I’m sure that Trulia would like to have a street view for Eugene as well. Unfortunately Google has focused almost all of its Oregon-based Street View photography efforts on Portland, as you can see from this map. If that changes, and Eugene gets Street View images, you will be the first to know!

Here’s what they did for the Campbell House. Obviously the Cambpell House isn’t for sale, so not entirely focused on the buying and selling homes, but that’s ok. They claim to limit the fish-eye factor, something that the market can definitely use, although I noticed a little fish-eye business going on. It’s probably the nature of 360′ views to give you a little of that no matter how flat the lens.

$100-200 to “merchandise” a home worth $300k or more seems like a no-brainer. Provided the marketing costs don’t add up too quickly! A good enough reason to put together a Marketing Plan.

The new heatmap charts are fantastic and definitely deserve to be blogrolled. I especially like that for the week ending Jan 3rd, Lane County is the most popular location for home searches on Trulia.

As I’ve mentioned before, I especially like the neighborhood growth data by week. This can give buyers or sellers useful information. Especially if a neighborhood appreciates at double-digit rates for longer than 6-9 months, and continues that trend with the latest weekly data. Or in the case of buyers, if the latest weekly data shows a significant decline in price.

Home sellers would not fault an agent for removing a dumpster from a photo or using a little extra light to give the place more panache. What’s interesting about this debate though is that it’s happening at all, and in a public forum.

I feel compelled to point out that there are MUCH better products out there than paint, if you plan to edit or resize photos (ethically). Paint is especially bad at pixelating a photo after resizing it. I recommend IrfanView instead. It’s a solid shareware applications that’s nearly as good as photoshop, but without all the complex layers and tools.

True, this post is not really about dating. But the trackback is. It’s about putting your best foot forward (like you would on a date) using best practices and better tools. Also, cutting out the old fisheye pictures, or limiting their use. Do buyers really like those shots? I personally can’t stand them. Zillow and the Web2.0 real estate startups are proof that buyers want the best information they can get, not more fluff in the form of overworked camera angles.

This service allows agents and sellers to upload a classified ad, distribute it, and export to HTML or PDF to post on a website. The first step involves basic information any free service would request. For some reason they don’t require last name (?). They ask that you create an account name hosted by their server at vflyer.com. Such as mybiz.vflyer.com. The form detects in real-time if an account with that name has already been created.

After submitting the form they request that you check your email for a confirmation code. Probably to prevent spam. My gmail account didn’t consider it spam, which was helpful.

Next up you’re directed to a “create form” page in. They give your four steps, and they are indeed easy. Select a category for the classified ad, then fill in all the text forms in step two. You can “add attributes” by filling in a simple text field and checking that option.

Then it’s time to choose a template from 14. Oddly, the preview for each templates wasn’t working for me. Sometimes it did, but there was a long delay.

Once you’ve completed all the information, added attributes, uploaded pictures or created a gallery…it’s time to post. vFlyer lets you post to Oodle, Propsmart, Edgeio, Trulia, Googlebase, Vast, and Others. Others means that you want to add your flyer to all upcoming partners. This could be worded a little better – “Other” sounds as if you can select from a long list of second-tier online classified sites. Not sure why craigslist isn’t here, although I imagine it’s because craigslist likes to be different..

Next post will feature a sample and the final impression!

What exactly is home sales merchandising? It’s the same as any other sort of merchandising, and it’s getting far better. With Zillow’s latest functionality, agents and sellers may someday offer a video walk-through, important documents, neighborhood history and statistics, etc. All in one place.

Biased about local companies?? You bet!!!

And yet…anybody starting out in real estate will need to build some sort of client base first. It’s easy to be Jerry Maguire if the firm is giving you more leads than you can handle, it’s less easy if you’re trying to build a business from scratch in a market saturated with agents.

Here are some marketing tips:

* Setup some kind of web-based presence. Use a real estate agent site template, or create your own, but at least give people a place to go online to reach you.
* Market that site well. Choose keywords wisely. Optimize for search. Don’t overspend on high volume keywords, especially if you operate in a niche like rural properties, million$ homes, etc.
* Review and try all the innovative technology available to buyers and sellers. Don’t fear change, embrace it, and use it to your advantage.