Google experienced a 5% drop in market share since last year, so it has recently made changes to how websites are ranked on its site. Through the latest Google Panda update, more weight is now given to sites that have relevant, quality content. Some of the relevant content that Google is looking for comes from blogs, social media and video.

What is Google Panda? It is a filter that is designed to identify what Google believes to be ‘low quality pages’. If there are too many low quality pages, the Panda filter effectively flags the site. Panda gives a site-wide penalty, not a page penalty. So if a certain percentage of your pages fall below Panda’s quality algorithm, then the whole site suffers. The biggest mistakes are:

1. Lack of original content page to page
2. Pages with empty content
3. Overlapping and redundant articles
4. Too many ads

So what can you do to increase your internet exposure? Fresh material for your website, (property) videos, (resident) testimonials, usage and linkage to social media sites will all aid to increase your organic search positioning with Google. Fresh content should be added on a regular basis.

 Here are a few examples of how NRTDA is using relevant, quality content for our developments:

 Tribute Lofts Blog

Gallery Residences Resident Video

1010 Midtown Links to Facebook 

Want to know more? Read here and here.

John Andersen

Craig Dodd

Allen Snow

Heyward Young

We are excited to have the Top Real Estate agents in Atlanta to our team!

1) Be Location Intelligent.  Illustrate to the consumer that you are an expert in that particular location. Provide links to illustrate neighborhood stats or give information about the parks, school systems or retail in the neighborhood.

2) Say it Color.  Statistics state that the consumer is more likely to read a 4 color mailer.

3) Follow the U.S.P.S. Rules. For mailers, that means you need to stay on top of a host of new rules and requirements if you want your mail to be delivered at the lowest possible cost. 

4) Personalize the Experience.  Personalize the mailer to create an experience for the consumer to want to call you or go to your website.

As you can see, direct mail is still a viable tool to generate leads.

A recent article in Realtor Magazine by Dirk Zeller called “Keeping Your Outlook Up” , discusses the key to a successful real estate career is a positive attitude.  Yes, the media is all doom and gloom regarding the economic front, but Dirk lists the following 5 tips on how to keep a positive attitude:

1. Reduce your consumption of news on television and in print. Watch enough to keep current, and no more.

 2. Read something that is motivational and uplifting. There are hundreds of great books and other resources that will lift you up, and they don’t have to be related to real estate. Among the most well-known are the titles in the Chicken Soup series, but there are also many others.

 3. Listen to something of value when you are in your car. As real estate professionals, we spend a lot of time in our cars. That’s time we can spend learning.  

4. Study the marketplace. Take the time to track the key numbers in the marketplace. You must know some of the key stats and be able to use them in your discussions with prospects, clients, and other practitioners.

 5. Decide each morning to have a great attitude! Attitude should be a conscious decision, not an unthinking reaction.

Yes, it is a great time to make a smart buying decision!

10 Successful Rules of New Homes Sales

On a football team every player understands their role. If there is confusion, there is loss of opportunity. The same goes for sales, says Manny Schatz, principal of Professional Builders Services. Schatz and sales manager Cyd Vacio co-presented at the International Builders’ Show in Orlando Wednesday, describing the role real estate practitioners play in serving buyers while divulging essential tips on how to succeed in new homes sales. Here are their 10 rules to follow:

1. Be Prepared: This goes for your attitude, your offering, and your understanding of the local market. Know who your buyers are and what they need. You also want to know what your competition is doing – read data, secret shop, and open shop. Quick Tip: create a competition spreadsheet and keep it current.

2. Greeting: Everyone’s heard the same typical sales greeting …a handshake, an exchange of names, and the same five-minute spiel. But those potential clients may have already seen eight to 12 homes and as many as 20 floor plans. Then how do you stand out? Each client should be greeted uniquely and appropriately to establish a great first impression. “If you begin like every other sales team, you’re your own worst enemy,” Schatz says. “Consider what it takes to begin to establish a relationship, because essentially that’s what you’re doing.” He suggests welcoming someone into your business as you would welcome someone into your own home. Quick Tip: Make eye contact, smile, repeat their name, and give a compliment, such as about their children, car, or sweater.

3. Qualifying Through Questioning/Listening: Be an active listener. Your successes reflect how well you listened to and interpreted your clients’ points. A good start to becoming an active listener is visualizing and accepting yourself as a caring person, Schatz says. “If you’re truly listening, you’ll detect clues to help guide them to the right decision,” Schatz says. Quick Tip: Practice your listening skills every day, take careful notes, allow your clients enough time to understand the process, and never interrupt.

4. Home Presentation: Homes generally evoke feelings of comfort and warmth – and in new home sales you want to convey that the home was built just for your clients. “People do not buy on specifications; they buy on emotion,” Schatz says. “They have to move in emotionally before they purchase.” Set the stage before they see the home – talk about the community, the yard, evenings on the front porch. By the time you get to the interior demo, you should already know the buying motives of your clients – point out those features that they shared as being important to them. Do they like to entertain? Point out where they can put the buffet table or the space in the backyard for summer get-togethers. Quick Tip: Vacio uses her smartphone to snap a photo of her clients in their favorite room of a house, which she then e-mails it to them. Memorable and special for the clients, and a great way to get their contact information, too!

 5. Homesite Presentation: The attributes of that particular piece of land – views, surroundings, trees, birds, neighboring community – these features help create the unique value of that property. Don’t just walk your clients around outside; instead, explain to them those features of the property. Quick Tip: Give your clients a checklist of those special homesite elements along with a highlighter to get them involved.

6. Objections: Objections are part of the home buying process – often they are valid concerns that have to be addressed; otherwise the client won’t purchase. Objections can also be raised out of fear of the unknown. Hear your clients out. This is where active listening helps. Also consider bringing up objections first to neutralize the potential concern. “You can either address it now or later,” Vacio says. Quick Tip: Practice, practice, practice. Make a list of potential objections and methods to overcome them. Carry it with you at all times and add to it.

7. Continuous Closing: Think of the closing as beginning at your initial meeting. What you’re looking for is agreement from your clients, and each time you get an agreement, you can continue on in the process. Quick Tip: Work toward gaining trust and increasing involvement, then the closing will come naturally.

8. Serve Well: “A sale is not something you pursue, it’s something that happens while you’re serving a client,” says Vacio. Communicate, be informed and informative, and treat clients as you’d want to be treated. Be accountable from start to finish. “It’s not magic, just good common sense,” Schatz says. Quick Tip: A follow-up within the first 48 hours demonstrates professionalism, attention to detail, and concern for clients’ needs, Vacio says. Send a hand written note thanking them for their visit/appointment by the next morning.

9. Competition: Evaluate your rivals. Who are they? Sometimes your biggest competitor may be a buyer’s current home. Ask questions about their current home and why they’re shopping for a new home. Is it size, energy efficiency, or other specific deficiencies with their current home? Quick Tip: Track your competitors’ PR stories and Web pages in addition to their prices.

10. Follow Through to Follow Up: When a prospect leaves your office, go over all the points that were made. Did you miss something? Write it down; keeps notes. Quick Tip: Try reaching out to commercial developments. It worked for Vacio. She was representing a new residential development and regularly dropped off literature and attended events of a nearby commercial project. Her follow-up helped her sell one of the homes to the commercial development’s vice president.

Source: Erica Christoffer, REALTOR® Magazine

The OBIE Awards began in 1980 and have grown throughout the years to now feature more than 100 building, remodeling, marketing and personal achievement categories in which to enter. The OBIE Awards, named after the obelisk shape of the actual award given, are the premier awards in the new home construction industry. Awards are given to recognize outstanding achievement in new home building, marketing, remodeling and personal achievement categories. The Sales and Marketing Council of the HBA presents the annual OBIE Awards every November. OBIE Award recipients stand out among their peers and are recognized for their oustanding achievements.

I want to specially recognize one of our team members who was an award winner Saturday night. Congratulations to Shira Broder, sales associate at 10 Terminus Place,  awarded the 2010 Rookie Salesperson of the Year!

To preview the 2010 Gold and Silver Winners, click here.

It’s hard to believe, but there are only 74 days left in 2010.  With October sales off to a great start, NRT Development Advisors‘ sales agents are using these 74 days to maximize their sales success story for 2010 and ride into 2011 on a wave of positive momentum.

I think we are in for a different – a much more positive – fall and winter than what the real estate market typically experiences due to reduced levels of customer traffic and, therefore, decreased sales activity during this time period.  In fact, Fannie Mae predicts national Q4 new home sales absorption will increase by 38,000 units over Q3 levels (representing an 13% quarter over quarter increase).  That means an agent who sold ten homes in the third quarter of this year should be on pace to sell eleven homes in the fourth quarter.

NRT Development Advisors’ agents are busy setting personal sales goal for the remaining 74 days of 2010, and we’re ready to enlist all necessary resources to help get them there. They are diligently:

• Revisiting their existing customer databases and setting daily outreach goals to encourage past prospects to rediscover the communities that the agents represent.
• Calling the top 20 coop agents who have sold at their communities and providing them with an update on sales, commission schedules and any new incentives, as well as inquiring about the buyers with whom they are currently working.
• Making sure that each prospect has a distinct action and follow up plan.
• Networking with fellow NRT Development Advisors colleagues and requesting that they refer prospects to your community, when appropriate.
• Reanalyzing if their community’s pricing product, and positioning are competitive within the market.

There are plenty of buyers out there looking to find a NEW home for the holidays.  Our agents are staying proactive and ahead of the market, ensuring that the last 74 days of the year are the most productive yet.

Variations of the “market uncertainty” theme are some of the most frequently cited objections we are hearing from current prospects in the market for a new home.  This is why the “consultative sell” as opposed to the “hard sell” is proving more effective in this market.  It’s great to be a strong closer, but attempting the close without listening to your prospects will almost always result in NO sale.

The consumer is overfed with conflicting information, and therefore they are starved for expert advice.   Become their expert.   Resolve the following question(s), and the “market uncertainty” prospect will become your next buyer:

 “Prove to me that this is a great time to buy a home”.

“Provide me with the confidence to make a buying decision.”

“Share with me why this property represents a great opportunity?”

 NAR recently released their top “10 Market Facts for Uncertain Times” to aid Realtors™ and their clients in understanding the current market.  They are listed below:

1. The economy is growing, though slowly.
2. The private sector is finally creating some jobs.
3. Consumer confidence remains low, though clearly off bottom.
4. The 30-year mortgage rate is at generational lows.

5. The national median-home price is stabilizing.
6. Other home-price measurements also are showing price stabilization.
7. Home price-to-income ratios have returned to fundamentally justifiable levels.
8. Economists expect price increases in upcoming years
9. Delinquencies are high but recent loan originations are performing well.
10. The long-term path to self reliance may be helped from long-term housing-wealth gains.

NAR also released a Powerpoint presentation which expands upon each point, and can add yet another selling tool to your arsenal.   Please take a minute to download the presentation and review the slides.   They are excellent taken individually, or as a whole.

 Why not print the entire presentation, or save to your laptop or Ipad (!!), to review with your particularly analytical clients? 

 You will be positioning yourself as THE market expert who your client can trust to aid them in making the right decision.

 The powerpoint link is:  ( http://www.realtor.org/wps/wcm/connect/9e2ed38043cfc555926ffb34cafa6d66/Market+Facts+%28September+2010%29+edits2.ppt?MOD=AJPERES&CACHEID=9e2ed38043cfc555926ffb34cafa6d66

 (copyright National Association of REALTORS®.  Reprinted with permission)

In a tough economy, developers are utilizing unique marketing tactics that are eye catching to draw attention to their properties.  Check out this CNN video to see how one of our properties, Villa Sonoma, a resort-style condominium building in the heart of the Perimeter area, is using sign spinners to drive traffic to their property.

I just finished reading  in the Sales + Marketing Ideas magazine the article “What’s Working” by Scott Stroud.  The article was right on target! The article basically describes the tactics and strategies that the builders and developers are using to buck the current market and actually make sales and grow their businesses. 

The described strategies are exactly the tactics that NRTDA is using to increase sales momentum at our  communities.

1) Know your competition.  It is important to know who you are selling against.  Pricing,  incentives and marketing tactics are changing daily and you need to be ready to adjust.

2) Consumer Peace of Mind.  People want to have confidence in the builder and or developer.  They want to know the owner is stable as well as if a condominium community understand the stability of the HOA.

3) Communicate the Value Message. Yes, price is very important to the home buyer but other factors impact the value message as well.  Location and lifestyle are crucial to the value proposition.

Grab hold of the above strategies and you can increase your sales velocity!