There's an app for that!

I've been in real estate in Fair Oaks and the Sacramento area for a while now. Starting out, after working as a public school teacher for 27 years, was certainly exciting, sometimes nerve-wracking, and quite a bit different in many ways than it is these days. Of course, the tenets and principles of excellent service, communication and keeping up on your client's 'must haves' is what makes for a great foundation, but wow, have things gone warp-speed in the past few years!

Okay, so maybe I'm dating myself a bit, but back when I started in real estate, the way clients discovered what was for sale was to look in the classified section of the Sunday paper, circling prospects, or driving around their neighborhoods-of-choice perusing the for sale signs. Buyers and sellers of today are so well-equipped with the tools for property searches, neighborhood comparisons, market analysis, loan information...even ratings and reviews of real estate agents. There's an app for virtually everything. The availability of information to the public makes our job more dynamic for sure. That's not to say that all the information that's available out there is entirely accurate (more on that on a follow-up post) but generally the trend has given rise to more well-educated buyers and sellers which is something we really enjoy. 

Not only has the general public become more savvy regarding real estate transactions, but so have we. My team and I utilize many of the platforms available out there and are always striving to keep abreast of what's new and exciting. It really seems like every week there 's a new tool to add to the real estate arsenal. We love the ability to upload listings to our Youtube channel which gives viewers more of a feel for a home and allows us to provide short learner-videos to provide great tips to those wanting to learn even more about the area's real estate market. If you are struggling with how to incorporate technology into your real estate marketing, you aren't the only one. Many of us have been in the business for quite some time and there was definitely an 'old-school' way of marketing properties or attracting new clients. Those ways aren't entirely outmoded, but have new approaches and are multi-faceted. Word-of-mouth happens online on sites like Yelp, Facebook and Twitter. If you are reading this, then you already have at least an idea. Blogs are for more than just sharing information. Web-logging started out as just another method of story telling, but now blogs are so much marketing, stacked with keywords, SEO attributes, linking, etc. and nothing seems to be done 'just because'. 

Don't get me wrong, sometimes all of this technology is confusing and can be downright frustrating, but it's not slowing down anytime soon. We just try to embrace it, keep up on it and have fun with it. And when we can't figure something out...we just ask a teenager.