Market your home throughout the world!

Several weeks back a client mentioned that it was now time to get aggressive with a marketing campaign. Unfortunately, one of the many issues we as real estate professional have been trying to analyze and evaluate over the course of the past few months is, where are our advertising dollars going to get our clients the best bang for the money spent. Obviously print and magazine advertising has been suspect with very few tangible results. Internet advertising has been a rising star but the question has been which things do you work with? Over the course of the past year, we have been utilizing a number of such sites but have only been able to track specific hits rather than definitive results, i.e. closed sales.

In the case of my own personal listings, which you can see at windermere.com, there have been numerous hits on those sites where such information is available. Unfortunately it hasn’t been possible to track to them a specific outcome or result.

However, this past month, we has a company, Windermere Paragon Co., have formed an alliance with something we feel will definitely benefit you, our clients. What I’m talking about is Realtor.com. In researching this alliance, we have found that Realtor.com is a site owned by the National Association of Realtors where only member offices and salespeople are able to their listings input on their site. In fact, when a member company chooses to contract with Realtor.com, all of our listings plus many additional links including schools, shopping, trends, census data, income, age plus many more links become automatically available. Those Realtor member offices who do not contract with Realtor.com also get their listings input, but without any office or member identification or access to those additional bells and whistles. In fact, non-member offices are not able to get their listings displayed at all. Also, Realtor.com is one of the top 10 internet sites in the world. That’s also impressive.

In the past, the benefit of being a Realtor member wasn’t as extensive and often viewed as simply an organization responsible for lobbying for the protection of property lights in each state and throughout the country. In our state, the National Association of Realtor has been responsible for keeping the excise tax paid in every real property sale from being increased. Back in 1972, it was 1%. Today it’s just less than 2% of the gross sale price. But now, as a Realtor member, I have gained a terrific benefit and a way to nationally and internationally benefit my clients.

Please take the time to check out Realtor.com. I think you will find it very interesting.

Once again, thank you for reading my blog and considering me as your Realtor extraordinaire.

Ken Thiemann, Real Property Specialist & Consultant
Windermere RE / Paragon Co., Assoc. Broker
(253) 370-5626

My Dad Turned 89!

I talked with my dad this morning. He turned 89 this summer and while he’s in good health, I feel it’s important for us to talk a bit every day. Since he’s in Spokane, and since I live in the Tacoma area of western Washington I suppose it’s even more important for me to make sure he knows I’m available. Spokane is the on the east side of the state, about 300 miles from our front door.

When we talk, we usually talk about the weather and what’s for dinner. Today he said it was cloudy. Yesterday he told me he was going for a haircut. When I asked him about his haircut he said, “I keep losing barbers.”

I asked, “So how many have you lost?” “Well, there was the guy on Monroe.” He moved to a hotel downtown and it’s just too far for me to go all the way downtown. Then there was a guy up here. I think he retired. And then there was another guy who retired. And yesterday, when I pulled up in front of the barber shop, there was a sign in the window that said “Closed!” Actually I was both shocked and disappointed. Then a familiar face appeared in the window and motioned for me to come in. He told me he was going to sell his building. But he did cut my hair.

Dad added, “I don’t know how old he was, but he’s probably going to retire.”

I asked, “Maybe you need to choose a younger barber?” Dad replied, “They were all real good barbers. It’s so hard to find a good barber.”

Then we said goodbye and we each said, “I love you, have a great day.”