Monday, January 30, 2006

HouseValues Webinars take off


For years, HouseValues has hosted regular teleconference calls and live in-market seminars to educate its real estate professional customers on how to use its products, help customers network with each other, and generally learn more strategies and best practices towards becoming more successful.

In mid-2005, HouseValues started experimenting with Webinars as well. These turned out to be very popular with customers, to the point where now HouseValues operates 4-5 Webinars in a typical week. The nature of these Webinars vary - some focus specifically on agent best practices, some focus on strategies for getting more value out of the Market Leader prospect management system. But each enable customers to interact live with a HouseValues coach.

The high-touch, personalized-care approach at HouseValues continues to be a priority, and has been a key component to our success thus far.

Thursday, January 26, 2006

Thousands attend Mastermind Call with Blanche Evans


Blanche Evans, a best-selling author of books on real estate and home buying and the senior editor of Realty Times, was the guest speaker on the HouseValues Mastermind Call earlier today. More than 1,000 subscribers dialed in to listen to Blanche discuss the slowing real estate market, and tips for what agents can do to actually grow their business over the next 2-4 years.

We host these Mastermind Calls twice per month, typically featuring either a prominent outside speaker or successful real estate agent to share tips and best practices with other real estate professionals. These calls consistently draw literally thousands of subscribers, to both the live call and the on-demand call recording available afterward.

A summary of the call will be posted on AgentCEO.com in the next couple days.

Tuesday, January 24, 2006

HouseValues to speak at iMedia Brand Summit


HouseValues will be among 100 top brands from across the United States represented next month at the iMedia Brand Summit, a bi-annual gathering of brand marketers, agencies and publishers throughout the interactive world.

HouseValues has also been asked to speak about its best practices in Loyalty Marketing, including how the company helps its real estate professional customers cultivate and convert interested home buyers and sellers into satisfied transactions. It will be a great opportunity to showcase HomePages to the crowd of more than 500 industry leaders and influencers.

We'll post a recap of the event, and reaction to the HouseValues keynote, in February.

Successful agents act as the Agent CEO


HouseValues founder Mark Powell originated the idea of the Agent CEO. His idea was relatively simple: that successful agents manage their business like a CEO manages a corporation. Even the smallest of small businesses needs to effectively manage time, delegate certain tasks, and think long-term to create a sustainable, profitable, successful business.

The Agent CEO concept is alive and well at HouseValues. It's the foundation of more than 100 agent seminars across the country every year, and is the focus this blog.

Real estate agents nationwide are using the Agent CEO philosophy to dramatically change their business - including more listings and higher incomes, all while servicing home buyers and sellers with high levels of satisfaction, repeat business and referrals.

Monday, January 23, 2006

Seahawks (and HomePages) fever!


OK, it's taken over here in Seattle. The team's first Super Bowl appearance in 30 years has officially transcended the sporting world into the Seattle mainstream, where it will stay for at least the next two weeks.

The number of HouseValues employees sporting 'Hawks jerseys has certainly increased as well. Pictured here are a couple employees who not only attended yesterday's NFC Championship Game, but brought some HomePages spirit with them.

That's the "12th man" with the Web's #1 real estate site. Great job guys!

Sunday, January 22, 2006

Real Estate Connect recap


A few HouseValues executives attended the Real Estate Connect conference two weeks ago, and it was exciting (and humbling) to hear so many people using HouseValues as an example of a company doing things right - both as a business and for its customers.

It was particularly exciting to hear so many people - attendees and speakers - cite HomePages as a product that's leading the way both in enabling consumers to find homes, and helping real estate agents win more listings.

Thursday, January 19, 2006

Go Seahawks (and HomePages)


The home-town Seattle Seahawks play this Sunday for the NFC Championship, and the HouseValues sales team has been competing much of the week for a couple sets of tickets, and competition has been fierce!

Michael Potter, our sales trainer, also happens to be the personal escort for Blitz, the Seahawks mascot, on game days. Here's Blitz at a game earlier this season with his new favorite Web site.

Thursday, January 12, 2006

HouseValues at NASDAQ, and in Times Square


Last month, we officially celebrated one-year as a publicly-traded company. Earlier today in New York, we formally celebrated this milestone with our CEO Ian Morris officially closing the day of trading.

This was quite an event for us. We had a few employees in town for the Inman News Real Estate Connect conference (literally two blocks away), and had HouseValues signage and advertising up on the NASDAQ billboard in Times Square for about an hour. Great visibility for the brands, and a great event.

The event was broadcast live online, and our employees back in Kirkland and Yakima watched the event in groups.

See pictures of the event here, and check out our corporate site soon for a link to the presentation on video.

More good pictures from NASDAQ...



Wednesday, January 11, 2006

Good signs

Just saw the ComScore data for December 2005, ranking the traffic to real estate sites across the Internet. It looks like traffic to all sites in the online real estate category is down about 15% between August and December 2005.

BUT, traffic to HouseValues sites (including HouseValues.com, JustListed.com, TheLoanPage.com and HomePages.com) is up 51% in that same time period. And since HomePages was relatively new, it only represented about 7% of the total HouseValues network traffic. And that's before the major advertising campaigns for HomePages started this month.

Now those are the kind of numbers we like...

Tuesday, January 10, 2006

Welcome Yakima!


I'm in Yakima today to help with the official opening of our new satellite office here. It's been quite an event:

- More than 35 new employees, all top notch
- Many of our executives on hand to help with the first day of new-employee orientation
- Great press turnout as well (see coverage here, here and here)

There are so many great people out here, and plenty of new employees to join the team over the next few months.

Saturday, January 07, 2006

What are you waiting for?

Claudia Wicks, our director of real estate training and content, writes a regular column for Realty Times. Her latest piece does a great job describing how real estate agents can set the right goals for themselves in 2006 by understanding and focusing on Internet-enabled consumers.

I love the way Claudia writes, and thinks, about real estate. With Claudia, it's never about the listings, or the transactions, or the paperwork. It's always about the people.

Thursday, January 05, 2006

HomePages at CES

I'm in Las Vegas this week with our PR team at the annual Consumer Electronics Show (CES), showcasing HomePages.com to more than 1,400 reporters and analysts at two press events. Some of these are reporters who covered HomePages when it launched last October, some are seeing the site for the first time.

It's still exciting to watch the reaction to people when they see what HomePages has done. Home listings, neighborhood information, recently-sold homes - all on one site, and layered on top of aerial images.

It's really not hard to get excited about this product - even when I'm doing the 54th demo of the night.

Wednesday, January 04, 2006

Success Tips for a Down Market

We speak with thousands of real estate professionals nationwide every day, and the signs of a slowing real estate market are starting to pop up in many markets across the country. Smart real estate agents are already doing things to ensure a continued stream of business through potentially tougher times. Smart prospect management strategies can definitely help.

HouseValues published a White Paper today with several tips for real estate agents on how to actually grow their business in a slowing market. We've already had seen some great press coverage from this, and lots of interest from agents who want to learn more.

Monday, January 02, 2006

HomePages on MSNBC is live...

Check it out by visiting MSNBC.com, and clicking on the "real estate" link on the left-hand side.