Virtual Florida Real Tours

Virtual florida Tours Xmas Extravaganza

2011-11-12T03:11:00.000-08:00

We are offering our total HD-tours at the price of our regular tours.
Yes you read it correctly to help you enhance your listings during this Xmas season we are offering total HD-tours at our lowest prices ever. Now your listings could be seen with crisp clarity. No longer you will see a white out window or the shadows will not let you appreciate the details of any part of your listing.

The quality of our enhanced photos is not surpassed by any of our competitors. Just imagine your listing seen at this level of detail. Your prospects wil be able to see every part of the house as they were standing in the room. The details of the windows will no longer be white out. You will be setting the pace to become the number one realtor in your farming area at a fraction of the cost of newspaper advertising.
Make your listings the best exposed of the market with our exposure engine that will place the tour on Facebook, Twitter, Active Rain, LinkedIn and more than 50 other search sites.
You might help your realtors on this Xmas season by buying a packet of tours that can be used at any time and get an extra free tour. This will enable your company to increase its exposure and help the local economy.
For your entire marketing needs do not hesitate to contact Virtual Florida Tours at 305 331 8960.

Irene Madrigal present 8130 NW 167 Terr

2011-07-02T04:26:00.000-07:00

Irene Madrigal Joined the family of satisfied realtors that are working with Virtual Florida Tours. She is presenting her new listing at Miami Lakes. This beautiful waterfront property is located at 8130 NW 167 Terr in one of the most fabulous cities in Miami Dade county. This house is located just minutes away of downtown Miami with excellent restaurants and the best entertaining places of Miami. The fabulous beaches of Miami are not more than 20 minutes away.

For your entire Internet marketing needs just call Virtual Florida Tours at (305) 331 8960

2460 Bayview Drive

2011-06-12T06:27:00.000-07:00

Irena sposato has joined the group of satisfied customers using Virtual Florida Tours as thier Internet Marketing Provider. When she trust us with the advertisement of her listing we were able to offer her the new technology provide to us through Real Tour Vision company of which /Virtual Florida Tours is an authorized dealer.
The tour of the house could be seen by clicking on the following link http://rtvpix.com/RE-9900-CHI28W-01.
Our company is also providing High Definition Slide Shows of which the following is a nice example
http://rtvpix.com/slideshow/12939
This new high definiton slide shows can be obtained for only 79 dollars until July first. after that day the introductory price will end increasing to 89 dollars. Act now and your price wil stay grandfathered for life.

For your entire Internet marketing needs please contact Virtual Florida Tours at (305) 331 8960

Anouncing High Definition Slide Shows

2011-06-05T04:02:00.000-07:00

Virtual Florida Tours announces the High Definition Slide Shows.

if you order before July 1 you can obtain our high definition slide shows at our introductory price of only $79.00. Not only that we will grandfather you at that price for the rest of the year.

Just imaging how your future prospect clients will feel as you are showing them the quality of your service. You will be miles above your competition. No one can offer a better solution to expose their properties at a lower price. You will be ruling your farm area, since your competition will not have anything to offer to compete with the quality of the product you are offering your clients.

Also to make this even more exiting you will be able to show your client your slideshow on your mobile device. Yes just type the following URL: http://rtvpix.com/slideshow/12939 and you will be able to see a sample on your own smart phone. Yes, it works on all of them.

This product can be enhanced with our latest product the mobile realtor website. Imagine placing a rider reading something as the following TMS bluelava6 at 43766. A prospect sees the message and while he/she is seeing the slideshow of your listing and of any other listing you have done a slideshow on, you are receiving his phone, so just call your prospect back.

It will be as if you were standing by every yard sign waiting for a prospect 24 hours a day!

For your entire Internet marketing needs contact Virtual Florida Tours at (305) 331 8960

Why every property should have a virtualtour?

2011-04-30T03:28:00.000-07:00

Spending your hard earned money on a virtual tour can be a difficult decision to take in this struggling economy. But it will save our sellers a lot of inconvenience since they will not have to leave their house each time a buyer will like to see their home.
Every realtor will normally agree that one of his/her tasks is to show homes to prospective buyers as long as they are able to purchase the home. You cannot afford to be taking customers around while gas prices skyrocketing and the amount of money you are taking home are shrinking every day.

On the other hand your sellers do not deserve to have tourist getting guided tours of their properties. You are not supposed to bring tourists to see their properties. Or what could even be worst a person that could be planning on how to rob them.

So will it be a good idea to make a virtual tour for every property? This will relieve you to actually carry any client to see multiple homes around the neighborhood saving time and gas. At the same time it reduces the inconveniences to your sellers.

Once you have the virtual tour of the property you will be able to carry to their homes only qualified buyers. They will not only be already qualified to buy their homes, but they are in love with what they saw on the Internet.

It is extremely important in these difficult times to screen any prospect before we start showing properties to them. Virtual tours will allow you to bring the customer to the safety of your office and show them properties at no extra cost while your credit department is carrying the check on what he/she can afford.

For your entire Internet marketing needs contact Virtual Florida Tours at (305)331 8960.

Virtual Tours Go Mobile

2011-03-24T00:20:00.000-07:00

Real Tour Vision did it again. The development of the software that allows our tours to run on a smart phone makes realtor’s mobile websites even more efficient for our customers.

Right know the realtor can place a rider on his listings that will not only show the listing with the map and only a photo of the listing now the customer will be able to see the whole tour of the property on his/her smart phone. If you will like to see how this product looks in your phone just type this URL http://rtvpix.com/RE-4305-0UTQ6D-01 on your smart phone.

Just place a rider with your mobile website address on each of your listings and you will giving an astonishing service to your clients but you will be to contact the prospect that is just seeing your listing and help him/her become a proud owner of a new home. To see an example just send from your smart phone the following message bluelava6 to 43766. If you like it and vill like to order your own mobile website just click here.

This technological breakthrough places our company once again as the best virtual tour and Internet marketing provider in the market. This technology is also available on our newest product the HD slide shows.

For all your Internet marketing and virtual tour needs just call 305 331 8960 or contact us on the web.

2011-03-19T04:20:00.000-07:00

Can you be standing in front of everyone of your listings to get the phone number of that potential Home buyer that is standing right now in front of any of your listings. Wouldn't it be great if you were there to get their phone number?

That's what Virtual Florida Tours mobile text marketing is all about. It's about capturing a buyer's attention. It's about giving them instant information on your property listings, all day, every day.

It's about calling them on the phone to say "I see you're looking for a new home. Have you selected an agent yet?"

They get instant information on the property and you receive leads. This is the Virtual Florida Tours Virtual Tour & Mobile Text Marketing System.

The potential buyer simply sends a text or scans the QR code on the sign or in your advertising.

To Sample how our Mobile Text Marketing can assist you, please text message bluelava6 to 43766.

Did you know that our new 2011 Exposure Engine comes with a QR code?

We look forward to hearing from you real soon. Call Gabriel Duque at 305 331 8960 or click here today to get started with our mobile websites, QR codes, and mobile text marketing!

Thanks for your support!

Virtual Florida Tours Team

How can you make your efforts seen?

2011-01-29T05:22:00.000-08:00

As much as you will like to just write about an unconventional topic you need to address topics of interest for your prospects.

You need to be in contact with people just as if you were playing a contact sport. It does not matter if you already know them or they are those that will be following you in the future. This new social world is composed of a set of social networks (RealTown, ActiRain, Facebook, Twitter, and LinkedIn.)

Whenever you place a virtual tour or property listing just remember that you should be writing a lot more of non-selling messages. Write about the neighborhood, what is happening on the market that you serve, local sports, etc. cover everything that you might consider talking with your friends.

Despite you are applying yourself to social networking this should not replace traditional prospecting since personal contact is a valuable tool that has to be enforced.

As you increase the quality and quantity of your service you will be generating a positive effect among your clients. Ask for a written testimonial when a client compliments your work. You should make a habit of using testimonials during your presentations.

Always respond to your customers in a timely fashion. This allows them to trust you. If you embrace the user generated content and advice, your prospective customers will embrace your brand.

For all your Internet marketing needs do not hesitate to contact us at 305 331 8960

Is Technology Crumbling Your Live?

2010-12-13T02:24:00.000-08:00

I was recently reading an article of a colleague that complains about how much time he is investing in keeping up with his technology applications. He says that he has to invest too much time updating and enhancing his website, posting his listings to the different social networking sites and creating his virtual tours, etc.

In reality I think all that either he is receiving the wrong advice or he is trying to save in the wrong places. If our colleague was using our virtual tours he will be able to syndicate the tours to a plethora of social network sites at a price that will not break his economy and then he will be able to dedicate his time to the thing he does the best (selling houses). You can even send us your own photos and we will build you a high definition slide show for only $25.00 dollars.

You do not need to blog every day by doing it once a week commenting either about your listings or the community you farm it will be enough to maintain yourself in touch with your community of readers. On the other hand to reduce the time you need to update your website you could buy a website from our company. The tours will then be posted automatically to your website reducing the time you need to update your website. You can even have a mobile website that you can place in your rider and conduct your clients directly to your listings.

Maybe you will need to participate in our SEO training course free for our clients and this will help you reduce the time you need to invest in blogging since this will help you increase your presence as we place your post in our company blog.

Can You Help Your Agents?

2010-12-04T06:03:00.000-08:00

Most sellers are becoming more aware of the importance of obtaining professional photos of their properties when they are going to place their property on the market. They are also requiring the agents to place their listing in as many websites as possible.

This is creating an increase cost on the pockets of the agents that are trying desperately to get the listings in this frozen buyer’s market.

The cost of obtaining a virtual tour goes from $69.00 to $190.00 dollars depending of the kind of tour selected. This does not includes the work or cost of placing the listing on all the available websites like Trulia, Zillow, Craig's List, Google Base, You Tube, etc....

Can this burden be reduced? Recently a Title company owner asked us if he could buy a group of virtual tours, and use them as a token of appreciation for those realtors that were bringing business to his company. The answer is yes, any company can buy packages of virtual tours, or slideshows that can be given to their customers as a token of appreciation to be used when they needed.
Just imagine how much the agents will appreciate this little token. They will be able to offer a professional service at no extra cost for them, and you can pay just a fraction of the price.
If you will like to offer your customers this service please contact us at (305) 331 8960 or by clicking here.

The Advertisement Dilemma

2010-11-27T05:45:00.000-08:00

The advetisemment dilemma starts with those realtors that will like that the return on Investment will show inmediiatelly. Regretfully this is not the case with Internet marketing. This is called the search engines sandbox. Googles sandbox takes around six months for your website to be visible. To get your website to be on the top page of Google it requires some work on your side. Yes, you will have to start a blog and continue blogging frequently.

So you have your listing priced correctly and you will like it to receive an offer in the first two weeks. In the kind of declining market we are right now, you need to have a way to make that property visible as much as possible.

The decision is what kind of advertisement you are goign to invest in.

Newspapers and magazines advertisements have a limited shelf live of a weekend or some weeks at the most, and are visible locally.
Virtual tours on the other hand will last one year on the Internet and will be visible world wide.

Regetfully placing a tour on the Internet will not make it inmediately visible, you will need to start your own blog to increase your presenc on the Internet, since having your own website is not enough to get your website to be visible to the search engines.

If you will like to achieve this results you can sign to obtain the required trainig by contacting us or calling at 305 331 8960.

Virtual HD Slideshows

2010-10-24T09:11:00.000-07:00

Virtual Florida Tours is happy to announce our new VHD Slide Tour service. For the last years our parent company Real Tour Vision has been researching this innovative and more customer friendly way of presenting our customers listings.
This new service will allow the realtors to send the photos of their listings to us and we will make a slide show for them. The cost is only $25 per VHD slide show.
These tours have our hit information that can be shown to your customers and prospects. They are automatically placed in a great number of Real Estate websites like home.com at no extra cost for you just as our 360 Virtual Tours. You can upload the tour to multiple social networking sites including Digg. Of course if you have showcase service of Realtor.com the slide show can be uploaded at no extra cost for you or you will need to pay Realtor.com upload fee of $25 per tour.
If you will like our photographers to take the pictures for you the cost is only $69.99 per VHD slide show.
For your entire Internet marketing needs do not hesitate to contact us at 305 331 8960 or visit our website.

Changing the Culture at Your Workplace

2010-10-17T07:31:00.000-07:00

How can a company successfully overcome the natural skepticism to overcome the resistance and achieve better customer service, stronger employee engagement or a reputation as one of the best places to work?
Unless the broker of your company is directly involved in the change, it comes off as an initiative, and it will eventually lose steam.
Rather than making a declaration about how you want to change the culture of your business, you just need to start doing it. So you will have to provide flexibility if you want to be viewed as a flexible workplace, or get behind a mentor program to allow your personnel to grow.
To provide an even better customer service to your customers and to the other companies that partner in our service. You will need all the different partners to work together and employees offering solutions.
The bottom line for real estate is that our line of business has changed. A large percentage of our customers are facing foreclosure and they are relying on us to solve their economical situation.
You need to redefine your mission statement and core values. Based on this you need to start training your personnel on what behavior they were expected to demonstrate. The improvement on quality service must be supervised.
You will need to talk to your realtors on a daily basis to hear their feedback from the customers. You need to recognize as frequently as possible the effort of your realtors to go the extra mile for their customers.
You will need to make emphasis on the importance of using the internet as a marketing tour, each realtor should have a website, a mobile website, use virtual tours or slideshows they should participate as frequently as possible on blogs, Facebook, Linkedin, Tweeter, etc.
It takes time for organizational cultural changes to take hold. So you should launch your Journey of Excellence program as soon as possible. You may mandatory training workshops for your realtors to improve customer service, use your monthly meetings with realtors as a reminder to keep their focus on improved customer service.
If you really want to improve the quality service of your company you need to start acting like the company you want to become.

Are You Ready?

2010-10-02T08:34:00.000-07:00

Is your virtual tour & property marketing company setup to sell TXT Connect and Mobile Agent Websites yet? This is an amazing opportunity for you to really connect with your real estate clients and offer a service that they will love and promote your virtual tours at the same time!

In an effort to continue to provide agents with the best tools and information available in the industry, we have introduced a new service that will improve an agent's productivity, professionalism and relationships with buyers and sellers. Its important to note that access to real estate listing information while on-the-go has become mission critical to today's active buyer. Mobile Websites for Realtors is an industry first that not only helps meet the ever increasing demands of mobile buyers but also promotes the name and brand of the Realtor saving them time and money.
Some of you may not be aware of this yet but accessing the internet on a mobile phone is like night and day vs. using a standard computer and website. Unless a website is specifically built to work on all operating systems and for each of the thousands of mobile phone handsets, it will be a rather difficult browsing experience for any user. The mobile phone is here to stay and as they get smarter and smarter, and people continue to access the mobile web, Realtors and all other businesses need a mobile formatted website to continue to capture users and promote their services. This is where our TXT connect program hits a grand slam!

Virtual Florida Tour’s TxTConnect mobile solutions help real estate professionals win more listings, acquire more leads and close more sales, bottom line, make more money. Mobile Websites for Realtors is one of our most exciting property marketing tools available today next to our new HD Slideshow Module. It puts all of an agents listings in the hands of an active buyer and at a time when it is most advantageous. The built in GPS functionality will also identify the nearest properties available to where the buyer is at that time and show the next closest properties to them at that time. This added feature makes it so much more convenient for a buyer to view an agent's other properties nearby for sale.

The mobile site is created automatically and gives buyers instant access to the agent's bio, photo and contact info. In addition, the site promotes the virtual tour of every property listed by that agent.
So why should you purchase the Text Connect program for your virtual tour company and pitch TXT Connect / Mobile Sites to your real estate customers?

1. Mobile sites and TxT Connect is a GREAT way to promote your virtual tours
2. Any RTV provider reselling this service will make reoccurring 30% sales commissions
3. It is the most advanced tool on the market today to appeal to the mobile buyer
4. Every listing is displayed with a location map plotting all their listings, a video or virtual tour upload option, up to 10 photos, GPS activation, a full property description and "Click-to-call" links to contact the agent by SMS/Text, Email or Phone
5. It is all automatically created as they upload their listings and they are live within just a few minutes
6. Buyers access this mobile site either by using 1 single SMS/Text keyword or by an automatically generated QR barcode we create in each account.
7. They can then promote these in all their ads, signs, TV, radio, business cards, etc
8. Custom colors are available for the branding most of the major brokerages
9. This captures leads of all inquiries made to the mobile website
10.SMS technology and mobile sites raises the profile of the agent using the service

Can You Obtain An Affordable Mobile Website?

2010-09-04T15:18:00.000-07:00

Virtual Florida Tours has been researching the market for years to obtain a cheaper andmore flexible solution for marketing realtors on the internet. At last in colaboration with our partners we can offer our clients a very effective website that will allow their prospects to have all their listings at the tips of their fingers. They will be able to see all your listings, browse the photos of the listing they are interested in, and also obtain driving locations to the listing of their choice.
By just sending a test message with your name to 43766 they will receive a website fitted exactly to their phone, that is extremely easy to browse. You will need to act fast before other realtors get their name and therefore exclude you of the possibility of using your own name as your website identifier. The cost is only 29.95 a month act now and get in front of your competition.

Do You Have a Mobile Website?

2010-08-28T05:55:00.000-07:00

If you have a website but it is not a mobile website, here is what your potential buyer sees when searching your current site on their phone:

This is almost impossible to read and difficult to browse around. So probably that $5000 dollars expensive webpage is bringing you little to no money to your business.
Virtual Florida Tours is glad to announce a very important new technology available to realtors. We can now offer mobile Web-pages for only 29.95 a month. Just imagine placing a rider on every listing that contains this message. If you will like more information just text youname to 43766 and what your client will see is something like this:

According to a recent study of potential home sellers conducted by Philadelphia based research firm Devine and Powers, 49% of respondents said they would be more likely to use an agent who offered a mobile solution as part of their marketing plan, while 67% said it would be a major deciding factor in choosing a Realtor. Here is what the buyer sees when they text "your name" to 43766:
Do you have mobile website?
A mobile site means giving potential buyers direct access to all of your listings and having them display perfectly on their mobile phone. More users are discovering the power and convenience of using their mobile phones to surf the web and do everything they normally would do using a PC or laptop. This is what they will get:

If you would like to try this on your phone just send janeagent@43766. If you just decide to order your own mobile website just order it here.

Hints on how to sale a house by owner

2010-07-31T06:11:00.000-07:00

In the first place you need to try to study the prices of houses similar to yours in the area since in this market the correct price is one of the most attracting issues customers are looking for.
Then you need to work on the curb appeal of your home. You want it to look at its best that is the first view a customer will have of your home. Cut the grass, remove any dead plants and plant some beautiful foliage.
Invest some money on the exterior and interior of the house by painting it and fixing any little blemish that has appeared during the normal use of your house. Remember that you are required by law to disclose any blemish of the house to your clients.
Now you have fixed your home and repaired everything you could to make it look at its best. The problem is: How can you advertise your house to be able to sell it at the best price possible?
The first task is to decide in which of the possible advertising media you are going to invest your hard earned money.
1. Yard sign
2. Newspaper
3. Magazine
4. Internet
The yard sign is a most since it is cheap and will be advertising the sale until you are able to sell it. Also it could help you increase the exposure of your home with TXT connect.
The newspaper and magazine ads are relatively expensive since they have a short shelf live for the price around 200 dollars for a short weekend or monthly add.
There is a different way to obtain a maximum exposure by using the Internet associated with TXT connect. When you use TXT connect the pictures of your tour are added to a message that can be seen in your phone when you send a text message and at the same time you receive the phone of the customer that just dial the number so you can contact him.
You can decide to select the level of exposure you will like to pay for. Since you can use your own photos or contract a professional photographer to take the pictures of your home.
You can also choose between a slideshow, or a complete virtual tour of your home.
If you need help on how to increase the internet exposure of your home do not hesitate to contact Virtual Florida Tours at (305) 331 8960 or order through the Internet.

How Can I Get Found on the Internet?

2010-07-24T09:15:00.000-07:00

Successful realtors are obtaining a huge amount of business from the Internet.
Are you getting your piece of this business?
Would you like to obtain a part of it?
Do you know what you will have to do?
If your answer to this questions was no you need to start working on this as soon as possible.
Let us do a search on Miami + realtor and see the outcome …

If you did not find your company in the first page of Google for your farm area then you will have to work on it.
Do you have a totally editable Web page as this one, or it is modified by a company that promises a lot and gives you no real business?
If you are in the second situation you need a totally editable web page. This will allow you to increase the quality of the content of your web page and after some time you will be getting business from it.
2. Is this all you will have to do?
If you will like to obtain a part of the Internet business, you will need to start working on your Web page key word optimization and SEO as soon as possible.
Our company can help you to do it. Yes we already did it for our Company, and we have been helping customers for more than five years to get their business exposed on the Internet.
Still considering it. Try a search for one of the following cities. Name of city + virtual tour
Miami, Coral Gables, Pinecrest, or Broward
Ex.: Miami+ virtual tour

If you are willing to do it we are here to help:
Order your Web page and receive a free SEO training and Key word optimization of your Web page.
If you will like that our specialists check your existing web page for optimization please contact us at (305) 331 8960

We cannot get enough money to fund our school

2010-07-09T04:28:00.000-07:00

These are tough economic times and everyone is trying to figure out how they can get enough funds to manage their schools. Are the students the ones deciding where they are going to school? In reality schools need to work on convincing the parents that they are choosing the best school possible so that their sons and daughters could obtain the best education they can afford with their hard earned money.
Money is scarce so how can you attract parents to go visit your school. You can invest hundreds of dollars in television and radio advertisement, you can try contacting previous students to send their son and daughters to the school or donate money to the school. The question really is How can you make your school more visible to parents so they realize that your school and not other is the one their kids will excel in?
Public education is getting the lead on this struggle to bring students to their schools. They are developing interactive web pages and placing virtual tours of their school. This allows the parents to appreciate the facilities and advantages of the school even without ever visiting it. An interactive web page is the place where you can allow the parents to obtain the information that will entice them to bring the students to your school.
If you will like to receive more information about this possibilities please contact Virtual Florida Tours at 305 331 8960 or visit our web page

Do not worry you have Insurance?

2010-07-08T05:40:00.000-07:00

When one of my close friend’s home was robbed all his problems started. They stole all the electronics in his home. He do not only felt violated on his privacy. Despite he had insurance now he had to prove to the insurance company what he used to own before the robbery.
He was looking around for old photos that contained his top of the line computer, his high definition TV, etc. They told him also manuals receipts could help. He was crazy for days before he talked to me.
I remind my friend that as part of my training for virtual tours I asked him to allow me take a virtual tour of his house. I just happened to have all the pictures he needed to prove to the insurance company what he had.
My friend was extremely lucky! What about you?
If you want to protect your assets do not hesitate to call Virtual Florida Tours at 305 331 8960 or visit us at our webpage.

Should I Invest Time on Social Media?

2010-05-29T07:30:00.000-07:00

I will like to ask some questions to you and request for a simple answer.
When you are looking for the answer to a certain question (or a product) which one of the following things you do?
a. Look in a dictionary
b. Use printed advertisement (magazines or newspaper)
c. Pay attention to see if any TV or Radio add gives you the solution
d. Google it or use any other search engine
e. Email friends and family to see if anyone can send you an URL that will contain the answer to your problems.
Multiple authors recommend that you should have a presence on the Internet. Maybe you have already a Webpage and are asking yourself why you cannot find your page when you Google it? The problem is no one is looking for you business! You are the only one interested in selling your product or services to the possible prospectors.
The answer to your problems is simple, but requires some dedication on your part. If you want to obtain a solid Internet presence Virtual Florida Tours can offer you all the help you need.
a. Business and Personal Web pages
b. Interactive virtual tours of your business or listings that will be automatically posted to your webpage
c. Free training in how to get to the front page of Google search engine
d. All the other needs for your Internet advertising.
Let the world to see your business now!

Allow us to help you. Do not hesitate no more Virtual Florida Tours is the solution you are looking for.
Contact us by calling at 305 331 8960 or simply click here and we will contact you as soon as possible.

Solving oen house problems

2010-05-23T04:30:00.000-07:00

Stephanie Andre does a fabulous work on how to stage your home for an open-house. She forgets that you will have to keep your house ready for a visitor on a daily basis. The realtor will place an automatic padlock that will allow people to visit your home while you are out. Sometimes you will like to remove all this aggravation by limiting the times that the realtor can show your home. This results in fewer chances for buyers to see your home and as a result less possibilities to sell your home.
From a realtor point of view this is also an inconvenience since you will have to check with your client when the house is available to be seen. This reduces your possibility of selling it. Also if the day is cloudy or it is raining it is almost impossible for your clients to picture your listing on its best lights.
How can you overcome these difficulties? Is it a way for the lawn to stay fresh and cut as it was just recently cut? Is there a way to make your client to agree to allow anyone to visit his property at any time without previous notice? How can his house be ready for a visit even when she is sleeping at night? Can the house look at its best even under a hurricane?
The solution for all this problems and to keep your clients happy at the same time is on the use of virtual tours.
Can you picture showing all your listings from the comfort and security of your office? Can you imagine how more listings you might obtain if you use this technique?
For your entire Internet advertising needs please call Virtual Florida Tours at 305 331 8960.

South Florida the best place to live

2010-05-22T01:50:00.000-07:00

Once you decide to relocate or have a vacation home in South Florida You need to select a perfect location where you have access to all the advantages of living in a place that will offer an excellent climate most of the year. In South Florida there are different cities that you might select as your residence. But, which city can offer excellent beaches, the best restaurants, a vibrant cultural life an excellent communications to any place in the world? Only Miami has one of the biggest International airports and can offer you all this amenities together. The multiple cultural activities will address all tastes. Once you select Miami you need to decide a place that will offer you good communications to the beaches, the different cultural centers of the city and above all the security you and your family need. Cutler Oaks is a closed community that meets all this requirements, and recently our friend Ron Trazenfeld decided to place in the market a beautiful two story residence in one of the most exclusive neighborhoods of Miami Dade. This residence is placed in an extended lot and consists of Three Bedrooms, 2 and a half bathrooms, and a two car garage.
The house is totally staged by one of the most famous decorators of Miami.
Click to see the virtual tour or the You-tube presentation by clicking.
To place a virtual tour or market your residence on the Internet please contact Virtual Florida Tours at 305 331 8960 or visit our webpage

How Can You Increase Your WEbsite Presence?

2010-04-25T05:05:00.000-07:00

How good is your internet presence? Which statistics you should be looking at?
There are hundreds of numbers related to your website performance, the most important are:
1. The number of visitors (new and returning)
2. How many of those visitors become leads? Specially, what is the rate of visitors to leads?
3. The rank of your page. Google will rank your page between 1 and 10 based on a group of characteristics that you have to address.
4. You need to know which keywords are scoring better and if they are going up or down.
So how you can do this? It can sound as a monumental task, but in reality is an obtainable goal. To increase your presence on the Internet you need some knowledge of Search Engine Optimization (SEO). Our personnel at Virtual Florida Tours are trained to help you optimize your internet presence allowing your company to increase the number of leads.
To get help on your webpage optimization, do not hesitate it not more. Contact our specialists or simply make a phone call to 305 331 8960, help is just a phone call away.

Social Media Prospecting on Real Estate

2010-04-18T07:22:00.000-07:00

Social media is becoming more important each day as a way to stay in touch with clients and prospective buyers and sellers on the real estate industry. Sites such as Facebook, twitter and LinkedIn help real estate companies and professional allow them to stay on the top of the business on these difficult times. To build your business and create a community related by their resources as well as the generation of traffic and leads you need to increase the presence of your company on the social networking system. The use of Internet advertising and technology can help you increase your return on investment (ROI) an Virtual Florida Tours can help you on this task.Social networking is creating a shift in the way the real estate industry communicates, educate, nurtures, and shop their relationships with clients and prospects. To establish yourself as an expert it is important to remember that you must be creating informative content and community resources so you keep yourself for free as the expert the prospects will be looking for in your farming area.
If you are twitting you have to be careful to address the fundamental interest of your clients and prospects. Also remember to twit about different topics. Inform about future topics that you will be addressing in your blog.
Questions are important since people love to participate giving their opinions. Remember to comment about other people that comment on topics you are interested in. Make posting about your job useful, add pictures and other materials when possible.
Coming soon are our possibilities of staging empty listings, making your web site visible on the Internet by adding important resources and links to your webpage.
We welcome comments on any topic you will like us to address in our next blog.
If you have any questions on how we can help you please call us at (305) 331-8960 or visit our webpage

Importance of Internet Exposure and Real Estate Market

2010-04-17T04:30:00.000-07:00

Some Realtors have a lot of experience but they are afraid of technology. Regretfully in today's market 80% of prospects start their search on the Internet.
The times that placing a sign on the front yard and information on the MLS and expect it to work are gone. Today's market requires that the realtor keeps pace with technology.
You need a webpage that place you as the specialist in your area with good content. The problem regretfully does not stop there since your webpage has to be found.
The market requires that you keep pace with technology. Don't be afraid to ask your virtual tour provider. Virtual Florida Tours personnel are trained and willing to help you with all your needs on the Internet exposure of your listings. We do not only provide you with state of the art virtual tours that can be shown on full screen, we can help you by writing blogs on your listing that will increase the exposure, provide you with a text messaging capture system that provides your prospect immediate information on the listing and provides you with the customers phone. Weekly and thorough statistics information on your listing outlining when, how frequently and from where is your virtual tour being visited. Social networking exposure of your listing and slide show in you tube. One of our latest is a personalized message in your own voice that can be attached to your virtual tour as part of the background information.
If you need more information or are willing to contract our services do not hesitate to contact us at 305 331 8960 to receive personal information or visit our web page.

Is Your Webpage Bringing the ROI You Expect?

2010-04-11T05:31:00.000-07:00

Google is following a new kind of way to validate your webpage rank there is no longer just good content and a set of keywords that make people link to your webpage. Business now require that business are more creative creating multimedia, posting in You-tube, placing photos on Flikr and tagging this multimedia as much as possible.
There is another problem since there is a new SERP on the left corner of the search page. This really distracts users from the rest of the first page. It is extremely important to be in the first rows to obtain attention to your webpage.
The best way to achieve this will be to place as much content as possible on the different places of the Internet like YouTube, twitter, Flicker, etc. It is important to respond as quickly as possible to the comments and critics of your clients. This is what will keep them coming to your place and increasing your SEO.
If you need advice on how to increase the presence of your business on the Internet, you need to be in contact with those that really can help you get there by creating for you your own webpage and helping you find the right keywords and produce the multimedia that your business requires.
Here are some results that might help you understand the advantage of good SEO.
Section
www.virtualfloridarealtours.com
Website Grade
83
Moz Rank
4
Google Indexed Pages
35
Traffic Rank
5,049,414
Blog Grade
97
Inbound Links
252

The Best way to increase your return on investment

2009-09-13T05:57:00.000-07:00

Dear Colleagues,
I was recently reading a blog that reflected that most of the realtors that were blogging receive non or very little business from their efforts.

This is probably due to one of the following reasons
1. The possible prospects cannot find their blog because the blog name is either their name or something not related to their area of business (farming area)

At first someone specially those realtor with more time in the business will say that they need to market themselves and I will agree that is true but it is not true for the title of your blog.

2. Do not know how to entice the reader to ask for information on the topics relevant to their search(SEO)
3. They do not know how to entice the reader to act or seek information that they place on their webpage (SEO).

Seeing this is why Virtual Florida Tours marketing has developed a new SEO training program that will allow our customers to increase their presence on the Internet.

This is a training program that really works it will not require that you invest a big amount of time, but will definitively give you the possibility to increase your presence on the Internet and start seeing a very good return on your investment (ROI).
If you are interested in this course or have the need to really obtain a cost effective virtual tour of that listing that refuses to sell using the traditional methods do not hesitate no more contact us at 305 331 8960

Is It Important to Maintain an Internet Presence

2009-06-12T14:25:00.000-07:00

A greater presence on the Internet is emphasized by multiple authors and in a recent article Mike Parker1 make a great point of its importance. The numbers of published papers that address this situation is overwhelming and of greater importance are those published by the national association of Realtors (NAR). In this articles NAR refers to the increase of prospects starting their house search through the Internet, and the increase income earned by those Realtors that are already getting a good return on investment on their Internet presence.
Multiple authors address the importance of SEO to obtain the correct Internet presence as your main goal. This will allow the prospects to locate your page when they are seeking information on your neighborhood. The greater amount of people finding you on the Internet will represent more business that will come your way.
The problem is how you make this people give you their information so you can contact them back. There has to be some kind of call for action of these prospects. In this way the prospects will be enticed to give you their information by promising a newsletter, a virtual tour for sellers or information just tailored to their needs. It is very important that these prospects receive feedback as soon as possible after they give their contact information.
For all your Internet marketing, SEO training and virtual tours in the counties of Miami Dade and Broward contact Virtual Florida Tours at 305 331 8960
•1. Parker Mike; "Traditional Agents Earn $36,700 Annually; Internet Agents Earn $100,000+ Annually" ; Retrieved from the Internet at: http://www.brokeragentsocial.com/article.php?article_id=364

Can Social Networking be Used to Increase your BusinessY

2009-06-10T13:56:00.000-07:00

There is a lot of information regarding which is the most important way to use social networking to obtain the best results. Social networking is an investment of our own time to promote our services. Unless you are one of those persons that prefer to pay to get a low quality product, that supposedly will allow possible customers to see you as something you are not. Your investment will be your own time.

Of course time is too valuable and most of us have very little free time to invest it in something that gives nothing back. Therefore we need to get the most out of it. Barrett Niehus1 recommends the use of twitter with an automatic respond system and of course a call of action that could be related to some kind of information that the prospect will receive periodically like a newsletter, etc.

In general as Rebecca Levinson2 correctly advises the biggest problem that any blogger encounters is selecting the materials that should be addressed in the blog. You should be writing on topics that would make your possible prospects desire to read the topic you are writing about and of course she also gives a set of ideas that are really interesting about how to select your line of writing.

Once you have selected the topics that should be addressed in your blog, you have to decide which sources of information are worth following. When you read other professionals materials you can interact better with them, and by interchanging ideas obtain a more valuable product.

For example everyone knows that NAR recommends the use of the Internet since around 80% of the customers start their search there. They also say that you need to add pictures of the property you are intending to sell. What NAR does not give information on is how to use these tools to optimize your return on investment.

The gist of the correct use of social networking is writing about those things that make your service really special. You need to demonstrate your prospects that you are the expert in your area. That you are willing to go the extra mile to make their properties get exposed on the Internet and sold at the best price.

For all your Internet marketing and Virtual tours needs in Miami Dade and Broward counties do not hesitate to contact Virtual Florida Tours at 305 331 8960

References:
1. Barrett Niehus;" Incorporating Twitter Into a Comprehensive Lead Generation Program" retrieved from the Intenet at: http://www.brokeragentsocial.com/article.php?article_id=359
2. Rebecca Levinson; "7 ways to connect with blog comments"; retrieved from the Internet at: http://www.brokeragentsocial.com/article.php?article_id=360

The Place to Live at Hollywood Beach

2009-06-06T10:26:00.000-07:00

This fabulous condominium building has a big Theater a state of the art conference room, a huge Club area where you and your colleagues can have your business meetings. If you like exercising you will have a state of the art exercise room with all the equipment you might need. Beach lovers the building not only has a big pool but is right there at the beach.

The condominium has a great floor plan with a big living area two bedrooms and a two and a half bathrooms with a beautiful view of the beach from your spacious terrace with direct view of the ocean. Walk of your private elevator, luxurious kitchen with Snaidero cabinets and subzero appliance, floor to ceiling windows. When you get home you will feel as if you were in a 5 star hotel.

Art lovers will enjoy the multiple works of art that are all around, or enjoy dawn at the 240 ft beach, or spend your day by the pool, enjoy your daily exercise at your building gym or just enjoy the 24 h valet and personnel that will not hesitate to pamper you as if you were royalty. Ocean Palms is undoubtedly the place to live. It is time to stop looking aroung for that good deal in this day buyers market, you should not hesitate no more you just found it!

If you want to see the virtual tour please click here. If you prefer a you tube slide show just click here.

TIf you want to see the virtual tour please click here. If you prefer a you tube slide show just click here.

To obtain more information on the listing please contact Nicholas de la Parte from Onyx Real Estate group at 305 345 6842.

For all your real estate marketing needs on Miami beach, Coral Gables, Pinecrest, Hollywood, Hallandale, Fort Lauderdale, and the rest of Miami Dade and Broward counties do not hesitate to contact Virtual Florida Tours at 305 331 8960.

If you are willing to increase the Internet exposure of your real estate listings contact our marketing especialists at Virtual Florida Tours. servicing Miami Beach, Coral Gables, Pinecrest, Hollywood, Hallandale, Fort Lauderdale and the rest of Miami Dade and Broward Counties. Please contact us at 305 331 8960

Increasing Your Internet Presence

2009-05-16T03:59:00.000-07:00

Social networking is a very important tool that will allow you to increase your presence in the Internet and to make your prospective clients understand that you are the expert in your particular field. Real Estate is a very competitive business and every day our customers are becoming savvier in the use of the Internet. This is only one of the reasons that virtual tours and network syndication are becoming so important in our time
Your goal should be to write about a topic your customer should be interested and by doing this you start increasing the number of readers that follow your blog. If your prospects get to know you they will definitively do business with you.
When you blog you are sending messages to a group of individuals that are sending messages back to you and through this interaction you become a team that is sharing their most important achievements in your field of interest.
Your list of contacts become like an introduction card allowing your contacts to communicate increase the effect that your group has on the possible customers and this becomes an ever growing process of improvement in your particular line of business.
Whatever you do you should not forget that in our line of business there is nothing more important that person to person contact. So do your blogging, but you must always visit your clients as frequently as possible.
For all your Internet marketing needs and virtual tours in the cities of Miami Beach, Coral Gables, Pinecrest, Hallandale, Fort Lauderdale and the rest of the counties of Miami Dade and Broward contact Virtual Florida Tours at 305 331 8960

The Importance of Internet Real Estate Markeitng

2009-05-02T05:21:00.001-07:00

We recently read an article from Midori Miller1 in a study done last year during the month of July 2008 by Yahoo white pages . According to her article during that month 23 million people bought, sold or are getting ready to buy and sell their homes using the Internet.
This should be a wake up call for those still doubting the importance of having an active presence on the Internet. Despite this reality most of our clients are struggling working extra hours during this difficult times just to meet their ends. Maintaining a blog is time consuming and requires commitment by the author to maintain his/her readers informed..
That is the reason why Virtual Florida Tours following the motto of our company "Striving for Excellence" has decided to include a blog of the property, and a High Dynamic Range panoramic view of the front of your listing with our premium tours. Our clients are already getting maximum exposure of their properties through our multiple services that include tour network syndication, Slide show video, single property web site with panoramic rider.
For all of your Internet marketing needs do not hesitate to contact Virtual Florida Tours at 305 331 8960. We serve the cities of Miami Beach, Pinecrest, Coral Gables, Hallandale, Fort Lauderdale and the rest of the counties of Miami Dade and Broward counties in Florida.
Reference:
1. Miller, Midori; http://activerain.com/blogsview/1051260/23-Million-Bought-Sold-Or-Are-Ready-To-Buy-or-Sell-Real-Estate-Searching-The-Net

Inserting you tube videos into your blog

2009-04-19T12:08:00.000-07:00

Today I will start giving some instructions to insert you tube videos into your blog. To do that you first need to upload your video to you tube, after that you will have to copy the embed text from your youtube video and inset it in your blog using the Html editing screen.

Once you insert your code you are done.

Marketing Real Estate on a Down Market

2009-04-05T17:00:00.000-07:00

What can be done in this tough market, some authors recommend the use of email newsletters to attract possible customers1, others suggest that you should subscripbe to pay per click providers and the use long tail phrases2 as a good way to catch the traffic from the Internet. Others are even more pesimistic and have only suggestions for those customers ages 62 and over. They suggest that those customer use the special options available for them to buy new houses before they sell their house3.

But no matter where you look most of the writers are recommending to make emphasis on the importance of quality service and prompt response as the most important features that need to be accomplished by a successful realtor, in the authors opinion this is the most important feature for any company whose main product is service.

Ecery one has to be concerned with their return on investment ROI. How you are going to measure your return on investment without carrying an appropriate statistics of how many leads you obtain from the different adds you place on the market.

If you decide to use a newspaper or a magazine add you are betting on 2% of the total number of subscriptions to that particular kind of advertisement product. It also reaches a limited area where that particular edition is distributed and has a life span between two days and a month.

On the other hand the National realtors association reports that more than 80% of prospects beginning their search on the Internet. So you need to associate with a marketing provider that can provide you with the highest level of presence in the Internet. From a virtual tour that can be reached from all over the world placed not only on the MLS and raltor.com but in another web page that has a rank of at least three. If you add to that a panorider with a webaddress associated with the business you are advertising the possibilities of getting your customers attention increase notably since you will be catching those customers that just pass in front of the house. Of course if you have an Internet marketing company that can also provide a full Internet syndication the possibilities of finding the right prospect for your listing increase notably.

References:
Triby, MaryEllen; “recession-marketing-dos-and-don’t’s” Retrieved from the Internet at: http://rismedia.com/2009-03-30/recession-marketing-dos-and-donts/
Mike Parke; “How a Top Agent Continues to Make the Shift to Selling More Houses Online” retrieved from the Internet at: http://rismedia.com/2009-04-02/how-a-top-agent-continues-to-make-the-shift-to-selling-more-houses-online/
5 Recommendations for Navigating Today’s Mortgage and Housing Markets Retrieved from the Internet at: http://rismedia.com/2009-04-02/5-recommendations-for-navigating-todays-mortgage-and-housing-markets/

A Beautiful Place by the Lake

2009-04-05T06:58:00.000-07:00

Virtual Florida Tours and the Lehman Team will like to present to the market this one of the kind beautiful home by the lake in this very exclusive neighborhood of Miami City, Florida.

This home has four spacious bedrooms two bathrooms, and a big totally screned pool home. It has an excellent distribution, and is furnished with new appliances. One of its principal features is the astonishing view of the lake you and your family will enjoy.

The Living area is totally tiled and the screned pool will allow you and your guests enjoy the view without the annoyance of insects. This area is specially tailored for your private parties.

If you will like to market your home or business contact The Lehman Team these professional realtors work with Coldwell Banker at Pinecrest at 305 970 7500.

If you are seeking how to increase your presence in the Internet marketing do not hesitate to contact Virtual Florida Tours. Our family owned company specializes in Interntet marketing of real estate and business in Miami Dade and Broward Counties. We serve the cities of Miami Beach, Coral Gables, Pinecrest, Miami, Hallandale and Fort Lauderdale. Do not hesitate to contact us with all your marketing needs at Miami Dade and Broward Counties

Using the Internet to enhance your business

2009-03-29T04:51:00.000-07:00

Servicing our clients is a lot more than making good virtual tours for their business. Virtual tour providers also need to learn from our main customers on how to increase our presence in the Internet using the power of SEO and the content of our web page.
Parker Mike1 recommends that you need a web page that not only will be easily found when your prospect is looking for the service you are providing in the area you handle your business, but provides the customer with the information he/she requires.
According to him you need to be able to respond as fast as possible, and you need to have enough traffic to obtain the number of prospects required to give you about 75 to 80% of your business.
Mark Leswing2 emphasizes the importance of realtors blogs to increase the presence of the realtor in the Internet, and also will help him understand which tools will be the most useful in her/his line of business saving money in these technology oriented world. He emphasizes the importance of high quality service a immediate response to your clients as the most valued asset of your business.2
Virtual Florida Tours is a local business that will give you the best marketing service for your business in the area of Miami Dade and Broward counties. Our busines is supported by Real Tour Vision that allows us to have the best technology and the best service on the area, providing our customers not only with excellent virtual tours but also with tour syndication and SEO training.
We currently serve the cities of Sunny Isles Beach, Miami Beach, Pinecrest, Coral Gables, Hollywood and Fort Lauderdale.
References
1. Parker, Mike; “How One Broker Gets a 3,000% ROI on Her Internet Marketing”;retrieved from the Internet at: http://rismedia.com/2009-03-26/how-one-broker-gets-a-3000-roi-on-her-internet-marketing/
2. Lesswing, Mark; “Don’t Get Distracted - Prepare for the Rebound Now” Retrieved from the Internet at: http://rismedia.com/2009-03-11/dont-get-distracted-prepare-for-the-rebound-now/

Real Estate Today

2009-03-22T16:44:00.000-07:00

The intention to improve the economy started in the previous administration investing mostly in the banks to buy the bad credits these institutions had incurred in. The amount of money injected was increased enormously in recent times with no change in the attitude of the banking institutions.
Despite some reports that consider that the economy was not suffering as much as others were saying 1. The reality is that the customers are not noticing the increase in loans availability from the banks.
The real estate market has declined in recent years and the homes have lost a big amount of their selling price. This has promoted the misconception of most owners that assume that their homes are valued more than where market is actually placed.2
Therefore realtors need to start educating the owners in the real market price of their property. It is important that before a realtor accepts a listing he/she should investigate if the owner is really committed to sell.
The home needs to be staged before you even accept the building, and you need to market the home as soon as possible in the Internet using all the tools of the trade from virtual tours to a complete network syndication. A home that is correctly priced in good conditions and is advertised appropriately on the internet tends to sell three times faster than other houses that only appear in the MLS.

1. Debra Gould http://activerain.com/blogsview/963298/Beating-Back-Bad-Economic-News
2. Harney, Steve, Managing Homeowner's Expectations Broker Agent News E-Letter - Updated for Sept. 30, 2007

The importance of the Internet in your marketing

2009-03-21T06:42:00.000-07:00

Recently I was talking to one of my clients and he came with a question on why he should be placing his adds in the Internet.
My answer was extremely simple Return On Investment (ROI). Why we have to base our adds in ROI is very simple if you place an ad in a magazine or newspaper you invest between $200 and $100 for an add whit a life stand between 2 days and a month. To make things worse this add will only be seen in the area of circulation of that specific paper or magazine. also the Real Estate section will be seen by approximately 2% of the buyers of that specific edition.
When you place a virtual tour in the Internet you will have a full year of advertising that will reach the whole world for around $100, and if you use our marketing system we will syndicate your tour and make it even more visible to potential clients all over the world! To help you understand the importance of this we recommend a little video we developed recently
the importance of Internet advertisement was recently addressed by René Fabre in her article where did your last client came from the you can retrieve from: http://activerain.com/blogsview/991492/Where-did-your-last-client-come-from
Remember if you have any Internet marketing needs in Miami Dade and Broward Counties do not hesitate to contact us at 305 331 8960.

Your Dream Home

2009-03-15T06:40:00.001-07:00

Recently Virtual Florida Tours was asked to make a virtual tour for a For Sale by Owner at the Pinnacle in Sunny Isles Beach, Miami Florida. This Fabulous Condominium Building is run like a five stars hotel with all those little features that will make feel pampered as if you were royalty!
Just to mention some of the features, you have a library, a gymnasium, a club room where you can have a private party without having people at your condominium. You also will get umbrellas and towels at the beach. Your guest will receive ballet parking, you name it it's there.
A virtual tour is just the beginning of marketing a property and Leon Goldstein is marketing his properties with Virtual Florida Tours. Our company is committed to market its customers on the WEB, applying the latest technology available.
At Virtual Florida Tours we strive for excellence and we provide our clients with a complete arsenal of the best tools to syndicate their properties exposing their listings as much as possible.

Mindframe Required for a Successful Business

2009-03-14T06:45:00.000-07:00

Success depends to a certain measure in doing the right thing to all your customers to the point they will start commenting on how good their relationship with your company was for their business.
To do this you need to plan in advance how to deal with the different situations you might find in your particular line of business. You might think that the world is trying to get you in trouble but reality is you are setting yourself to failure if you do not have the correct plan to solve any problem.
You are experiencing your own ideas on the situation making a wall between you and your success. Pushing against your own misconceptions is not the solution you need to power yourself and do the right plan for each situation. By doing this you empower yourself to success.
For example realtors sometimes think that the most important thing they can do is to obtain listings, and they do not realize that they need a seller that is really committed to sell. It cannot be emphasized enough the importance of a correctly priced house, well staged, with acceptable conditions and the owner is willing to disclose any possible impact avoiding problems with undisclosed issues.
What you will do with a house that cannot be showed in the actual situation? You need to be sure that once you accept a listing that you market that property as good as possible.
In a tough market you will be forced to market the house in the Internet not only using the MLS and Realtor.com. If you really want to sell your listing you need to work with a virtual tour provider that can not only make professional photos of your listing, you need a provider capable of doing a complete syndication of the property to obtain the maximum exposure possible.
Virtual Florida Tours provides virtual toutrs and marketing services on the Cities of Pinecrest, Miami, Coral Gables, Miami Beach, Hallandale, Fort Lauderdale, and all of Miami Dade and Broward counties.

It Is All About Marketing

2008-11-30T05:21:00.000-08:00

Recently I was rereading an article from Mary Ellen Podmolik1 about short-sales and why they have become such a frequent situation in this down market.
In part it all is about banks and lending companies lending their money at very risky not to say crazy situations expecting the house market never to stop growing and the bubble burst.
As we all know we ended paying for their greediness, but in part it also is the lack of effectiveness of some realtors that do not market the property of their client at their full extent.
It has been said again and again by the National Association of Realtors (NAR) that 84% of new buyers start their search on the Internet and it is obvious that a local newspaper only reaches your town for a weekend or if it is a magazine it will last on the shelves for a month. These kind of add that reach only a minor group of clients since less than 5 % according to NAR will ever open the real estate section of the newspaper. On the other hand you can place a Virtual Tour on the Internet for approximately half the cost of your newspaper weekend adds. The virtual tour will stay put for a year instead of a weekend or a month costing you less than 27 cents per day and getting for you some important issues:
•· More exposure for your money
•· More listings since you will stand out of your competition
•· And perhaps the most important a customer willing to refer you to his friends since he got top dollars for his property.
Virtual Florida Tours is a family owned company that serves Miami Beach, Coral Gables, Pine Crest, Palmetto Bay, Hallandale, Fort Lauderdale, and Hollywood cities and all of Miami Dade and Broward Counties in South West Florida. We are always striving for excellence so do not hesitate to contact us at 305 331 8960 and we will be sure to give the help you need.
Reference:
Podmolik , Mary Ellen; "A Short Sale's Long Journey"; retrieved from the Internet at: http://rismedia.com/wp/2008-10-23/a-short-sales-long-journey/

New way to increase your presence at the web

2008-11-24T17:55:00.000-08:00

Recently Virtual Florida Real Tours started offering a new Internet service to help enhance the presence at the Internet of our customers.
Recently the different providers of Real Tour Vision started offering Internet based Slide Showsthat are send to Facebook, AOL and Google, adding to this our already active presence in the Internet guaranties a bigger exposure to all our customers.
Virtual Florida Tours guaranties maximum exposure of your listings on the Internet by syndicating the Virtual Tour at More than 20 different pages like realtors.com, homes.com, craiglist just to mention some of the pages covered.
Other important issue for most of our clients is the personal attention of a cfamily company that is located in the same community that they are doing their business.
Our company offer its services in Miami Beach, Coral Gables, Pine Crest, Hollywood, Fortlauderdale and the rest of the counties of Miami Dae and Broward counties.

Increasing your website traffic

2008-10-29T02:27:00.000-07:00

he strategy of your web site traffic generation should not be left to search engine hits alone. You need to advertise your website to make it successful. Of course search engine hits definitely are important, but getting a page one search engine ranking takes some effort.
Placing some engine strings on a site will not make your page ranking to increase. The sites that come in page one have been around for some time, their traffic patterns are high, they have various external links pointing to them and they have very high content quality.

Your webpage can come up with good content, and you can have your website age for a while. But most companies have difficulty with obtaining high traffic patterns and increasing the numbers of external links. This is what stops your web sites from getting to page one.

The companies that offer local services get very little traffic from out of their area, and local traffic is simply not enough to obtain the links and traffic needed for a page one search engine ranking. Even with the best content the search engines are looking for information that a local company's site simply lacks. Therefore your solution as a small company owner is to advertise the traffic.

Your company's site was developed with certain market goals in mind. You wanted to educate your prospects as to which services you provide and why they should p[refer your services or products over your competition. So your website is an effort to become your sales force when you are not available to sell your products or services.

You can advertise your site in your own business cards, send mail outs, and use print advertising of your company that includes information of your site. By doing this you are making it easier to your prospects to find you and increase your website traffic considerably. You can use your website and your campaign to capture email addresses offering a monthly web magazine from your web site. Then you can establish a flow up through email and this will help sell your products or services even more.
For more information on how to increase your SEO please contact Virtual Florida Tours at 305 331 8960 and we will gladly help you increase your website ranking. We also offer virtual tour services for properties and business in the areas of Miami Dade and Broward counties, covering the cities of Miami Beach, Coral Gables, Pine Crest, Hallandale and Fort Lauderdale.
Reference: Aleagha, Peyman; "Why You Need to Advertise Your Real Estate Website?"; retrieved from the Internet at:
http://brokeragentpro.com/viewArticle.html?ArticleID=1586

Ways to boost property value

2008-10-26T12:39:00.000-07:00

To increase the property value there are a group of things that can be done some should be approached by the owner and others by the realtor
The owner should take care of all the aspects of the house that require their attention as painting, decorating and removing any object that is not needed from the home. If needed he/she can contact a storage space to remove extra furniture and clothes that are not used on a daily basis.:
•1. Paint the exterior
•2. Complete all needed repairs
•3. Furnish the home to sell. (contract a decorator)
•4. Upgrade front yard landscaping (try professional landscaping)
•5. Create a quick kitchen makeover
•6. Think spa, not bathroom
•7. Install soft and hard window treatments
•8. Replace carpet rather than just cleaning
•9. Don't overlook your closets
The job of the realtor is to increase the exposure of the property and help the owner keep the peace of mind of the buyer:
•1. Purchase a home warranty (peace of mind of the buyer)
•2. Contract a virtual tour of the property that must be placed in realtor.com and other websites.
•3. Make flyer that can be downloaded from the webpage and place the add in other web-pages.
When the owner and the realtor take care of all these points and the home is placed in the market at the appropriate price the house will sell in as short time as possible.
To obtain the maximum Internet exposure for your listing and to increase the SEO of your web page you may contact Virtual Florida Real Tours that is a fully authorized dealer of RTV the number 1one virtual tour provider. We serve the areas of Miami Dade and Broward counties. Do not hesitate to call us at
(305) 331 8960

A Key to Selling Homes

2008-10-19T03:42:00.000-07:00

There are three Key Factors in Selling Real Estate
1. Fair Price
2. Location
3. EXPOSURE
Virtual Florida Tours is your best way to get your listings exposed! We are a full service dealer provider with RTV, the world largest network of virtual tour providers and an approved vendor with realtor.com. Our company is locally owned and operated virtual tour provider in Miami Dade, Florida. Our company serves Miami Dade and Broward counties, Included in this area are the cities of Miami Beach, Coral Gables, Pine Crest, Palmetto Bay, Hallandale, and Fort Lauderdale.
NAR statistics recently show that about 86% of home buyers use the Internet when they begin searching for a home, and 67% of current home buyers in Florida come from outside the state. You will not be able to reach this market by using a yard sign and local advertising. In today’s market exposure has become critical and Virtual Florida Tours has a distribution list that outperforms our competition. Our Virtual Tours will show your information, ensuring to brand the online exposure you and your company need to compete in today’s challenging market. The virtual tour will have links to your personal and your company’s web site; will show your business partners as well as your phone and your email address. Therefore the prospect viewing the tour is constantly exposed to your information making it easier to contact you. Additionally to the traditional virtual tour you will find Area Information, an excellent Mortgage Calculator, and Satellite View of the property. You can also contract additional requests that include:
Professional Narration, Custom Pintable Flyers and Interactive Floor Plans
Single property websites and Panoriders
We are always striving for excellence and our real value is created by the quality of the service and support that we provide to our customers. Our main priority is your complete satisfaction and we see the success of our customers as our ultimate goal. Allow us the opportunity to serve you on your next virtual tour and you will see why our customers like Gustavo Lopez consider our company the difference between on sale and SOLD!

Gorgeous Home at South West Miami Dade

2008-10-17T16:13:00.000-07:00

Recently Virtual Florida Tours made a virtual tour of this gorgeous home equal to none, in excellent condition. Absolutely fabulous. Formal living and dining rooms, immense kitchen with fantastic informal dining area. Updated bathrooms and kitchen. Stainless appliances. Extra large family room with beautiful stone wall and decorator's touches, overlooks a private & cozy terrace & patio with fountains. Very large inside laundry rm. Bonus rm could be den, office. You must see this home inside. Excellent neighborhood & schools.
This single Family one story Property in Dade County was Built in 1968. with 3 total bedroom(s) and 2 total full bath(s) has approximately 1813 sq. ft. Central air conditioning and Central heat
Interior features: First Floor Entry,Dishwasher, Dryer, Microwave, Refrigerator, Washer,Bedroom on Entry LevelExterior features: Exterior Lighting, Fence, Hurricane Shutters, Patio, Room For Pool,Front exposed to NorthShingle Roof the lot has aproximately 7500 sq. ft.
If you are interested in this home please contact Zizi Careaga 305-987-0211 12695 S. Dixie Hwy Miami, FL US 33156

What's working with your company in terms of establishing an Internet presence?

2008-09-14T16:54:00.000-07:00

While at least eighty percent or more of today's buyers begin their search on the Web. These prospective buyers expect their agents to provide them with accurate data consistently and quickly apart from their ability to email. When an agent ignores this pool of buyers he/she will have a difficult time in the business1.
Everyone is recommending an improved presence of the agents in the Internet. Mr. Taverner says. "you are what you Web." People are going to look at websites and select an agent by what they see as their virtual brochure on the Internet"2.

All agents must remember that real estate, like most other sales positions, is a numbers game. You need to contact enough people that want what you have to offer, enough times, and you will make sales1.Exposure is the most important factor to remember when marketing your listing online. Post multiple images of your listing everywhere you can. Put them on your website, your MLS, Yahoo!, Google, etc. Any good virtual tour provider will distribute your images to the major real estate websites for you3.
To transform online traffic into foot traffic, you could announce your open houses on your virtual tour and website. Doing this will make your open houses more effective since you are driving qualified foot traffic right to your doorstep3.
Virtual Florida Tours will provide you with a complete statistics of who and from where they are viewing your tour. Knowing this will allow you to decide which are the marketing tools that are working for you increasing your return on investment.. The data obtained will allow you to show your clients what you are doing to market their home and use it in your listing presentations3.

Remember that today's customer is becoming an expert in almost every field. This false confidence on their Internet acquired knowledge, these prospects lack trust on professional services and they have a big desire to cut out the middleman. So in this times of Internet informed customers you need to offer your client more than they can easily obtain or secure on their own through the Internet4.
Also the existence of a second domain name that is related to the city or region to which you provide your service and is not so evident that it is your own website will help bring traffic to your site, This second website has to be branded for legal reasons and should contain full disclosure about the fact that the site is yours must be easy to find, but it will not be placed in the first page. You may place all your information in the contact us page5.

Reference:
•1. Nelson Nancy ; Why-do-Some-Agents-Succeed-in-any-Market-and-Others-Falter-3 ; Retrieved from the Internet at: http://rismedia.com/wp/2008-09-13/viewpoints-why-do-some-agents-succeed-in-any-market-and-others-falter-3/
•2. Tavener ,Mike; "The-Right-Tools-for-Success"; retrieved from the Internet at: http://rismedia.com/wp/2008-09-13/the-right-tools-for-success/
•3. Roberts , Tyler;" Why Do Some Agents Succeed in Any Market and Others Falter?"; retrieved from the Internet at:, http://rismedia.com/wp/2008-09-06/viewpoints-why-do-some-agents-succeed-in-any-market-and-others-falter-2/
•4. Wester , Fayette; "‘Prosumerism' and Your Business - Friend or Foe?"; Retrieved from the Internet at:http://rismedia.com/wp/2008-09-10/%e2%80%98prosumerism-and-your-business-friend-or-foe/
•5. Proctor, Craig; "How to Generate More Leads and Track Your Ads with Multiple Domain Names"; Retrieved from the Internet at: http://rismedia.com/wp/2008-09-09/how-to-generate-more-leads-and-track-your-ads-with-multiple-domain-names/

Is your glass half full or half empty?

2008-08-30T07:45:00.000-07:00

Hanley Wood has made an excellent economic study on how difficult is the situation on the real estate market; She is playing with the ghost of inflation and flagging the banner of doom. I will admit that the situation is not precisely the most favorable but when she is looking at her glass and saying that it is half empty. At the same time multiple realtors around the country are excelling in this market and even though the sales market did declined 2.6% this implied that 4,733,000 houses changed their owner in that month.

So, what are the successful real estate agents doing? They are increasing their presence in the Internet and in their farm areas. They are showing their customers that they are not only the more knowledgeable person in their market they are widening their possible clientele since they are using new techniques like virtual tours.

When a realtor uses virtual tours he/she goes one step further in the International market. Now not only the realtors and clients on their city can have an access to their listings. The use of the Internet allows everyone to reach you and your velocity on responding to your clients will ensure your share of the market.

If you are still not convinced that the glass is half full just think of this 0.01% of the houses sold in June represent 47.3 houses. My very modest opinion is that we can fight for at least one of these 47 houses with teeth and claws. To do this you need to apply all the new technologies available to increase our presence in the Internet, we also need to have automatic systems allowing us to respond to the prospects as soon as possible. You should also not forget the ranking of your page on the Internet. Increasing the SEO of your page is a must.

Reference: Wood, Hanley; "Housing Market Key Indicator Alert - Aug. 21" retrieved from the Internet at: http://brokeragentpro.com/viewArticle.html?ArticleID=1515

How can we succed in this challenging market?

2008-08-25T17:55:00.000-07:00

The word most realtors are hearing recently is cahallenge. Undoubtedly there is a significant challenge in the real estate industry so realtors need to think and actimplementing out of the box ideas.
Realtors need to increase sales, generate new leads, and get know by the community where they live. agents and brokers alike are looking for diverse and unique methods. Realtors need to implement tools that allow them to connect with clients and obtaining a competitive edge above the competitors has proven positive for many. One such tool is virtual tours to help boost business.
The realtors need to understand the great difficulties that their customers are undergoing while selling or buying a home this will help create a valuable relationship.
Richard Ruff;"Why Do Some Agents Succeed in Any Market and Others Falter?"; retrieved from the Internet at: http://rismedia.com/wp/2008-08-23/why-do-some-agents-succeed-in-any-market-and-others-falter-2/

A Growing Real Estate Market

2008-08-17T03:09:00.000-07:00

In this times that all the Real Estate Agents are hearing is that the market is shrinking, there is still a certain part of the real estate market that is continuously expanding.
As health care improves the number of Americans reaching their senior years is increasing at a tremendous pace. Some of them choose to live in active retirement communities while others look at facilities that allow them the assistance needed for their needs.
According the US census there were 37.3 million people over age 65 living in the United States in 2006 that is approximately 12 % of the US population. Not forget that this number is growing exponentially and is expected to increase to around 86.7 million people by the year 2050.
This market is spread all around the country and Florida is an excellent place for retirement due to its excellent climate. To address the needs of this growing community REaltors shoulkd increase the Interenet presence of their lisitng using virtual tours to increase the possibilities of obtaining a share of this market.
To prepare Realtors to focus on this growing group of the population the National Association of Realtors created the SRES designation. Those Realtors interested in addressing the needs of Americans ages 50 and over need to understand that it is not easy for people to downsize or move from their homes, therefore to cope with the stress generated you will need a lot of patience, but on the other hand you will be rewarded with the knowledge that you helped a person to obtain a better living condition.
Based on this and the continuous need of learning to correctly serve the community it will be a good time to go back to school and obtain the SRES designation.

Prospecting in Real Estate

2008-08-13T02:42:00.001-07:00

If you are a number person is about time that you pay attention to some NAR statistics.According to NAR over 80% of home owners work with the first real estate agent they come in contact with. 87% of home buyers start their search on the Internet and one out of twenty of these buyers are already ready to buy.
The question is simple Who do you think has the highest probability to be this first realtor in this world dominated by the Internet? Someone that has not even a webpage or the one whose presence in the Internet is such that his webpage shows in the first page of any search on your farming area. That is accomplished by increasing the SEO of your Webpage.
Based on NAR houses are sold on average every five years so you only need to stay personally in touch with around 150 prosppects to generate 30 sales a year. Remember you will need to excel in your business to be their realtor.
So how you can differentiate from your competition again by showing a good use of the Internet and the different possibilities this tool offers. You need to have a consistent use of virtual tours, panoriders, a fast response to your clients by using automatic services, and last but not least you need to keep in contact with your previous customers on a periodical basis.
If you are just starting to work as a realtor one sure way to increase your prospects is by targeting expired listings.This omes did not sell because either they were incorrectly priced or the terms were unreasonable.
Houses that are built in a bad location need to reflect this in their price. Since is very unprobable that the homeowner will list again with the previous realtor here is something you can do.After you get i contact with the expired owner ask them why they think that their house did not sell. Listen for several minutes most people just want to be heard.
Offer them your services and a detail analysis why their house did not sell, remember to get an appointment to show them this as soon as possible.
Reference: Wickman, Floyd: "I quit real estate- part 4" retrieved from the Internet at: http://brokeragentpro.com/viewArticle.html?ArticleID=1495

Reality of the Real Estate Market

2008-08-11T08:16:00.000-07:00

Reality of the Real Estate Market (edit/delete)
After reading a recent article by Phillip Cantrell I realized that our blog should share it since some of the information in that article was extremely important and clarifies the present situation of the real estate Industry.
It is true that the number of sales went low in June it is also true that from the 120 million homes existing in the U.S. more than 33% are already paid in full, around 40 million of the remaining were bought before the year 2000 so even in a fire sale they will have a minimum of 30% equity.
On the other hand according to all the information available 94% of the houses are not behind in their payments therefore only 4 million homes are at a risk and of those only 2% are in foreclosure.
For these owners that made a bad decision the Congress is about to spend $300 billion dollars to save their houses, so despite all the talking the situation is not a s bad as some people are placing it.
One of the many ways in which Virtual Florida Tours tries to serve the community is by keeping the realtors serving the areas of Miami Beach, Coral Gables, Miami, Pine Crest, Hallandale, Fort Lauderdale and the rest of Miami Dade and Broward Counties informed of the real situation of the market in which they carry their business.
Reference: Cantrell, Phillip; Things I Think I Think - Real Estate in a Nutshell; retrieved from the Internet at: http://rismedia.com/wp/2008-08-05/things-i-think-i-think-real-estate-in-a-nutshell/

What Makes Your Brand Different?

2008-07-31T03:53:00.000-07:00

Most real estate home pages will allow visitors to perform a property search, obtain school and town information, so what makes your brand different has to be in the quality of your customer service.
Try to make a little survey about the value of your brand in the community you can even video tape it and I publish their answers.
Despite there are multiple applications that can help your associates the most important asset you can teach them through your leadership is the importance of hard work and discipline to serve the needs of our clients and customers.
There are multiple applications out there but most of them will not help the associate as much as a virtual tour (that gives them a real statistic information on how many times it is visited and from where) to be able to have realistic price conversations with their sellers.
Your agents should deploy a real price strategy, they need to be able to do a very well substantiated mortgage portability and a good client risk mitigation protocol.
Reference: Einbinder, Scott; "The Courage of Leadership - What Real Estate Requires"; retrieved from the Internet at: http://rismedia.com/wp/2008-07-30/the-courage-of-leadership-what-real-estate-requires/

Ideas on: How to Excel in a Slow Market?

2008-07-30T07:54:00.001-07:00

Once you review all the recomendations of different realtor coaches and especially those of bob Corcoran you will realize that if you want to succed in a slow market you will need to do some adjustments.
you need to make your prospect understand that you are way ahead of those that only work on real estate when things are going well. Make emphasis on your experience and quality of your service. For example all the information from the national real estate association let you know that around 87% of the new buyers start their search for a new home on the Internet. So you need to address the current marketing conditions offering your sellers a virtual tour of their home, you could include a panorider that show a panoramic view of the interior of the house and is associated with a webpage that uses the address of the house as its URL (this will increase dramatically the number of hits to your virtual tour).
By showing your prospects that you are totally committed to your profession and that your personal goal is to sell their house.
You need to explain your client the market conditions and why setting the right price is the only way to generate the interest of the buyers and therefore you will receive more offers allowing you to sell at a better price.
Since the market is slow you need to look for houses that are in top notch shape since those are the ones that will sell faster.
Use your time wisely. Do not run around without a specific task.
Reference: Corcoran, Bob; "How to Flourish in a Slow Market"; retrieved from the Internet at: http://brokeragentpro.com/viewArticle.html?ArticleID=1465

How to Make the Marketing Process an Agreable Experience?

2008-07-29T08:55:00.000-07:00

I was reading an article from Maya Bailey and she recommends 5 steps of the law of attraction to make marketing an agreeable and profitable activity.
1. Remember you are giving a valuable service when you market yourself.
2. Since there is no one else like you. You need to start viewing what are your strengths and for that you can ask for testimonials from satisfied clients. The more you see why these clients like the easier it will be for you to irradiate out a positive attitude.
3. If the possible customers do not know who you are or where to reach you? Your real estate business is going down the drains. You need to increase your visibility as much as you can especially in a slow market.
4. You always must offer something to your clients. You need to be exited about the quality of the service you are providing. Then people will like to hear from you. According to Dr. Maya whatever you give comes back to you multiplied.
5. In stead of presenting yourself with your name and company name start with a question asking the person about the stress most people have when buying and selling... Wait for the answer of your customer and then. Explain to hem that you are a specialist on handling all the aspects of the deals related on how to sell and buy houses since you are a realtor® with X_ Real Estate Company.
Now you got them involved so it is your time to explain how you can help them include all you do that differentiate you from the different competitors: you make interactive virtual tours of their homes that will be placed in the most visited portals of the Internet and you create a webpage for their home with a panorider that will reduce the number of prospects visiting their house since only those that really like it will be visiting the house, etc.
Reference: Bailey, Maya: "5 Easy Steps to Real Estate Marketing" retrieved from the Internet at:
http://brokeragentpro.com/viewArticle.html?ArticleID=1464

Importance of Measuring Your Return on Investment

2008-07-24T12:47:00.000-07:00

When organizations want to measure their success they have to rely on their return on investment (ROI). A successful organization is capable of measure the leverage and demonstrates the contribution of their marketing strategies and how they affect the bottom line of the company.
You need to measure:
•1. What is the amount invested in the specific marketing campaign?
•2. What amount is the return?
•3. How many customers were gained?
•4. What share and penetration does the company has on the market?
•5. Which points of the marketing campaign worked and which didn't?
Any marketing plan needs to be balanced to help your organization measuring the contributions of the marketing plan. When you are able to place the plan into a larger context and link it to the asset growth of your company you can validate if the plan is a valuable or profitable opportunity for your business.
If you are not able to show if the marketing's plan ROI is positive you can be repeating systematically the same mistake again and again until you go bankruptcy. This has to be done with all your marketing as advertisement.
Does your investment in magazine adds bring you back the return you are expecting?
Is your webpage PRS at least a 2?
Can customers find you without typing the URL of your company?
Are you using Virtual Tours and placing them in the major Internet portals?
You need to be able to do this or you will be throwing away your money.
Reference: The Gonzalez Group; "What's Your MROI? 5 Ways to Find Out"; http://rismedia.com/wp/2008-07-16/whats-your-mroi-5-ways-to-find-out/

Excel in Customer Satisfaction

2008-07-24T02:35:00.000-07:00

In order to excel in customer satisfaction you need to be able to solve little nuances. Once a customer of Virtual Florida Tours wanted to have an unified reference link (URL) attached to the virtual tour of his listing. He selected the full address of his listing for the URL but after that he decided that when he was giving it through the telephone it was extremely long. So he called our customer service and we provided the new URL at no cost for him. The next day we had a very nice referral letter of his experience with our services.
Whenever a problem occurs you need to have a set of policies that are able to solve these difficulties this will bring new customers to your business since a satisfied customer will tell an average of 5 people about the good experience. On the other hand if you mishandle a problem the dissatisfied customer cannot stop telling how bad was their experience and based on statistics of customer service satisfaction between 10 - and 13% will inform up to 20 people about their bad experience!
When you are able to have the policies that solve those little difficulties that will always occur due to our work with imperfect human beings you gain the loyalty of that customer and they become 8 times more loyal to your company than customers that never have had a problem.
Customers expect that everything will go smoothly. But when there is any difficulty the customer emotions are being hit and the worse they go the more people they tell.
Whenever you find a problem you need to establish the guidelines and policies to guide the actions of all your employees all the way through the transaction and make your business to excel wining their loyalty. Remember we are in a business that requires our customers repeated business and also their referrals...
When shopping for virtual tours in Miami Beach, Coral Gables, Miami City, and all of Miami Dade and Broward counties do not hesitate to call your local virtual tour provider at (305) 331 8960 or contact us through the Internet at: http://www.virtualfloridarealtours.com
Reference: Geroux, Sandy; "Creating the WOW for Customers " retrieved from the Internet at: http://brokeragentpro.com/viewArticle.html?ArticleID=1444

The Need of Virtual Tours

2008-07-23T14:55:00.000-07:00

I was reading an article of Mr. Verl Workman he is a very respected Real Estate coach, and he was making emphasis on the importance of including virtual tours in all of their listings. He admitted that virtual tours have evolved and now they are faster and clearer, and that the statistics prove that they decrease the days that the listings stay on the market.
In the first place you will list more properties when you demonstrate your online marketing strategy in the listing presentation, you should include that you use professional photography and that your virtual tours are distributed on a wide array of the nation's top search sites for real estate.
From a buyers stand point the realtor association of real estate admits that between 70-80% of all customers are going online and a huge number will not see your listings because they are lacking a professional virtual tour. The studies are showing that those listings with more visual content are viewed more than twice as often and tend to sell quicker than properties that do not have them.
He emphatically recommends professional virtual tours of every house no matter how good or bad it looks. You need to get the word out that the property is on the market and for that you will need the help of a professional virtual tour provider
If you are thinking that the property does not photograph well it is time to ask yourself will you show the property offline? If you answer yes to that question it is obvious that you should show it online, and the best way to do so is by using a professional virtual tour provider.
He recommended to use a professional virtual tour in all the listings, and after some of his realtors following this recommendation have come to the conclusion that customers that request to visit these less than perfect homes are already aware of the imperfections so they are more qualified to become buyers.
You will be saving your valuable time to show a home that the customer has not visually prequalified. You will also pick more clients in this slow market since the clients will recognize that you go the extra mile to help them sell their properties. Since you can show the statistics of the online viewers it will be easier when you need to negotiate a price reduction or a less than full price offers.
He recommends that every property should have a virtual tour, since it is a small investment that will help you gain more listings and sell more properties. This will also help you in the marketing process since your virtual tour provider can help you increase your presence on the Internet.
Remember for all your virtual tours needs at Miami Beach, Coral Gables, Miami, and all of Miami Dade and Broward Counties contact Virtual Florida Tours at (305) 331 8960 or through the Internet at http://www.virtualfloridarealtours.com
Reference: Workman Verl; ‘Which Properties Need Virtual Tours?" retrieved from the Internet at: http://brokeragentpro.com/viewArticle.html?ArticleID=1447

Are You Expanding Your Company?

2008-07-11T03:15:00.000-07:00

Most people think that if their company is not growing it is because it is going out of business. Undoubtedly a steady growth is essential to the life line of any company, so to grow a healthy business needs everyday essentials.
Companies can grow by merger or recruiting and both methods have their own downfalls.
In merging you need to be able to maintain the personnel that was hired in the company working and producing at a pace that compensate for the big payment you are incurring when you buy a business. Recruiting will require extra space, equipment and staff.
Companies can go bankrupt because they tried to grow too fast. If your cost precedes your increase in production your ability to pay your costs can carry down into bankruptcy. On the other hand if you wait too long to acquire all the resources needed for the expansion the effect of recruiting personnel will be lost.
The bottom line is that whatever is the way you are looking to make your company grow you will need enough capital to be able to endure expansion costs.
When you purchase another company risks that the personnel Independent contractors) in the newly acquired company leave, as a result of this situation you were throwing away your money. To try mitigating this the buyer should include conditions in the purchase agreement that protects him/her from personnel moving out of the company or diminish productivity of the business.
If you try to grow by recruiting unless your company starts with a strong core of productive agents, it might never grow.
As always the situation will be affected by the quality of advertising, That includes the ranking of their web page, if the new company uses already a virtual tour provider that allows yor business to show its listings with the qualkity require to attract prospects. Also the conditions of the market, the competition, and all the company related conditions from leadership, to training will be affecting your expansion. It is wise to seek counsel before taking any decision.
The fastest and costliest way of expansion is to acquire a established business. Many buyers do not have access to the cash needed for the acquisition, or the costs of maintaining the new business running.
Remember that if you have any needs of virtual tours in Miami Beach, Miami, Miami Dade or Broward counties Virtual Florida Tours is your best selection. Please contact us at (305) 331 8960 or through the internet at http://www.virtualfloridaraltours.com
Reference: Barlow, George; "What to Consider When Developing a Plan for Growth and Expansion"; retrieved from the Internet at: http://rismedia.com/wp/2008-07-10/what-to-consider-when-developing-a-plan-for-growth-and-expansion

Succeding in Today's Real Estate Business

2008-07-06T03:50:00.000-07:00

Residential real estate professionals need to get back to the basics of your business or you will certainly lose your customer base. The industry is dealing with the continuing impact of subprime and mortgage liquidity problems in the housing market.
Some realtors complain of the conditions of the market, but if their home is priced right, buyers will buy. You need to inform your buyers that our local market is simply phenomenal because prices are down and interest rates are historically low.
The realtor needs to research the market so he could list the house just one hair below the competition. You will need to go back to the basics-from sending out ‘Just Listed' and ‘Just Sold' postcards to holding buyer seminars and staying in touch with former clients and prospects. It is important to increase your visibility in your community and your marketplace. Knock on doors; reintroduce yourself. Do not forget to place in the contract an agreement with the seller that if the property is not sold in a certain time span, the listing price will be revisited for a possible reduction you need to be aggressive and realistic in pricing homes for sale. In this market is a good idea to target market your prospecting to homeowners who have to sell for whatever reason, such as deaths, divorces, company relocations and downsizing.
The simple solution to the actual situation in the marketplace is to spend your time increasing the number of your listing inventory. You need to spend 100 percent of your time focused on getting your product in front of the consumer
Even though the according to NAR 87% of buyers are starting their search in the Internet , only 5% of them is ready to buy in that moment. So as a realtor you need to educate your customers on the realities of the local marketplace. Also if you get a prospect to contact you through the Internet it is important that they receive immediate response. You can have an automated system in place or a personal assistant for customer follow-up a Blackberry can help also these are critical components to establishing and maintaining a good relationship with both clients and prospects.
Get yourself consider as the expert in your local marketplace, the easiest way to do this is by offering current housing data to the local media.
Most real estate companies are obtaining good results by using virtual tours and sending the tours and slide shows of properties on discs, using panoriders (this are riders with a panoramic tour of the property and a URL containing the address of the property that is attached to the virtual tour) thereby creating detailed exposure of the property for their prospects. This gives them more information than sending the standard photos and listing data.
You need to change your approach to fit today's changing marketplace. Do something different to rebuild your productivity or you may find yourself doing something different tomorrow to make a living.
Right now there are some signs indicating that Miami's real estate housing market is showing some signs of recovery. If you check you will see fewer foreclosure signs, that home prices are stabilizing and less time required for listings to sell. Maybe the most important of all is that the media is becoming more positive.
for any of your virtual tours needs in Miami Beach, Miami Dade or Broward counties remember to contact Virtual Florida Tours at (305) 331 8960 or www.virtualfloridaraltours.com.

Reference: Monte Helme; "Say ‘Yes' to Results - A Dozen Ways to Say ‘No' to Negativity"; retrieved from realestatemagazinefeedback@rismedia.com

Your Most Powerful Tool

2008-07-02T07:47:00.000-07:00

As a professional you do not have any tool more powerful that your mind. You need to think with clarity before acting, by doing this you will move upward and onward more rapidly in your career.

The best way is to think in your benefits as well as the benefits of the company of which you are part. To achieve this in a personal term is to increase your earning ability. In other words you need to apply the needed mental, emotional and physical energies toward getting the needed results for yourself and your company.
You should try to increase your overall effectiveness and contribution in all the areas of your life, especially and most important in your work.
Increase everything that you are doing that yield the maximum financial return. Also think in those activities that give you the greatest value and achieve the most satisfaction and increase them as much as possible.
As a realtor what are you doing to differentiate yourself from other professionals and make yourself more marketable. Are you using the Intenet in a valuable way? Are you giving the seller/buyer a service that other professionals in your area are not providing?
Have your company stablished a plan of action that separates your's from other companies offering similar services? Do you offfer virtual tours that will allow possible buyers from other states or countries to "visit " your listing without the need of personally coming to see it? Do you have a stablished folow up plan that will allow you to give drip information to possible clients?
Rememeber you can always count on your virtual tour provider for advice in how to make your listings more effectively presented to your prospects. If you have any virtual tour need in Miami Beac, Miami Dade or Broward Counties? Please call Virtual Florida Tours at (305) 331 8960 or contact us through the Internet at http:www.virtualfloridarealtours.com and remember that we strive for excellence.
Reference: Tracy, Brian; "Strategic Thinking", Broker Agent News E-Letter - Updated for Sept. 19, 2007

How to increase your presence on the Internet?

2008-03-01T17:59:00.000-08:00

Blogging is a useful thing in SEO, but 90% of blogs fail for the most elemental of reasons: Most people fall back into a pattern where they start failing to keep it posted frequently, which actually gets the agent PENALIZED by the search engines, because the content is not kept fresh. If you want a blog and you are not willing to invest the time required for this task, there is a company named Real Estate Blog Sites. They will run it for you and keep it current for under $100 a month. (Parker, 2008)
If you want to capture your clients make a habit of doing these two things: Use persuasive words that "hook" their interest, and include a well-defined call to action in every piece. You should:
Know who you are writing for and keep their preferences in mind as you write each word.
Put your message in terms of "you" rather than "I" or "we." People don't care about what "we" offer; they care about how your product or service can make their lives better.
Make it clear what your readers should do, think, or believe as a result of reading the information you present.
State your intention as a command—known as a "call to action." It can be as simple as "Call Today" or "Order It Now." (Saunders, 2008)
How much money you spend annually on marketing whose results are unaccounted for. Monies spent on classified newspaper ads, phone books, brochures, flyers, magazines, direct mail, bus benches, TV/Radio, pens, hats, jackets, shirts, Internet, billboards, logos, slogos, and blogs. STOP IT! Stop spending money without monitoring and evaluating the results of every marketing dollar you've spent and are going to spend!
In comparison with a newspaper ad that cost you around 200 dollars for a weekend a virtual tour give you exposure on the Internet for a whole year at a cost of pennies a day.
Also since we are dealers of Real Tour Vision and its proprietary system you can evaluate the hit statistics of the tour by webpage and in this way you can show your customer how effective is your advertisement.
References
1. Parker, Michael, What every agent needs to know about blogging, social networking, RSS feeds and SEO, Broker Agent News Feb 2008
2. Saunders, Karen, Capture clients with words that hook and graphics that kick, Broker Agent News, 2008

Our tours are reachig even farther

2008-02-09T03:43:00.000-08:00

We are proud to announce you that our tours can reach around 25 new sites including Zillow.com.
Clickin the linkbelow to see an example:
http://www.postlets.com/res/450899
We can also provide you with the information necessary to embed this into your webpage,or to other places that will accept this like ebay.
Also you can get a minipostlets

Online Marketing Internet Buyer vs. Traditional Home Buyer

2007-12-27T02:24:00.000-08:00

"If you are one of those many agents or brokers who don't really believe that the Internet is "the way" in real estate today, perhaps the following data compiled and presented by Leslie Appleton-Young, Chief Economist and Vice President of the California Association of Realtors® (CAR®) in her analysis of the Real Estate Market in California for 2006 will get your attention.
If you believe that the Internet is the single most important factor in your future success, here's your continuing proof that you are correct. Ms. Appleton-Young and CAR® have compiled data of such import and enlightenment that I felt some of it should be shared with you. Pages 62 - 82 of the study compare some distinctions between Internet vs. Traditional buyers and the findings are powerful. These charts show the undeniable trends and the clear preferences consumers have for the Internet approach to buying a home: since the year 2000, virtually every preference that used to favor the traditional approach has been turned upside down and the Internet approach is now overwhelmingly favored. This report is unequivocal evidence that if you are not on the Internet bandwagon and if you can't be found by people searching for homes on the Internet, you are completely "missing the boat" in the real estate business.
Here are just a few of the report's findings:
• 92% of Internet buyers found their agent on a web site; 63% found them through an Internet search engine; 0% of Internet buyers found their agent through brochures, flyers, yard signs or mailers to their home (does this tell you to spend more on Internet marketing and less on print?);
• In 2000, 28% of people said that they used the Internet as an important part of their home-buying and selection process. In 2006, 70% said they did;
• 86% of home buyers started using the Internet as part of their process BEFORE they started looking for a specific home;the other 14% did after they started looking, but BEFORE they contacted a real estate agent; that means that 100% of buyers surveyed started looking at homes first, agents second. When you combine that finding with the already existing one that fully 81% of Internet buyers stay with the first real estate agent they choose to contact, you can see a powerful case for being able to have consumers find you, first;
• Internet buyers spent an average of 4.8 weeks doing research before contacting an agent; traditional buyers only 1.7 weeks. That means an Internet buyer is better prepared and twice+ as less likely to waste your time;
• Internet buyers bought a home on average after spending 2.2 weeks looking for a home with an agent; traditional buyers spent an average of 7.1 weeks; How high would your productivity be if you could spend 2/3 of the time you now spend previewing with clients and could dedicate it to selling and marketing, instead?
• Internet buyers previewed an average of 6.7 homes with their agent (they had already eliminated ones they did not wish to see), traditional buyers previewed 15.4 homes; an average of just under nine fewer wasted showings per customer;
• Only 3% of all Internet connections available at the primary computer used for the home-buying process were dial-up: Internet home buyers and searchers are not sticking with dial-up, just as they are not sticking with traditional methods;
• The approximate distance between previous residence and new residence for traditional buyers was 25 miles; for Internet buyers, it was 242 miles (you can sell anywhere compared to traditional ways);
• Number of agents an internet buyer interviewed, on the median: 1; Traditional buyers? 3. (Why would you want fewer auditions and more certain retentions?)
• 69% of Internet buyers said response time was extremely important.83% of those buyers chose email as their favored communication method with their agent. 0% chose "in person." (The Internet is the new "office visit.")
• Internet buyers were more satisfied with their agents: 4.3 to 3.3 for traditional buyers, on a scale of 5 where 5 is "surpassed expectations."
• 35% of traditional agents listed "faster response time from my agent" as the one thing they would change, if they could, about their experience; Internet buyers? 0%!
• Internet buyers were far more satisfied in every important researched category of satisfaction than traditional buyers were; when asked the number one reason for satisfaction with their agent, 91% of Internet buyers said that satisfaction was because their agent "was always quick to respond." Traditional buyers? Their number one reason was "worked hard on my behalf", chosen by 62% of them, leading us to conclude that traditional buyers did not find their agents "quick to respond."
And, ladies and gentlemen (a little drum roll, here, please), 97% of Internet buyers said they would use the same agent again. Traditional buyers? 50%. (Twice as likely to be satisfied and twice as likely to give a referral, wouldn't you think?)
I'm not an economist, (I don't even play one on TV), but it seems to me that these data show clearly that:
1. Agents who sell via the Internet do not get as bogged down in unproductive chauffeuring to preview homes as traditional agents do;
2. Agents who utilize online marketing and have Internet buyers are more liked, more highly regarded, more likely to have a repeat sale with the client,
3. Agents selling to Internet buyers are likely to work only 2.2 weeks with a buyer before selling a property (vs. 7.1 weeks traditionally);
4. Agents committed to online marketing may be able to expand their market area to an average 242 mile radius of their location and remain effective due to online communication; people find you on the Internet, call you or email you, and use you to help them find a home in an area they may not know.
5. The money you may spend on brochures, ads, newspaper ads, and the like should be reconsidered and placed into Internet Marketing.
So, unless you are in a state of denial about the Internet's importance to real estate transactions, you need to do several things in your planning for this year, at minimum, if you want to be on the right side of these statistics.
1. You need to take most of the money you are spending on newspaper ads, brochures, glossy marketing pieces, etc., and invest it in your Online Marketing. Chances are good that you cannot possibly wisely spend all those dollars online; consider those savings as your bonus this year. It will be tough not seeing your comforting listings in the paper, but think of all the money you'll be saving! (And as more fuel for that fire, consider this: Ms. Appleton-Young's data also show that over 70% of people 65 and older read a daily newspaper, but only 35% of 24 year olds do. PRINT IS DEAD TO THIS GENERATION OF HOMEBUYERS!)
2. You need your own website showing your properties and you. You can get a very good one free. What are you waiting for?
3. Just having a website or a page on your franchise site won't cut it; you must be able to be found by people searching for homes in your considerably larger e-neighborhood. The Internet is a really big place and chances are that you and your site may be lost in its hugeness.
4. You must be permanently committed to "Thinking Internet." I have heard many agents say "I don't get that involved with Online Marketing; I've been successful the traditional way for 15 years." I offer those of you saying that now two things: my sincere congratulations on your past success and my sincere empathy for the frustration you will suffer as the curve gets further out in front of you. The report told us that in 2006, 63% of Internet buyers (who comprise 70-85% of all buyers today) find their agent on the Internet. We believe that within the next two years, this number will approach 90%. While this CAR® study does not report on every State in the Union, it does report on what is happening in America's biggest and most influential real estate market. No matter where you are, these data and trends are coming at you. You must get on board or you will be literally run over and left behind. Internet selling is the way, and within our lifetimes, the statistics will continue to favor online marketing of real estate in even greater proportions.
We at Blackwater and our affiliated companies, Compass Internet Systems and Web Reporter Tool, talk to agents from Martha's Vineyard to Hawaii, Maine to Florida, Texas to Canada and everywhere in between on a daily basis. That will never make us as well-informed as Ms. Appleton-Young, but I believe it gives us a good perspective on trends in this area, and here's what we think: all over the country, agents and brokers are showing interest in, adopting, and pouring their time, effort and money into online marketing on a scale that was unimagined only two years ago. That makes us certain that every professional real estate sales person who wants to stay in this business must adapt to Darwin's Law on its most brutal terms: Adapt, or die. In listing and selling terms, that means that you must make the effort to make the Internet make money for you, for soon, that is where it all will be made. Go to a search engine, enter your city, state and the words "Real Estate" or "Homes for Sale" or any other combination that describes what you do. Then hit "Search." Are you one of the ten people listed on the page? Based on the statistics you just read, if you are not that means there is a certainty that the searcher will not buy a home from you, but from one of the people on that list of ten; after all: "92% found their agent on the Internet; 63% of them used a search engine." 63% of 92% of all Internet buyers means that there's a 57% chance you are out of luck.
After years of evolution in the way we do things, the pace of that evolution is increasing. This is the time to get with the wave, this is not the time to miss it. As Eugene L. Meyer, former Washington Post writer and editor recently stated in an online article: "Search Engine Placement is Mission Critical (for Real Estate)." I'd put it another way: "Internet Marketing is the future of real estate sales." It's up to you: Stay where you're comfortable with Traditional buyers, or move the cheese and learn how to get more Internet buyers. In the long run, there will be fewer and fewer traditional buyers for you to pursue, but more and more Internet buyers. It seems plain where you need to be going!
Thanks to Leslie Appleton-Young, Chief Economist and Vice President of the California Association of Realtors® (lesliea@car.org) for producing this information and being so cooperative in permitting its publication, and thanks also to Andy Alexander of Shorewood Realtors in El Segundo, CA for bringing this study to my attention (www.andy-alexander.com). It was the excitement in Andy's virtual epiphany that got me onto this report; because - as he put it: "I just realized I must do better in my Online Marketing because that's where all the buyers are."
Andy, I couldn't have put it better, myself."
Reference:
Online Marketing Internet Buyer vs. Traditional Home Buyer Study: The Real Estate World is Changing even Faster than You Think!
Broker Agent News The Best of 2007
by Michael E. Parker
Remember for you Internet needs you can contact us at: www.virtualfloridarealtours.com
or by phone at 305 331 8960

Happy Holidays

2007-12-26T10:35:00.000-08:00

In this holidays I want to share with you this excellent paper from Brian Tracey, enjoy
Four Essentials for Happiness
Broker Agent News E-Letter - Updated for December 22, 2007
by Brian Tracy
You may have a thousand different goals over the course of your lifetime, but they all will fall into one of four basic categories. Everything you do is an attempt to enhance the quality of your life in one or more of these areas.
The Key to Happiness
The first category is your desire for happy relationships. You want to love and be loved by others. You want to have a happy, harmonious home life. You want to get along well with the people around you and you want to earn the respect of the people you respect. Your involvement in social and community affairs results from your desire to have happy interactions with others and to make a contribution to the society you live in.
Enjoy Your Work
The second category is your desire for interesting and challenging work. You want to make a good living, of course, but more than that, you want to really enjoy your occupation or profession. The very best times of your life are when you are completely absorbed in your work.
Become Financially Independent
The third category is your desire for financial independence. You want to be free from worries about money. You want to have enough money in the bank so you can make decisions without counting your pennies. You want to achieve a certain financial state so you can retire in comfort and never have to be concerned about whether or not you have enough money to support your lifestyle. Financial independence frees you from poverty and a need to depend upon others for your livelihood. If you save and invest regularly throughout your working life, you will eventually reach the point where you will never have to work again.
Enjoy Excellent Health
The fourth and final category is your desire for good health, to be free of pain and illness and to have a continuous flow of energy and feelings of well-being. In fact, your health is so central to your life that you take it for granted until something happens to disrupt it.
Peace of Mind is the Key
Peace of mind is essential for every one of these. The greater your peace of mind, the more relaxed and positive you are, the less stress you suffer, the better is your overall health. The more peace of mind you have, the better are your relationships, the more optimistic, friendly and confident you are with everyone in your life. When you feel good about yourself on the inside, you do your work better and take more pride in it. You are a better boss and coworker. And the greater your overall peace of mind, the more likely you are to earn a good living, save regularly for the future and ultimately achieve financial independence.
Control Your Attention
Life is very much a study of attention. Whatever you dwell upon and think about grows and expands in your life. The more you pay attention to your relationships, the quality and quantity of your work, your finances and your health, the better they will become and the happier you will be.
Action Exercises
Here are three things you can do immediately to put these ideas into action. First, take time on a regular basis to think about what would make you really happy in each of the four areas. Second, set specific, measurable goals for improvement in your relationships, your health, your work and your finances and write them down. Third, resolve to do something every day to increase the quality of some area of your life—and then keep your resolution.
Remember for you Internet needs you can contact us at: www.virtualfloridarealtours.com
or by phone at 305 331 8960

Virtual tours importance

2007-12-26T10:33:00.000-08:00

NBC’s Today Show quickly caught thousands of viewers’ attention Friday morning when they promised to let them in on facts that real estate agents haven’t told them. I abruptly stopped what I was working on and tuned in myself. They promised to give tips to homeowners for selling their houses.

With the power of the internet and the cutting edge technology that our virtual tours and 2D and 3D floor plans have to offer, I just knew that the virtual tour field as a whole would have to be discussed. I was right - we were the second mentioned!

They introduced an expert from a data collection agency whose information was produced using actual facts, rather than the just opinions. Facts are facts…and after compiling research here is what we can learn:

Don’t overprice the house, you don’t want to have to reduce it later. By reducing the price, you are giving buyers the leverage to bargain price with you, resulting in back and forth offers and usually resulting in a lower price than you were anticipating.

Be Web Savvy! 72% of people are finding their homes online. Use photographs and virtual home tours to grab online viewers’ attention. Look at the price range filters and always go under the threshold of the higher bracket. That way, when viewers put in their search parameters, the listing won’t be left out over a dollar.

Most of us have overheard agents discussing when the best day to list a home is. Many feel in the commercial market, it is on a Monday, for the residential market, it is on a Thursday. In all actuality, the facts are reporting that the best day to debut all property is on a Friday. 7-8% more people look on Fridays than any other day!

List on Craigslist.org. Many agents don’t take the time to list on Craigslist, when 7-12% of people are looking on Craigslist.org rather that the brokerage sites. This is a large percentage of people who use Craigslist daily, as if they were reading the local newspaper. For commercial agents, Craigslist.org is critical. Many people look all over the country for investment properties or businesses. The internet allows them the flexibility to see properties nationwide.

The last fact that the press was eager to share with homeowners is that they need to search for foreclosures in their area. If there is a foreclosure nearby, then they should wait to list.
Remember for you Internet needs you can contact us at: www.virtualfloridarealtours.com
or by phone at 305 331 8960

Optimize your web page

2007-10-12T16:18:00.000-07:00

This will be the first part in a series on how to enhance your business using Google’s many tools and gadgets. Today we are going to talk about adding your business to Google Maps.
http://maps.google.com is a program that allows users to search for business listings, get driving directions, add real estate for sale (which will be the focus of our next article), and much, much more. The ease and handiness of Google maps allows you to type in a simple search term such as “traverse city virtual tour company”, and Google will bring up a list of companies with their information and their exact location on the map.
To optimize your business using Google the first thing you will want to do is to verify your site with Google. You can do so by logging in to your Google account via: Google Webmaster.
Make sure to take advantage of the opportunity to provide details about your business to Google and potential customers for that matter. This consists of:
Required Information - All your basic information such as your company name and description, address and phone number. Users (aka: potential clients) will be able to view this, so check for errors and make sure to peak their interest! For the best SEO be sure your company name and company description contains priority keywords that you want your business to be found under.

Hours & Payment - Add hours of operation and forms of payment you accept.

Photos - A newer feature recently added by Google. This allows businesses to upload 10 photos to their profile. Showcase those panoramas!

Custom Attributes - Be as descriptive as you want. You can add all kinds of custom attributes to your business. I suggest an “areas served” and a “schedule a tour” section.

Reviews - Now anyone can log in and post a review next to a business listing, but Google also incorporates reviews from a variety of other online sites.

Coupons - Google Maps also has the ability for your business to feature coupons. What better way to showcase your virtual tour company?
Google Maps demonstrates how the presence of local search is continuing to expand online, offering user’s instant access to business contact information, maps, directions, reviews, photos, and so much more than traditional directories have been able to offer. Even if you do not have a website or work out of your home your virtual tour company can still take advantage of this fantastic way to optimize your business.

Clarifying Homeowners expectations

2007-09-30T02:41:00.000-07:00

Excerpt from Steve Harney’s, paper on Broker Agents News
The challenge for realtors is the homeowner's perception of what their home should sell for. As recent as June 2007, a survey by the Boston Consulting Group found that fifty-five percent of American homeowners believe their home is worth more today than it was one year ago. In reality, in virtually all locations, home values have gone down.
Unfortunately, some real estate agents, who see their income decline as the number of home sales go down, are now operating in a state of fear. As a result, when they meet with prospective clients, they may be concerned they won't get the listing (and thus not get a commission), so they tell clients what they want to hear - namely that their home will sell for top dollar in record time. Then when the house doesn't sell and the client agrees to lower the price, the client/professional relationship becomes strained. Clients can't help but feel their agent gave them inaccurate information. 2
To truly shine as a real estate agent today, you simply need to educate yourself on the realities of the market and then tell each client the truth. Help clients understand where the pricing used to be, where it is today, where it will likely be three months from now, and most importantly, why it is that way. Only then will clients be able to make a realistic pricing decision that will enable you to help get their home sold.
1. Increased inventory
As owners se the market declining they started placing their properties to sell. This allows buyers to have a better negotiating opportunity, and tends to lower prices.
2. Increased mortgage rates
In the last months mortgage rates has increased and this disqualifies customers. Also some mortgage companies have closed their doors.
3. Increased mortgage restrictions
Now buyers need not only a down-payment but a very good credit to qualify. This again reduces the number of possible customers that can buy your house.
4 Increased vacancy rates
A lot of people bought homes in the supposition that the increased value of the home will allow them to make an easy profit in very little time with the turn around of the market a lot of this house are being sold at a loss affecting the other properties in the neighborhood.
5 Increased foreclosures
If one house forecloses in a neighborhood process go down 5% if 8 houses foreclose prices go down 20%. We are expecting a big number of houses foreclosing in the following years. If you have any doubts go to Broker Agent Foreclosures and check foreclosures in your area.
The New Era of Real Estate Sales
If someone wants to sell their home for a decent price, they have to list now - not three months from now and certainly not a year from now.
So when you conduct your next listing presentation, be sure to educate yourself on these five factors, and then explain how these factors impact your clients' selling decision. Let clients know the realities of the market and what their home will likely sell for given these five considerations.
1. Harney, Steve, Managing Homeowner's Expectations Broker Agent News E-Letter - Updated for Sept. 30, 2007

Your cheapest and more effective marketing tool

2007-08-21T16:20:00.000-07:00

The importance of becoming a good listener
1. Good listeners use their thought speed to advantage. They constantly apply their spare thinking to what is being said:

a. Are the speaker’s facts accurate?
b. Do they come from an unprejudiced source?
c. What are the speaker’s motives?
d. What has the speaker left out?
e. Is the speaker dealing in facts or inferences?
f. Am I getting the full picture or only what will prove the speaker’s point?

2. Good listeners try to find something interesting in what is being said, something that can be used to help create a new idea or solution or be used in some other way.

a. What is the speaker saying that I need to know?
b. Is that really a practical idea?
c. Is the speaker reporting anything I don’t know?

3. Good listeners avoid getting too excited about a speaker’s point until they are certain they have heard it through and understand it.

4. Good listeners concentrate and instinctively fight distraction. They close a door, turn off the radio and interrupt only when it is necessary to clear up one point before proceeding to another.

5. Good listeners focus their attention on a central idea or theme. This helps them to remember the facts cited.

6. Good listeners restate and summarize the speaker’s point of view. They also look into the speaker’s face and maintain eye contact.

7. Good listeners enable the speaker to express what the speaker has in mind and thus make the speaker more able to give listeners the information they need.

Importance of Search Engine Optimization

2007-08-20T02:16:00.000-07:00

Post quest technologies recently published this article that I am just making available to you.
So, would you like to know more about search engine optimization (SEO)?

Not sure? Not sure you should even care?

Well, let me ask you this: when someone searches for homes in your area on the Internet, would you like your website to be the first result to show up? In a nutshell, would you like to drive more traffic to your website?

If so, then this post is for you. Furthermore…

In a recent post I wrote an extensive article about creating a real estate marketing plan and…just recently realized that I failed to mention SEO in the web marketing portion.

Here’s why SEO is important to you and your website and SHOULD NOT be a strategy left out of your marketing plan:

In 2005 the NAR reports that nearly eight out of ten home buyers start their home search online. More importantly, as noted in an earlier study, 76% percent of people used the first agent they contacted.

That means if you can be the top agent on Google for home searches in your area, then you’ll hog all the business. Which means a lot in our 2007 belt tightening market.

Before you get started, however, the first thing you need to decide is whether you or somebody else is going to optimize your site.

You might be the type who likes to tinker with your website or you might be someone who doesn’t. If you don’t, then choose a seo company or consultant. (I don’t have any recommendations at the moment, so you’re on your own.)

After that, get to work…and keep some of these the following ideas in mind as you pursue your seo marketing strategy.

Eye tracking studies have shown that searchers scan a search results page from top to bottom and left to right, looking for a relevant result. Placement at or near the top of the rankings therefore increases the number of searchers who will visit a site. Cool, not-to-be-missed heat map stuff.

However, more search engine referrals does not guarantee more sales. SEO is not necessarily an appropriate strategy for every website, and other Internet marketing strategies can be much more effective, depending on the site operator’s goals. You make the decision, but my feeling is that every agent website should be optimized. This article is just to make you aware of those OTHER things, like viral marketing, out there to drive traffic to your site.

A successful Internet marketing campaign may drive organic search results to pages, but it also may involve the use of paid advertising on search engines and other pages, building high quality web pages to engage and persuade, addressing technical issues that may keep search engines from crawling and indexing those sites, setting up analytics programs to enable site owners to measure their successes, and, most importantly, improving a site’s conversion rate.

SEO also should, obviously, generate a return on investment. However, search engines are not paid for organic search traffic, their algorithms change, and there are no guarantees of continued referrals. Due to this lack of guarantees and certainty, a business that relies heavily on search engine traffic can suffer major losses if the search engines stop sending visitors. That’s why SEO should be one strategy among many that drives traffic to your site.

In addition to paid search listings, websites also often receive search traffic from free, so-called organic listings. These visitors are obviously no problem, except that you can’t count on them as a sustainable strategy, since organic listings can change without notice.

According to notable technologist Jakob Nielsen, website operators should liberate themselves from dependence on search engine traffic because of this fact. That is, don’t put all your eggs in one basket.

And remember this: three or four months down the road, when you’ve got some mileage on your seo strategy, let me know how you are doing. Okay?

Here’s to your SEO success!

ref: Postquest technologies

How to promote yourself?

2007-08-14T18:37:00.000-07:00

Viral marketing is a marketing phenomenon that facilitates and encourages people to pass along a marketing message voluntarily.[2] Viral promotions may take the form of funny video clips, interactive Flash games, advergames, images, or even text messages.
It is claimed that a satisfied customer tells an average of three people about a product or service he/she likes, and eleven people about a product or service which he/she did not like.[3] Viral marketing is based on this natural human behaviour.
This is a great, low-cost way to spread an idea, your name, your brand because if you have the right ingredients your idea can take off and spread like wild fire…without you even breaking a sweat.
One of the most popular campaigns we picked was created on a $1000 budget. A few others were created by in-house shops or single-man operations. That’s not to say you shouldn’t hire an experienced viral agency to help (many of the best are represented here too.) But, if you can’t afford it and you are a *very* clever and/or lucky marketer, viral can still be do-it-yourself tactic.
Now…for that list. Real estate agents of all stripes–prepare to be inspired!
1. Known as “Real Estate’s Greatest Sales Legend,” the slimy Ted Truit and his interactive website (quiz and all!) created a firestorm of response from Virginia REALTORS, and birthed an effective image campaign for VAR.

So try to demonstrate why you are totally different from your competition. One way is to use your business card placing as many testimonials from previous clients as possible on the other side.

Disclaimer

2007-08-02T03:32:00.000-07:00

This blog is provided by the Virtual Florida Tours to provide visitors and clients with information about real estate marketing that can foster professional and/or personal development.
Virtual Florida Tours disclaims responsibility for any of the content or opinions expressed on this blog, including, but not limited to content or opinions regarding any products or service mentioned on the blog.
Virtual Florida Tours disclaims liability for any damages or losses, direct or indirect, that may result from use of or reliance on information contained in the blog.
This blog may contain links to other Web sites operated by third parties. These links are provided as a convenience to access the information contained therein. Virtual Florida Tours has not reviewed all of the information on other sites and disclaims any responsibility for the content of any other sites or the products or services that may be offered on or through those sites. Inclusion of a link to another site does not indicate any endorsement or approval of the site or its content.
Virtual Florida Tours reserves the right to edit, remove or deny access to individuals or content that it determines to be unacceptable, including, but not limited to, any abusive, profane, rude, defamatory, or anonymous comments.
Blogarama

How to make your online presence more effective?

2007-08-01T01:46:00.000-07:00

Due to the trend of consumers starting all their research for houses on the Internet it is a must to have an effective Internet presence.
You should make emphasis on the specific information of your neighborhood, the real state trends, developments and HOA. Include any information that makes your neighborhood unique. DO NOT try to match regional or national websites this is tempting but it is a bad idea. Focus on being local that is your advantage.

Focus in no more that three key areas and do them well. If you do sellers your webpage should include information on recent sales, remodeling tips and home valuation services. Make your site the best place for consumers in you target area. Make emphasis on these three areas in the front page of your website and how exceptional quality of information they will find there.

DO NOT hide information remember consumers are in oyur site seeking for information they are not there to know you. Share the data and you will give them a sense of reciprocity this will make the consumer more willing to engage you and trust your motives, therefore they will be more willingly to share their information when asked.

In order to keep them coming you have to offer newsletters, saved MLS searches, and quarterly home valuations or they will not come back. Remember to build trust. Don’t overwhelm visitors with your personal information or sales statistics. ALWAYS explain why you are requesting personal information and state upfront you will respect their privacy.

Periodically remove your real estate hat and think like a consumer. Go to your website and experience it as a consumer will do. What will a seller be looking for? What about a buyer or someone looking to relocate? Since your site can not be everything for everyone. Be sure that it appeals your market area.

Consumers use the internet because it is more privet, efficient, eliminates unwanted marketing, and provides the needed local information. If you want to attract consumers to your website or email newsletter, you must match their needs.

Points to remember: The site must be kept simple, the key data should be emphasized, you should specifically explain your privacy protections and local information should be easily accessible to your audience. Try this and you will have online success.

How Virtual Tours Can Save You Money?

2007-07-29T03:57:00.000-07:00

How much money they are you investing on different forms of advertisement.
Classified ads cost A LOT on a per-day breakdown (like usually $100 for 3 days of local advertising) or $200 for a weekend at the Herald, then break it down to cost per day vs.a virtual tour could cost a maximum of $120 and it will offer you 365 days of Internet exposure so your cost per day is only $0.32 and you addis being showed worldwide. Tours can also work as lead generators for people looking to sell a house.. ‘uh, hun look what this guy does for his seller.. maybe we should use that realtor…” a classified ad CANT do that. No one looks at a classified ad and says, WOW that’s awesome marketing… so make it their choice.. “for the cost of little more than one day classified ad I can market your property on multiple websites including your local MLS, www.realtor.com, www.move.com, www.homeadvisor.com, www.homestore.com, www.AOLanywhere.com, www.digitalcity.com, www.netscape.com, www.monstermoving.com, www.excite.com, www.thehawaiichannel.com, www.theindychannel.com, www.thejacksonchannel.com, www.news4jax.com, www.thekansascitychannel.com, www.nbc4.tv, www.thelouisvillechannel.com, www.themilwaukeechannel.com, www.theksbwchannel.com, www.theneworleanschannel.com, www.newsnet5.com, www.wnbc.com, www.channeloklahoma.com, www.theomahachannel.com, www.wesh.com, www.nbc10.com, www.thepittsburghchannel.com, www.thechamplainchannel.com, www.turnto10.com, www.thekcrachannel.com, www.10news.com, www.moretv32.com, www.wpbfnews.com, www.clickondetroit.com, www.local10.com, www.nbc6.net, www.wsbtv.com, www.wsbtv.com, www.wsoctv.com, www.whiotv.com, www.kfoxtv.com, www.ktvu.com, www.wjactv.com, www.wftv.com, www.foxreno.com, www.wtov9.com.
Think for a while. How much money are you wasting by using real estate books WITHOUT a virtual tour. The RE book can cost $200-$500 or more per page and only have a shelf-life of a month or so depending on publication and area. If they use these really expensive ads as lead generators for a VIRTUAL tour website, then they can keep interested actively shopping buyers involved on their VIRTUAL tour website. You know that the last NAR research showed that buyers shop from 8-12 weeks before they make the decision to buy.. Are you using your marketing dollars effectively?
Isn’t it MORE WISELY to appeal to buyers in all phases of the active ‘shopping process’?

If you want more information please do not hesitate to call us at (305) 331 8960 or visit our web page at http://virtualfloridaraltours.com

Testimonials

2007-07-29T03:53:00.000-07:00

Dear Gabriel,

This is a long overdue letter of thanks for your contribution to my success in Real Estate.
I am always looking for new and better methods of marketing my listings and when I decided to join the believers of the virtual tours, I did an extensive and careful research that took me to your company.

I chose you amongst many and I am glad I did. The Internet exposure through my virtual tours has brought me response from Buyers and praise from Sellers and that sums up to success.

Zizi Careaga, CRS
Coldwell Banker
305 378 5058 x283

Our virtual tours are a necessary function in our sales. It allows our clients to see our model units with out leaving the comfort of their home or office. Virtual Florida Tours has been the perfect fit for our needs. They offer a quality virtual tour, responsive service and affordability; thank you Gabriel, for such a great job.

Chris PerezVice President of Sales Coordination
ACGG Development Group
305.665.1250 O.
305.725.8913 M.

"Great service, very professional, I'll use it again and recomend it"Gabriela CapurroSelect Properties of America Inc.RealtorOutstanding professional service! Virtual Florida Real Tours has been key in my listing presentations and a great tool to set it aside from others offering potential buyers an upfront unveiling of the property they're interested in saving time and bringing real buyers to the seller. Keep up the GREAT work Gabriel! You've definitely become a keeper for me!

Yisel Duque, Realtor
Centurion Professional Realty
305.216.74569

Virtual Tours are a really necessary tool for any realtor who wants to provide the seller with the best possible advertising trying to capture the biggest amount of prospect buyers in the local, national or international market.

Vivian Duque
Centurion Professional Realty
Realtor & Mortgage Broker
305 436 8818

''The Real Tour Vision marketing system has added a new, dynamic dimension to our marketing program, as well as drastically reduced our traditional marketing expenses. Real Tour Vision has helped streamline company transactions through promoting in-house ancillary business (increasing our company’s bottom-line!) and is used to recruit tech-savvy agents.''Bob GarrowGarrow-Loftis/GMAC Real Estate
''Virtual touring saves time, money and professionally presents the property to the most prospects.''Bob BrickRE/MAX Bayshore Properties, LtdIf you want more information about virtual tours please contact us at 305 331 8960 or at our web page http://www.virtualfloridarealtours.com/

Tips for selling in a buyer’s Market

2007-07-28T04:07:00.000-07:00

Proper pricing really is simple, it's just not easy. Gordon Gecko told us," greed is good". But, a house is only worth what someone is willing to pay.
Bob Corcoran recommends the following seven steps to get you listings sold
1. Price it right. In a buyers' market, it's all about price. And being overpriced is the number one reason why listings linger. Paul Pastore even recommends placing it 10% below market value.
2. Build impeccable lead generation and management systems. This is a close second to being overpriced as to why listings gather dust out there on the market. A lack of leads and leaving leads on the table (or stuck in voice mail, or lost in cyber space or just plain being ignored) are recipes for a stalled real estate business. You need to be able to respond as soon as possible to your prospective clients.
3. Boost your co-op commission. Yes, other Realtors are an obvious source of buyers, and you need all the help you can get in this market.
4. Stage it properly. Start the staging process with professional photography. What do you think goes through the buyers' minds when they see a mediocre photo? Or even worth you paid for a Virtual Tour that takes weeks to be scheduled and ends with walls that come towards you, or the walls look as if everything was inclined, or you have to get out of the view window to select another part of the house.
Here is some information about what buyers think help them make a decision and buy their house.
Property Virtual Interactive Neighborhood
Information Photos Information Tour Maps Information
Useful 96 96 90 80 80
Not Useful 2 2 5 9 12
Not Used 2 2 5 11 8
Just think for a while: how can you pack all this information in only one place.

Visit to Homestead

5. Polish your listing presentation. Start your listing presentation by educating sellers on the buyers market. And then pop this question: Do you want to lead the market or follow the market? You are the one letting the seller know which is the price at which the house can be sold!
6. Prospect around the neighborhood where you've just listed. This may not sound creative but you'd be surprised how many Realtors don't do it anymore. Don't forget the basics

7. Auction the home. Yes, this sounds drastic, but if you want to really lasso some buyers, this is clearly one way to do it. I really don’t know about this one but Corcoran says it could be worth trying it.

References:
Pastore, Paul, The 10 percent Solution,downloaded from:Broker Agent News E-Letter, Updated for July 29, 2007
Corcoran, Bob, Seven Creative Ways to Get Your Listings Sold,downloaded from: Broker Agent News E-Letter,- Updated for July 29, 2007

How can I increase the results of advertising?

2007-06-23T16:41:00.000-07:00

“I know that half the money I spend on advertising is wasted; the trouble is I don’t know which half.” - P.T. Barnum
In other ways, if I invested 100 dollars on an add in a magazine or newspaper I should expect:
1. that 4 out of one hundred readers will open the section where my add is.
2. Hope tha at least one out of all the readres call me.

But how can I make my presence more effective on the Internet?
Here are some recommendations from the experts on how to obtain a better return from your hard earned money. The following is an excerpt from

•Melani Broman Broker Agent News E-Letter 12/ 2005

•1. Branding yourself by ensuring that you meet customer needs in a way that is different from your competition. Ask to yourself: Do customers really see me as different from my competitors? Use your website to differentiate yourself. You can do this by providing reports and local resources that will allow you to become the local expert.
•2. The top reason consumers visit real estate websites is to SEE LISTINGS. Do not fall for a common mistake in multiple websites displaying the whole MLS, You need to include advanced home search functions on your website. that way you are separating your home search function from other agents? Get IDX, provide free home updates via email, add rich media virtual tours and take advantage of the many enhanced mapping capabilities on the market.
•3. Understanding and selecting the most effective keywords that potential visitors are using to arrive at your website is essential to optimize your Internet investment. Use tools like WordTracker and prepare your list of keywords. Remember the importance of keyword prominence and place your keyword phrases early in the body text of the page. Try to craft the beginning text so that it is appropriate to be used as a description of your site. Using techniques such as these will increase your chances of being ranked in the top search engines, thus increasing the number of visits to your site.
•4. Measure Link Popularity. Measure and monitor with tools like MarketLeap. Link Popularity refers to the quality and the quantity of external links to your website and it is one of the most important criteria used by the search engines to determine your site's ranking. The benefits of increasing your site's Link Popularity are:
a.Improved search engine rankings, particularly on Google, Yahoo and MSN.
b.Direct increase in traffic via links from other websites. Ask for reciprocal links through your business network. Real Estate is largely based on building a strong referral network, which will help you grow your business.
•Warning: Enhancing your Link Popularity through reciprocal links is an important traffic building strategy, but it is not a quick fix. It may take two months or longer to see the effect of your new incoming links on your search engine rankings.

if you want our specialist to stusy your webpage and recommend you how you can increase the traffic to yur webpage? Contanct us at duquegl@virtualfloridarealtours.com or place a comment to this blog.

Picture is from rockpointe marketing inc.
If you want more information about virtual tours please contact us at 305 331 8960 or at our web page http://www.virtualfloridarealtours.com/

Testimonials

2007-06-15T08:31:00.000-07:00

Our virtual tours are a necessary function in our sales. It allows our clients to see our model units with out leaving the comfort of their home or office. Virtual Florida Tours has been the perfect fit for our needs. They offer a quality virtual tour, responsive service and affordability; thank you Gabriel, for such a great job.

Chris PerezVice President of Sales Coordination
ACGG Development Group
305.665.1250 O.305.725.8913 M.

Virtual Tours are a really necessary tool for any realtor who wants to provide the seller with the best possible advertising trying to capture the biggest amount of prospect buyers in the local, national or international market.

Vivian Duque
Centurion Professional Realty
Realtor & Mortgage Broker
305 436 8818

"Great service, very professional, I'll use it again and recomend it"
Gabriela Capurro
Select Properties of America Inc.
Realtor

Outstanding professional service! Virtual Florida Real Tours has been key in my listing presentations and a great tool to set it aside from others offering potential buyers an upfront unveiling of the property they're interested in saving time and bringing real buyers to the seller. Keep up the GREAT work Gabriel! You've definitely become a keeper for me!Yisel DuqueCenturion Professional RealtyRealtor305.216.74569

''The Real Tour Vision marketing system has added a new, dynamic dimension to our marketing program, as well as drastically reduced our traditional marketing expenses. Real Tour Vision has helped streamline company transactions through promoting in-house ancillary business (increasing our company’s bottom-line!) and is used to recruit tech-savvy agents.''
Bob Garrow
Garrow-Loftis/GMAC Real Estate

''Virtual touring saves time, money and professionally presents the property to the most prospects.''
Bob Brick
RE/MAX Bayshore Properties, Ltd

If you want more information about virtual tours please contact us at 305 331 8960 or at our web page http://www.virtualfloridarealtours.com/

What is better than a yard Sign

2007-06-08T14:36:00.000-07:00

Recently a friend gave me this article that I will like to share with you.
What's better than a Yard Sign? A Virtual Tour!
by Anne Sperling
Broker Agent News E-Letter - Updated for March 11, 2006
It used to be that a yard sign was a Realtor's surest way to attract attention to a listed home. Things have changed!
Today, one of the best tools in a Realtor's toolbox is a Virtual Tour on the Internet. Since 1995, the use of yard signs and newspaper ads per listing have decreased, whereas the use of Virtual Tours by real estate agents have increased from .001% per listing in 1995 to 15% of all listings in 2004. And the numbers in 2005 will follow the same rate of growth. (see below for NAR statistical data).
Contrary to old thinking, the use of Virtual Tours on the internet does not take business from Realtors. Virtual Tours are simply a formidable tool available to savvy Realtors who know that offering a listing prospect a Virtual Tour option not only helps to market any property, it also enhances the image of the Realtor at the listing presentation.
Sellers' suspect that a good Virtual Tour is today's way to catch the attention of house-hunters, and they are right. NAR statistics confirm that 74% of buyers begin their search for homes on the Internet two weeks before they make contact with a Realtor.
If this doesn't sell you on Virtual Tours, note this statistic: Most of these online buyers hire the Realtor they notice first while searching online Virtual Tours. This means that the Realtors who have listings or ads on Virtual Tours are much more likely to attract clients-these numbers make you want to put Virtual Tours online of your doghouse!
Based upon this information, it is not surprising to see that the first Realtor's who gambled and invested in Virtual Tour marketing hit the jackpot. More listings, higher profits, and the highest rate of business growth in our industry correlates to the use of Virtual Tours, whether the market is cold or hot, large or small.
Real Trends, a magazine which keeps statistics in this area, found that the average agent for 2003 produced 11.2 sides. However, according to our latest information, (counting only the listing side) the agent using Virtual Tours to market themselves and their properties had 15.3 listing sides in 2003, and four extra sides alone means thousands of dollars to these Realtors.
Everyday, we in the Virtual Tour industry hear success stories from excited Realtors who tell us of a "big boost" their Virtual Tours gave their business. Sometimes agents report their customers were overjoyed because a Virtual Tour facilitated a quick sale to an online buyer. Often an agent calls us to tell of new clients generated by our attractive, well-placed Virtual Tour.
In an industry where clients are careful about their decisions, at a time when some sellers think Realtors make "too much" money, it is refreshing and exciting to see real emotion and complete satisfaction in clients whose agents delivered the goods. How do you elicit this emotion? By delivering what the client wants, and these days, clients want Virtual Tour marketing.
There is no better way to build your business than a long-list of happy customers who can't wait to tell their friends about the great job you did, and about how beautiful their home looks online.
Business today is created mostly by BUZZ, and if you want the BUZZ to be about you, hang-out a Virtual Tour "online yard sign" on the internet every time you setup a yard sign. It's the best marketing tool money can buy.
A sure bet for increasing profits in 2006 is to add a virtual tour for all your properties.

If you want more information about virtual tours please contact us at 305 331 8960 or at our web page www.virtualfloridarealtours.com

6 Costly Misconceptions about Virtual Tours

2007-06-07T07:49:00.000-07:00

1. All virtual tours are the same.

Wrong. Virtual tours that use panoramic photos that just rotate are not true virtual tours. Most agents would refer to these type of tours as 'spinners'. Spinners lack a professional presentation and can at times do more to make the viewer nauseous than actually get them interested in the property being viewed. While spinners qualify as a virtual presentation in nature, they simply do not qualify as being a tour of any kind.

2. Virtual tours will not help with market exposure

Untrue. At any time you can take the number of listings that are currently on the market and compare that number to the number of listings with a virtual tour. This number almost never exceeds 10% of total properties on the market at any given time. But take into account that the National Association of Realtors Profile of Home Buyers and Sellers shows that use of the Internet to search for a home has risen from just 2% of buyers in 1995 to 77% in just 10 years time. Technology is clearly changing the way that consumers search for a home. The 2006 Realtor® technology survey shows that the Internet is the third most important source for new leads surpassed ONLY by referrals and repeat business.

3. Having a virtual tour professional produced costs too much money.

False. When searching for a virtual tour solution, keep in mind that you can either save more money or more time. There is an inherent downside to opting to save more money. You have to spend time. When you take into account all of the time that you would have to spend taking pictures, stitching the panoramas, ordering the pictures within the tour, adding text and graphics, not to mention uploading the tour, converting it to disc, and distributing the tour on the internet you have to consider what you COULD have done with that time. You could have been farming your area, keeping in contact with sellers, calling prospective buyers & sellers, following up on buyer leads, arranging showings and scheduling open houses. Instead you could have spent YOUR TIME listing and selling more homes. As a real estate agent you can always make more money, but you can never make more time. A small investment in a professionally produced virtual tour gives you a competitive edge over other agents that opt to waste time sitting on their computer while you go after that next listing.

4. Putting a virtual tour on realtor.corn and my website is good enough as far as virtual tours go.

False. This is essentially the same as saying that placing a sign and a classified ad is good enough. While it can work, it does not give you optimum exposure for your property listing. But the question here again is time. Do you have the time it will take to post your virtual tour to major Internet portals all over the internet.

When you opt to same money you are making a decision to spend time and reduce your return on investment. The 2006 Realtor technology survey show that 42% of realtors receive more than 10% of their leads from the internet, so doesn't it make sense that if you are going to place your virtual tour on the Internet that you should expose the virtual tour as widely as possible? A professional developed virtual tour can be produced and submitted to major portals without any additional expenditure of time, freeing you up to list and sell more homes while simultaneously bringing in new business.

5. Sellers don't care what kind of virtual tour is used

False. With ever increasing technology, home buyers and sellers are becoming more internet savvy than ever. The 2006 Profile of Home Buyers and Sellers shows that over three quarters of buyers viewed the internet as a useful tool in their search for a home and that a majority of buyers drive by a home that they have seen online. A high-quality interactive virtual tour cannot only take these buyers on a full tour and get them to come by the property but can also turn motivated buyers into motivated sellers of their own home. Now that the motivated buyer is a motivated seller, with whom are they going to list their property? With an agent that uses classified ads or the agent that found them, their new home without leaving the couch.

6. Virtual Tours sell homes.

False again. Realtors sell homes. Realtors that use all available media to showcase and market their listings are those that sell homes. Virtual tours offer incredible marketing opportunities that simply were not available to the realtor or the consumer just 10 years ago. The use of a virtual tour simply increases your market penetration to bring you more leads for the property and for yourself. Your presentation on the internet is very important to both buyers and sellers and can mean the difference between a new lead and missed opportunity. Everyone knows what social networking can do for a real estate agent and this is evidenced by the high percentage of new business that comes from referrals. The question is, would you send a new referral a handwritten and crumpled business card or would you send them a presentation that speaks volumes of you and demonstrates your command of marketing tools that are significantly different from what other agents are offering. Spinners, dark pictures, unprofessional virtual tours and ineffective marketing can leave a lasting impression on your referral business.

Properly-distributed profession a I ly-prod uced virtual tours bring you more leads from a world-wide network of resources and free you up to follow-up on those leads. This gives you a major advantage over the competition that has yet to comprehend the difference between saving time and saving money.
If you want information on what to ask a virtual tour provider please send a comment containing your name, company, phone, e-mail address and the best way and times to contact you. or contact our company directly at 305 331 8960

The information that your competition does not want you to know

2007-06-07T07:46:00.000-07:00

And now for the information that your competition does not want you to know

Virtual Florida Real Tours is a full service provider of Real Tour Vision, which is a recognized leader in interactive 3600 panoramic virtual tours and virtual tour software.

Over the past 7 years Real Tour Vision has built up one of the world's largest and most powerful networks of virtual tour providers. Each Real Tour Vision full service provider goes through specialized training in virtual tour technology before becoming authorized to produce tours with the Real Tour Vision name. Real Tour Vision authorized virtual tour providers are also provided with ongoing training throughout the year to keep in pace with changing technologies. Agents that use Real Tour Vision tours benefit from the experience of a worldwide network of virtual tour providers.

Intelligent business owners who demand the best virtual tour software to showcase their real estate business online choose RTV virtual tours over the others daily.

You won't find another virtual tour company online that can promise that you will get compliments from real estate home sellers. RTV providers utilize only company proprietary virtual tour software and precision virtual tour hardware, which is created in house by an RTV staff of 360' home tour engineers and virtual tour software developers.

RTV has been in the virtual tour software industry from the start, so when you select a Real Tour Vision Full Service Provider to produce your tours you know that the best virtual tour company in the world has trained your virtual tour provider.

If you would like to leave a message for a Real Tour Vision full service provider in your area, please leave your name and number after the tone and a Real Tour Vision virtual tour provider will call you to answer any questions that you may have about your new marketing strategy.

Thank you for visiting our blog and reading our virtual tour consumer awareness message.

If you want to receive more information please semnd a comment containing your name, phone, e-mail address, and the best way and times tocontact you.

4 Questions That You Should Ask Every Virtual Tour Company

2007-06-07T07:43:00.000-07:00

1. What type of virtual tour do they provide?

Some 'virtual tour' companies capture only still pictures and then use these pictures to create a motion effect. Make sure you are not paying a virtual tour price for a motion slide show. There are companies that charge as much as $70-$100 for these tours and the final product is nothing more than a $20 photo presentation.

2. Is the final version of the virtual tour interactive?

How do they define 'interactive'? Make sure that the final product being created looks professional and has in-tour controls. Links to the side and the bottom of the tour are distracting and unprofessional. Interactive tours combine the power of a virtual tour with the 'point-and-click" functionality of the Internet. They have on tour 'hot-spots' that enable viewers to go from room to room without ever leaving the viewing area.

3. What kind of camera lens do they use?

If they use a fish-eye lens or a one-shot lens will the virtual tour software remove distortions in the tour (i.e. remove the fishbowl effect)? High-quality virtual tours should not distort any feature of your properties. If not corrected, fish eye lenses and one-shot lenses cause countertops and walls to look rounded and windows will look bowed. When shopping around for virtual tours, be sure to opt for companies that use a wide-angle lens. The wide-angle lens captures more of the property without sacrificing quality.

4. Are they experienced?

Find out right away if your virtual tour provider has experience. Although inexperienced companies will be very eager to sink their teeth into a job and will probably give you a very good 'deal', you do not want them 'practicing' on your dime. Make sure to get references or check out testimonials.
Thank you for visiting our blog and reading our virtual tour consumer awareness message.
If yo wish to obtain more information please add a comment containing your name, Company, phone, e-mail address, best way and times to contact you.