Why We Use The Internet

I could be preaching to the choir here since this is being written on a blog, but I wanted to write a little about the importance in using the Internet as a marketing tool to get a home sold in today’s real estate market.

The National Association of Realtors has laid out how people use the Internet, as well as, other means of marketing in order to find their home. Below is information taken from the NAR 2009 Statistics of Home Buyers on how people find homes they purchase.

The Home Search Process

· For more than one-third of home buyers, the first step in the home-buying

process was looking online for properties.

· Nine in ten homebuyers used the Internet to search for homes.

· Real estate agents were viewed as a very useful information source by 81

percent of buyers who used an agent while searching for a home.

· The typical homebuyer searched for 12 weeks and viewed 12 homes.

· Seventy-seven percent of buyers purchased their home through a real

estate agent or broker.

Marketing has made some HUGE changes, I've come along way baby!

For as long as I can remember I have enjoyed marketing! 22 years ago I was a Advertising Representative for The Defiance Crescent News, our local N.W. Ohio daily paper... I loved newspaper advertising, selling it and creating it. The rush of a daily deadline found at the newspaper office is hard to replace!

Jump ahead 22 years later... Social Media has exploded right before my very eyes! Web Sites, Links, Blogging, Widgets, Video Open Houses it is not only exciting & necessary but needed to be successful TEAM in today's world of Real Estate. No longer is placing a ad in your local newspaper the only way to reach buyers and or readers!

Over the past 5 years I have spent a portion of my time on Continuing Education & Business Conferences where I have learned up to date industry news... including my introduction to Active Rain, a Real Estate Networking/Blog Web Site. At the time I was introduced to it I didn't even know what a blog was let a lone join a Real Estate Network full of them! Now I get on Active Rain and stay here till wee hours of the morning soaking up all that I can about Real Estate Marketing & the best ways to reach our buyers and sellers in today's most up to date medias... but not forgetting nothing will replace a hand written Thank You note or a friendly hand shake at the closing table...Learning this social media information and Internet marketing is a never ending class room isn't it???