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Where Have I been Lately?–Twittering and Trulia, Healdsburg to Petaluma
Published July 18th, 2008 in Market updates, Real Estate 2.0. by Pam Buda, Coldwell Banker Tags: Marketing country property, New listings, Real Estate Sales in Sonoma County.You may ask where I’ve been as I have not posted regularly in the last couple of weeks. I have been on the run as many of my clients decided that once 4th of July had passed it was time to get going on new listings or to pick up their efforts for purchasing new homes. A very typically busy couple of weeks in an untypical real estate year. Despite the depressing news in the media, people still have legitimate reasons and motivations to buy and sell, and fully half of the market in Sonoma County has nothing to do with distressed properties. That half of the transactions last month DID have to do with distressed properties (bank-owned properties or short sales) is an amazing statistic, however, one we have discussed previously.
Two other factors (let’s call them the T factors) which have taken away from Blog post time however, have been Trulia and Twitter, hence the new links on my sidebar to the left. Trulia is a wonderful (”truly delightful real estate search” they say) combination of the social networking aspects of Facebook or LinkedIn and the search aspects of a Google.
Who networks on Trulia? Buyers and Sellers of real estate and all kinds of real estate professionals. I spent a few weeks in odd moments on Trulia fleshing out my profile and reviewing and answering multiple questions on Sonoma County communities or various real estate topics. It has been interesting to figure out the rules of the community (since I am not 20 years old and have only participated in LinkedIn and Plaxo in the past).
I’ve also enjoyed pitching in advice and comments on various communities in Sonoma County from Petaluma to Healdsburg, and networking with other agents locally and elsewhere. I’ve even managed to connect with a few buyers and sellers in the process, so there is a business justification for my efforts.
At the same time, everyone was talking about Twitter. I saw all these strange short posts on Kevin Boer’s 3 Oceans Real Estate site and could not make any sense of them. Seemed like a feature in search of a solution. UNTIL I joined in and got a Twitter Account of my very own.
Then the fun began–it takes a little bit to get Twitter, Kevin is convinced that the closer you are to age 20 the faster you get it. (the famous Twitter Age Co-Efficient, or TWAC). That may be true, but then I like to think I am the exception (long past 20) that proves the rule. Anyway the beauty of Twitter is that is a very non-linear web of group instant-messaging, hyper-linking of cool ideas amongst friends and friends of friends (and the whole Twitter world can be seen on one massive Twitter timeline. No post can be over 140 characters, which if you have read this far, you might be happy to know!
It makes for a fun break to sample the group chatter, but also has been a vehicle for serious communications. The first word of the massive earthquake in China came through tweets, as Twitter posts are known.
So I have been forced to be restrained and limit myself to shorter, more frequent posts, which you can see on the sidebar to the left. With Twitter I plan to post more frequent market updates, property reviews and timely short bits of information.
And a very interesting joint venture emerged from all this Twittering on Trulia and blogging about Inman connect. Wait till my next post!
4 Responses to “Where Have I been Lately?--Twittering and Trulia, Healdsburg to Petaluma”
- 1 Pingback on Jul 18th, 2008 at 7:10 pm
- 2 Pingback on Jul 18th, 2008 at 7:13 pm
Thanks for the tips on trulia - your “t” links sound great I still don’t quite understand twitter though, and I am close to 20! I wanted to know if you knew anything about all those other real estate sites out there. I have been using one called PropertyMaps that has proved useful - and I really think the internet search is the way to go with looking for a home. I’ll check out trulia - are there any more you would recommend?
Hi Shell–I think the only way to “understand” Twitter is just do it and figure it out along the way, mostly it’s fun, but it is a good quick way to keep up with a lot of different conversational threads and also what I really like is it kind of cross-pollinates, for me, amongst different segments of my life, from my previous career in technology startups to my current business in real estate, along with horses, food, wine, the environment, etc. Not to mention politics. When you think of it, we all have a lot of interests and it is interesting to “see” them come together online at Twitter.
As far as searching, besides Trulia, there is Realtor.com, Cleanoffer (with an agent sponsorship), Zip Realty, Redfin, etc. Some of them directly tie into the MLS, such as Realtor.com, whereas others may pull from other sources, such as magazine or other on-line listings and may not be completely up to date or reliable. When you are ready to work with a realtor they can set up a search portal for you and then you can both be on the same page and very up to date. The new client portal feature on our MLS software by Rappatoni is a very good collaborative tool. Good luck!