We have a major update to the realivent wordpress CMA Plugin, I'd like to say it when from "great" to "Holy Cow, this is awesome".

The biggest improvement is the new feature that allows people to guess on future home values. A new form has been added to the plugin that allows people to choose a future date anywhere from tomorrow to years from now and then enter a price that they think the property will be valued at. The valuation is coming from Zillow, just like the old plugin.

What makes this such a valuable tool, is that when the future date arrives for the estimation, that user gets an email with a link to see the results back on your website. This means constant traffic coming back to your website! Even if they completely forget about you, they will be reminded to go back to your site and see how good they are at guessing prices.

It is really a lot of fun.
Screenshots:

get your gallery at realiventblog.com

This feature is in beta and you can turn it off in the admin section. All data is stored and we will be producing data trends based on the guesses. This data will not be available immediately because we do not have that much data, but as we start seeing some interesting trends we will release the data. The data will be release in the plugin also, so the public will stay on your site (sticky) and see how the world is estimating values.

Since Zestimates update about every 2 weeks, if you enter a future date in the near future and the Zestimate has not been updated, an email will get sent out telling the person that made the estimate that the value has not changed, and they will get another email as soon as it does. 

Along with this feature we have improved many other features:

1. Better look and feel. Of course you can also edit the code to fit your website.
2. Along with the default sidebar widget, we added a function to pull out the form so you can skin with you own sidebar container. See screenshot above.
   to skin, call the form with this function: <?PHP get_cma_widget_form() ?>
3. better results. Removed many of the errors from missing data.
4. added a permalink to the results. You can now get the permalink and use as a reference when blogging about house values, or send to clients in emails. Here is an example of the permalink: Upcoming auctions in Oakland, CA

Download the plugin here: Realivent CMA plugin

typical plugin install, upload entire folder to your plugin directory, and activate. Go to options->realivent cma to configure. The Options page will make a new wordpress page automatically. To add the widget, go to presentation0>sidebar widgets and drag the realivent cma widget to your sidebar. 

Popularity: 45% [?]

I love the lightbox javascript library, but I was having the hardest time getting it to work with Wordpress. I finally figured it out with some help from these plugins

http://zeo.unic.net.my/notes/lightbox2-for-wordpress/

http://www.4mj.it/lightbox-js-v20-wordpress/ 

Here is a sample of ours:

get your gallery at realiventblog.com

The problem I found with all the other lightbox plugins was that they had no image uploader so I had to make the gallery and maually add the lightbox viewer. So I added an uploader and an easy way to add the gallery to the blog post or blog page.

Admin Sections:

get your gallery at realiventblog.com

To install the plugin, upload the entire lightbox_gallery folder to your plugin directory. Then activate it. The admin section will be under the options tab as "Lightbox".

Download: lightbox_gallery.zip 

How to Use:

1. Make a gallery. All photos have to go into a gallery so first thing to do is "add gallery". Once you add a gallery, you can upload images to it. You can delete and move the photos from one gallery to another in the edit section.
2. Once you have a gallery, just add [GALLERY=X] where X is the gallery id. The gallery id will be visible in the admin section. It must be capitalized!

Notes:

If you upload an image that is smaller then the desired max width, the image will not be resized.
It seems the page has to fully load before the lightbox will work. I'm looking into this.
If there is other javascript on the page, like a mybloglog widget or meebo, the lightbox will appear behind it…I'm working on this…no biggie, IMO.

It looks a lot better in Safari and Firefox, then IE7…but then again, most things do!
Safari, is quickly becoming my new favorite browser.

Popularity: 47% [?]

It's plugfest  2007 here at Realivent. This entire week will be blogging about plugins, widgets, and extensions. So tune in all week.

The first update we have completed is for the featured listings.

Featured Listing Overview.
This plugin builds a page to display your listings and created a widget for your wordpress sidebar. The benefit of this plugin, is that the website visitor does not get sent to a third party website to view the listing, or pop open a window (pop-up blockers). The website visitor stays on your website and views all your listings. The plugin also allows you to create a single featured listings. For example if you want to create a single property website, the plugin will automatically make the entry page (landing page) for your wordpress blog the highlighted listing instead of the default blog page.

Updates

1. Added Bird's eye view for listings. Now you can map the property on a google map and also get the bird's eye view from microsoft maps.
    

2. Added the title for the listings. Many people were asking why they added a title when inserting a listing into the system, but it did not appear in the plugin. Well, now it is…We just missed it on the previous versions.
3. Along with automatically adding a widget, you can now just pull the listings code out and add to your own sidebar widget.
   
   Simply place the new function in a custom container
   <?php get_listings_only() ?>

   If custom widget skins is over your head, give us a call, we can make custom skins for you to match your website look and feel

   Example of custom widget skins: smartlegacy.com

The updated plugin is available in the widgets section of this blog. You can simply upload over the old featured listing plugin, you do not have to delete the page and recreate it, or de-activate the plugin and reinstall.
Download here: Featured Listing Plugin

Please try it out and let us know what you think! 

Popularity: 22% [?]

In a previous post, how to hide pages in wordpress, I talked about hiding pages in wordpress. I gave three solutions, one was wrong and the others were a little confusing. I could have sworn that the draft and private methods worked...maybe they were bugs in older versions? I want to thank a reader from blogsandbucks.com for pointing out that the draft method for hiding pages does not work.

if you make a page, and save it as a draft, you will be able to access it but only if you are logged in. I guess made a page and didn't logout to see how the write would look from.

adding exclude='' and include='' should still work, even for WP2.2...I'm looking into it.

exclude (string)

Define a comma-separated list of Page IDs to be excluded from the list (example: 'exclude=3,7,31'). There is no default value. See the Exclude Pages from List example below.

include (string)

Only include certain Pages in the list generated by wp_list_pages. Like exclude, this parameter takes a comma-separated list of Page IDs. There is no default value.

Source: wp_list_pages function at wordpress.org 

 I also want to thank, blogsandbucks for pointing me to the code section in the post-template.php file. Since a lot of people are having trouble with hiding pages from the menu and sidebars, I wrote a little script which adds checkboxes next to the pages in the admin section so you can easily hide pages.

Warning, this is geeky...you will be editing 3 files...if you are scared, shoot me an email and I'll take care of you.

You can download the altered pages here: hide_pages.zip - for wp 2.2 only...but it might work with earlier versions.

first, we have to update the blog options to store an array of our hidden pages.

open wp-admin/admin-functions.php
You have to add the checkboxes to the table.

There is a function around line 830: page_rows( $parent = 0, $level = 0, $pages = 0, $hierarchy = true )
this function lists the pages in the admin section. You need to add a table row.

add this to the '<tr>' block...you should make it the last '<td>' section

That code will add checkboxes to your admin pages section. you are done with this file. Save and upload to your website.

now open wp-admin/edit-pages.php
You have to wrap the table that lists the pages in a form. so you are going to add form tags around line 34.

this will send an array of hidden pages as post data to get inserted into the blog options.

Then right after "require_once('admin-header.php');" on line 6 of the same page add this code:

That will do the insert. you might need to serialize the $hidden variable before you update_option. I think on newer versions of WP, update_option will serialize arrays for you. 

you are done with edit-pages.php. Save and upload to website

Now open wp-includes/post-template.php
This is the page that controls the layout visible by the public. you will find a function called wp_list_pages($args = '') around line 277. a few lines after that you will see all the arguments you can send that function, one of which is exclude=''. right after this line: $r = array_merge($defaults, $r);
add this code:

that just reads your blog options and then makes a string of page id's to exclude. 

this is licensed under the WOMC (worked on my computer), so if you have any questions feel free to shoot an email.

Popularity: 19% [?]

A while ago I ran a report for my home comparing 4 online home valuation services. I seemed to have forgotten one called, homegain.com. Well Louis Cammarosano of homagain left some comments and a graph from compete.com that shows homegain traffic exceeds zillow traffic.

Yep, that definitely shows homegain.com gets more traffic then Zillow.com. End of story...or is it...

Like online home value sites, there are also many traffic sites. I went over to alexa.com to get to the bottom of this traffic controversy. I got some interesting results:

Wonder why this graph is completely opposite. I'm not going to go into how the 2 sites gets data and what algorithms they use, but I will give my 2 cents.

Homegain.com has tons of stealth sites...(Stealth sites capture leads, then sells them to agents) and Zillow has tons of widgets...(small tools realtors can add to their websites). I see far more google adword text ads for homegain. Actually I don't think I have ever seen a zillow banner, or text ad? please let me know where I find one.

Zillow is on the right track by creating an API to share their data. Their traffic is only going to increase because of it.

Popularity: 18% [?]

Zillow just announced that they will allow brokers to add their listing feeds to Zillow for free.  The pitch ?  Over 4 million eyeballs per month to showoff your listings!   The free listing carrot worked for Cyberhomes and it has been working for Trulia, so would a broker that is already submitting their listings to Cyberhomes, Realtor.com, and Trulia feed their precious assets to Zillow as well ?  Well the simple answer is that brokers SHOULD because listings should be marketed everywhere, but we all know that real estate is much more complicated than that - so we'll have to watch and see.   This move corroborates the very fact that listings are imperative in attracting and retaining online real estate traffic.

New media companies like Zillow are definitely doing what it takes to infiltrate the quickly growing online real estate world, but incumbents are not letting themselves lose anymore traffic.  I don't know about you, but lately I've been noticing an advertising frenzy from real estate giant Coldwell Banker.  I see Coldwell Banker ads on evening televison shows, on sports channels and they're constantly bombarding me with ads on Yahoo mail.  Here's the latest ad on Yahoo...

What's the main message of this ad ?  I would say it's  "and your neighbors...".   So Zillow was right -  give consumers something to be curious about and they will come.  Coldwell Banker is the latest to use the Curiosity Factor as a driving force to attract more online homebuyers and sellers to their site and joins the forces of Cyberhomes, Zillow, Real Estate ABC, Reply! , HouseFront, and Property Shark to offer some variation of automated valuation services for anyone to freely use. 

 A quick snapshot of the last few months show that Coldwell Banker's latest marketing blitz may be working to drive more people to their site.

Competition is definitely heating up and consumers will undoubtedly have more options at their fingertips to better understand the market - or not.  The next question is, who will be the next incumbent tit for tat player to offer instant home valuations ?

Popularity: 15% [?]

Have you noticed a design change on our main site ?   We hope you are still able to find the login buttons as you browse through the new design, but the main purpose of the change was to introduce a new exciting lineup of real estate business packages.  Since we've received plenty of positive feedback from our users for our single property site system, we decided to extend our On-Demand Website Platform to agents and brokers.  The same features which are available on single property websites are now available on agent and brokerage sites.  You can see all the features of each product here and see the new packages here.

One of the most exciting features of our new agent and broker platform is the ability to add new sites to "your personalized domain name" ON-DEMAND.  What does this mean ?  Well, basically it means that you can add new neighborhood sites, new individual listing sites, new niche sites anytime you want as long as you have enough site bandwidth.   For example, if your site is currenlty "bobbroker.com" and you have 10 listings, just use our system to add 10 individual property sites on top of your main site in minutes.  Then, turn each of these sites into their own custom domains anytime you want.  Want to grow your reach even further ?  Let's say you are the neighborhood expert for the "Bel Aire" community in xyz city and want to expand your offerings to the "Eagle Ridge" community near by.  You don't have to go out and spend more money to create new websites for each of these communities, just use our ON-DEMAND system to build these new neighborhood sites on the fly  - and build them in minutes.  This allows you to grow your website by constantly adding fresh content and new niche sites making it truly dynamic to meet the ever changing needs of the market.  Don't understand how all of this works yet ?   Contact us to schedule an agent or broker demo today.

Don't forget, once you enter your listing once into your website platform, your listing is automatically syndicated to listing sites such as Google Base, Edgeio, VAST to name a few.  But that's not all, your online flyer has already been created for you as well.  Where do you find it ?  In your website admin panel.  Just go to your website administration and copy and paste the code to post on Craigslist, Backpage, BackFence and many others.   So let's recap, what is the new agent and brokerage marketing platform ?  A powerful fully featured website, a fully functional blog, a syndication service, an online flyer generator, and most importantly a centralized control panel to manage all of your online marketing.

Lastly,we've seen a lot of interest from solution providers who want to offer the platform to their colleagues and clients so we've just launched our Affiliate Program to allow resellers, distributors, system integrators, web developers, consultants, and virtual assistants to offer this platform everywhere.  If you're interested in becoming an Affiliate, please contact us for an online demo and program details.  We hope these new offerings will help you market yourself and your listings faster and aim to add more functionality to the system as we grow. 

Popularity: 13% [?]

Anyone doing live talk radio about local real estate yet ?  Well the technology is here and this week over at Inman Blog, Project Blogger announced its first episode of live audio conferencing.    The technology of choice there was Talkshoe an audio conferencing talkcast platform.  Coast to Coast Real Estate Investor William Flood has already been using this system to turn his expertise in real estate investing into 12 informative talkcast episodes.

Recently I ran across another live talkcast system that provides essentially the same opportunities to broadcast yourself ,  it is called -  UBROADCAST .  UBroadcast allows you to stream a live talk show or upload your favorite tunes to your channel and then broadcast it to your favorite listeners.  If you already have a popular blog with lots of readers and want to complement it with an engaging voiceover, then this is a great tool to try.  Some monthly topic ideas:

Review of past month's real estate performance in your local market.
Highlight some popular homes in the area (oppotunity for sponsored spots)
Talk about the latest mortgage options
Discuss the short sale and foreclosure market and the opportunities for investors

It would probably be even more interesting to have guest speakers on some of these topics and do a live Q&A.

If anyone comes up with their own channel, please let me know so that I can tune in.

Enjoy!

Popularity: 7% [?]

With so many online home valuation companies available on the internet these days, its hard to deciper which ones to use.  Threre's Zillow, Cyberhomes, Real Estate ABC, to name a few.  My take -  use them all and compare them side-by-side and make your own estimates based on all the comps available.  If you are an agent, work with your clients to help them take the additional steps to make the valuations more comprehensive by taking into details that are not available online such as the upgrades to the property, the property's location to schools and their APIs, and of course the exact location of your home (corner lot, cul-de-sac, on top of the hill with a panoramic view etc, etc,etc.) 

More recently, HouseFront.com has been making some headlines.  At first glance, HouseFront.com and Zillow.com share strikingly similar offerings with instant home valuations, mobile valuations, and the ability to add photos and listing details to your home.  However, a closer look reveals one eye-catching offering that catapults the curiosity factor to a new level - all home valuation queries returns the complete home ownership history, listing all the names of current owners as well as previous owners.  What ?  Now you can not only figure out how much your neighbor's home is worth, but you can also find out who actually lives there and who lived there before.   Browsing through the site, I came across some of the top searches on the site here.   The list includes homes of: Harrison Ford, Priscilla Presley, Sugar Ray Leonard, Jodie Foster, and many more...

What do you think ? Is this going too far or do we actually need to know the owner's names when we're searching for home valuations ?

Popularity: 11% [?]