Monday morning meetings. Alot of blank stares for sure.

I am happy to see that the industry has evolved nicely and those that have adapted technology have definitely done better than the ones that refused to make the changes earlier on.  Accepting change is hard in all aspects of our lives but embracing and implementing is an excruciating task. For those agents that are feeling overwhelmed by the changes and don’t know where to begin, rest easy there is help out there for you to assist you in making positive tech changes to your business.

Recently I had the pleasure of going to Agent Reboot if Honolulu – a match made in heaven for a tech savvy Realtor for myself how could I go wrong with tech friends, tech skills, great Japanese cuisine and of course the beautiful island of Hawaii and all it has to offer.  Agent Reboot is a one day event that won’t break your bank at $49. Put on all over the country by Inan News you can find a day and place that will meet your needs. Learn from great speakers about blogging, social media ( Twitter, Facebook, Linked In), using video in your business and what apps to use in your business to be more effective. If you are looking to learn about technology and the real estate, or just want to brush up on a few skills this is a great opportunity to learn from some of the industries best speakers: Chris Smith, Nicole Nicolay, Darin Persinger.

Crystal Tost is not affiliated with Inman or it’s speakers, this is an independent review. Crystal Tost is a Calgary real estate agent specializing in residential real estate sales.  Visit CalgaryListings.com for Calgary Real Estate information.

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If you don’t own a website and are looking to establish an online presence then I would highly recommended you go get yourself a WordPress . Now don’t think because WordPress is a blogging platform and you don’t consider yourself a blogger then wordpress is not for you. I believe every website should be using the wordpress platform.

There are many factors why I believe WordPress is the way to go especially for real estate websites here are some below.

• Functionality - With WordPress you can make your site as simple or complex as you want.
• User Friendly – Once your WordPress blog is ready to go even the novice person can work their way around WordPress.
• Search Engine Friendly WordPress blogs are easier to get indexed in the search engines.
• Themes There are literally thousands of WordPress themes you can choose from and if you want to change your layout and design on the fly you can easily do that with WordPress.
• Fresh Content Static pages that never get updated are not good. Your website should always look like somebody is home. WordPress sites are easy to update with fresh new content which Google and other search engines love.
• Real Estate Plugins There are many real estate plugins you can add to the usefulness of your website. One plugin I highly recommended is Diverse Solutions Idx Press which creates indexable pages for listings from your mls feed and all you have to do is install the plugin.You can see it in action here on my Tampa Florida Real Estate blog.

For those who need help getting a WordPress real estate blog up and running then I would love to help. I can setup your blog for free all you have to do is purchase the yearly webhost through one of my affiliate links Host Gator or www.GoDaddy.com by clicking on one of the links.  I will get paid a fee through the webhost and it doesn’t cost you a thing except the hosting fee which you will need anyways. If you have any trouble signing up for the web hosting then contact me and we will make other arrangements.

Here’s what I will also do:
Install and configure plugins

• Sexy Bookmarks
• Google XML Sitemap
• All in one seo
• WordPress Database Backup
• TweetMeme
• Facebook Like Plugin

Configure permalinks which will make you site seo friendly

Once you are up and running I suggest you read Getting your real estate blog on to give you ideas on what to blog about.

So do you have a WordPress blog? If not how come? Would love to hear your comments below.

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When thinking about your domain name for a blog or website, it needs a lot of thought and careful consideration. In real estate often agents use their own name as their domain name, this is not a good idea for many reasons and I will explain exactly why. For woman, you might someday change your name, it could be a marriage or the alternative but wither way life changes and you don’t want to rely your web presence on a name that could one day change. But still that is not the major reason why not to use your name as your URL. A big reason is keywords, it is best to find a URL that contains some or all of the intended keywords that you want to use to dominate the search engines. There has been some debate over the fact if this still is a widely used algorithm with the search engines, but I would say in my experience it does in fact help. As an example my website URL is http://www.CalgaryListings.com, and I place obviously well when the search term “Calgary Listings” is used.  Another reason is that one day you will likely retire from real estate. Yes I know as addictive and rewarding career that it is, you might come to a point where you want to end your career. Well what value does joeblow.com have if you want to sell the website? Since it has all been self branded to you, you will find it very difficult to find a buyer willing to pay for your website and or URL. Which brings another point that needs to be addressed. Why would anyone want to buy a URL or website anyway. Well our friend Google places weight on older websites over new sites, so therefore an established website will rank higher than a new website. And by all intensive purposes if you website has been around for a length of time, it is likely that you have created some link popularity – valuable backlinks – which in return will increase the potential value for your website when it comes time to sell it.

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Getting your real estate blog on is harder than you may have first thought. I know that there are days that I struggle with coming up with content for my Calgary real estate blog. So I thought that this is a good place to give some ideas to get you going on content creation. Remember content needs to be original, do not copy anything anywhere from news media or other blog posts, the search engines know this and do not like it. This could potentially hurt your engine placement rather than help it. Original content is key when it comes to blogging and for search engine optimization, which likely in the goal of the blog in the first place.

If you are interested in a more targeted blog, here are a few examples worth consideration:

• Try a community targeted blog – write about community events, businesses, showcase listings etc ( see my Aspen Woods Calgary community blog as an example)
• Write a Niche blog (see my Calgary first time home buyers blog

Looking for content ideas? Here are a few for your real estate blog:

• Current Market Statistics
• Events
• Business Reviews
• Current Events
• Market Issues ( city council is reviewing secondary suites currently – I have blogged a few times about this)
• Odd things you see while you are out int he field doing your job
• Conversations of interest that you have with clients
• Sellers Tips
• Buyers Tips
• Steps to buy a home or condo
• Steps to Sell a home
• Mortgage info
• Rent vs Own
• Home improvements
• Home staging

These are just a few ides to get you started. The sky really is the limit, let you market conditions inspire your thoughts. The more personal your blog is the better as it is a direct extension of you and your business. 3

Should you have any questions about blogging for real estate, please do not hesitate to ask in the comment feed. I will be happy to respond to your questions and comments.

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Some of you already may be using this app but I was just introduced to the app; it is call sign and send. With sign and send you simply open a pdf file inside the application where you then can have your client sign the document right on your IPad with a stylus pen. Once you get all the signatures needed you just send it off to your email and you now have a completely signed document. More info on send and sign here . You can download it for free which comes with ads or you can pay $2.99 for the no ad version. So tell me are you using this app ? if so what has your experience been so far?

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I have only had my Ipad for about a month now and I just now got down to installing a great real estate application called Kurio. Kurio is not available in all areas I understand but it is available for the mid Florida regional MLS which I belong. With Kurio you can access the mls from your mobile device, Ipad and android phone. This is great since I can’t access my MLS from the Safari browser but with Kurio I can. It provides most of the data within your mls including listing Realtor contact information and brokerage splits. Kurio also allows home buyers to find homes listed within your MLS.

Is Kurio available in your market? if so have you used this app and what are your thoughts on this product? Please feel free to share other ways you utilize Kurio and how it may help Realtors.