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With technology changing and evolving so rapidly these days, as real estate professionals we’re hard-pressed keeping up to speed and knowing what technology tools are worth our time and investment.

Clearly, one of the most obvious tech ‘toys’ that offers tremendous practical value and benefit is the Apple iPad.

With so much of our core business becoming increasingly ‘mobile’ the Apple iPad empowers you to effectively/efficiently embrace and utilize the growing use of mobile apps and technology.

From Listing Presentations to drafting Purchase & Sales contracts, the Apple iPad allows you to quickly connect, communicate, and conduct business tasks with ease.

Shoot and edit HD video for that new high-end waterfront listing. Answer your Buyers questions immediately on-the-fly (What will my payment be? Where are the schools located? What services are nearby? What have other homes in the area recently sold for?)

And forget about lugging around that bulky dinosaur-esque laptop anymore. The new iPad 2 is 1.33 lbs of glorious time-saving, task-hungry heaven!

There are over 65,000 apps (and growing) for the iPad. Here’s just a few of the more popular ones geared towards real estate:

Top Ten iPad Apps for Real Estate

Keynote - This is Apple’s version of PowerPoint.  I love Keynote and this is the perfect app to “wow” your clients with a slick Buyer Consultation or Listing Presentation.

Open Home Pro – a great application for use during Open Houses that provides a Virtual Guest Book Sign-In Tool.

DropBox - is a free Web-based file hosting service that uses cloud computing to enable users to store/share files/folders with others across the Internet using file synchronization. It lets you bring all your photos, docs, and videos anywhere. After you install Dropbox on your computer, any file you save to your Dropbox will automatically save to all your computers, your iPad, and even the Dropbox website!

PDF Expert for iPad - PDF Expert is the ultimate solution for all your PDF needs. It lets you read and annotate PDF documents, highlight text, make notes, draw with your finger, and save those changes being compatible with Preview and Adobe Acrobat. PDF Expert is the only iPad application that can fill PDF forms!

DocuSign - Now, you have the power to send, track and sign documents while on the go! Add documents from Google docs, Box.net or use a pre-configured DocuSign Template. Instantly add iPhone photos of receipts to expense reports. Take a snapshot of a document, then drag and drop familiar “Sign Here” tabs on it for electronic signature.

Evernote - Ever have those ideas while you are out and about and before you can get a chance to write it down, you have forgotten it?  In comes Evernote!  This app will allow you to type or record a voice note.  If you use a smartphone with a camera, you can also create notes from photos.  Again, this app syncs your notes online so they are accessible everywhere (phone, computer, iPad).

Realtor.com - Find more homes for sale on your iPad with REALTOR.com® – the #1 real estate site. REALTOR.com® has more listings and updates them more often (every 15 minutes) than any other site. Features include: map search, saved searches and listings synchronized with the website, private ratings and notes and the ability to share listings with your friends, agent and social network.

Zillow – The Zillow on iPad Real Estate App delivers a bold real estate browsing experience built specifically for the iPad’s interactive multi-touch device. View photo galleries of homes on iPad’s large, eye-popping touch screen where your fingertips tap, swipe, pinch, and drag to see Zestimate® home values, Rent Zestimates, homes for sale, homes for rent, and much more!

Trulia - Designed specifically for the iPad, Trulia HD is the helpful house hunting app that makes finding your next home easy and fun. Search homes for sale and for rent with full-screen interactive maps, neighborhood-specific details, high-resolution photos, and more.

LoopNet - Looking for an investment property, lease space? Search the nation’s #1 marketplace with LoopNet’s Commercial Real Estate Search App – the first commercial real estate search application for your iPhone or iPad. Research millions of properties for owner, tenant, historical listings, mortgage info, etc.

For some additional helpful advice on going mobile in real estate, check out the following video by my friend Joel Burslem:

http://www.1000wattconsulting.com/presentations-and-publications/15-ways-to-make-your-marketing-mobile

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Rich Jacobson is a licensed real estate broker providing Knowledgeable Empowerment and Relentless Representation for his clients of residential properties and vacant land throughout all of Kitsap County WA and portions of Pierce, Mason, and Jefferson Counties. You can also find him at KitsapLife.com, ActiveRain.com, EverydayCK,  HomesByHarbors, and Crabbing in the Hood, or e-mail:  kitsapagent@gmail.com

 

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With over 90% of all Home Buyers accessing the Internet for their Home searches, the responsibility falls on us as Listing Agents to generate the greatest amount of meaningful exposure for our Seller’s properties. Additionally, many markets across the country have a significant amount of competing inventory which demands that your marketing materials offer a quality presentation that effectively sets your listings apart from all the rest.

Fortunately, there are an abundance of excellent on-line tools available for just such challenges! Allow me to share some of the better tools that I’ve found:

Launched in October 2006, San Francisco based vFlyer.com was one of the first virtual flyer tools that I implemented in my business. Shortly after signing up for their service, one of the company founders, Oliver Muoto, called me personally to welcome me and answer any questions I had.

vflyer offers a very basic Personal Plan for FREE that allows you to create up to 2 listings. You can choose from up to 14 theme templates, including several that are ‘brand’ specific to national real estate companies. You can upload up to 9 photos to your flyer gallery. To provide this free service, some Google Ads are placed within the flyer.

vflyer publishes your flyer to 15 high traffic real estate listing domains, including Trulia and Zillow.

There are 4 additional plans that range in price from $155 to $959 annually and allows you to create/manage up 125 flyers. They also offer a great vflyer Wiki and FREE webinars to explain all the various features and how to use them.

vflyer offers a feature that allows you to print or email your flyers. They also provide an ‘Activity’ feature which enables you to monitor the amount traffic your flyer is generating as well as the source of that traffic.

To see an example of a vflyer.com virtual flyer, click HERE.

Postlets is another viable tool that has gained a lot of popularity among real estate agents.

Unlike vflyer, Postlets basic FREE service allows you to create as many flyers as you want, without any charges. However, there are some limitations in the number of available theme templates (10) and the number of photos you can download (6). The virtual flyers you create with the basic service also contain advertising in the sidebar.

Postlets allows you to monitor and track your traffic using Google Analytics. However, page views for the HTML or Mini widgets placed on other sites (e.g. craigslist or ActiveRain) are not tracked.

If you want to upgrade to Postlets Pro, it can cost as much as $10 per listing, but you get 10 more theme templates and the ability to upload a total of 18 photos.

Additionally, Postlets Pro effectively creates a Single Property Website that utilizes a multi-page layout, larger photo viewing size, an embedded slideshow viewer, and removes all advertising.

To see an example of a Postlets.com virtual flyer, click HERE.

To me, selecting RealStateShows as a vital part of your marketing arsenal is a no-brainer, even though it is only available through an annual subscription of $125. The yearly investment is money well spent for all the features and benefits you will receive. A 14-day FREE trial period allows the opportunity for you to put the tool through its paces and evaluate its capabilities.

There are a number of options for what you can do with your show once its finished. You can publish your Show to Realtor.com, Homes.com,  or add it to the virtual tour link on your local MLS. You can create a Show Flyer and send it to any or all of their distribution partners, or use the HTML code provided and post to sites like Craigslist or ActiveRain. You can also create a mini-show widget and embed the code directly to your blog or website. You can even download any show to your hard drive to make a CD.

RealEstateShows not only provides a very comprehensive tracking report for each listing, but they’ll email the report to you each week so you can simply forward it onto your Sellers.

To see an example of an embedded RealEstateShows.com virtual slide show, go HERE.

Since both vflyer and Postlets offer FREE base memberships, I would suggest that you simply try them both out. Use them to market your next two listings and compare the tracking results.

Both vflyer and Postlets publish your flyers to many of the same domains (approx. 15). RealEstateShows currently allows you to publish your flyer to 9 domains.

These tools are designed to make your job easier and provide enhanced exposure for your client’s homes. Incorporating their use in your marketing efforts will enable both you and your listings to stand out from the crowd, and achieve greater results.

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Rich Jacobson is a licensed real estate professional providing knowledgeable empowerment and relentless representation for his clients of residential properties and vacant land throughout all of Kitsap County WA and portions of Pierce, Mason, and Jefferson Counties. You can also find him at KitsapLife.com, ActiveRain, Everyday CK, and Crabbing in the Hood, or e-mail:  kitsapagent@gmail.com

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Tags: postlets.com, real estate business, realestateshows.com, tech tools, vflyer.com, virtual flyers, virtual slideshows, virtual tours