Massachusetts Real Estate

Hi Folks - If you are reading this you may be thinking of selling your home or may just have an interest in Real Estate. The Real Estate market has changed over the last few years. It is no longer a seller's market in Metrowest Massachusetts. Creating an on-line presence for your home is vital to increase your chances of getting your home sold for top dollar in a timely manner.

Recently I wrote an article titled Selling your Home in Metrowest MA? It pays to interview a top Realtor. The article covered a few topics including making sure you pick a top agent when selling your home and how the Internet has changed how Realtors market to the buying public. The article explains how over 85% of todays buyers are searching for their home on-line and print advertising is no longer an effective form of marketing.

Below you are going to see in detail the sites that I use to market all my homes in Metrowest Massachusetts. This investment in on-line marketing has allowed me to provide my clients with results. In fact while the rest of the Real Estate community was complaining about how bad the market was, I had my 3rd best year ever in 21 years this past year! 2007 will be another great year! I have a passion for Real Estate and would love to share my successful techniques with you.

 

 Realtor.com is the most heavily traveled website for Real Estate in the world. Realtor.com has ventures with almost every MLS feed in the country. Almost all homes that are in MLS are in Realtor.com. There are big differences in the marketing packages that Realtors use within the site. All my homes that I market in Metrowest MA are "enhanced" with multiple photos and descriptions within Realtor.com This makes a big difference with the consumer and draws far more calls. All my homes that I marketing have a virtual tour from the Real Estate shows as seen below.

 RE/MAX.com is the #1 Real Estate company site for traffic in the world. RE/MAX's website allows consumers to get nearly all the real estate listings on the market. The other major franchises such as Coldwell Banker, C-21, and ERA only have their own companies listings. The consumer shopping for a home can visit RE/MAX.com rather than searching multiple sites. This is a very powerful site for marketing homes in Metrowest MA. Remember nobody sells more Real Estate in the world than RE/MAX! 

 Real Bird is one of the best marketing platforms I have found. The site does an incredible job presenting a home online. A home I am marketing through RealBird will have a slideshow presentation, video tour, large pictures, descriptions, an interactive Google map, links to school information, and link backs to my website and blog for more viral marketing. Here is a sample RealBird presentation. Just awesome!

                                   Zillow.com is one of the fastest growing real estate mediams there is. Zillow initially started as a quick home evaluation site where a home owner could punch in their address and quickly get an on-line market price. The accuracy of the site has been marginal at best. Zillow, however, has turned into a great platform for Realtors to market thier homes. You can upload numerous pictures as well as update statistics on the homes you are marketing. All the homes I am marketing in Metrowest MA get "enhanced" in Zillow.com with multiple photos and descriptions. See this home at 4 Everett Circle in Hopkinton MA as an example of a property enhanced in Zillow.

 The Boston.com Real Estate section is one of the most traveled sites for Real Estate in the Metrowest Boston area. All the properties that I am marketing get inserted into the Boston.com Real Estate section with multiple photos. 

 Active Rain is an on-line community for real estate professionals designed to help them promote and grow their business. Active Rain is a blogging platform that has incredible market presence. Google loves the site. As we say in the Real Estate business the site has major "google juice". I am a member of this site and actively pen new blogs weekly surrounding Real Estate in Metrowest MA. You can see my Metrowest blog here. If you punch into Google "Metrowest MA Real Estate" as a search term, you will see I come up all over the page. Click here.

  The localism site is part of the Active Rain site and also has major "google juice". From the Active Rain site you are able to add your blogs to Localism.com which covers your particular area. I am posting all my work to the specific town that I am blogging about in order to come up highly in the search engines. To see an example of Localism in action you can click here to see some articles I have written for Hopkinton MA.

 The Real Estate shows is an incredible platform to show off your home on-line. This is a Virtual Tour that I send to MLS, and Realtor.com. It can also be embedded into my Blog at Active Rain. This type of virtual tour is fantastic because it is used with still photos so it does not take long to down load. You can see an example of the Real Estate shows for this home in Hopkinton MA I am marketing.

  The V-flyer is a brand new tool I am using to market all my homes in Metrowest MA. The V-flyer is a widget that you can embed into your website or blog to show off the homes your are marketing. When a consumer visits your site they are able to see your homes in a widget and can also print flyers of the specific home they are interested in.

 You can see a blog about my Metrowest MA V-flyer here.

Topix is a highly indexed news site that has excellent presence in Google. I am one of the news editors for the following towns: Hopkinton, Holliston, Southboro, Milford, Ashland, Westboro, and Northbridge. I add all my listings to the site for incredible online exposure.

 

YourStreet is a news channel that covers news all over the country and is based on geographical location. I send all my Real Estate listings to Yourstreet which brings traffic back to my Real Estate blog.

 

 

I send all the video Real Estate tours that I create for the homes I am marketing to You Tube. You Tube continues to grow by leaps and bounds and is viewed by millions of people across the world.

 

 

 

My MLS property finder site allows me to sign up customers who may be looking at any number of towns in Metrowest MA. Once a client is signed up they receive daily updates via email of any new properties that have come on the market that match their search criteria. This is great for my clients because they get MLS access that used to be only reserved for Realtors. You can sign up for my MLS Property Finder site by clicking here.  

 The Squidoo site is a social marketing site that allows the user to create a "lense" which is a fancy term for website. The Squidoo site also has remarkably good google rank. I have created my own Metrowest MA Real Estate/Homes/Condos/Land site. This real estate site that I have created currently ranks #3 on page one for google under the search term "Metrowest MA Real Estate". The site is filled with tips and advice, School information, Real Estate RSS feeds, MLS access, and quite a few other great Real Estate tools.

 The following sites are submitted through my Point2agent website. The point2agent website gets your listings out there through all these syndication partners they have teamed up with. All of the homes that I am marketing in Metrowest MA get submitted to these powerful sites. The towns in Metrowest that I cover include: Hopkinton, Milford, Upton, Ashland, Holliston, Southboro, Westboro, Mendon, Hopedale, Northbridge, Grafton, Medway, Uxbridge, and Framingham MA. You can view my Metrowest MA Homes website by clicking here.

   Google Base is the place where you can post your Real Estate listings and have them show up on Google. Google is the #1 search engine in the world for homes. I submit all my Metrowest MA home listings to Google Base. 

 Cyberhomes is part of AOL Real Estate. Cyberhomes displays listings as well as delivering information consumers desire such as neighborhood and school information. They also have a nice mapping feature.

 

CLR Search is a Real Estate search engine that provides a data rich environment to explore listings, community demographics, and other relevant data.

 

 

Hotpads.com is a map based Real Estate search engine, listing homes for sale, apartments, condos, and rental houses.

 

 

 NY Times.com, the #1 Newspaper website in the US, and the Great Homes network of newspaper websites, Including the Boston Globe, The International Herald Tribune, The Sarasota Herald Tribune, and the Santa Rosa Press Democrat extends your reach to approximately 36 million unique visitors per month. All my homes in Metrowest MA hit this news source.

Yahoo! Inc is one of the most trafficked Internet destinations worldwide. With my Point2 website, listings for my Homes in Metrowest MA are fed directly to Yahoo.

Oodle is the leading search engine for local classifieds with over 17 million active home listings. Oodle powers the classified search on on the following sites: Lycos, Express.com, The Sun.com, Yell.com, and Local.com. Home listings will also appear on Oodle API partner sites Backpage.com, The Examiner, and Citi Cribs. My homes in Metrowest MA appear here as well.

Trulia is a residential Real Estate Search engine that helps consumers search homes for sale, trends, neighborhood insights, and other Real Estate information directly from real estate agent and broker websites. This is an excellent vehicle for marketing my homes in Metrowest Massachusetts.

Live Deal is a free, local on-line classifieds market with reach into every city and zip code across the U.S It is one of the country's top top 10 most visited on-line classified sites. All my homes in Metrowest get distributed to Live Deal.

 CitiCribs is a New York based market place for Real Estate attracting visitors looking to buy, sell, and rent homes. CitiCribs has grown into a national market place of daily visitors.

 Vast is a data base of classified ads that uses advanced technology to parse and tag adds for better search. My homes in Metrowest MA are sent here.

 

 

The Edgio platform aggregates, organizes, and distributes listings of all types. It is free to post to Edgio and listings always link back to the listing publishers. I list all my Metrowest properties in Edgeio.

 

 Propsmart is a Real Estate search engine, aggregating over a million property listings. My homes in Metrowest Massachusetts are sent to Propsmart.

 

Propbot is a free property and homes listing service that is committed to publishing complete content to generate better results. The homes I am selling in Metrowest MA go into Propbot.

 

The housingpages.com is designed as a central resource center for consumers looking to buy or sell a home. My Metrowest MA homes are sent to The Housing Pages.

 

Videohomes.com LLC developed the Video Homes Network as a Geo Vertical search portal that brings consumers to geographic specific real estate destinations in a media rich local atmosphere.

Homescape provides local, comprehensive property listings and rich content to home buyers and sellers nationwide. I submit my homes in Metrowest MA to Homescape.

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The above Real Estate information on how to effectively market to the masses online in Metrowest Massachusetts was provided by Bill Gassett, the team leader for the #4 RE/MAX Team in Massachusetts in 2007. Bill can be reached via email at billgassett@remaxexec.com or by phone at 508-435-5356. Bill has helped people move in and out of many Metrowest towns for the last 23+ Years. Bill's office is conveniently located in the center of Hopkinton MA at 77 Main Street. RE/MAX Executive Realty also has an offices in Upton MA, Holliston MA, Grafton MA, Medfield MA, Franklin MA, and Natick MA.

For Massachusetts homes for sale and other Real Estate information see Sell My Home In Metrowest MA Want to have MLS access to beat other buyers to your dream home? Sign up with no obligation at my MLS Property Finder Site.

I service the following towns in Metrowest MA: Hopkinton, Milford, Upton, Southboro, Westboro, Ashland, Holliston, Mendon, Hopedale, Medway, Grafton MA, Northbridge MA, Uxbridge, Douglas, and Framingham MA.

 

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In todays challenging Real Estate environment it takes more than just throwing a sign in the yard and putting it into MLS. If you are selling your home in Metrowest MA it pays to interview a few Realtors. You should be looking for a Realtor that will invest the time and energy to get your home maximum exposure on the internet. There is more to the Internet than just putting it into Realtor.com. The average agent does very little to give your home great exposure. You can read here some of the better things you can do to sell your Metrowest home.(click)

Below you will see a fantastic tool that I use to give homes that I am marketing in and around Metrowest MA additional exposure. This is a Real Estate show that can be embedded into MLS, Realtor.com, your Blog, and also be emailed to anyone that becomes interested in your property. A property that has a tour like this will get 4x the hits as a property that doesn't. This is an example of a home that I am selling in Hopkinton MA at 63 Downey Street.The property sits directly across from Lake Maspenock and has great views of the lake. Hit the play button to see the video presentation of this Hopkinton home. You will also notice while viewing the tour that there is a slide show as well. The slide show allows you to have multiple photos and really shows off the home well.

 I have been selling homes in and around Metrowest MA for the last 25+ years. With 25+ years experience I have been through both seller's Markets and buyers markets. Any Realtor that got into the business over the last ten years has not been involved in a challenging market. Most of these agents do not have the insight on how to properly market a home because they never have had to. The last ten years selling Real Estate in Metrowest MA were a breeze. Those days are over. It takes hard work, a strong inner drive, and perseverance.

Remember there are thousands of Real Estate agents that service the Metrowest Boston area. There are, however, vast differences in the skill level, services offered, and marketing efforts of the Realtors that cover towns in Metrowest MA.

Bill Gassett is the team leader for the #2 RE/MAX Team in Massachusetts in 2006. Bill can be reached via email at billgassett@remaxexec.com or by phone at 508-435-5356.

Check out Metrowest MA Realtor for a comprehensive look at what I do for my seller clients. Want to have MLS access to beat other buyers to your dream home? Sign up with no obligation at My MLS Property Finder Site.

I service the following towns in Metrowest MA: Hopkinton, Milford, Upton, Southboro MA, Westboro, Ashland, Holliston, Mendon, Hopedale, Medway, Grafton, Northbridge, Uxbridge, and Framingham MA.

SUBSCRIBE TO MY METROWEST HOMES BLOG via email.  

There are thousands of Real Estate agents that service the Metrowest Boston area. There are, however, vast differences in the skill level, services offered, and marketing efforts of the Realtors that cover towns in Metrowest Massachusetts.

 Lets start by analyzing the many things a Metrowest MA Realtor can do for you to market your home besides putting it in MLS. The local newspaper used to be a good source for marketing homes. The Metrowest Daily News and Boston Globe were the dominant sources for for marketing homes in Metrowest Massachusetts over the last decade. Buyers however, don't frequent these sources like they used to when looking for a home in Metrowest MA. All the newspaper resources that used to be so successful in the past for advertising and marketing your Metrowest MA home, just don't work anymore. The volume of calls received from these sources has dwindled severely. The Boston Globe has seen the trend progress and because of this has started to put a lot of their resources into making the real estate section of Boston.com a better place for Metrowest MA Realtors to market their homes. The Boston.com website is owned by the Boston Globe.

It is clear that the Internet is where any good Realtor marketing homes in Metrowest MA should be putting their efforts. A year ago 70% of all buyers were beginning their search on the Internet. Now more than 85% are looking and finding their homes on the Internet. Hiring a Metrowest MA Realtor who is Internet savvy, has the technology in place, and can provide you with an abundance of Internet exposure has become an absolute necessity in todays market. Internet marketing has become one of the most effective means to sell your Metrowest MA home.

Some of the the sites to market a home on the Internet include Realtor.com. Realtor.com is a consumer friendly website that allows buyers to see homes that are on MLS throughout the country. Realtor.com has the largest volume of traffic for real estate related websites. While viewing homes in Realtor.com, you will notice big differences in how Realtors market their homes there. A good Realtor will take the time to "enhance" the listing. As a Realtor, you are allowed to add up to twenty photos of the property you are marketing. Survey after survey says that the photos are the most important tool to market a home. The phrase "A picture is worth a thousand words" is never more evident than in Real Estate. Realtors are also able to write their own custom text to help buyers understand what the best features are about the property. Many of the Realtors in Metrowest MA do nothing to "enhance" their properties. You should ask the Realtor you are considering whether or not they have an upgraded site at Realtor.com. There are plenty of agents that don't because it costs extra money.

The most heavily traveled real estate company website happens to be the company I work for RE/MAX.com RE/MAX.com is similar to Realtor.com in that you are able to see all the properties on the market from one website. When going to competing companies websites such as Coldwellbanker.com and C-21.com you are only able to view their respective company listings.

One of the latest sites to effectively market a Metrowest Massachusetts home is Zillow.com. Zillow initially was more of a site to get a quick evaluation of your homes value but is now being used as a site to market homes. As a Realtor, you are able to enhance listings with multiple photos and descriptions. A valuable tool in marketing your Metrowest MA home, as this is a heavily traveled site. Another site that is also starting to make some headway is Trulia.com. and yet another good site and one of my favorites is RealBird. Here is a sample of the RealBird site for a home I am marketing at 10 Cardinal Circle, Medway MA.

Along with these sites you would think that all Metrowest MA Realtors would have search engine optimized, lead generating websites. Many Metrowest MA agents do not and rely on company websites. My personal website, Massachusetts homes for sale allows buyers to sign up to receive MLS access as well as to get emailed daily when a new property comes on the market that matches their search criteria.

One of the newest and most important ways to market a home in Metrowest MA is through blogging. Blogs are an excellent means  to get noticed by the search engines. Some of the best agents from around the country have figured this out and are now blogging like crazy. One of the best Real Estate platforms to blog on is Active Rain and Localism.com Both of these sites are very well recognized by the search engines such as Google and draw traffic to the Realtors who use them. Blogs are personal. Blogs provide buyers and sellers with great information, tips, advice, news, market reports, and promotion of properties. Here are examples of some of my recent blog posts:

Attention Home Sellers - don't get sued because of bedroom misrepresentation.

Get your Title V done early

Metrowest MA Real Estate - why most companies don't offer Sub-agency

Real Estate Interview questions for Realtors

Massachusetts Short Sales

Title V and selling a home

Massachusetts home selling costs

 

Social networking sites are also raising the bar on how a property can be marketed. For example see my Metrowest MA Real Estate site on Squidoo.com. This is an example of a site I created to draw additional traffic to my listings as well as myself. Some other important social networking sites are stumbleupon, digg, and del.icio.us These sites allows users to post their favorite Internet sites for others to see under different topics. Real Estate is always a popular topic. These sites allow your website to become more visible. As a top Metrowest MA Realtor, I like to take advantage of these sites. It does not pay to be a "secret agent" in Real Estate. Flickr is also a site where you can post photos. I use this site to market homes I am selling in and around Metrowest MA.

One of the more recent tools I am using to market homes is called V-flyer. The V-Flyer is a widget with all the homes you are marketing that you can import to your Blog, website, or be emailed to your clients and customer. See an example of my V-Flyer that I am currently using to market my homes in Hopkinton and surrounding towns.

How about mini Virtual tours? I am also using a virtual tour widget by Real Estate shows that is sent to MLS, Realtor.com, and My Blog. This Virtual tour can also be emailed. Here is a sample of the Real Estate shows tour for a home in Hopkinton Massachusetts that I sold. I have also incorporated the Real Estate shows into my Massachusetts Real Estate site for buyers to get a better flavor of the homes.

When interviewing a Realtor one of the better things to do is to "google" their name. If the Realtor knows how to market online there should be pages and pages of results. If not "seller beware" as you have found an agent that does not know how to market homes online. After all, if the Realtor does not know how to market themselves how could you expect them to be able to market your home well. In a tough Real Estate environment do not sell yourself short. Make sure you hire a web savvy Realtor.

 

Thinking of selling your home in Metrowest Massachusetts? Want a top RE/MAX agent that knows how to market homes - Contact Bill Gassett, RE/MAX Executive Realty via email at billgassett@remaxexec.com or by phone at 508-435-5356.

I am the team leader of the #2 RE/MAX Team in Massachusetts. I service the following towns in Metrowest Massachusetts: Hopkinton, Milford, Upton, Southboro, Westboro, Ashland MA, Holliston, Mendon, Hopedale, Medway, Grafton, Northbridge, Uxbridge, Douglas, and Framingham MA.

Want to sign up to access MLS and beat other buyers to new listings?  Use my MLS property finder site with no obligation.

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SUBSCRIBE TO MY METROWEST HOMES BLOG via email.