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Student Housing Website – CampusHomesOnline.com

Oct21
2009 2 Comments Written by Renee

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Consider this post to be a spilling of the beans. I had an idea nearly a year ago that would provide a way for real estate agents to market their listings to students looking for housing. Being that I live so close to Notre Dame this was a local issue. A client asked me if I knew of a resource to market listings near campus. I said I did not and moved on. A few days later I was talking to my mom in the kitchen and told her the idea I had about starting a website catered to such real estate and I told her I was starting it. CampusHomesOnline.com was born! Through the help of a Twitter friend (well, most of his work is in this thus far) we are close to a beta launch.

CampusHomesOnline.com is a centralized and national listing service for real estate agents, property managers and homeowners to advertise homes for sale/rent, apartments for rent, and game day rentals to students and renters. Listings are a flat $29 for a 6-month ad – no hidden fees, no commissions like other listing services. Visitors features include:

  • Ability to save searches and retrieve results later
  • Sign up for email notifications of new listings that match their search criteria
  • Ability to text a listing to a friend
  • Save searches to a custom URL to share with friends and family
  • Search by miles radius from campus (.5 mile, 1 mile, 1.5 miles, etc.)
  • Listings are limited to 1.5 miles from a campus to keep content relevant

Advertiser features include:

  • Copy a listing to carry over information to a new listing
  • Spotlight advertiser packages
  • Featured property packages
  • Web 2.0 Widgets to place on your website or in blog posts
  • HTML code for Craigslist

We are very excited about the launch. Sign up for information regarding the release!

All Campuses ~ One Site ~ Housing U

Posted in Cool websites, Featured, marketing - Tagged , , , , , ,

October Template Postcards

Oct19
2009 Leave a Comment Written by Renee

Our template postcards keep you in the contact game for less. No design fee & only .15 per card. Order today! If you want the time change card, you’ll need to order this week and mail out at least on October 26th.

Posted in marketing

Easy Web Content – Widgets

Oct19
2009 Leave a Comment Written by Renee

You already know you need a website. Right? Well, you should know. But what do you put on your site? Is it lacking content? Why would visitors come to your site, let alone RETURN to it? That’s the key, the most important piece – repeat visitors. What that means is that your content needs to be current, dynamic, and relevant. These factors are also very relevant to Google SEO (search engine optimization).

Blogs are a great way to accomplish all three of those requirements. You can even have your blog as part of your total real estate website. Blogs are time-consuming, though.

widgetLooking for some quicker content? Try real estate widgets. Widgets are mini-apps that run on your website. There are plenty of places that provide widgets but perhaps the largest virtual warehouse is WidgetBox.com. Check out all of their real estate widgets – from mortgage calculators to walking scores you can probably find what you are looking for at WidgetBox. Have a specialty website? You can probably find a widget just for you – Foreclosure Listings Widget is an example.  Zillow.com provides a great selection of widgets as well. Facebook also provides a fan widget if you have a fan page set up.

Back to blogs – have one? You can even create a blidget (blog widget) that will showcase your most recent blog posts on any website.

So what does using a widget involve? It’s not difficult at all. All it takes is a little copying and pasting of some html code. Need help? Give me a call or send me an email. I’m happy to help.

Posted in SEO/Websites, social media - Tagged , , , , , , , ,

Pocket Printer

Oct13
2009 1 Comment Written by Renee

pogo

No, it doesn’t print pockets (although that would be amazing – who couldn’t use an extra pocket?).

The Polaroid PoGo ($149) is about the size of a deck of cards, and will print photos from your digital camera or Blue-tooth enabled cell phones.

What a handy tool! You may not think you need it but this would definitely help you stand out with your buyers. Out seeing a ton of homes and want to give something to your buyers to help them remember that great Master Spa they love or that not-so-great kitchen sink? Snap a photo and print it right there on the spot. Make a note on the back and hand it over to your buyers for reference later.

Posted in Headline, Software/Hardware - Tagged , , ,

Craigslist Scammers

Aug19
2009 Leave a Comment Written by Renee

My Assistant has received 2 reports of Craigslist scammers involving posted listings for sale. The scammer will visit a home for sale, take the pictures from the listing and then create a Home for Rent ad for the home. They say that they live out the country and need to get it rented. When someone is interested, they give the party the address of the home. Basically, they are simply looking for gullible people to send a deposit to someone to rent a home even though they don’t ever gain access to the home. Both times the ‘renters’ were told the home was vacant. Both times they were not. The scam has failed in both cases but it doesn’t make it less scary for the owner.

We want to help you beat these scammers and have come up with a solution. Previously, we have added the home’s address to the title of the ad in order to help us with maintenance. We will be removing the address, thereby preventing any drivebys or window peepings in the future.

If you have any concerns, please do not hestiate to contact My Assistant at 574.855.1238.

Posted in My Assistant Updates - Tagged , , ,

Happy Birthday to My Assistant

Aug13
2009 Leave a Comment Written by Renee

Blurred christmas lightsWow, I can’t believe it’s coming on 2 years now since we opened our virtual tours and started helping clients with their business needs. It’s been an amazing and humbling 2 years to say the least. I am constantly in awe at how awesome my clients are and how well we work together. I want to express my most sincere thanks to you. Without you, none of this would be possible. Thank you & Happy Birthday, My Assistant!

Posted in Featured, My Assistant Updates - Tagged , ,

Become the Neighborhood Expert

Aug09
2009 Leave a Comment Written by Renee

tnd-sketchWhat sets you apart from other agents? Why would someone choose you to sell their home? You know you have the experience. You know you have the knowledge. Sometimes, though, it comes down to things like who suggests a higher listing price. Another supporting angle couldn’t hurt your position as the most knowledgeable, caring, and professional agent, could it?

I’ve been mentioning this for years to my clients and as of yet have had anyone take me up on it. Yesterday, I came across a local agent who IS already doing this and I got geeked out. This agent is cutting edge in the technology arena. I’m so glad he had adopted this plan and put it to good use.

Being the Expert
Here’s the plan:
Pick your farming neighborhood or area. Take tons of photos around the neighborhood and maybe some video with audio commentary. SELL the neighborhood. What makes it special? What makes it unique? What is it like to live there? These things are especially helpful for people who aren’t familiar with the area.

Convert your photos to a virtual tour (there are lots of ways to do this for very little or no cost to you – in fact, I believe you can convert PowerPoint presentations to video).
Upload to YouTube (for SEO benefits).
Embed in your website.
Create a custom Google map with pins in each neighborhood you have videos for and link them to your site.
Embed map in your site.

Very cutting edge.

Posted in marketing, SEO/Websites - Tagged , , , , , , ,

Unleash Your Marketing

Jun30
2009 Leave a Comment Written by Renee

pet_leashThe goal at My Assistant is to help you become more productive while saving you money. We are happy to announce our
Unleashed Listing Marketing Package
to help you market your listings…for less.

WHAT YOU GET

  • Internet Marketing to 10 listing sites
  • Flyer design
  • 20 Flyer prints
  • Just Listed postcard design
  • 20 Just Listed postcards
  • 20 Addresses for your postcards

Full Price:  $39
PACKAGE PRICE:  $30 ($9 savings!)

Order a set of 5 Unleashed Packages for $125!
SAVE $70!
Set of 5 will be billed on one invoice. You can use them when you need them.

Posted in Headline, marketing

From RSS to Email

Jun26
2009 Leave a Comment Written by Renee

Want to stay on top of your favorite blog or news feed but don’t want to keep checking your RSS feed or visiting their website? Not even sure what an RSS feed is? I like to have these posts automatically sent to my inbox so I don’t have to remember to visit any other websites – I’ve got enough to remember.

www.feedmyinbox.com is a service that allows you to enter the URL (web address) of any site and your email address and you will be sent an email on a daily basis when new posts are available. I use this for things like a Craigslist search. Craigslist doesn’t offer email notifications when a new item is for sale that matches my search criteria (say ‘couch’). So I go to Craigslist, do the search for a couch, then copy and paste the URL (http://southbend.craigslist.org/search/sss?query=couch) into www.feedmyinbox.com’s form. I enter my email address and I receive daily emails with new couches for sale on Craigslist. Keeps me from missing anything good. Try it with my website! Enter www.myassistantcan.com into feedmyinbox’s form and stay up to date with me!

Have any questions, please let me know.feedmyinbox

Posted in Cool websites, Headline - Tagged , , , , , , , ,

Font-Tastic!

Jun08
2009 Leave a Comment Written by Renee

font

Tired of the same old fonts available in your programs? Then check out this fantastic list of cool, high-quality fonts from Smashing Magazine.

Need help installing a new font? You can find a tutorial at Microsoft’s website.

Or, if you prefer a totally custom font of your own handwriting, you can do a YouFont. Simply fill out the template, upload the file and then they create a font based on your own handwriting. It’s $13 – pretty cheap for a custom font! Plus, you don’t pay until you approve the font.

See a font you like but don’t know what font it is? Trying to mimic a corporate font? You can upload a file with the font here and find out what font it is.

Posted in Cool websites, design - Tagged , , , , ,
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