Thurs 18th Feb, Challenge Stadium was the place to be if you were interested in the latest real estate marketing ideas that aussiehome MD Charlie Gunningham brought back from New York.

In the now regular FREE 'Leadership Circle' seminar/sundowners, Charlie condensed the best ideas from the conference into 3 main themes that he saw were making big waves in the States, and real estate agents could (and should) be using here:

1. MOBILE - the theme for 2010, marketing yourself and your listings on mobile devices, such as the iPhone, is now upon us. Predictions are that the mobile web will outgrow the PC (normal computer) web access by 2013! Whereas traffic from mobiles to real estate sites "did not feature" last year, now mobile traffic was "10% of total" traffic and upwards of 30% of more at weekends.

How does your site look on a mobile device? Would you like to have your own iphone app for your clients?

These are 2 key questions for 2010 - PLEASE CONTACT US for more information; there are lot of web developer vendors out there jumping on this and charging FAR TOO MUCH. We are developing mobile solutions for aussiehome.com and our clients. In fact, our mobile site is already live.

2. LOCAL- another main theme was how the real estate agent "knows local" better than anyone else. You know your area, every property, owner, shop... then you should become the online expert on your local area - utilising the free internet powers of facebook, twitter, blogging and the new kid on the block - foursquare.com.

Charlie demonstrated how agents are using these in the States, and told the story of Linda Davis, 50+ lady real estate agent from Ledyard, CT, and how she became #1 seller in that town using Facebook Business pages for the local community.

AGAIN - you don't need to be in the dark here - CONTACT US for more info! We have great ideas how you can become the online local expert.

3. SEARCH- Google and its effects on real estate ads were a 3rd main theme. Not only can you get up on Google fairly easily with some chosen keywords (AGAIN - don't fall for snake oil salesmen who come knocking/emailing/phoning with their promises of Page 1 ranking).

But also - you need to get on Google Real Estate, with your OWN URL showing (not reiwa's or anyone else's, YOURS!) - this brings traffic directly to YOUR SITE, and in time you never know, you may not need to pay the increasing sums of the large, expensive real estate portals for much longer. Certainly in Europe, the large real estate sites are very concerned about Google's effects on their nice piece of the marketing pie. And so they should be.

Google's a free search site - get your own properties on there if they are not there already, and let's turn the media power imbalance back in your direction.

A year ago (April 1st 2009), change came to aussiehome.com - after 9 years we changed our logo, our web site, introduced our own real estate TV show (still the only one in the country) and our own property + lifestyle blog. We also started our training courses in how to use social media and in internet marketing, latterly with CPD Points through REIWA Learning.

Well - change is a coming once more. On April 1st, 2010 - we will be launching our new site, including some new world-first features and a fantastic new property display layout putting the agent front and centre of the action.

We are also sending letters out to all our clients this week, notifying you of our new pricing structure - which abolishes separately charged fees for feeding and web hosting - we will be moving all clients to an ALL IN ONE fee. Life is supposed to be simple - why complicate matters?

PLUS - we will be opening up our clients to MORE FREE SITES, such as millionplus.com.au and thehomepage.com.au (see below for more info on these sites). More free sites will be offered soon, some have not yet launched in Australia, and Charlie made the contacts for these during his time in New York recently.

All this goes along with our mission of putting the media power back in our clients' hands - not in the hands of the large media organisations.

The era of large sites raising prices from their monopoly position is coming to an end. Long live the low cost internet, something that its founders wanted all along. Amen to that.

(Photo Credit - from Flightless Bird, Flickr.com)

A relatively new real estate site for Australia, MillionPlus.com.au, features listings from all over the country that, like it's name suggests, are over $1mn - which just about makes most of the listings on aussiehome.com!

Along with this new site, another one, TheHomePage.com.au, takes listings from all price ranges.

aussiehome.com is delighted to announce an agreement with the people behind BOTH sites, such that all aussiehome.com clients can go on both sites FOR FREE, and with NO FEED FEE.

You will not be charged for this service, it's just more free exposure for your clients' listings, courtesy of us and the fine people at millionplus.com.au and thehomepage.com.au.

WA Business News featured aussiehome.com on passing the big 10th birthday mark with a full page article on cofounder Charlie Gunningham, photographed against the mural wall behind the aussiehome.com offices...

"On the night the aussiehome.com idea was born, my wife and I were hauled up on stage by Dame Edna Everidge ...

... I got back that night and Nick Streuli rang me with the business idea of putting properties on maps on the internet - what was to become aussiehome.com.

... t'was a night I'll never forget!"

READ FULL ARTICLE HERE