Same coat, but with a few new buttons…

Click Away

One of the really cool things about blog analysis software is that it gives the author a good idea where people are clicking on the blog, which essentially tells the writer what the readers are finding most interesting and relevant. (Important note: I can’t tell who is clicking, just where…so your privacy is totally safe.) I spent some time this weekend analyzing how people use this site, and what they tend to read the most. The answer was very clear:

Home Sales Data

The most clicked links on this site (by far) have to do with home sales data. There’s a shocker – it is a real estate blog, after all. Whether it’s homes for sale in San Carlos, pending sales, or homes that have already sold, readers want real data on what’s happening in the San Carlos real estate market, and this information is usually not that easy to find. Until now…

New Buttons

While I haven’t changed the background (a.k.a. theme) of this blog in the past 2 years, I have changed the structure quite a bit. It’s akin to putting new buttons on an old coat — I simply haven’t found a better “coat” for this site, so I’ll continue to change the buttons to make it better.  And here are three new ones that you should know about: (go ahead and click one of them)

How to use ‘em…

You’ll find these three buttons conveniently located at the top of the site, right in the middle.   The subject content is pretty self-explanatory, but there’s a lot more information here than meets the eye.  Let’s look at an example:

If you simply click on the “Homes Sold” button at the top, it will show you ALL of the homes that have sold in San Carlos over the past 6 months — in a single click.  Once you’re in there, you can sort by price or by square footage.  Pretty cool, eh?

But let’s say you’re interested in homes that sold only in White Oaks, or just homes that sold for less than $1M?    Got you covered.   If you move your cursor over the “Homes Sold” button at the top of the blog (not the one in this example,) you’ll see a whole array of options magically appear below the button…including “Homes Sold in White Oaks” and “Homes Sold in San Carlos: <$1M” just to name a few.   Simply move your cursor down, and it’s there — all in a single click.

The same principle works with the “Homes for Sale in San Carlos” and “Pending Sales” buttons.   And the data is pulled from a live feed, so it’s always current.   So go ahead and try them out, and let me know what you think.  If there’s a different way that you want the data sliced up, just let me know.

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New Feature: Search Surrounding Communities

Need to look around?

Haven’t found the exact home you’re looking for in San Carlos?  That’s certainly understandable, considering that right now there are only 49 homes for sale in the entire city.  Or, perhaps just want to compare San Carlos prices to those in nearby communities?   No problem – it’s very easy to do this from the site.   Introducing the newest module to the White Oaks Blog…

Search In Surrounding Communities.

I have added a new module in the left sidebar titled “Search in Surrounding Communities.“    Like every other home search that you can do from this blog, there are two key features that most other sites don’t offer:

• Single-Click Search.  When you click on the “Homes for Sale in San Mateo” link for example, you will immediately see a map that shows every home that’s for sale in San Mateo…on the first click.  The search parameters are already pre-defined, so you don’t have to spend 10 minutes filling in a bunch of annoying data fields just to start your search. Just click once and you’re there.
• No Registration Required.     You don’t need to register to use the search (unless you want to take advantage of the email alert system, or you want to customize and save a favorite search.)  It’s free, and you can search for homes in complete privacy.

See pending sales, too…

Since I added the pending sales link for San Carlos, it has quickly become one of the most visited links on the site.  So I’m happy to be able to provide you with the same information for other cities as well.

Here are the community links that you’ll find in the “Search Surrounding Communities” module.   Go ahead, check ‘em out..

Belmont:

• Homes for Sale In Belmont
• Pending Sales in Belmont

Redwood City:

• Homes for Sale in Redwood City
• Pending Sales in Redwood City

San Mateo:

• Homes for Sale in San Mateo
• Pending Sales in San Mateo

Menlo Park:

• Homes for Sale in Menlo Park
• Pending Sales in Menlo Park

Burlingame:

• Homes for Sale in Burlingame
• Pending Sales in Burlingame

Have any additional communities on the Peninsula that you’d like to see?  Just send me an email, or post a comment below and I’ll include it on the site!

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Twitter and the White Oaks Blog…

A couple of months ago, I wrote about how I use Twitter as a vehicle to provide instant updates on real estate news or just things of interest in San Carlos and Emerald Hills (the two areas I write blogs about.)   Basically, it’s a great platform to send instant updates on something that’s important, but may not warrant an individual blog post.

Here’s an example:   Every weekend I create a blog post entitled “The San Carlos Week in Review,”  where I list what homes sold and what new listings hit the market during the past week in San Carlos.    But what happens if I see a fantastic new listing early in the week, or a particular home closes escrow that you’d really want to know about?   I certainly don’t want to wait until the weekend to tell you about it.  That’s where Twitter’s technology really shines, and that’s why I use it as the backbone for feature entitled “The Very Latest” that you see in the left sidebar.   I like to think of it as a “micr0-blog.”

But that’s not the purpose of this article.   As I mentioned in my first post about Twitter, it took me a looooooooong time to figure out how to best utilize this technology that everyone was raving about.   I have always viewed Twitter as “A solution that’s looking for a problem,”  and apparently I’m not alone in this view…

Check out this funny clip from Comedy Central about Twitter, and how it has impacted just about everything we do today…whether we realize it or not!

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The White Oaks Blog now optimized for mobile browsing…

Here’s a cool new feature on the blog I wanted to share with you.  For those of you who view the blog via a mobile phone (iPhone, Treo, Blackberry, etc..,) the White Oaks Blog should now be MUCH quicker for you to view.   I just optimized the site so that it automatically detects if you’re using a mobile browser — if so, you get a version of the site that is much lighter and cleaner, and consequently loads much faster.   I tried it with and without the optimization, and the results were amazing.

The best part about this is that there’s nothing you need to do.   The web address for The White Oaks Blog remains the same, but you’ll notice that the title of the site will read “The White Oaks Blog Mobile” when you access it from a mobile device.     Check it out and let me know what you think.   I have incorporated the same feature on my San Francisco Peninsula Blog as well as The Emerald Hills Blog.

iPhone users: 

Please let me know which version you like better — the full version, or the “light” site.  Since the browsing capability of the iPhone is so good, the optimization setting allows the iPhone to be treated as a “normal” browser, so I can easily switch the iPhone back to the normal site without impacting any other mobile phone browser (Windows CE, Opera, etc..)

Happy Reading!

(credit to Dave Smith of the Real Estate Blog Lab for this great find…)

New Site Feature: “The Very Latest…”

I have been experimenting with the free social networking service Twitter for a number of months now, basically trying to figure out how to best utilize this interesting technology as a real estate tool.  If you’re not familiar with Twitter, it’s essentially instant messaging on steroids — you can blast out small updates of up to 160 characters, known as “Tweets”, to whomever happens to be “following” you on Twitter.  So instead of sending an IM to one person, Twitter enables you send your latest thoughts to perhaps tens, hundreds, or more of your best friends.   Since it’s limited to 160 characters, it’s also cell-phone friendly, so you can send and receive Tweets on your mobile phone.

The problem I’ve always had with Twitter is that it’s a solution looking for a problem.  Twitter markets the use of their service with the catch-phrase “What are you doing?”    It’s an interesting concept, and many people consequently thought it was critically important to inform the world that they were having dinner at Town, or shopping at Lucky’s, or that they were late for their kid’s soccer game.  Well, I’m humble enough to know that NOBODY could possibly care what I’m doing during the course of my day.   I even bore myself sometimes.

But recently, I saw how the Mountain View Police Department starting using Twitter as a very effective way to instantly update their community on police incidents and citizen alerts — and the light bulb finally went off in my head on how best to use Twitter.

I often encounter things that are related to our community (or to real estate) that I think would be interesting for you to know  — but they don’t necessarily warrant a whole blog article; for example,  reminders on holiday events in San Carlos, quick updates on new listings, price reductions, or just forwarding an interesting link from the web.   This is where Twitter shines — consider it a “Blog within a Blog.” Or a micro-blog.

“The Very Latest…”

So I have added a new feature to the site called “The Very Latest” in which I use Twitter to forward frequent and (hopefully) interesting info along to you that should complement the information you’ll find on the White Oaks Blog.   It will also automatically post any articles that I write on my other two blogs:  The Emerald Hills Blog, and the San Francisco Peninsula Blog. “The Very Latest” resides in the upper-left sidebar of the site.   Let me know your thoughts on this — I’d love to know how others are using Twitter as well.

White Oaks Blog Update: Improved MLS Home Search

For those of you who have used the MLS Search Engine on the White Oaks Blog, hopefully you have found that it’s pretty advanced and quite a bit different from many home search engines that are out there.  It has a great neighborhood view, which allows you to see all the homes that are for sale in White Oaks or Howard Park, for example, in a single window.   I also like the fact that once you create and save your own custom search you can sign up for the standard email alerts, or for you RSS junkies (like me) you can create your own RSS Feed.  This is a feature that I believe is unique to this search engine.

But not willing to rest on its laurels, this search engine just got a whole lot more horsepower.  Here are some of the new features that were just added in the latest release today:

• Re-engineered the search panel. The new search panel was designed to incorporate the vast amount of feedback we’ve received from our customers over the past few years, and we’re very pleased with the result.
• Pre-foreclosures (short sales, notice of default, etc) and foreclosed (bank owned) properties.   We’ve also developed a proprietary algorithm that analyzes each property’s description to determine whether or not a property is a pre-foreclosure or has been foreclosed upon. If you view the details of a property that our system has determined to be a foreclosure or pre-foreclosure, we will highlight the words in the description that lead our system to believe the property is in distress. If you view the details of a property that the MLS specifically marked as a pre-foreclosure or bank owned, dsSearchAgent will also display an appropriate notice.
• Search for properties within certain school and school district boundaries. The school search box is an auto-complete box and will start showing the names of the schools / districts as soon as the user types the first two letters.
• And, coming soon…search for FSBO and Make Me Move™ properties that are listed on Zillow.com. You will be able to look at properties that they might not otherwise be able to find in the MLS.

These are just a few of the new features that you’ll find on this greatly enhanced search engine…so if you have a few minutes, give it a test drive and let me know what you think.   Simply move your cursor onto the  “What’s for Sale in San Carlos?” button at the top of the page and you’ll see all the different options for searching within San Carlos.

Blog Tip #2: Don’t forget the widgets!

Editor’s note:  This is the second in an occasional series of posts that will include tips on how to get more out of this blog, and perhaps your other favorite websites as well….CG

If you’re a regular reader of this blog, you have probably figured out that I post something new about every other day.  Some times more often, some times less.   It varies depending on what’s happening in the market, and how much time I can devote to the blog.  I also author The Emerald Hills Blog, so keeping both of these sites fresh keeps me pretty busy!

You may recall from Blog Tip #1 that subscribing to the blog is a great way to be notified when something new is posted.  But are there still reasons to check in with the site in between my erratic blog posts?   You bet!    That’s where the “widgets” come in.

“Widget” in web-speak is a generic term for a snippet of code that’s put on a website or blog to accomplishes a very specific function.   It can be anything from a local weather update, to showing the latest mortgage rates, or even news feeds from other sites.   So all of the items in the left and right sidebars of The White Oaks Blog are considered widgets.  I know this may sound really elementary, but you’d be surprised how many people skip the sidebars entirely because they think the widgets are actually advertisements.   Nooooooooo way.

I have done some considerable digging to come up with widgets that are relevant to real estate and local news.  I hope you find them useful and informative.  The  best part about them is that many are updated continuously.   So if you like the news on the “side,” you now have a reason to check back more often!

See you on the next Blog Tip….

Blog Tip #1: Subscribe to the Site

Editor’s note:  This is the first in an occasional series of posts that will include tips on how to get more out of this blog, and perhaps your other favorite websites as well….CG

Blogs are definitely a peculiar breed of website.  Unlike a normal major news website (like Yahoo, CNN,) blogs aren’t usually updated every single day, although there are always some exceptions.  In fact, I can tell you from first-hand experience that I don’t post new content every day.  As you can tell from reading this blog, the pattern of what, how, and when I post an article is very irregular.  Sometimes I’ll post 3-4 articles a week at regular intervals, and other times the blog may sit idle for the better part of a week (this tends to happen when the busy season hits.)

As a reader, this makes it challenging to know when to check back in to see if the author has penned something new.   It’s time consuming and a little frustrating to thumb through your bookmarks one at a time and manually read through each of your favorite websites, only to find that it looks exactly the same as it did yesterday.    This is where subscriptions come in.

Subscribing to Websites:

Subscribing to a website is very akin to using TiVo to record your favorite programs on TV.  Program it once, and then boom…the new episodes from all of your favorite shows appear under a single menu…automatically!  TiVo (and the generic DVR) totally changed the way we watch TV.   Similarly, website subscriptions are totally changing the way we surf the ‘net.  The “Tivo-esque technology” that is used for the web subscriptions is a little technology called RSS.

RSS = Really Simple Syndication

Without going into too much detail, RSS is a method for re-publishing (or “re-syndicating” as the name implies,) the content on a given website.  Think of it as an index, or summary, of what is published on that site.   RSS packages the site’s content and makes it available as a “feed.”    A feed is very much like the stock ticker you see running across the bottom of your TV screen.  They’re both live summaries of what’s happening.  Instead of using a TV, you use a web program called a “Feed Reader” to view your feed.  If you’d like to dig deeper into the what’s and why’s of RSS, check out this very well written article on the subject:  All About RSS.

I use RSS quite extensively on my blogs.  In the left sidebar, you’ll see various feeds from the likes of the Mercury News, CNN Money, BankRate.com just to name a few.  Since they are true RSS Feeds, they are updated real-time thus giving the readers new content continuously!

 How To Subscribe

Fortunately, subscribing to a blog or website is VERY easy.  The symbol you see on the left is the universal symbol for RSS — so if you see this button on your favorite site, it’s good indication that the site offers the ability to subscribe.  So click the symbol and get started!

Most subscription are offered in two different forms:  Readers and Email.   I’ll discuss both very briefly here:

• Feed Readers:  A feed reader is a custom “page” that you create by subscribing to various different feeds.  The job of the reader is to gather, or “aggregate” the feeds into one easy to read page.  That way, if you want to get the latest updates from the 10 or so sites you’re following, you only have to check ONE site — your feed reader.  Think of it as your own “custom” webpage that has only the content that you subscribe to.    All the big web companies offer feed-readers:  Google, Yahoo, and dozens of others.
• Email Updates:  The second very common method to subscribe to a site or blog is via good ‘ol fashioned email.  When you sign up for email updates, you’ll get an email with a summary of the new post.  If it’s a topic that interests you, simply click the link in the email and you’re taken right to that article on the site.   One of the nicest features about email subscriptions is that you only get an email if there’s new content.  If there’s nothing new, you don’t get an email.  I personally use this feature to keep tabs on several sites that I follow.

Subscribing to THIS Blog

I’ve made it SUPER easy to subscribe to my blogs.  In the right-sidebar at the top of the blog, you’ll notice a widget titled “Subscribe to the Blog.”  In that widget, you have the option to pick a feed reader, or simply enter your email address and start an email subscription.   If you opt for the latter, do so knowing that your email will never be used for any other reason than to deliver feed content.  So, no spam, no annoying follow-up emails!  So log-in, subscribe, and let us do all the work!

I hope you found this Blog Tip useful….  Stay tuned for other tips in upcoming posts — if you subscribe, that will be easy too