Do you own your Real Estate Business?

This may seem like a strange question, and for some of you it will be a 100% absolutely, yes I do answer.  Particularly if you are the owner/broker of a real estate company.  But that isn’t actually what I’m talking about.  I’m talking about your online real estate business:  Do you really own it?

For example, how many of you have, as your primary email address:  SuperAgent@aol.com, or SuperAgent@yahoo.com, SuperAgent@cox.net, or even SuperAgent@gmail.com?  If you do, who owns that email address?  It doesn’t look to me like you do.  Rather, it looks to me like AOL, Yahoo, Cox, or Google own your email address, and they are simply letting you use it for a while.  I wonder how long they’ll continue to do that?  Forever?  For a year?  For a decade?  What if they start charging you for their service, or impliment anti-business rules for their “free” email accounts?  After all, each of those businesses can decide to do whatever they choose to, since they own the email account.

For bloggers, let’s look at another very common example of NOT owning your business.  Is your blog at Blogger.com?  Is it at Wordpress.com?  Both of those sites allow you to create a free blog.  Each has some sort of rule about blogging for business, which many people ignore, and for the most part, so do the sites.  But tomorrow they could actually start enforcing their own rules, and shutting down blogs, or even just sending you a nice fat bill each month.  How prepared are you to lose months or even years worth of blogging over night?  Speaking from experience, when I accidentally deleted the first 100 of my own posts from my blog, and thought I had NO backup, your heart will sink to the floor, and you will think the world is crashing in around you, if that happens.

The fix for both of these problems is relatively simple and relatively inexpensive. For each, I believe you need to start by purchasing a domain name that you OWN. At GoDaddy.com a domain will cost you around $10/year, but if you are nice, I can show you how to get one for a buck or two less.  So for the cost of 2 cups of coffee at Starbucks (and feel free to cut out two trips this week to pay for your domain, if cost really is an issue), you are well on your way to ownership.

For the email problem, I highly suggest you find a Microsoft Exchange hosting provider for your email.  MailStreet.com is a good choice, with pricing plans starting at $13/month.  For more ideas, Microsoft has this list of Exchange hosting providers.  Why do I recommend an Exchange solution?  Because it works.  And it works well.  With Exchange you’ll get integration with your email, calendar, tasks (to-do list), and contacts all in one application.  Exchange will push your email, contacts, and calendar entries to your smart phone real time.  And of course all of these companies provide web mail support, so you can view your email from any computer anywhere, if your laptop crashes on the day your smart phone is run over by a bus.

For me, the beauty is in the real time integration with my iPhone, although Blackberry users will benefit just the same.  There’s nothing like having your phone notify you of a new email as fast or faster, than your desktop computer does.

For a good, and a bit less expensive solution, you might also consider using Google’s business apps version of Gmail to have Google host your email/calendaring, which allows integration with a smart phone.  I don’t have any experience with this solution, but I have heard it works well, and the full blow business account is only $50/year.

To own your blog, there are a number of hosting providers you can choose from, which will allow you to use download the free software from WordPress and host your blog.  As a side benefit to being hosted, you’ll get to pick any theme and any set of plugins you desire in WordPress, which will further make your blog truly unique, and thus truly yours.  GoDaddy will host your blog for $10/month, however they are not very tolerant of blogs that get a lot of page views for that price, so while it can be a good place to start, with success, you may outgrow them.  Many people believe the leading hosting provider is currently MediaTemple, however HostGator and A Small Orange are each well thought of.

At this point, you may be wondering what I use?  My solution isn’t for everyone, but it works well for me.  In my office, I have a Windows Server with Windows Small Business 2003 installed, which gives me remote access and a Microsoft Exchange server.  Sitting right next to the Windows server is a Linux server, which hosts my blog (actually, it hosts many blogs).  Because I already had a T1 line coming into the office for phones/internet, and I have the skillz to build and maintain these servers, doing it myself was a no brainer.  I know a few agents across the country that self-host, but only a very few of us.

There are more choices than what I’ve given here, but hopefully I’ve given you some nuggets to think about and places to start looking if you don’t yet own your online Real Estate Business.

AZ Real Estate Blogging Network Meetup - November 19, 2008

Come join us for our monthly meet up for all real estate professionals eager to learn and share about blogging for business! AZ Real Estate Blogging Network is excited about November’s meetup and our featured speakers!

Jay Thompson, Broker, Avid Phoenix Blogger with Thompson’s Realty will be organizing a FAQ session for bloggers on blogging and marketing for your online presences! Jay has been blogging for almost five years now and comes with great experience and so willing to share his knowledge!

Also joining this month is Dave Smith a fellow Realtor from Tucson, Dave will be sharing his experience with building several WordPress blogs such as Real Estate Blog Lab that offers basically a laboratory for blogging. Dave offers great advice, tips and how to’s on blogging. Dave will be sharing his experience, successes with his blogging and online presences!

Justin McHood with Arizona Mortgage Team will be speaking about Social Media Networking and how it became a permanent fixture to his business plan! How he got started and how it has helped his online presence.

Please mark your calendars for our AZ Real Estate Blogging Network for November 19, 2008 meet up from 10:00 a.m to 12:30 pm. Lunch will be served!

The Wednesday mid morning workshop will be RSVP only with limited space. Be sure to sign up with our group within the MeetUp.com platform. You can reserve your seat with AZREBN MeetUp group here.

SPONSORS:

Fidelity National Title - 60 E Rio Salado Pkwy - Tempe, AZ 85281

Map to Fidelity National Title

Justin & Tammy McHood - Arizona Mortgage Team

Please be sure to RSVP as soon as possible and spread the word! We encourage inviting others to join our Meetup group and also find us on your favorite social networking group.

See you in a few weeks!

Candace

Meetup #3 Rocked!

At least I thought it rocked… what a great group of people. I throughly enjoy talking with most of you today. Could have used more time, but then again, I could talk about this stuff for days.

Special thanks to Candace for all she puts into this and our pals at Land America Title for sponsoring!!

Here’s my presentation on “Building Blog Readership”:

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Demystifying Real Estate Blogging

About 45 folks gathered on Thursday for a real estate blogging seminar. Thanks to Nick and Candace (and everyone else) for attending. Candace asked me to post my presentation here. For your viewing pleasure…

Presented at The University of Phoenix on June 12, 2008. Sponsored by First American Title.