Agent Success

Free Online Listings for All HomeGain Agents

Now BuyerLink and Source4Sellers agents can join AgentEvaluator agents in uploading home listings to HomeGain.com for free. Listings will also be displayed on the newly streamlined HomeScout.com site to maximize listings’ exposure.

Add Your Home Listings

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"Power of Blog"

Dear Agents,

As a successful real estate agent, you know that the Internet heavily influences today’s buyers and sellers. In order to gain the critical competitive edge to earn their business, you strive to deliver the message to your prospects and clients that you are a leading edge, Internet-savvy agent who can drive the best deal for them.

Blogging is one of the latest trends for getting additional exposure of your online business.

Why build a real estate blog?

Many agents are starting to participate or create a real estate blog in their local market to help build their online business. Done properly, blogging can be a very effective marketing tool. Written consistently, you may just be able to generate those extra leads you’ve been looking for, and close more business.

When you think about it, communication is key to selling real estate. As an agent, every day you communicate a wealth of market information to your prospective buyers and sellers. At the initial appointment, you strive to build rapport and trust, and hopefully secure your prospect’s commitment to work exclusively with you. Your negotiation skills allow you to aptly communicate the value of your buyer’s offer to the seller. And your communication skills facilitate your ability to close the sale.

Blogging is communication of another sort, done online. The blog perfectly suits the real estate industry since communication is essential to the way in which agents conduct business. Some agents have focused a majority of their business around blogging. Writing a blog presents you with many opportunities to build rapport and trust. Imagine how easy it would be to close a prospect when you have already earned their trust prior to your first meeting!

What can blogging do for you?

If done correctly, blogging can help you differentiate yourself from the competition, resulting in more sales for you. It can help you build brand awareness. It is cost effective and affords an opportunity for exchange of information. Just as with any new undertaking, it takes time to become experienced in blogging, but with persistence can be effective and pay great dividends.

Take time to discover what online strategies work optimally for you, perfect those strategies, and you will find your online real estate business increasing beyond what you might have imagined.

Good luck with your blogging!

Peggy Boehm

Director, Client Services, HomeGain

Licensed Real Estate Broker, CA and WA

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Did you know? March is AgentEvaluator “Buy 2 months, get 1 month free” month for new members.

Ask HomeGain

Dear HomeGain,
Every month, I am asked to fill out a "lead status report". Often, I can't remember most of the leads that appear here and have trouble assigning an appropriate status. Why do I have to fill this out?

--James Tiberius

Dear James ,

The lead status report was implemented to help you and HomeGain track the status of your leads. It appears once a month around the 15th and must be completed if you wish to continue responding to new leads. Many of our agents on the program receive more than an average of 25 leads per month; with some receiving double or triple that number. After just a few months, your total amount of leads can multiply several times over and trying to remember each status can be a daunting task.

When updating those leads where you did not receive a response from the consumer, or received an indication from the consumer that they have changed their intent, updating the proper lead status can save you time. The Lead Status will move these leads automatically into your ARCHIVE and keep your functional folders (prospects and clients) well organized.

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Questions about how to do anything on HomeGain.com?
Submit your question.

HomeGain News

New BuyerLink Feature

Occasionally HomeGain is informed by BuyerLink customers (consumers) that they are unable to access some of our agents' websites. This usually happens when an agent's website or their Internet Service Provider (ISP) is having a performance problem that prevents the customer from reaching the agent's web page. This can occur without the agent or HomeGain knowing about it, and that could result in lost customers.

While HomeGain can't ensure that your website will always be available, we have implemented a new, free quality assurance service that determines when BuyerLink customers are unable to reach you through your website. The way the new service works is simple and will not impact your website in any way. It also does not count as website traffic and will not affect your costs.

The new service works like this: Once a day we will send a small automated query to your website to check its availability and performance. If everything is working fine, you need do nothing as it means your BuyerLink customers are reaching you. If a potential issue is identified, an alert will be sent to our Client Services staff who will research it and quickly contact you. We'll provide you with as much information as possible about the problem so you may address it with your website or your Internet service provider.

HomeGain is providing this service to you for free because we want to be sure you and your customers are getting the value from HomeGain that you deserve. This service is not designed to replace your own efforts to ensure the availability of your website, and HomeGain will not be liable in any fashion for any failure to notify you about any problems with your website.

If you have any questions about the new program, please email our Client Services department at agent@homegain.com or call us at 888.542.0800 x4200.

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Did you know? HomeGain was named “2nd Most Popular Real Estate Website in 2006” by Hitwise™.

HomeGain Clubs

Congratulations to HomeGain's newest Gold Club and Platinum Club members. These members represent our top performing real estate professionals nationwide.

February New Members

Agents who have closed $75,000 in gross commissions from HomeGain leads

Carl Rizzuto Coldwell Banker Residential Real Estate, FL	Karen McCabe Coldwell Banker Residential Brokerage, NY
Vic Mechanic First Weber Realtors, WI	Jeffrey Austin,ABR,CRS,GRI New Homes Advisory, Inc., AZ
Leonard Klein Schweppe-Burgdorff ERA, NJ	Lila Nicolls RE/MAX Peninsula, VA
John Fletcher RE/MAX Results, MN	Rob Reinmuth Acquire Homes, CO

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Market Perspective

“Buyers & Sellers Inch Closer Together in Price”

The gap between how much buyers are willing to pay for a house and how much sellers expect to sell for narrows.

Dear Agents,

From time to time, we at HomeGain pass along information to you from the profiles of our home sellers and home buyers to give you an insight into recent consumer behavior in the real estate market. By doing so, we hope to be able to help you monitor changes in the marketplace as they occur.

Our combined challenge in the industry is to stay ahead of the pace of the market, which buyers and sellers drive, while at the same time educate those same clients on the current state of the market so they can successfully buy and sell, and you can earn a commission.

Since most areas of the country are currently experiencing a very strong buyer’s market we thought these statistics might help you.

Seller Prices - In February 2007, the average desired home sales price for HomeGain sellers was $344,268 or 7.6% LESS than what it was over the first six months of 2006. This reduction shows sellers are realizing that, to sell their home, their home price must be closer to what buyers are willing to pay in today’s market, not what they were willing to pay 18 months or more ago.

Buyer Prices - In February 2007, the average HomeGain home buyer expected to pay about $224,150 for a property, or over $120,000 LESS on average than what a typical HomeGain seller intended to sell for. This is an advantage for buyers.

Buyer – Seller Difference - The good news is there has been significant progress recently in closing the gap between HomeGain buyer and seller home price expectations. In fact, the gap has dropped by 25.9% to where it is today from last November’s difference of $162,000. This is a strong indicator that the market is stabilizing in many areas of the country as we head into the spring selling season. This means easier negotiation when it comes time for buyers and sellers to chat financially.

February 2007 - Average Time to Close – HomeGain sellers on average across the nation took 180 days to close from the date they submitted a profile with us until the close.

We continue to recommend to our buyers and sellers they follow the advice of their professional real estate agent to accomplish their goals in a challenging environment.

Your feedback is welcome and we invite your comments. Please send us an email at pr@homegain.com.

Best wishes for a terrific spring selling season!

Regards,

Peggy Boehm, Director, Client Services

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