Probably one of the most over used terms in Real Estate, De-Cluttering. 

Mr. & Mrs. Seller: "What do you suggest we do to get our house ready to sell?"
Me, We, Us: "DeClutter, DeClutter, DeClutter"

Listing Agent (Looking for Feedback): "What can we do to make this home more Saleable?"
Me, We, Us: "How about you try and get them to DeClutter"

So why is this such an important piece of advice? Because it is true. Houses that are decluttered tend to sell for more money and in less time.

 Now...can we apply this same principal to our real estate businesses? I did. Have I made more money as a result? I believe that I have.

The Decision - Going Paperless

I like to think of myself as an 'early adopter'. I don't try everything, but I watch and listen to those that do try everything to see what works and what doesn't. Let's face it, there just isn't enough time in the day to be experimenting with every piece of tech or new social network.

As a result of this line of thinking, I actually waited until the 2nd iPad was released before I bought iPad1 or first generation. Was I the first 'Paperless Agent" in Calgary? No. Have I been rocking it ever since I got the iPad a year and a half ago? You bet!

Once I saw those that had adapted the iPad and the cloud as a solid part of their business, I really felt they were onto something innovative, and, over time, a way of doing business that will be the norm a couple of years from now.

The decision was easy for me. No more forgetting my files at home, or forgetting to print off a part of the real estate contract that I would need. No more having to use a fax machine, scanner or a copier(actually I still use a scanner but it is on my iPad now).

I have access to all of my client files, every piece of paperwork I will ever need, scanner, email to fax, my laptop if I need it via remote access, a camera, a video camera and most importantly my CRM.

How do I Make More Money Being Paperless?

In real estate or in any business for that matter, what does Time equal? Time = Money...Right?

Embracing the paperless 'lifestyle' has enabled me to become more efficient in my business, give better service to my clients and as a result win more business because I have the time for effective follow through (not follow up...that is another post altogether).

In the coming weeks and months I will be talking more about being Paperless, sharing ideas and techniques, so I hope you will stick it through in the hopes that we can learn something new together.

**Kelley Skar is a Calgary Realtor who has embraced technology and made it the core of his real estate business. Kelley is a regular contributor to our blog, other industry publications and a speaker at various industry events. Join Kelley as he takes you on his journey of implementing and creating success using technology to improve his business**

Chad Wozniak, an Abbotsford REALTOR® from Greater Vancouver area, has recently launched a new website www.callwoz.com. The website is built on WordPress platform by SplitMango, a Vancouver design studio whose work we have featured in the past. The website integrates myRealPage embeddable listings, which made it easy for Chad to include his listings, his office listings, full MLS® search, as well as a number of predefined searches (niche listing pages). The listings have also been customized via CSS to match the look and feel of the website better.

Take a moment and visit Chads’s website.

Do  you already have a website? You can easily migrate and customize it on myRealPage platform, you you can use myRealPage embeddable listings to add rich listing functionality to your existing website. If you are a proud owner of a WordPress website, check out our WordPress listings plugin.

Let us know what you think: feedback@myrealpage.com

We have just published a bunch of updates in our systems to give you more choices and better streamlined features when it comes to giving your listings the best online treatment possible. Please note, that these changes are available only in our Web Private Office; please fire up your Chrome, Safari, or Firefox and check it out if you haven’t yet: http://private-office.myrealpage.com

NEW DEDICATED SUPPORT FOR FLOOR PLANS

We now have a separate tab in the Listing Editor specifically for Floor Plans. Previously, you had to manage your Floor Plans through the Listing Documents which didn’t get proper visibility in the listing details views and one couldn’t look at the floor plans without downloading them. With the new Floor Plans tab, you can easily upload all your Floor Plans in one convenient location; and you can also customize the label for the dedicated tab and even enter an optional introduction text. In addition, if you upload PDF documents of your floor plans, they will be shown inside the page without the visitor needing to download them: less time spent fumbling with the documents and more on your listing page.

New dedicated Floor Plans tab in Listing Details.

New “Floor Plans” support in the Web Private Office: everything you need in one convenient location

BETTER SUPPORT FOR RICH MEDIA (VIDEOS, VIRTUAL TOURS)

We have also streamlined how you add and manage your listings’ videos and virtual tours. Both are now combined into one list; and we have also added the ability for you to change their default tab label, as well as add an optional introduction text. You can also use this facility to change your “Videos | V.Tours” tab into something completely different, like a tab dedicated to the listing’s neighborhood, with its own text, pictures, and videos.

New Rich Media support in the Web Private Office: more flexibility and convenience

FINE-TUNING DIALOG FOR GOOGLE STREET VIEW

It is obvious that you would like your listing to have best possible presentation online. You can now use our integrated, convenient dialog to fine-tune how the Google Street View of your listing looks online. You can simply launch this dialog and use the standard Street View controls to zoom in, pan and rotate the view to get the best possible look of your listing. Our system will remember exactly what you have done and will apply it to the listing.

New integrated Google Street View dialog for fine-tuning

STANDALONE VIRTUAL TOUR (MEDIA) PAGE FOR YOUR LISTING

We have long offered a standalone media presentation for your listing which you can add to your listing’s information in the MLS® system. Many MLS® systems allow you to submit such external links to feature virtual tours, images, etc. We have modified this listing presentation to include Floor Plans support, better image gallery and more.

How to access the Standalone Virtual Tour / Media page in the Web Private Office

New streamlined look for the Virtual Tour / Media page for your listing.

We hope you will enjoy using these new features as much as we enjoyed building them. Let us know what you think: feedback@myrealpage.com

We are pleased to announce a new addition to the many ways you can add photos to your website, the Photo Gallery weblet. Not only does this weblet work on your standard website, it also works perfectly on your mobile myRealPage site as well!

This weblet is a great tool to showcase photos on your site whether it be for a new development, an event you were a part of or photos for adding a new twist on Testimonials.

This weblet contains options that will allow you to add a title to the gallery, add a description and add captions to each photo. Upload images directly from your computer or from your web drive and then drag and drop them in the order you want.

As always, we would love to hear what you think; send us your thoughts to feedback@myrealpage.com

We hope you will enjoy using this great new weblet.

We are thrilled to showcase an example of a multi-language real estate website built for Sunny Lee, a Greater Vancouver REALTOR®. The website was designed and implemented by SplitMango web design studio, who have done many projects on myRealPage website and listing platform in the past. Please, take a moment and check out Sunny’s website at http://sunnylee.ca

Sunny Lee needed a website in English and Chinese and used myRealPage multi-website-per-account support. He simply added another website and chose to let all the content from the original English website be automatically included in the Chinese version; then translated each page as needed. This is what SplitMango had to say about this project:

Sunny's clientele is mostly Chinese so it was very important for him to have a Chinese version of his website. The myRealPage language website was very helpful and allowed us easily set him up with a second website that is simple for him to update as well. We also designed Sunny's mobile page which was important for him as GPS mobile function.

Do you need a new website or have an existing one that you would like to be better? We have a wealth of powerful features and fantastic designs. For example, have you heard about our Facebook tabs for your listings, or great looking Neighborhood and Building pages? Also, keep in mind that our platform is very friendly to 3rd party designers and deep customization: just check out the great custom design examples here. Want to signup or find out more? Drop our sales a line at sales@myrealpage.com.

We are very pleased to welcome Andrew Hasman and his team who launched a new custom designed Vancouver real estate website with myRealPage. The new website was built using custom layout and design tools available as part of myRealPage website platform, and takes full advantage of advanced listing and IDX (search) tools. The website was designed by TribalYell, a Vancouver web design studio, whose great work we have featured in the past. Please take a minute to explore Andrew Hasman’s new website at http://andrewhasman.com

This is what Andrew Hasman said about the new website and their move to myRealPage:

“Andrew Hasman and his Real Estate Team switch real estate platforms to myRealPage. After a number of years with another provider I felt it was time to move over to myRealPage. This platform will allow us to better position our website in SEO rankings and provides an easier to use and more tools at the back end. We look forward to a new working relationship with the myRealPage team.

Andrew Hasman and been selling residential property across Vancouver's Westside and Downtown for the past 19 years. We are a full service boutique real estate company providing hands on service to our many valued clients.

One of the public’s most common beefs about working with realtors is the lack of communication and follow through service they receive from the realtor they actually hired. Too often I hear clients say they felt passed on as they were left working with the realtors support staff and assistants.

When you work with Andrew Hasman you get the one on one service that you so deserve when you are buying or selling. I am always available to answer calls, emails and show and sell my clients homes. I am involved every step of the way.

My company is small consisting of 5 full time Licensed Realtors each with many years experience. Two members of my team are fluent in Mandarin and Cantonese so that we can effectively service our many clients from China, Hong Kong and Taiwan.”

Paul McEwan from TribalYell had this to say:

“Andrew Hasman and myRealPage! What a great final project before leaving my position as Marketing Manager at RE/MAX Real Estate Services and going full time as Director of my own TribalYell Marketing and Design."

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Do you have an existing website or would like to build a new one? Take a look at examples of how others customized their websites with us. You can compliment your regular website with a mobile one, and our mobile listing search is free with a regular subscription. Give us a call at: 1-888-478-8797 or email us: sales@myrealpage.com

Say hello to three new weblets added to a large and growing selection of myRealPage website components. The three new arrivals are:

• Twitter Profile weblet : a customizable widget that shows your tweets
• Facebook Like Box : a customizable widget that shows activity on your Facebook Page
• Google Translate : a widget that displays a “translate” drop-down menu and uses Google Translate service to translate your website pages into a variety of languages

It was possible to add these weblets to your myRealPage websites in the past, but you had to copy-and-paste a bunch of codes and if you wanted to change anything you had to start from scratch. We thought we could do better…. The new weblets will now let you integrate these tools into your websites very easily; and you can always come back later and change their settings without any copy-and-pasting.

You can find the new weblets in the “General” section or simply by typing their names into the search box.

Let us know what you think about these new weblets: we hope you will put them to good use. Email us your thoughts and feedback to feedback@myrealpage.com

We are very thrilled to publish a set of new weblets today which will make it super easy for you to create refined, consistent, feature and information rich pages for buildings and neighborhoods. These weblets have been painstakingly put together, taking into account most requested features from you, our customers; and we have gone beyond...

Today we would like to introduce to you a set of four weblets:

• Building Page weblet
• Neighborhood Page weblet
• Building List weblet
• Neighborhood List weblet

Building and Neighborhood weblets come with rich toolsets and were designed to give you maximum flexibility and latitude for customization. In a nutshell, these weblet offer:

• Ability to quickly add relevant information about a building or neighborhood, including tabular data, such as “Quick Facts”
• Precise tools to help you display current listings in your buildings and neighborhoods
• Quickly upload multiple photos at a time, re-arrange their order and decorate them with your own captions. The photos will render into a beautiful “lightbox” style gallery on the resulting page; the weblets will smartly scale the resulting lightboxes to snugly fit into the screen; as well as adjust your thumbnail sizes to fit just perfectly
• Add a Google map, StreetView, Walkscore and Bing’s Bird’s Eye View to your pages; and create your own CUSTOM DRAWN shapes and push pins with info balloons. All to create a visual geo-context for your buildings or neighborhoods
• Upload a series of documents that you may want to have your visitors download; change their order and give them descriptive names
• Embed videos and rich media; including a nice integration with YouTube
• Assemble your buildings and neighborhoods into exact lists, using Building and Neighborhood List weblets

It’s easy to get started: simply create a new page, choose to “add content” to it and select one of these new weblets:

We have put together these videos to help you get started:

We very much hope you enjoy using these weblets as much as we enjoyed building them for you. And if you create great looking pages you are proud of, why not send us the links: we’ll be happy to feature them on our blog: feedback@myrealpage.com

We are very excited to publish a great new feature in our Listings Module: a set of tools to quickly and easily create and publish all manner of listings on your Facebook Fan Page. If you don’t know what Facebook Fan Pages are, we encourage you to check them out. In a nutshell, Facebook Fan Pages allow you to create a special landing page for your real estate business where you can engage your existing and potential client base. And now, you can compliment such a Fan Page with your listings, including listing search and predefined searches (in regions where available).

We have gone to great lengths to make the typically convoluted process of publishing on a Facebook Page, a breeze. Everything is handled from a single easy-to-use wizard dialog which takes you through all the steps and gives you a great deal of flexibility and customization.

At a glance, this new feature will let you:

• Quickly publish your listings, including a custom arrangement of your listings, such as “Only active listings”, “This listing at the top, followed by the rest of my listings”, etc…
• Publish any of your Predefined Searches (in regions where available), also including various arrangements.
• Publish your individual listings’ details
• Publish a special, facebook-friendly search form (in regions where available) to let your visitors search for listings right on your Facebook Page 
• Create special fans-only (fan gate) pages which show their true contents only to people who have liked the page, and otherwise invite them to like the page first (a way to build a fan base for your page)
• Completely integrated way to manage all your listing Facebook Tabs from the web-based Private Office, including the ability to publish and unpublish individual tabs.
• Manage one or many Facebook Pages and tabs all in one place.

A QUICK VIDEO TOUR

Take this new shiny tool for a spin: it’s slick and super easy to use! It will even let you create the Facebook Page right from the wizard.

Let us know what you think: feedback@myrealpage.com

SplitMango, a Vancouver web design studio that has been helping myRealPage clients develop great custom websites for several years now, told us that they had partnered up with Pholiofy, a new web service dedicated to Facebook Brand Page hosting. If you haven't heard of Facebook Pages, this is a great time to find out what they are. In a nutshell, Facebook allows you to create a special landing page that can be dedicated to your business, product, or brand. There, you can install a special frame that can contain your branding, links, marketing material, etc. Pages can be "Liked" and gather a fan base. This is precisely where SplitMango and Pholiofy fit in: they can help you build and host such a page.

As an added bonus, SplitMango will also be able to include your listings provided through myRealPage, including predefined searches (where available).

To get you started with this new service, SplitMango is offering a special 10% discount promotion code for myRealPage clients. Simply use "MRPOCT11" to subscribe with Pholiofy before the end of October, 2011.