Facebook, or Maybe Housebook...
Posted 03-17-2011 at 03:03 PM by Roy Sanborn
Sales of residential homes in the Lakes Region were surprisingly strong in February with fifty transactions compared to just thirty four last February. Given the fact that we were up to our eyeballs in snow in January, that is pretty remarkable to me. The average sales price came in at just $216,920 compared to $279,480 last February. That drop is due to the fact that we had no sales over $1 million last month but had two last February. As usual, just about half the sales recorded were under $200,000. For the first two months of the year total sales are up 11.5%. On a rolling twelve month period they are up 7% with the average price increasing slightly from $299,312 to $312,101. Not too bad of a start for the year so far…
Social Networking is the wave of the future.
Facebook. Everyone is on it and I get that. At least I get some of it. The Social Network is big and it is going to get much, much bigger so we better embrace it. Facebook is a great way to find old friends that you haven’t seen for a thousand years and, unfortunately, for them to find you even if you have been hiding from them since the eighth grade. It’s a good way to keep up on what they are doing, where they have been, who married who, who had a baby, and all kinds of other good stuff including things that can embarrass them and sometimes you. But some people do get a little carried away, addicted, or consumed by Facebook . There are some things you just don’t need to know about…like what they are having for dinner, that the sun is ,in fact, shining today, that they just got to work, and that they have two different colored socks on.
I don’t get the profile pictures some people use. The profile picture of someone’s eyeball squinting at me, or their nose and right eye, or the top half or lower half of their face might seem artistic but sometimes it makes me wonder. Sometimes it’s not even a picture of them, which in certain circumstances I do understand. I like to see a picture of someone’s whole face smiling honestly at me. Truth in advertising so to speak. I get the “Like” part, but I’m not real sure about the “Poke”. I also don’t play the games on Facebook, there’s not enough time in the day as it is.
Facebook is also now a way to market goods and services utilizing Facebook “pages”. If houses were animated and had their own Facebook pages it would be great! Would pictures of a window sill and part of the window be a good profile shot? Or maybe, a weird angle of the front door and door knob would be a welcoming and enticing shot that would encourage buyers to come and visit? I guess it would be OK on Facebook, if real people do it. The home could post about its daily routine, talk about the small (and not so small) daily crises that it goes through, and even give feedback about showings. Maybe buyers could “Like” houses enough to actually “Buy” them. And if you wanted to post on the house’s “wall”, which wall should it be posted it on? Probably the front wall. You do want people to see it, right? See, Facebook is getting easier.
I Tweet a fair amount, too. But I limit my Tweets to being just about listings and my blog. It seems that an extraordinary large number of people Tweet about really trivial and mundane things. It can sometime be even worse and less interesting than Facebook because they only have 140 characters to say something. Some Tweeters give you a blow by blow description of their entire day. I don’t care where you just arrived and that you have a Dunkin Donut cappuccino. But, Twitter does have a place in marketing, spreading news, information (gossip) and I intend to take full advantage of it. It works. I’m always looking to improve. Since Charlie Sheen is out of work and considering his recent Twitter success of gaining over a million followers in 25 hours, I have contracted with him (for a lot less than you’d think) to promote my property listings on Twitter. He has some unique marketing ideas that I am sure will either work extremely well and sell a lot of houses or land me in REALTOR® jail. You can follow me @RoySanborn.
If houses had facebook pages...
Social Networking is the wave of the future.
Facebook. Everyone is on it and I get that. At least I get some of it. The Social Network is big and it is going to get much, much bigger so we better embrace it. Facebook is a great way to find old friends that you haven’t seen for a thousand years and, unfortunately, for them to find you even if you have been hiding from them since the eighth grade. It’s a good way to keep up on what they are doing, where they have been, who married who, who had a baby, and all kinds of other good stuff including things that can embarrass them and sometimes you. But some people do get a little carried away, addicted, or consumed by Facebook . There are some things you just don’t need to know about…like what they are having for dinner, that the sun is ,in fact, shining today, that they just got to work, and that they have two different colored socks on.
I don’t get the profile pictures some people use. The profile picture of someone’s eyeball squinting at me, or their nose and right eye, or the top half or lower half of their face might seem artistic but sometimes it makes me wonder. Sometimes it’s not even a picture of them, which in certain circumstances I do understand. I like to see a picture of someone’s whole face smiling honestly at me. Truth in advertising so to speak. I get the “Like” part, but I’m not real sure about the “Poke”. I also don’t play the games on Facebook, there’s not enough time in the day as it is.
Facebook is also now a way to market goods and services utilizing Facebook “pages”. If houses were animated and had their own Facebook pages it would be great! Would pictures of a window sill and part of the window be a good profile shot? Or maybe, a weird angle of the front door and door knob would be a welcoming and enticing shot that would encourage buyers to come and visit? I guess it would be OK on Facebook, if real people do it. The home could post about its daily routine, talk about the small (and not so small) daily crises that it goes through, and even give feedback about showings. Maybe buyers could “Like” houses enough to actually “Buy” them. And if you wanted to post on the house’s “wall”, which wall should it be posted it on? Probably the front wall. You do want people to see it, right? See, Facebook is getting easier.
I Tweet a fair amount, too. But I limit my Tweets to being just about listings and my blog. It seems that an extraordinary large number of people Tweet about really trivial and mundane things. It can sometime be even worse and less interesting than Facebook because they only have 140 characters to say something. Some Tweeters give you a blow by blow description of their entire day. I don’t care where you just arrived and that you have a Dunkin Donut cappuccino. But, Twitter does have a place in marketing, spreading news, information (gossip) and I intend to take full advantage of it. It works. I’m always looking to improve. Since Charlie Sheen is out of work and considering his recent Twitter success of gaining over a million followers in 25 hours, I have contracted with him (for a lot less than you’d think) to promote my property listings on Twitter. He has some unique marketing ideas that I am sure will either work extremely well and sell a lot of houses or land me in REALTOR® jail. You can follow me @RoySanborn.
If houses had facebook pages...
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