Realtors are increasingly confident about current market conditions and the outlook for the next six months, although expectations for condos are still less than “moderate,” according to survey data gathered in March. Source: National Association of Realtors.
There are lots of tools for collaborating online.
Google Docs is perhaps the go-to standby for sharing text and spreadsheet documents. Evernote shared notebooks are another way of sharing files and text documents. And of course there’s Dropbox as a sort of shared hard drive in the sky.
In practice, the amount of actual collaboration that occurs on these platforms varies.
More often I find myself using Dropbox, Google Docs and Evernote to share stuff with other people. But there’s rarely much collaboration.
These applications are great at solving the problem of access to documents, but they don’t do much for collaboratively working with others.
I suspect this has something to do with the way the documents and relationships with potential collaborators are structured. Once a word processing document has been started, the next people along might feel less like creating anything than editing. Perhaps go in and make a couple quick cleanups.
Imagine a wealthy Russian entrepreneur sitting down with her expensive laptop. She is looking to buy a vacation home in Florida. Which search engine does she start with?
If you answered “Google,” “Yahoo” or “Bing,” you’re wrong. In Russia, the number one search engine is not one of the American leaders. It is Yandex, which is as Russian as Stolichnaya Vodka.
Yandex operates in other countries, too. It is so popular that it has more users — not just in Russia, but around the world — than Microsoft’s Bing search engine. That’s embarrassing for the tech giant from Redmond.
The situation in China is similar. A search engine called Baidu dominates web search. There, the word “Google” hardly even registers a flicker of recognition with most web users.
This pattern is repeated in many other countries around the globe. Naver is number one for search in South Korea. Seznam leads in the Czech Republic.
If you intend to market property or services to overseas buyers, you must include foreign search engines in your search engine optimization and marketing (SEO and SEM) plans.
Yes, English is the most-used language on the web. But it only accounts for about 25 per cent of the total. Research shows that multilingual users place more trust in websites in their native tongue.
As one expert in the foreign language Internet, Christian Arno, puts it, “The greatest benefit of foreign language Internet marketing is the opportunity to reach new markets, or to penetrate further into markets that may already be partially catered for with English alone.”
Here are my six best tips for international search engine optimization and marketing:
1. Choose the right search engines. Know which international audiences you are trying to reach. Pick the search engines they use most.
2. Start with search engine marketing because it allows you to see much quicker results and control your budget. It is much better to test your strategy and keywords before you invest resources in rewriting your website’s content in foreign languages.
3. Reconsider your keywords. You cannot succeed by using the same keywords for international marketing as you use domestically.
Even if you are targeting English-speaking buyers, say from the UK, you will need to re-evaluate your keywords and probably select new ones. For example, someone in London is more likely to search for “property” than “real estate.”
When working with foreign-language buyers, your keywords need to be in their mother tongue. Keywords can’t just be translated from one language to another. That’s because they aren’t just words, they are short hand for an entire thought process.
4. Don’t let your foreign language-speaking intern do your SEO and SEM. Search engine optimization and marketing are sophisticated skills. Good practitioners can command salaries of $150,000 per year, or more.
If you let a junior staff member handle your international SEO just because they speak the language of your target buyers, you are inviting disaster. If you don’t have the expertise in-house, rent it from a legitimate expert.
5. Revise your site’s content to make it relevant to your international audience. Andy Atkins-Krüger is one of the world’s most insightful international online marketers. He believes the most common cause of failure is “allowing customers working in other languages to receive second best.” I will get into this in more depth in a later article in this series.
6. Integrate your international marketing into your business. Attracting clicks online is only the first step to converting an international prospect into a buyer with a signed contract. Think long term and make whatever other changes in your business are necessary to nurture these valuable leads.
Follow these steps and the next property you sell just might go to that wealthy Russian entrepreneur from the first paragraph.
Andrew Taylor is co-CEO of Juwai.com, a real estate portal linking Chinese buyers with property in the U.S., Canada and a total of 54 countries.
More from Andrew Taylor
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Slightly over half of appraisers in a recent survey expressed a degree of confidence in the housing market and nearly half reported appreciating home values in their markets.
Some 54.7 percent of appraisers said their level of confidence is mildly or moderately strong, while 24.9 percent were neutral. The survey was completed by United States Appraisals’ nationwide panel of residential appraisers.
“Appraisers tend to be realistic, focused on their local markets and unmoved by news stories and national numbers,” said Aaron Fowler, President of United States Appraisals. “We believe they provide a good gauge of the status of the housing market. After the last few years, a mildly strong level of confidence shows some definite improvement in appraiser attitudes.”
Opinions were slightly rosier regarding home values. Some 46.2 percent reported a mild increase in values in their area. Some 15.6 percent were seeing a moderate value increase, while 24 percent were neutral. Despite somewhat tepid feelings on the market in general, most appraisers reported increased order volume: 26.1 percent saw mild increases, 17.8 percent saw moderate increases and 18.5 percent reported significant volume increases. Only 15.3 percent of respondents reported any reduction in their order volume.
Comments from the survey:
“Improving, people seem tired of waiting.”
“Significantly more activity at middle and upper end of the value range and the supply of existing housing is down significantly as well.”
Suppliers of glass, drywall and wood products, who reduced output during the slump, are testing the vigor of the rebound by boosting prices before committing to restore capacity. Builders, including Lennar Corp. (LEN), Toll Brothers Inc. (TOL) and KB Home, are asking homebuyers for more money as a result or are delaying sales, posing a temporary hurdle for the industry that has become one of the pillars of the economic expansion.
Building-material manufacturers “are raising prices dramatically, and once they’re convinced that these prices are going to stick, they’ll start reinvesting in those plants,” helping ease supply constraints, said John Burns, chairman of Irvine, California-based John Burns Real Estate Consulting, which provides research to developers, construction-product manufacturers and investors. “Those can take a year to get up and running.”
In a sign demand remains strong, a report yesterday showed sales of new houses advanced in March, capping the best quarter for the industry since 2008. Purchases of new single-family properties climbed 1.5 percent to a 417,000 annual pace, the Commerce Department said.
The south wall of the greenhouse is made of 2-by-6s and four storm doors.NEVIN HAWLMAN
Early that autumn morning, I knew it was going to be a great day: I dropped my toast, and it landed honey-side up! Then in the morning newspaper, I saw an announcement for a public auction of “dozens of used aluminum storm doors.” I could hardly wait to hitch up my trailer.
My bid was $4 when the auctioneer said, “Sold! How many do you want?”
“All of them,” I said. I went home with 25 used double-track aluminum storm doors with screens and tempered glass.
Building the Greenhouse
I always wanted a home garden greenhouse to start my own vegetable plants (and a warm place to putter as the snow swirled outside). When I announced my new project at our Sunday family supper, my son smiled as he said, “I thought you were running low on things to do.” The next day he was helping me unload stones for the greenhouse base.
We made the greenhouse frame from 2-by-6s. The studs and rafters are on 36-inch centers to accommodate the 36-inch storm doors. Top and bottom plates are double 2-by-6s with overlapping corners. The frame is held together by three-eighths-inch bolts and galvanized spiral nails. The north side has no glass exposure. It is sheathed with oriented strand board and covered with vinyl siding. It shelters the greenhouse from cold winter winds. That sheltered side also makes working in the greenhouse bearable on hot summer days. The worktable is in the shade.
Heating the Greenhouse
The greenhouse is heated by hot water piped in via underground lines coming from a woodstove outside my shop. I modified the stove by laying a cast-iron radiator on top of it. The water in the radiator is drawn to the greenhouse radiator by a small circulating pump. The pump runs constantly in cold months. The greenhouse thermostat controls the blower on the remote woodstove so it maintains a water temperature of about 120 degrees Fahrenheit. I think this is more efficient than having the water temperature fluctuate widely. I know it provides a more even temperature in the greenhouse, which ranges from 70 to 80 degrees on cloudy days.
If you love gardening and potting plants, build a greenhouse! Don’t expect it to pay for itself unless you value the excitement of seeing a seed sprout, you get a special satisfaction from eating your own harvest, and enjoy the flavors that have been lost in the quest for commercial produce that stays hard as wood in shipping (and also resembles wood in flavor).
South Salem Leads in Unsold Average Days on Market South Salem 168. Bedford Corners 167. North Salem 164. Armonk 149. Pound Ridge 139. Bedford Village 136. Bedford Hills 118. Katonah 113. Chappaqua 107. Mt Kisco 97.
Bedford Corners NY Real Estate Report RobReportBlog 2013 6 months ending 4/24 2012 10 Sales 8 $754,500.00 median sold price $1,462,500.00 $315,000.00 low sold price $530,000.00 $21,500,000.00 high sold price $4,800,000.00 4813 average size 5385 $351.00 ave. price per foot $365.00 254 ave days on market 256 $2,892,000.00 average sold price $1,980,500.00 93.83% ave sold to ask 95.38%
