What Should a Real Estate Sales Professional be Highlighting About a Neighbourhood?

It may seem like there is a simple answer to this question – everything is relevant of course – but the challenge is drilling down to learn what is relevant and your client won’t always be a huge help. Different things matter to different people about where they buy depending on why they are buying.

For example – someone purchasing a property as an investment and/or for income may want to confirm things like the number of owners vs. renters in a particular area, whereas someone who is starting a family and purchasing a first home may be interested in schools in the area and the number of young families.

Here is a short list of important neighbourhood demographics that your client may want to know about:

1.      Ages of people who live in a community

2.      Family types

3.      Marital statuses

4.      Averages ages of children

5.      Average incomes

6.      Religions and proportions of people in populations by religion

7.      Ethnicity and proportions of people by ethnicity

8.      Languages spoken

9.      Schools in the area

10.   Transit in the area

11.   Homeowners vs. renters

For some it may be easy to say that they would like to live in a community where there are young families, whereas it may be more personal to come out and say that they would like to live in a community that has a high population of other people from the same background as their own. As a real estate professional you may have to do a little digging.

Get to know your client! Taking the time and having a genuine interest in really getting to know your client will build trust and enable you to learn more about them and probe them for more information that will help you find them the perfect home.

A checklist/survey about a neighbourhood and who lives there is also a great tool for learning what your client is looking for in a community. You can leverage tools like Survey Monkey to create a brief questionnaire asking clients to indicate to you whether or not different information about a neighbourhood’s demographics are important to them. Leveraging technology to gather this information is better for you and more accessible for your client. After a client signs the agreement for you to represent them and you have gathered their basic information to get started, you can send them a link to gather more vital information about demographics that are important to your client.

A checklist or survey about your client is also useful when looking at demographics in neighbourhoods that you may present to your client. Do they have a mature family? How old are their kids? What type of professionals are they? Do they commute to work? What is the household income and number of people in the house? These are all important questions that can help you determine exactly what your client is looking for.

Once you know your client and what they are looking for, inside and out, leverage tools like GeoWarehouse (on desktop) and/or ViMO (on your tablet) to access and present vital neighbourhood demographics information to a client. The beauty of ViMO is that this can occur when on the road with a client so questions can be answered immediately.

Make sure that you are getting as much information from your client as possible, and using it to find them exactly what they want. ViMO can help you achieve this. Visit www.myvimo.ca.

Paperless Agent Releases the 5 Step Listing Appointment

So many real estate sales professionals are trying to go paperless that we thought it might be fitting to share this PDF we came across by the Paperless Agent, “The 5 Step Listing Appointment”. In it, apps like Evernote, Keynote, iBooks, Numbers, zipForm Online and DocuSign Ink are reviewed and discussed -including how these apps specifically integrate into your work flow!

Download the full PDF here

Going paperless doesn’t have to be a pain. Apps like ViMO by Teranet make it a breeze. For more information please call 1 855 999 8466 (VIMO).

Game: Crossword Puzzle – Real Estate Industry Acronyms, Short Forms

Real estate sales professionals: it is game time! Take a break from your busy schedule and see how many of these real estate terms you can name, and how quickly. Then send it to a colleague and see if they can beat your time!

Check out our Real Estate Industry Acronyms Crossword here: http://ow.ly/E42GQ.

Want to make your job easier – ViMO, your Virtual Mobile Office, can help you achieve this. Call ViMO today at 1 855 999 8466 (VIMO).

Marketing Power: How You Can Add Your Listings to ViMO

MLS has proven to be an incredible tool that real estate sales professionals use to search, post, market listings, and to keep track of sales in a particular neighbourhood. The MLS is not like other tools that you may use to market a listing because the MLS is generally only used when someone is looking for a house vs. just researching information about buying a house.

The evolution of technology has led to the creation of apps such as ViMO which enable you to do much of what you do when using the MLS plus much more, all in one place. This is very important because if you want to make the most of your marketing efforts, you want your listing to be anywhere another real estate sales professional may be investigation homes for their client.
In order for your listing to be added to ViMO, like the MLS, you have to add it. This document will provide some training outlining how you can add your listing to ViMO.
Firstly, listing data is managed and updated through CREA’s Data Distribution Facility (DDF) – so to add your listings to ViMO you must obtain credentials from CREA. It’s actually fairly, simple and this document will help you through the process.

1. First you need to complete the CREA application form to create a DDF Feed. Your broker of record can do this which will create a DDF feed for the brokerage so that any real estate sales professionals can post listings, or you can register on your own but then you will only be able to post your own listings.
2. Next go to www.realtorlink.ca – select the board you are a member of, your user ID, password and click “Sign In” – this will direct you to the “Realtor Link” portal.
3. On the right hand side of the screen once in the Realtor Link portal you will see a large badge that says “Access the Data Distribution Facility” – click on it.
4. Now you will be on the Data Distribution Facility screen – click on “Manage My Data”. You will need to know the type of data feed that your brokerage is a part of: national pool or membership pool.
5. After clicking on the type of Data Feed you will be on the “Data Feeds” screen – now you can add your feed by selecting “Add a Data Feed”.
6. Now you will have to complete a form:

• Website section – Status: active, Name of Website: ViMO, Fill out URL: www.myvimo.ca, Destination Owner: Your name.
• Technical contact section: input your name, email and phone number.
• Filters for Data Feed Section: Destination type: National Shared Pool, Property type: none recommended, Uploading board: select your real estate board.

7. After your feed has been completed CREA will send you a confirmation email with your credentials as well as your username and password.
8. Once you have received your credentials, immediately send them to ViMO.DDF@teranet.ca. Once received we will enable the feed listing in your account.

This document is a high-level overview to help you get set up to add and promote your listings within ViMO. If you have more questions or require more assistance you can click here to download a complete instructional PDF guide: http://myvimo.ca/wp-content/uploads/2014/06/Add%20Listing%20in%20CREA%20DDF-3%20-%20Final.pdf that includes screen grabs or you can contact customer service at 1 855 999 8466 (VIMO). Not a ViMO customer yet? Get in touch to access this powerful new app today.