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How To Use Real Estate Data To Write A Blog When You Don’t Feel Like It

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real estate data for blogsIt’s okay for real estate professionals who write a blog to admit sometimes it’s just a big pain and that’s when real estate data can come to the rescue.

Let’s face it. For busy brokers and agents who manage everything from open houses to newspaper ads to home stagings, finding the time and motivation to write can be difficult.

Of course, that’s putting it mildly. Writing a blog on certain days can be downright agonizing.

Follow these simple tips from pro bloggers

Don’t fret. Here are a few tips to help you get something down on a page even when you find it difficult to write.

  1. Write as though you are talking to a friend

First off, this is the blogosphere, not a Nobel prize contest. Don’t try to be Ernest Hemingway or JK Rowling.

In fact, don’t even think of your blog as any type of fine writing.

Think of it more as a conversation.

Pick a topic and then write about it as though you were telling a story to a friend.

Don’t worry about finding the perfect word, or the right descriptive sentence. Frankly, your readers don’t care.

They just want to get to the essence of what you are trying to say. So talk to them by writing the way you speak.

  1. Make just one or two points

People are busy. The attention-span for web users is beyond limited. Think in terms of seconds, not minutes.

Don’t try to write a dissertation on all aspects of real estate in modern-day America.

Just pick one or two key points. That’s all you will have time to present and all readers will want to know.

If you have multiple topics in mind, pick one or two and save the rest for the next blog. You will always need ideas for blogs. Just don’t use them all at once.

Real estate data will provide plenty of topics

  1. Use real estate data to add credibility to your blog

Here’s where real estate data can make your blogging life much easier.

By partnering with a reliable real estate data provider such as Home Junction, you will have access to a wealth of data about the communities in your marketplace.

Data on Recent Homes Sales, Sales Trends, Demographics, Crime Stats, Cost of Living Indices, etc.

Pick one and write about it.

Use the data you get from Home Junction to back up your commentary.

Point out how home prices in XYZ community are starting to rise. Or, let people know that homes are selling like hot cakes in ABC town over here.

Maybe there are some interesting demographics about a particular community. For example, you may notice that many people in the P&J subdivision have doctorates. Perhaps a bunch of professors from the local college are all flocking to one area.

Another item to point out are what types of homes are selling. Perhaps high-end homes are selling in one area as opposed to home sales in the county overall. Compare one community to another.

(By the way, you can point out how consumers can visit your website and use your Home Valuation Tool to see find their own estimate on the value of their home. This will give them tremendous insight into the status of properties surrounding that home and their particular marketplace. People love this functionality. Why not? It provides credible real estate data on the most expensive thing they own.)

  1. Show, don’t tell

Are the words still not coming to you? That’s fine. Add pictures.

Use screenshots of charts to provide images that elaborate on the real estate data you are discussing.

People love images. That’s why Instagram has a gazillion followers. Instead of trying to think of how you can add more paragraphs to the page, think of adding screenshots of different data charts.

Show the trend line for recent sales in one community. Or the direction of home prices in another community.

An image says a lot. And that’s a lot of words you don’t need to add in your blog.

real estate data charts

  1. Get the content on the page, then take a break

Here’s something that might surprise you – not even Ernest Hemingway could write a great page of text on the first try. In fact, he’s famous for admitting “First drafts are ____________.” (You fill in the blank).

Rather than squeeze your brain hoping for the right words to get out, just start typing something. Anything.

Eventually, things will start to flow.

After you write your first draft, go take a break. Do something else.

Then come back and edit what you’ve written. The second draft will be much better.

Rewrite again if necessary. Read the text out loud. Proofread what you’ve written one more time and you are probably ready to publish.

(If you use a WordPress real estate website, all of this writing, rewriting and posting images is much easier to do. With WordPress, you can also add plugins that will help you optimize that page for the search engines like Google and Bing. WordPress provides so much versatility for real estate professionals in this day and age that it really should be the platform of choice).

Bonus tip: Be passionate

This tip should really be number one but we made it last because we want it to be the icing on your content.

As a blogger, you don’t necessarily need to be a wordsmith. Especially if you are a broker or agent.

People don’t expect you to be a whiz with a keyboard. In fact, if your writing is too lofty or verbose with big fancy words, you will turn people off.

But what you can do to put zing into your prose is to be passionate. Show enthusiasm.

Get excited about a new subdivision opening up in your area.

Use a real estate map plugin to show where a new school is being added to the neighborhood.

Let your feelings jump up and down on the page (figuratively, of course).

For example, perhaps your local real estate data plugin indicates home prices in one particular neighborhood are finally starting to rise after years of being stagnant.

Maybe you know a bunch of homeowners who live there. You know they have been waiting anxiously for their properties to appreciate like other neighborhoods. Get psyched up. Be the provider of good news (positive real estate data). Act like a cheerleader for their properties.

As you can see writing a real estate blog does not have to be a big chore. Follow these tips.

Remember to:

  • Make your writing seem more like a conversation with a friend
  • Get the words down on paper, no matter if they don’t totally make sense or the writing is sloppy
  • Provide some images or screenshots
  • Show enthusiasm about properties, neighborhoods and recent data updates
  • Refer to that bank of hyper-local real estate data offered by providers such as Home Junction to make the whole endeavor a whole lot easier

 

Real Estate Data Is One Simple Hyper-Local Tool To Create A Successful Seminar

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real estate seminarAs a broker or agent if you ever considered offering a home buying or selling seminar, we recommend you include one critical element – local real estate data.

Sure, with all our Androids, iPads and Tweets society today is knee-deep in a high-tech world.

But most real estate professionals know the high-touch benefits of speaking to people directly. A live presentation can yield tremendous benefits in leads, referrals and brand awareness.

Here are some reasons why:

– People still want to get out of the house. This gives them an excuse and when you talk about a subject as important as investing in a property, a compelling reason to attend is certainly obvious.

– Real estate, finance, contract law and other aspects of buying or selling a home are complicated. People still grow up in a classroom setting and still believe in the power of listening to a speaker in order to truly understand what they are discussing. And they need a way to ask questions comfortably.

– In this high-tech world of viruses and fake news, making decisions is surprisingly more difficult than ever. It’s not easy to trust everyone you meet on the web or what they say. People still want to be able to evaluate people face-to-face.

All those reasons sound legitimate, a broker or agent might say, just as the sweat beads up on their forehead.

But geez. How do I meet the expectations of people today?

There are actually some easy solutions.

For one, the best formula for organizing a successful seminar is to take any idea of a sales pitch and pitch it out the window. Ironically, the less you make your seminar sound like a sales presentation, the more likely you are to generate sales from it.

To do that, you must have a program that educates people, holds their attention, and is flexible enough to answer individual questions.

So you need material. Really solid material. Material that is geared locally, for the people sitting in front of you, and not some canned speech developed by a corporation 1,000 miles away.

The best way to do that is to have a real estate data feed in your toolbox. Nowadays, with big data technology offered by companies such as Home Junction, an agent can tap into a gigantic storehouse of neighborhood data.

They can embed an API into their website that gives them instant access to a vast and current database of local property sales, trends in home prices, school data, local demographics, crime data, cost of living indices, boundaries, local businesses and much more.

More than enough information to fill any hour-long seminar.

It gets even better.  Here’s where you can create your “wow” factor.

With this big data technology, an agent or broker has the ability to go granular, so they can address the needs of John Doe on Maple Street and Jane Spain on Oak Terrace.

For example, start the seminar with some visuals on local market conditions for the county.

Show trend lines in charts for Recent Home Sales. Show some individual sales and how much the homes sold for per square foot.

Here comes the wow factor.

Ask a member of the audience where they live. Then go into the database and pull up the real estate data for just their neighborhood. Not the county, which is too big to be truly relevant. Not even the zip code, where market conditions can vary.

But the neighborhood. Their neighborhood.

Think how impressed that person in the audience will be to learn what is taking place next door to them.

Think about how ALL those people will be eager to go home, visit your website, and pull up the real estate data in their neighborhoods that is relevant to them.

Also be sure to round out the presentation.

Invite a colleague with a real estate specialty to speak as well. Perhaps an attorney, or a loan officer or a home inspector.

Provide plenty of visuals. But don’t provide a ton of PowerPoint slides with too much text. People don’t want someone to read to them, they want someone to talk to them. Get out from behind a podium and work the crowd.

And be sure to provide plenty of time for questions and answers. That’s a big reason why people are there – to get answers in person to their specific needs. Answers they can’t always find in the jumbled and screwed up digital universe.

Put all this together and you have one powerful seminar that is simple to put together.

Many people don’t like to speak in public. One of the big obstacles is trying to figure out what to say.

With today’s technology, you don’t need to write a prize-winning speech on local real estate.

Your extensive, hyper-local real estate data feed, will supply you with most of the talking points you’ll ever need.