Thanks to Larry Lokker at FNRES for telling us about this article, and the team at Real Trends for publishing this summary of a valuable research study from Yahoo! that illustrates how real estate agents and brokers are still spending money in print, whereas consumers are overwhelmingly going online to do their research. This is a classic case of going fishing where the fish aren’t.

To real estate agents and brokers who may be reading this: Your consumers are doing their research online. Why wouldn’t they with the multitude of resources now available to them? They can find what they are looking for more quickly, and have deep resources to service their curiosity. Furthermore, they are better researched than their offline counterparts, and when they’re ready to buy, they act faster than traditional offline buyers. So, why wouldn’t you go fishing where the fish are, and connect with buyers and sellers who are online looking for real estate.

Lastly, in this Yahoo survey, it was found that 74 percent of people who accessed an agent Web site got there with the help of a search engine which means that when you are thinking about advertising online to connect with these buyers and sellers, you must have a strong Search based solution to connect with these consumers, otherwise you are missing out on where they are. Please contact us to learn more about how you can do this on a cost effective basis.

Here are the survey results:

Yahoo! Inc., released the results of a study on how online resources influence home buyers and sellers - specifically when it comes to selecting a real estate professional.

Yahoo! found that online resources played a pivotal role in the selection process and was central in helping
consumers identify agents. While friends and family are mostly responsible for recommending agents, the vast majority of home buyers and sellers still rely on the Internet to search for potential agents in their local markets as well as to verify their choices.

However, there is a disconnect between advertising dollars and consumer behavior. Based on Yahoo!’s study, 77 percent of respondents used an online source for information during their research process compared to 34 percent for print. But, according to a recent analysis by Borrell Associates, Realtor advertising dollars have yet to catch up to where homebuyers are going - the Internet. While this year’s online media spend did in fact double from 2005, capturing 32 percent of the overall advertising spend, newspapers continue to get more share of dollars with 40 percent.

According to the Yahoo! study, consumers look to the Web to ensure that the selected agent will best meet their specific needs.

Key findings include:

• Home buyers and sellers consider approximately two agents on average before making a final decision
• The Internet impacts consumer trust. Forty percent of respondents credited a site in increasing their trust in the agent
• 74 percent of people who accessed an agent Web site got there with the help of a search engine
• The online research process is quick and intense: consumers spent an average of 12 hours online researching agents and 75 percent selected an agent within one week of starting their search
• Online resources provided introduction to new agents as well as promotional deals:
• 45 percent of respondents used the Internet to learn about agents they didn’t know existed
• 41 percent discovered special deals and promotions offered from an agent through the Internet

Los Angeles, CA, April 22, 2008 - Fidelity Assets is an Authorized Google Adwords Reseller and a specialist in real estate lead generation, and helped 2 Coldwell Banker agents in the Los Angeles Area build and manage their own lead generation programs. The results were phenomenal, and both agents saw a strong return on their investment within 90 days.

“Coldwell Banker gave us two weeks and $650 budgets for each client and said Go!” says Andy Steuer, Fidelity Assets’ CEO, and author the book of “Internet Marketing Secrets for Real Estate Agents and Brokers.” “As we do with all of our clients, we built and launched the online advertising campaigns within 48 hours, implementing our highly targeted traffic generation solutions combined with our proven lead capture and lead management platform. Within hours, both clients were receiving exclusive buyer and seller leads at a cost lower than they can generate in any other medium in the world.”

One of the agents, Jason Squire of Team Squire in Studio City, CA said that they were happily overwhelmed the first few days. “We got 3 to 5 leads per day, not expecting such an instant response. They were so darn good, too. 60-70% had accurate phone numbers. Over 80% had accurate emails addresses.”

The second agent team, Kelley and Todd Miller of Los Angeles saw immediate results as well. “Up to 88% had accurate information.” says Kelley Miller. “The fact the lead notification also included details about what they were looking to buy, how soon they were looking to transact, and how much they were willing to spend was an added bonus.”

“We focused the agents’ online advertising campaign to the geographical areas where the clients work,” says Jack Sekowski, Fidelity Assets’ Senior Account Manager. “If an area wasn’t getting many searches, we replaced it with another area that was. The campaigns were monitored and optimized several times during those two weeks with ever improving results.”

The leads ranged from a $250K condo in Burbank to a $2 million single family home in Westwood, coming from web searchers from as far as Australia, Dubai and the UK. “Our goal was to get them in front of as many searches as possible,” says Andy Steuer. “With the weak dollar, buyers from all over the world are eager to buy homes in the US.”

In those two weeks, Team Squire received 72 leads at an average cost per lead (CPL) of $8.82, and Kelley and Todd Miller received 64 leads at average CPL of $9.89. “Within a month, we were in escrow for a $500K+ home,” says Jason Squire. “We’re currently working with 3 active buyers and have numerous leads in the pipeline. Kelley reveals that “We are actively working with one client who is moving into the area. She and her husband are looking for a multimillion dollar home and are in the process of narrowing down their options within the next two weekends. There are several other good leads in the pipeline as well which we hope to be converting in the months ahead.”

All this is no surprise to Andy Steuer. “We align our business with our clients by helping them build their own lead generation solution using lead generation best practices. This way, agents don’t have to build out the technology themselves, knowing that their exclusive buyer and seller lead costs are typically within the $7-10 range. From my experience, these results are not the exception. Jim Young, a semi-retired real estate agent from Phoenix who has been with us for less than two months and had a limited budget to spend on Google wrote to us the other day saying, I thought you would like to know I opened my second escrow off your leads this morning. Total Commission Earned: $7,452.00 with Total Cost To Date: $ 287.74 ROI – 25 to 1 Hot-Damn!”

About Fidelity Assets
Fidelity Assets is a team of PPC experts offering professional Search Engine Marketing (SEM) management to mid-market and local businesses. With packages starting at just $99/month, Fidelity Assets does everything it takes to create and manage a pay-per-click program. Fidelity Assets is a full-service ad agency, delivering big agency results on a not-so-big budget. Patent pending technology, market presence, and industry expertise allow Fidelity Assets to deliver high quality web traffic for a lower price than individual advertisers are typically able to acquire on their own. In fact, the vast majority of customers are able to pay the small management fee with the money they save each month. Fidelity Assets is headquartered in Beverly Hills, California. For additional information, please visit www.fidelityassets.com or call (866) 909-5323.

So far, online real estate site Zillow has raised a total of $87 million. And the latest round came this week: Legg Mason led a financing round for $30 million. Other investors included Benchmark Capital and TCV.

Last month, there were about 4.4 million unique visitors. Although, there is no indication about the revenue levels from Zillow.

In addition to Zillow’s traffic growth, the company has seen rapid use and engagement in its community features.
— In the past year, more than one million U.S. homeowners and agents have
“claimed” homes on the site, with most adding additional data such as
updated home facts or remodel information.

— More than 50,000 questions and answers have been asked about homes
since April 2007, and Zillow Discussions has seen more than
40,000 contributions since the feature launched in July.

— Currently 286,000 user-contributed listings are on the site, including
homes for sale by agent, owner and Make Me Move.

— Zillow’s self-service local ad product, Zillow EZ Ads, now has more
than 6,000 individual advertisers.

Zillow employs 155 employees and is headquartered in Seattle, with additional ad sales offices in New York, Chicago, San Francisco, Los Angeles, and San Diego. For more information and commentary from the Zillow team, or to ask a question about the new features, visit the Zillow Blog at http://www.zillowblog.com.

We are frequently asked whether Google is trying to become a national MLS or not. In this interview with InmanTV, Justin McCarthy, Strategic Partner Development Manager of Real Estate for Google, discusses the search engine company’s approach to the real estate vertical, how Google Base attempts to deliver relevant real estate content to consumers and where Google is aiming next with property information aggregation.

LOS ANGELES - Connecting Neighbors, a division of Reply! Inc., has announced its newest offering: Search Engine Marketing (SEM) for Neighborhood Web sites. Through its partnership with Fidelity Assets (www.fidelityassets.com), Connecting Neighbors Members now have the opportunity to drive more traffic to their Neighborhood Web sites and capture more consumer leads through Search Engine Marketing.

Connecting Neighbors Neighborhood Web sites nation-wide are sponsored individually and exclusively by local real estate professionals, each known to their community as the Neighborhood Expert. Consumers increasingly turn to the Internet seeking community information from a trusted source. By marketing their Neighborhood Web sites through SEM, Connecting Neighbors Members will be highlighting this desired information for interested online consumers, living both in and outside of their neighborhood.

“Our partnership with Connecting Neighbors offers a winning strategy for their Members, as well as the consumers they serve. Through our Search Engine Marketing solution at www.neighborhoodsem.com, these real estate professionals will reach more online consumers, and connect with people actively searching for information on GoogleTM, while ultimately creating more business opportunities,” said Andy Steuer, Fidelity Assets CEO, and author of Internet Marketing Secrets for Real Estate Agents and Brokers.

The SEM option is now available to Connecting Neighbors members across the country, the company reports. Members choosing to market their Neighborhood Websites through the new offering will receive increased traffic, with their name and website appearing on GoogleTM.

“This is an exciting opportunity for our members to brand themselves and their Neighborhood Websites at the top of GoogleTM. This offering from Fidelity Assets allows participating Members to drive a guaranteed number of unique monthly visitors to their Web site, in addition to the residents visiting the site on a regular basis,” said Bill Miles, EVP Reply! Local/Connecting Neighbors.

For more information, visit www.connectingneighbors.com/sponsor and www.neighborhoodsem.com.

The more things change, the more they stay the same.

30-year fixed rate at 5.78%; 10-year Treasury yield at 4.73%

Long-term mortgage interest rates barely budged Thursday, and the benchmark 10-year Treasury bond yield stayed at 4.73 percent.

The 30-year fixed-rate average dipped to 5.78 percent, and the 15-year fixed rate held at 5.57 percent. The 1-year adjustable increased to 5.38 percent.

The 30-year Treasury bond yield decreased to 4.84 percent.

Mortgage rate figures are according to Bankrate.com, which publishes nightly averages based on its survey of 4,000 banks in 50 states. Points on these mortgages range from zero to 3.5.

For more information, visit the whole article here.

On RecorderOnline.com, an interesting article discusses the real estate crash that wasn’t.

Given that real estate values can and do fall, it follows that after years of steady appreciation real estate prices were destined to stall. However, the important point is that if you bought a few years ago the odds are overwhelming that you’re ahead.

According to the National Association of Realtors, the typical existing home was worth $220,000 in September 2006. You can look at this number and say, aha, that’s down 2.2 percent from a year earlier.

But how many people sell in a year? Let’s make a more realistic comparison: In September 2002, the typical home sold for $159,000. In just four years, the typical home appreciated $61,000.

Read the whole article here.

30-year fixed rate at 5.73%; 10-year Treasury yield at 4.57%

Long-term mortgage interest rates leveled out Tuesday, and the benchmark 10-year Treasury bond yield dipped to 4.57 percent.

The 30-year fixed-rate average dipped slightly to 5.73 percent, and the 15-year fixed rate slipped to 5.47 percent. The 1-year adjustable was unchanged at 5.34 percent.

The 30-year Treasury bond yield decreased to 4.66 percent.

Rates are current as of 7:15 p.m. Eastern Standard Time.

Read more on Inman News here.

If you’ve taken a look at the new low gas prices and are thinking about buying a brand new SUV or other large car to get from your job to your new home in the suburbs, take heed: gas prices are probably not going to stay at these levels for too long.

Who can remember all the way back to last summer, when we had daylight savings time, baseball and $3 a gallon gasoline prices?

Sales of big pickup trucks and SUVs went through the roof - doubling from the year before in some cases. Sales of small, fuel-efficient cars, meanwhile, remained stagnant. It is as if all that moaning and groaning about price gouging by oil companies never happened.

Read the whole article here (Fortune Magazine).

American homeowners have been tapping into their homes like ATMs at an incredible rate since the housing boom began in 2000. But this year it looks like they’ve taken it to a new level. The number of homeowners tapping into home equity through cash-out refinancing has hit its highest level since 1990. And 89% of Freddie Mac-owned loans that refinanced got mortgages that were at least 5% higher than the original balances.

“High demand for cash extraction through refinance is being driven by the high cost of home improvement loans and home-equity lines of credit — that is, the cost of alternative financing — and still-strong demand for home improvements,” Amy Crews Cutts, Freddie Mac deputy chief economist, said in a release.

Also, a huge wave of adjustable-rate mortgages created in the past few years are facing their first reset, giving borrowers the incentive to refinance and take additional cash, Freddie Mac said.

Read the whole article here (CNN Money).