RealtyTechBytes.com » Cool Freebies

It’s (not) the most wonderful time of the year!

Jerry Kidd — Mon, 08 Mar 2010 03:00:21 +0000

With apologies to Andy Williams and the song “It’s a most wonderful time of the year”, because this surely is not the most wonderful time of the year! Here in the US, it’s tax season, with the April 15th deadline for filing income taxes looming large on the horizon, many of us are going through our annual stress test. Normally I just waltz over to computer, click a few buttons and produce a printout that I give to my accountant and I am done.

All of that changed this year because I changed status from being an employee to starting my own business. This occurred at the beginning of November and with all I have had on my plate, I just overlooked keeping the entries up in my accounting program. Up until today, the last time I made an entry was in the beginning of October. When I logged in today to have it download all my transactions from my checking account, all of the transactions from October and November were no longer available from my bank! That meant that I had to hand enter 60 days of wild spending!

Part of my problem was that making the switch from employee to business owner means that I now get to file a Schedule C in addition to my normal Schedule A. What expenses go where? Can I deduct this? What about that? Does it go on C or A? Yikes! I think I need to see an accountant!

So, in order to mend my evil ways I have been on the hunt for something that is aimed at small businesses like mine. Something that will automatically help me with my Schedule C reporting, my Profit and Loss, and oh yeah, something that will calculate my Estimated Tax payments and remind me to send them in!

Lucky for me, I found Outright.com! It’s designed especially for the small business owner.

From their website, the following paragraphs really caught my eye:

“Automated bookkeeping software for entrepreneurs & bookkeepers. Track income and expenses from credit cards, invoices, receipts, or even merchant accounts.”

And then this one: “Know right now what you can deduct come tax time. Stay on top of tax deadlines, manage W-9s, file 1099s, and automate your Schedule C; avoid costly fines and late fees from the IRS.”

So, I signed up. The first thing I had it do was to import my business checking account info from Wells Fargo. It was smart enough to only import the 2010 transactions (Obviously, I have turned over a new leaf and will be on top of things for this year!). Next I had it import my PayPal account. And finally, my business credit card. Once I had all of the expenses in the program, I went through each item and made edits to show the purpose of the expense, and also what line item on a Schedule C it belongs in. I can also add my income items to see an instant P&L graph.

There is more to it, but this is all that I have worked with so far, so I’ll close. But, not before telling you that it is absolutely free! Again from their website “Outright is free, simple bookkeeping and will remain so. We do plan to charge a nominal fee for innovative services yet to come.”

Drop everything and go check it out! And, if you know of some other free software or websites that are designed for the sole proprietor or small business person, please do leave a comment and share the love with us all!

Copyright 2007, 2008, 2009, 2010 - All rights reserved - http://RealtyTechBytes.com Did you know that I have arranged for readers of my blog to receive licensed software for free? And that there is something new everyday? Click on the link to go to the blog and look for Give Away of the day in the sidebar.

It’s (not) the most wonderful time of the year!

Let Google help you grow your business

Jerry Kidd — Mon, 22 Feb 2010 03:00:15 +0000

Lest you think that I am Google’s payroll (I am not, but that’s not a bad idea!) I want to tell you about a page that Google has just for you, the Real Estate Professional.

You NEED to click on this link: Google Tools for Real Estate Professionals now and read every word and follow the instructions that it contains.

Here is what Google has to say:

Here’s why it pays to use Google to connect to home buyers and sellers:

Google can help generate real estate referrals and leads.

Google has more real estate searches than other search engines combined, and more unique visitors than all real estate specific web sites.

Google is the most-used search engine for researching and purchasing real estate information and services.

The Google Network reaches over 80% of U.S. Internet users.

Because I think that it is so important that you do so, I am going to keep this very short. Take the time that you normally spend reading RealtyTechBytes and go read Google Tools for Real Estate Professionals instead. You can thank me later!

About the Author: Jerry is a 23 year veteran of the real estate industry and has done it all from listing and selling, to managing single and multiple offices. He has been the IT Director for a major SF Bay Area company, and has also been the Training Director for another major SF Bay Area company. In addition to writing this blog, Jerry is the Principal of Jerry Kidd Training and Consulting, specializing in showing real estate professionals how to utilize today’s exciting social tools to create and nurture relationships with home buyers and sellers. Visit http://www.JerryKidd.com to learn more about the training and consulting services offered.

My impression of MacWorld 2010 (and a deal for you!)

Jerry Kidd — Sat, 13 Feb 2010 22:47:53 +0000

I went to MacWorld 2010 in San Francisco on Thursday. This being the first year that Apple wasn’t going to be present, I wanted to see if the show would be better or worse that what I saw last year.

Being a relatively new convert to Macs (and an iPhone user since July 2008) I don’t have a lot of experience with the show. I did attend last year and was planning on attending in 2006 until a health issue derailed those plans. So, I really only have the one year to compare with this year’s show.

As my friend and uber Mac geek Ira Serkes puts it: “It was iPhoneWorld, not MacWorld”.

And I would have to agree.

There were tons of displays on iPhone apps and accessories. And tons of booths selling massage, chairs, luggage, clothing, bling and a myriad of things that made me go “hmmm”.

But, precious little software or hardware that was specific to either my iMac or my MacBook Pro.

There was one ray of sunshine, however. VMWare had a booth there and I stopped in to see them. I was having an issue with the VMWare upgrade that I did on my MacBook Pro and was hoping that they could shed some light on the issue. While I was waiting to speak with Amitabh Chakrabarty (The guy who knew the answer for me) I was asked about my usage of VMWare Fusion and was subsequently videotaped giving my answer (Maybe I will finally get discovered by Hollywood!).

After the taping and after the Q&A with Amitabh, I was offered a mystery coupon good for 5%, 10%, 50% or 100% off the purchase of VMWare Fusion 3. You simply go to their online store, place an order and then put the code in at checkout to see what discount you will get. Or, you can opt for a guaranteed 15% discount.

Since I already have a license for all three of my Macs, the coupon wasn’t worth anything to me. But, then I thought of you! I asked him for some coupons to give away on my blog and he gave me three.

So, here is the offer, On Monday (2-15-10) I’ll pick three people who leave a comment on this post and tell me why I should give them the coupon to receive one of the coupons. I’ll base my decision on the quality of your comment. In other words, a one line “I want one” comment is simply not going to cut it!

Since the coupons expire on February 19th, you’ll have to get on this right away! The retail price of VMWare Fusion is $79.99, so depending on the level of discount you end up with, this could be worth $3.99, $7.99, $39.99 or $79.99. Or you could take the guaranteed 15% discount, in which case the coupon is worth $11.99.

Not a bad deal for a few minutes of typing is it?

backupify your social content

Jerry Kidd — Mon, 25 Jan 2010 03:00:37 +0000

I had a minor disaster at my casa last week in which I lost all access to a VMWare Fusion Windows XP machine. Fortunately it was quickly resolved by using a backup. That started me thinking about what I have that is NOT backed up.

All of my computers use backup drives that are physically connected to my computer. They run continuous backups and are available to move my data to another machine if I need to do so. Or, they can be used to restore missing or corrupt data.

I also use MozyHome as another way to back up data. So in theory I am covered, right?

Not so quick. What about my social sites like Twitter and Facebook? It turns out that I have not been backing those up. What if my account at either site got trashed or even worse, cancelled? How could I recover my friends lists or pictures or the content that I have posted?

To put that in perspective, at Twitter I am following over 4500 people and over 4300 are following me. Trying to restore those lists without having a back up file would be impossible. The same holds true for my Facebook account where I have over 600 friends, many Notes, a few pictures and so on.

In my research to solve this problem I ran across a service that I am using and thought that you might like to know about it too.

This is a cloud based backup service that will use your login information to go to your Twitter, Google Docs, Wordpress, GMail, Facebook, Zoho, Delicious, Flickr, Basecamp or Photobucket accounts and perform daily or weekly backups of your data.

The service acts as backup program and does not actually store your data on their servers. Instead, the data is stored on the Amazon S3 Web Services Cloud, which in my opinion was a really smart move on their part. To understand why I say this, click here to read more about Amazon S3 web services.

You can also download your data to your local computer once it has been backed up. This now gives you 3 copies of your data. The original is on Twitter, Facebook, etc. But, you also have a copy on the S3 cloud and the one on your hard drive. The chance of all three failing at once are very, very small.

Finally, until January 31st, you can get an account for free. Hmmm, sounds like a good deal to me. Better click on the backupify logo in this post or just click http://www.backupify.com and sign up.

Measy BounceBack Essentials

Jerry Kidd — Mon, 18 Jan 2010 03:00:25 +0000

Ok, now that was a weird title for this post wasn’t it?

I thought I’d combine the names of the two products I want to tell you about and make a title out of it. It either caused you to open the post right away because you were curious, or caused you to pass (in which case you aren’t reading this!).

We’ll start with BounceBack Essentials. This is an inexpensive backup solution for you. Hopefully you are all using some form of backup already. You could be using an online backup, or a portable hard drive, you could be backing up to a remote computer, you could be copying files to a USB stick or even burning CDs. With all the back up solutions that are available, why would you be interested in yet another one?

All of those solutions are great and they all have a place where they shine. But, none of those solutions will get you up and running immediately once a disaster occurs. BounceBack Essentials is a $29.00 software program for Windows (A Mac version is available for $39.00) that uses an external hard drive to make an exact duplicate of your computer on the external drive. The major selling point, in my opinion, is that BounceBack Essentials makes that external drive bootable! This means that if your main drive fails, you simply choose to boot from the backup drive and continue working! You can choose to restore your system immediately or at a future, more convenient time.

Watch a short YouTube video which explains the process, and then click on any of the links above to learn more:

The next thing I want to tell you about is Measy.

Measy is a website that can help you make decisions about buying HDTVs, digital cameras, DSLR Cameras, netbooks and SmartPhones! It does this by asking you to work you way through an interview that asks you questions about your preferences and expected use of the device you are researching.

They then display a ranked list of devices that they believe will fulfill you needs. Each of your criteria is explained and backed up by research that they have done on the web by using product reviews.

So, rather than be baffled by the plethora of choices that confront you when you are shopping for a gadget, check out Measy to see what the experts have to say!

Since this is a beta site, expect changes to come in the future. You can sign up for notification emails from them when they add new categories.

Oh, by the way, this one is free!

Ten Web Sites That Every Realtor® Should Know

Jerry Kidd — Mon, 28 Dec 2009 03:00:15 +0000

The World Wide Web is huge, and it continues to grow with myriads of new web sites appearing every day. There are web sites on every topic under the sun and in every language spoken by the human race.

With such a bewildering assortment of web sites, how can you possibly stay current with the most important ones? And how would you decide which ones are important enough to land in a top ten list?

That was the question that I pondered as I sat down to write this, but on reflection, I realized that the following list had to be the top ones. See what you think, and as ever, please feel free to comment on what you would have included, or what you wouldn’t have included.

The list is randomly ordered.

www.Realtor.com – This is the grand-daddy of them all. If you believe their claims, this is where most people start their search for property. Even if you discount the hype, this is still a web site that you should be familiar with. You should always check your listings on R.com to make sure that they are displayed properly, and it is a great idea to purchase the enhanced features as they help to keep consumers on your listings for a longer period of time than non-enhanced listings.
www.Realtor.org – This is R.com’s cousin, but it’s just for you! This site has a wealth of information on law, marketing, technology, how to do something, scripts, publications, discounts and the list just goes on. You will need to know your NRDS number to log in.
www.CAR.org – This is the California version of realtor.org. The site is hosted by the California Association of Realtors® and serves much the same function as Realtor.org, but with a California slant. Be sure to check out the ClientDirect™ newsletter, a free monthly email newsletter. Also, the legal Q&As are MUST reading for every California Realtor®. If you are not a California Realtor®, check your own state’s association web site.
www.dre.ca.gov – This is the web site of the California Department of Real Estate. You can learn everything you need to know about obtaining a California Real Estate license, renewing your license, checking the license status of other licensees in the state and also bone up on the latest in the laws regarding real estate.
www.ActiveRain.com – This web site says that they are a free online community for real estate professionals designed to help them promote and grow their business. I say that it is an excellent place to meet other Realtors® from around the country (and globe) and learn new ways to do the things that we must do every day. You can also engage in conversation with the buying and selling public by setting up your blog on this site.
www.InternetCrusade.com – The Crusaders are the sponsors of NAR’s ePro Designation, and they are also the providers of an excellent real estate focused blogging tool called RealTownBlogs. Did I mention that their blogging tool is free? They have many other technology related tools for Realtors®, so this site is well worth your time to visit.
www.Trulia.com – Trulia bills itself as a real estate search site. Their ambition is to have ALL real estate listings on their site for the public to search. They allow you to place your listings on the site for free, but perhaps their best feature is that you can register on the site so that you can be available to answer real estate questions from the public. You can choose what kind of questions you want to answer, and how often you want to be notified of new questions. This is a great way for you to create new relationships with people who are interested in buying and selling real estate.
www.Zillow.com – OK, ok, I can hear you now saying that I have gone off of the deep end by recommending this site. After all, we “know” that Zillow’s zestimates® are not accurate. But is that always true? No, it’s not, and Zillow has gone to some lengths to improve the accuracy of its data by allowing you to go in to the site and “claim” your listing and improve the data. You also NEED to know what Zillow says about a particular property before you get asked about it by a prospective buyer or seller. Go look now!
www.InmanNews.com – InmanNews says that they are “The First Word in Real Estate”. I don’t know whether or not that is true, but I can tell you that I read it twice a day! They always seem to have a good handle on what is going on in the business of real estate as well as plenty of articles and advice on how to do the real estate business.
RealtyTechBytes.com – You didn’t think that I’d leave out my own web site did you? Every week I explore a topic that pertains to technology and real estate and present it here on Sunday evenings. RealtyTechBytes has been in existence for nearly two years now and there are over 124 articles posted. You can use the search box in the sidebar or at the top of the page to search the articles.

So, these are my Top 10 picks, what are yours?

iPhone 3G pet peeve solved!

Jerry Kidd — Mon, 14 Dec 2009 03:00:27 +0000

I was one of those people who stood in line for over 6 hours in July of 2008 to buy the iPhone 3G when it came out. I wasn’t happy to do it, but I endured the wait because the reward was so worth it.

Then Apple came out with the iPhone 3GS. It had a feature that I really wanted and that was the ability to shoot video with the built in camera, something the 3G lacked, even though it’s camera and hardware was completely capable of doing it! I didn’t rush out to get the 3GS because I wasn’t “seasoned” enough in my contract with AT&T and would have had to buy my way out the contract so that I could enter into a new one with AT&T for the new phone. I wasn’t willing to do that.

There was another option for me to be able to shoot video on my iPhone 3G and that was to “jailbreak” my phone. Jail breaking a phone is the process of installing some software that allows you to install other software that permits the phone to do things that Apple and AT&T did not want done. Like shooting video!

The problem with jail breaking a phone is that it possibly violates the warranty and the possibility of “bricking” the phone is very real. “Bricking” is a term used to describe the phenomenon of rendering your phone unusable and irreparable. Even as geeky as I am, I didn’t want to risk that. So, I contented myself with the thought that I had to stick to my Flip camera for mobile video. I like the Flip and and have used it frequently. but it means carrying another device all the time.

I just ran across the answer to problem. Ustream has released an iPhone app that will allow my iPhone 3G (and the 3GS) to shoot live video and upload it to their website and make it available to be watched by others and embedded into my blog or Facebook page.

And, it’s FREE! It’s called Ustream Broadcaster and you get it at the iPhone App Store. You’ve got to have iTunes installed on your computer to get it.

They have a very extensive help page to get you up and running so you should be able to get this done in short order.

So, problem solved, angst with the iPhone reduced, but not gone. (When can I tether my iPhone to my laptop? Come on Apple and AT&T, get with it!)

How might you use this feature? I’m thinking it makes for a great tool when out on tour. If you see something your client might like, whip out your phone, shoot a quick video and Tweet about it or load it to your Facebook page (Both features are built into the app) and let your client know.

How are you going to use it? Share your ideas by leaving a comment.

7 Best Black Friday Web Sites

Jerry Kidd — Mon, 16 Nov 2009 03:00:03 +0000

I don’t know too many people who haven’t been affected by the current US economy.

The news has been all doom and gloom for far too long. Many of us are staring at the holiday season and thinking about how we can provide gifts for our family, friends, acquaintances and clients.

Quite a few of us are also faced with having to replace or upgrade failing phones, computers and other tech gear.

Fortunately for us, Black Friday is upon us this month. Black Friday is defined by StreetAuthority as: “In the retail world, Black Friday is the day after Thanksgiving (which is always on a Thursday). The day marks the advent of the holiday shopping season and the point at which most retailers begin making profits (also known as going in the black).”

You and I might define it as the time to buy when the prices are at their lowest as many retailers offer tremendous values on some items in order to drive traffic to their brick and mortar and online stores. In times past you had to wait until Thanksgiving to see what stores were selling what products at what prices. Today we have it so much easier. Here are a collection of links to web sites that have aggregated Black Friday ads, as well as one site that is a year round technology bargain hunters paradise, one site that is a (tech and everything else) year round bargain hunters site and one site that will help you protect those price guarantees.

Year Round Technology Bargains

– http://www.techbargains.com/

“This is a great site dedicated to helping you save money on all your technology product purchases. They search the Internet and physical stores for the best deal on the best products. TechBargains helps you find hot deals on the latest Tech products as well as great prices for ANY product via our Low Price Search Engine. The site features continuously updated Bargain News Headlines with all the latest sales, bargains, coupons, and deals. See what is on Sale, so you can save the most money. Discount Coupons for most of the major online stores. Hot Tip articles to educate users on specific topics. Recommended products database with a short list of products you should consider buying. Rebate and vendor information helps ensure you get the best deal with the maximum amount of safety.”

Protect your price guarantee

– http://www.priceprotectr.com/retailers.jsp

“PriceProtectr now supports 150 retailers and here’s a list of each one, along with the pertinent information to help you get the most out of your next purchase. Use Price Protectr to track prices of things you’re thinking about buying, and save money even after you buy.” This one will help you keep the stores price guarantees honest!

Year round shopping news and deals

– http://dealnews.com/

“At dealnews, every deal we list is the lowest price we could find for that product, sold by a reputable store. That means we list the best deals period, regardless of our relationship with the seller, and we ban stores with a history of poor customer service.”

- Black Friday App FREE Get Black Friday deals from dealnews.com directly on to your phone plus browse the latest adverts, add items to a shopping list and even buy items online.

Sites devoted to Black Friday

– http://www.2009blackfridayads.com/

“Here you can find all the 2009 Black Friday Ads before the circulars come out in the newspaper. They also offer direct links to each store so, if the retailers allow, you can purchase the items online on Black Friday without having to stand in line at the store!”

– http://www.blackfriday.info/

They have ads, coupons, rebates and deals posted in an easy to use format.

– http://bfads.net/

Different from BlackFridayAds.com, this one also offers buying guides and helpful articles on how to choose between items, in addition to the ads from the retailers that they also feature. It’s a good idea to check this one as well as the others in case one or the other misses an ad important to you.

– http://www.iblackfriday.com/

This site lets you view the 2009 black Friday ads weeks in advance. Not only can you view the ads, but they also let you build out your holiday shopping list so you know exactly what items to buy on Black Friday.They also show you how you can buy these items online on Thanksgiving morning instead of having to stand in line on Black Friday.

Shopping guides published here previously

I get a lot of emails and calls asking what phone to buy and /or what computer to buy. There really isn’t way that I can recommend one model of phone or computer over another, as both purchases are entirely subjective. But, I have over 30 articles on my blog that talk about what to purchase in one way or another. Go here to access them http://realtytechbytes.com/category/purchasing/, be sure to use the “Prev” button after the third link on each page to see them all.

I hope that you enjoy the holiday and if you must go shopping on Black Friday don’t go until you’ve checked out the sites I’ve mentioned.

Realtor’s® guide to making a living in a Web 2.0 World ~ Part Four

Jerry Kidd — Mon, 28 Sep 2009 02:00:21 +0000

Over the last three weeks I have been talking about how a real estate agent can make a living in the Web 2.0 world. We started by setting the stage, talking about phones, then computers. This week I want to talk about the software that you will need on your computer.

There is a wide variety of software that you may wish to have including photo editing, PDF readers, money management, screen capture, MLS, ZipForms/Winforms and so on. But, in my opinion, the most important piece of software is the contact manager and calendar software.

I still see agents walking around with paper calendars and paper contact lists! Some of those same agents even have smart phones! When asked, they often cite the fact that it’s easier and quicker for them to look at their contacts and calendars that way. I think I felt the same way until I learned how to really use contact management software. Also, if your paper calendar or contact list get misplaced I don’t know how you would ever recover from such a disaster.

Given that we live and die by our appointments and contacts it makes sense to do everything you can to maintain a handle on your time and contacts. So. let’s take a look at what is out there. Although this list is pretty comprehensive, it is not exhaustive. If you are using something that I didn’t talk about, please feel free to tell us in the comments.

There is a pretty wide universe of software available to help you corral your contacts and calendar. Some is free, most isn’t. Some is web based, some runs on your computer. All of them allow you to synchronize the data with your smart phone so that you always have it with you(Exceptions are Open Office and Palm Desktop which only syncs with Palm Devices). Aside from the financial hardship of losing a smart phone, your data is still available to you and so the loss is not nearly the disaster the loss of your paper records would be.

Let’s start with the de facto Gold Standard of real estate contact management, Top Producer. This product has been around for nearly as long as I have. In it’s current iteration, it’s an online product and is available by monthly subscription. It manages contacts, calendars, creates campaigns, flyers, marketing materials and also integrates with your MLS. Also, your data is stored and backed up on Top Producer’s servers which alleviates your need to perform backups. It starts at $39.95 a month and goes up. This is a very good product that a lot of agents swear by, but it does have a steep learning curve if you want to get the full benefit of the product.

Another very good product is Agent Office. This one is a software that you install on your computer. It performs almost all of the same functions of TopProducer. One of it’s key points is that your data is not in someone else’s hands – it’s on your hard drive. It also has a steep learning curve which you must accomplish if you want to get the most out of it. Currently it sells for $299.00

Next up is Microsoft Outlook. It is part of the Microsoft Office Family of products. If you have any version of Office (Except Home, Family and Student) you have Outlook. The Standard version of Office is $399.95. (Upgrade versions which will take you to Office 2007 are $239.95). If you don’t want the Microsoft Office product, but you’d still like Outlook, you can buy Outlook as a standalone product for $109.95.

Why would you want Outlook? Well, for several reasons. Outlook combines an email client (It will pick up Exchange, POP3 and IMAP4 email), a Contact Manager, a Calendar, Notes and a Task Manager all into one interface. That means that you can get most of what you need in a day by staying within one piece of software. The downside of Outlook is that it is not easy to customize, so if you wanted to have real estate specific fields in your contact manager, you would find that hard to do.

However, there are two add on products for Outlook that once purchased and installed along with Outlook, will give you TopProducer and AgentOffice like functionality.

The first one is Active Agent from Sonoma Enterprises. This is a $299.00 product that overlays Outlook with real estate specific fields in the Contact records and allows you to create and manage campaigns. A campaign is an automated work flow that essentially puts your business on autopilot. Once you enter a Contact and select a campaign, the program takes over and automatically will schedule calls, appointments, letters, postcards and so on for you.

The other Outlook add-on is Respond from Pat Zaby. It is currently $299.00, although the web site says that is a “Sale” price down from $399.00. It does many of the same things that Active Agent will do to Outlook.

The big advantage to these two products is that if you already own Outlook and are familiar with using it then the learning curve will not be as stiff as it would be if you were learning a new piece of software. In other words, you’ll be able to put them to work quicker!

Finally, let’s talk about a couple of free products. We all need a word processor for writing letters and reading letters sent to us by others. But, Microsoft office is a very expensive piece of software. This is where Sun Microsystems free OpenOffice comes in. It’s a free download that Sun claims is completely compatible with Microsoft office. In other words, if you have OpenOffice you will be able to open documents created in Microsoft Office and people with Microsoft Office will be able to open and read documents that you create in OpenOffice. Not a bad deal for free! It does not have an Outlook like equivalent, so for that you may wish to purchase a stand alone copy of Outlook.

If all you want is a basic Contact manager, Calendar, To Do List and Notes manager, then you may find that the free Palm Desktop software is perfect for you. It was designed to allow users of Palm’s PalmPilot, Pre, and TREO telephones to have a desktop way of entering data. But, you do not need to have a Palm device to download and use the software. If you do have such a device then you already have the software. It may not be installed, but it is on the installation CD. Palm places no restrictions on who can download and use the software, so if this works for you, go and get a copy.

Click on the various logos to go get more information on the products that I have discussed, and by all means, if you are not using something these products now, please get started. It’s crucial to not let someone fall in the “cracks” and you never want to miss an appointment!

Next time we will start looking at social media in a real estate practice, so in preparation why not reread the previous three posts to make sure that you are up to speed? And by all means, tell all of us what you use…and why.

Announcing the all new ePro Course

Jerry Kidd — Mon, 20 Jul 2009 02:00:41 +0000

Many of you know that I am an ePro Certified Trainer, and as such I have been able to offer you a $25.00 discount when you sign up for the National Association of Realtors® ePro course.

I have always felt that having an ePro was a very smart move for all Realtors® for a variety of reasons and have urged all practicing real estate agents to obtain one, even if you already were an expert in using technology in your practice. However, in recent months the ePro course has come under fire because some pundits have felt that it was behind the times as regards the new social media tools that are all the rage today.

There may have been some truth to their allegations, although in my opinion, the basic course was and continues to be a sound platform for all agents to build on. The modules on effective email use, Internet marketing, hardware/software needs and planning are just as relevant today as when they were first written

But, John Reilly, one of the Principals at InternetCrusade, announced on Friday, July 17th, the release of the newly formatted ePro Course and the launch of the all new “Web 2.0 and Social Media Course for Realtors®!”

Here are some of the highlights of the new program:

Introductory pricing for members of NAR until October 16, 2009
(Existing ePros get special pricing on the new Web 2.0 course)
Included in that price is the new “Web 2.0 and Social Media Course”
If you attend a workshop that I put on you will receive 8 months to complete the course instead of the normal 6 months
They continue the offer of a free website for 90 days via Point2 for anyone attending one of my workshops.

As always, the workshops are free to attend and just for attending you will receive the free (for 90 days) Point2 website along with other valuable information that is sure to help your business…even if you don’t sign up for ePro.

Given that the introductory pricing is the lowest that I have ever seen for the ePro course, and that you also get the “Web 2.0 and Social Media Course for Realtors®” along with the free (for 90 days) Point2 website, I can’t see why you wouldn’t attend a workshop.

Just one little factoid for you before I go, NAR’s most recent Survey of Home Buyers and Sellers (free download for NAR members, click here – requires sign-in) tells us the following three facts:

61% of all homebuyers were between 18 and 44 years old
41% of all homebuyers were first time buyers
86% of those first time buyers were between the ages of 18 and 44

People in those age brackets are very comfortable with using social media tools and they have an expectation that their Realtor® will as well. Even though you may think that your clients don’t use those tools today, are you quite certain that they won’t in the future? If you plan on being in the business for any length of time you can be certain that your future clients will want this level of communication from you.

I hope to see you at an ePro workshop soon!