Every Realtor® wants more leads, but may not know how to get more leads.  When people are shopping for homes, what do they want to see? You got it, listings, lots and lots of listings. IDX gives you the ability to showcase all of the MLS listings on your site. Since people want to see listings, they don’t mind being required to register to view listings, which means a win for you (a lead) and a win for your client (the chance to see lots of listings).

Here are a few tips that can help drive traffic to your IDX search:

1.  Direct all visitors to the IDX search.

People have a short attention span, especially online; they want to see listings right away. Put your IDX search on every page, or make sure every page has a link to the IDX page. The most important place for your IDX search to be is your home page, to ensure it is the first thing your clients see.

2. Use other online tools to direct people to the IDX search.

Use your drip email campaigns to advertise that you have an IDX search (make sure there is a link). Tweet it, Facebook it, and blog about it – whatever you do, just make sure it reaches as much of your intended audience as possible. You differentiate yourself from your competitors by having an easily accessible IDX search.

3.  Utilize the Quick Search Option (URL Builder).

Give your clients the ability to search for homes quickly. For example give them pre-made search criteria, “Ocean Front Properties”, “Properties between 125,000-175,000”, “Foreclosures”. Engage the visitor by giving them a quick option, and then they will want to keep using it.

4.  Include a Call to Action to register and give them reasons to do so.

Include a list of benefits as to why someone would want to register for your IDX. For example:

• All of your searches are automatically saved, and you can go back and review them later!
• You can add any property to your favorites so you can quickly find it later.
• Receive VIP status when you register, including market snapshots, and listing notifiers, etc.

Along with this explosion of activity has come a desire for insight into the question of  just where are international buyers coming from? To answer this question we dug deep into the data from Point2Homes.com and came up with some interesting results in regards to where international traffic is coming from, and where it is headed.

Florida properties emerged as the lead attraction for foreigners online, followed by Arizona and Nevada real estate listings. Florida real estate listings captured 33.03 percent of the international traffic recorded to all U.S. states during the quarter. Arizona attracted 15.15 percent and Nevada 8.22 percent.

Canadian traffic made up 91.89 percent of the overall international traffic to Arizona listings, 75.90 percent to Hawaii, 73.92 percent to Michigan, 70.55 percent to Nevada and 65.05 percent to California. Puerto Rico, also covered in the report, ranked tenth on the list, with 16.82 percent of the traffic.

Las Vegas ranked first (14.53%) on the report’s overall ‘top 20’ cities in the nation category for online properties searched by international visitors. The top 20 list includes eight cities in Florida, four in California and three in Arizona. Las Vegas real estate listings attracted 91.73 percent of all the international traffic recorded for the state of Nevada during the third quarter, with Canada as the leading source at 70.47 percent. The UK followed at 5.28 percent and France at 2.19 percent.

Want the FULL report with all the juicy data? Feel free to download it right here.

To help sort out the issues, controversies, benefits, and fears surrounding Listing Syndication check out at this Slidecast presentation that was put together by Point2′s own Saul Klein and Linda Moola, which outlines the features and benefits of Listing Syndication to real estate professionals on all levels – from MLS/Associations, to Brokers and individual Agents.

If you have any questions, comments, or feedback we’d love to hear from you!

1. Shift from being “I” or “me” focused to being “you” or “group focused”

This is a subtle, but very powerful shift. Eliminate as much “I” language as possible by focusing on your meeting participants and using the word “you.” The more you focus on engaging with your participants, the more effective your meetings will become.

2. Ask powerful questions

Do you open your meetings by saying, “What we will be covering today…” A better approach is to take your first agenda item and turn it into a powerful question: “What is one action step that you would recommend to improve the services we provide?” Simply put, questions rather than statements increase engagement.

3. Be willing to relinquish control

Here’s a simple exercise to try at your next meeting. Tell your participants that whenever anyone asks you a question, you’re going to respond by saying, “I don’t know. What’s your recommendation?” This is a great way to make your meetings more interactive and to have some fun along the way as well.

Need more tips on how to lead effective meetings? Visit www.LeadGreatMeetings.com for more ideas on how to improve your leadership skills.
This has been a guest-post by contributors Bernice Ross and Bryon Van Arsdale

One of these companies is, er, was DIY Real Estate Solutions – makers of some of the most innovative property management software on the market. I say was because as of today DIY is joining the Point2 family, and is now known as Point2 Property Manager!

So what is Point2 Property Manager? At it’s core Point2 Property Manager is an end-to-end productivity tool with everything you need to manage residential property of any type online; including integrated general ledger accounting, credit checks, rent payment and Listing Syndication.

What does this change mean for existing DIY customers? Aside from updating your bookmarks, almost nothing at all. The product is still being developed and supported by the amazing folks at the Property Manager HQ in Cleveland, they are now just working with the rest of the Point2 crew in order to get the word out on their terrific products.

As for current Point2 customers who self-identify as property managers there will be no changes to the products you use every day – everything is staying the same. However, if you are interested in finding out what Point2 Property Manager has to offer, or just have some questions, visit Point2PropertyManager.com, or give the team a call at 866-602-9007.

Stay tuned for more exciting news in the near future!

With your computer being part of your livelihood, there are certain issues you can avoid that can dramatically affect your productivity and performance. Sometimes for several days!

When someone comes to me with computer issues they need help with, it is often that their computer “runs very slow” or won’t let them open certain programs like their virus scanner or web browser.  This is usually caused by unwanted files— such as malware, viruses, or bloat-ware.  Most of this junk was installed as the result of the user clicking something they didn’t mean to click, or okaying unnecessary software installations.

Point2 Agent and Point2 Site Builder are very robust real estate marketing platforms. So our 20+ Customer Care crew mainly works with users to help them optimize their business results and get them to more efficiently leverage their system.

But we also get the odd desperate victims of malware on the phones. Since viruses and computer ailments can happen to anyone, regardless of their level of computer expertise, here are a few tips I’ve learned over the years that might save you some headaches (not to mention money) down the road:

• If you go to a web page and pop-ups open up, they are either ads or worse.  Don’t click them, close them, and ignore them.  If you did not intend for that specific window to open, you probably don’t need it.

• If you get an e-mail with just a link in it, delete it.  Don’t open it, don’t load images, just delete it.  If it is from a friend, they probably got a similar e-mail and clicked the link, causing these e-mails to be sent to you.  If you aren’t expecting a link from them, don’t click it.  If you really can’t help yourself, check to see where it goes before clicking by hovering over the link and look for text in the bottom left corner of your browser.  Chances are the link will go to a different location than stated in the visible URL. A tactic that is also commonly used to bait people into clicking nefarious links is to make the link appear if it is about them. For example: “Oh my gosh! Did you see this picture of you: <link>”

• If you get a call from a stranger telling you to do something on your computer, hang up on them.  Tech support centers generally do not preform outbound calls unless of course they are returning a call (the Point2 Customer Care team does this all the time).

• If you get a call or e-mail saying that someone is in some other country without their passport or money, or they need to be bailed out of jail, it is most definitely a scam.  Verify their story.  Don’t give strangers money. The phrase “Nigerian Prince” hasn’t entered our cultural lexicon without reason

• If you won or inherited money from some fund or some unknown relative, it is highly unlikely that you would be notified via e-mail, especially from some Yahoo! (or AOL or non-branded) e-mail address.  Delete those e-mails.  You are probably not a princess, you probably can’t save someone by wiring money, and people with money don’t need your money to gain access to theirs,

• Don’t download anything you didn’t mean to download.  Newer versions of Windows will ask if you trust the software provider before installing, so before installing new software, ask yourself the same question: Do you trust this software provider, or know what it is installing? It won’t hurt to search for some reviews about the manufacturer or the product before you pay for or install it.

• When in doubt, run a search.  If you aren’t sure if the e-mail you received is a scam, do some research.  Paste some lines of text into Google, or try looking it up Snopes.com – one of the best resources on the net.

Some of these may seem like common sense, but I know people who are pretty decent with computers who have a lot of unnecessary junk installed—even I get fooled once in a while.  Try to keep your computer neat and clean.  If you are comfortable doing it, look at the programs installed on your computer and uninstall anything you don’t need any more or things you’ve never used.  Set your virus scanner to run regularly to avoid having a bigger virus issue later.  Read the screen before clicking the “Okay” button—Make sure you know what is about to happen when you blindly click that “Okay” button.  You can even leave the window open while you run a search about the message if needed.