A few weeks back Mashable featured a new start-up by the name of Dwellicious. Apparently this new service will work very similar to that of Delicious ( a social bookmarking site), but optimized for the real estate niche. According to Mashable  Dwellicious is optimized to work with the following: Century21, Coldwellbanker, Frontdoor.com, Har.com, Homes.com, Realtor.com, Redfin, Remax, Rentals.com, Trulia, Yahoo Real Estate and Zillow. No mentions of eppraisal.com or Hoodeo just yet, but we shall have to do something about that.

In the article the author seems sure Dwellicious’ future is in the hands of the real estate agents. I can see why with the dynamic updates on property listings. An agent could very well begin to bookmark prospective properties for clients and the changes over time are automatically updated letting them keep track of price changes, new photos, etc. This will make a great additional service where they can share their bookmarks with any clients in their area.

“I can’t get the price down for the home you want now, but I will monitor it for you and you can check the status of this home via my Dwellicious bookmark. Here is the link…”

Dwellicious is due to launch on January 7th 2009 at the Inman Real Estate Connect Conference in New York City.

Have you been wondering how you can leverage your following on social networks to help promote your business & services? iList is the latest online tool for managing your online marketing campaigns to social networks and the web in general. Real Estate professionals and online marketers are strongly focusing their advertising efforts towards social networks. iList integrates with popular web services like Facebook, MySpace, Twitter, FriendFeed, and even Craigslist

Now you can create an online ad similar to Craigslist and distribute it through most of your social networks for all your contacts to see. iList also has a built in sharing feature which allows your social network contacts to share your listing with all their contacts, creating some what of a viral effect. This is just another great way to integrate yourself with the web by allowing the people in your circle to help you promote your business.

In case you haven’t heard, there is a device out there these days by the name of iPhone.  If you’re not currently using one you may just want to reconsider. The iPhone is making life easier and more efficient for professionals and consumers across the board. With the emergence of the Apple App Store, many professions are getting turbocharged by the useful applications that are developed daily by existing companies. Let’s look at one in particular from Trulia.

“Use your iPhone to search all homes for sale near you, find nearby open houses after Sunday brunch, or daydream about your favorite beachfront getaway. Scroll through the color photos or see results on a local map. See full property details and then get directions from Google. It’s just that easy and it’s free! It works great on the iPhone 3G, the original iPhone and the iPod touch. Your home buying experience will never be the same.” -Trulia

Instead of fighting this technology or avoiding Trulia for fear of losing leads, why not harness it to enhance your relevancy and offerings to your prospects? Real estate sites are becoming more and more popular by the day as consumers want information on demand, and there is always a need for pros to provide guidance and insight. The next time you’re scheduling an open house with a client, provide a real-time, dynamic tour by knowing where the homes are in the area they are interested in. Check out the video…

As a real estate professional your main focus in business has to be people. Converting those people into clients can be a tedious process which heavily weighs on trust and reputation. In the past the main avenue for getting new leads and networking was handing out business cards whenever possible. With the increase of social networks and the Web 2.0 culture, real estate pros must engage people where they frequent – the web.

So I guess you’re wondering what this has to do with business cards? There’s a neat tool I want to share that encompasses both worlds of live interaction and social networking online. It’s called a dropcard, and it allows you to give people you meet your business card via text message or over the web. Not only does it allow you to give your contact and business information, it also enables you to connect with these new contacts via the various social networks you have a presence in. I didn’t mention the awesome functionality that’s built into this process to integrate contacts directly into the iPhone, but I will have to save that for a future post…

Today, new real estate social networking site iwantanoffer.com officially launches to the public. The site launches complete with the ability to add friends, create a public profile, upload a walkthrough video, schedule a visit, showcase testimonials, and make an offer! The site surprisingly has a lot of features and I am sure that I am only scratching the surface.

The application doesn’t offer all of this for free. You can register for free, but there is a fee to list properties. I question the fee structure (for consumers); especially with the current list of free sites out there to market properties. But, it doesn’t hurt to actually launch with a business model.

Overall, I think the site has a lot of potential and is definitely worth checking out.

On Tuesday Hotpads.com, the map-based rental listing site, announced they are entering the “for sale” listing market. The launch includes over 200,000 property listings from existing partners and clients, but anyone can list a property for sale on the site. And broker feeds are accepted.

At first the map interface is a little overwhelming (especially in a dense area), but after zooming in the data becomes much more manageable. The map also has a great filter on the left hand side, which makes searching even easier. Once you have found a property, you can quickly view the listing details in a bottom pane. 

The interface becomes a little cluttered with the bottom pane, but all the listing details are easily accessible via the bottom tabs. 

How do they compare to Trulia, zillow, craigslist, and Move? Really, in this particular battle the interface doesn’t matter. It is about the number of listings and the number of eyeballs. Agents/listings/consumers/etc will go with the one with the most and right now it is Move.com/Realtor.com. However, Trulia is gaining!

Overall, this was still a great launch for Hotpads, and they did come out swinging with over 200k listings. The Property Listing Battle continues!

ActiveRain is a social network and blogging platform for real estate professionals. They started up last summer, and have cranked their way up to almost 45,000 registered users. That’s A LOT of traction… and fast!

Well, Matt Heaton and Jonathan Washburn have rolled out an advertising platform for their system. For a minimum of $10/per campaign you can start putting up impression-based ads on the ActiveRain network. Your campaign can be targeted at specific pages on our site, specific user groups, members or non-members, regional areas (state, county, city), or all users on all pages.

Other items of note:

1. The minimum campaign budget is $10
2. Ads have SEO value – Search engines walking the site they will see your ad as normal content.
3. You can choose to have your ad displayed only 5 times to a particular user session or choose to have it be unlimited
4. You can stop/start your ad at anytime and update your bids whenever you wish

The SEO Link Problem

[Update: this has since been changed/fixed on ActiveRain]

I would like to bring up one little point – bullet number 2 in particular. I’d be careful of claiming that at this point in time. You see, I follow some of the conversations on SEO, and I know that Matt Cutts has stated Google’s position on any type of sponsored links to be expressly tagged or mentioned as “sponsored” somehow.

Now Google doesn’t own the internet, nor have they been anointed as the “high priests of what you’re allowed to do online”. However, they do control a lot of SEO traffic – the lion’s share, so that allows them to be the big bully if they so choose. Basically, I’d be cautious of making that SEO claim, since all it takes is one little algorithm adustment to add make ActiveRain links be devalued as much as PayPerPost and Text Link Ads (which they’ve done).

In Summary
Okay, besides all that, I still think it’s a great platform for advertisers who have something to sell to real estate professionals. Smart marketers will do more than just advertising here, they will get in on their conversations and prove their value.

Just out through our eppraisal.com Labs, eppraisal Mobile is an easy way to access property valuations while on the road. Simply text an address to 972-413-9622 or to values@eppraisal.com (in the subject line), and eppraisal.com will respond with an estimated value range of the property.

By texting the street address, city and state, eppraisal.com will respond with an estimated value range for the property. More information about the property, neighborhood, or connections to local real estate professionals can be gained by visiting www.eppraisal.com.

Let us know what you think!

This nugget from Pat Kitano of Transparent Real Estate:

“Facebook is the white pages,
Your blog is the yellow pages.”

There were more thoughts on why it’s important to be a part of the online conversation. With those of us who blog, that tends to be the central node of our informal social network. We do still tend to take part in the “real” social networks such as Facebook, LinkedIn and Active Rain though.

Dustin Luther, of Move.com, brought up the point that anytime you link to someone, you “vote” for them. This is the foundation of the informal network.

Anil Dash spoke about the reality that human behavior hasn’t changed – we’re still the same. Social networking is what humans are born to do. The sites are just revealing the types of things that we do anyway. These same behaviors are just manifesting in a new medium.

In our quest to provide true value-added services for consumers, eppraisal.com has launched a home inspector network. We have partnered with the country’s oldest and most respected home inspector organization, the American Society of Home Inspectors (ASHI) to provide this service.

Anyone can enter in their zip code and get back a list of home inspectors in their area.

Through this partnership eppraisal.com has launched its National Home Inspector Network where consumers gain immediate access to more than 6,000 home inspectors across North America. With the new ASHI partnership consumers can quickly locate a professional home inspector to provide an evaluation of a home’s physical structure and accessible components of a home, including central air conditioning systems; interior plumbing and electrical systems; the roof, attic and much more.

This is in line with our other offerings for professional services. Now on eppraisal.com you can take advantage of our Appraisal Network and our Home Inspector Network.

Since 1976, ASHI has worked to build consumer awareness of home inspection and to enhance the professionalism of its membership. The ASHI Standards of Practice and Code of Ethics serves as a performance guideline for home inspectors, and is universally recognized and accepted by many professional and governmental bodies.