Real estate is always a micro economic situation. Texas real estate websites are able to capitalize on that since approximately a thousand people a day are heading to Texas to find jobs with the energy industry faring better than other economic sectors, Texas towns are nine of the top 16 target cities in the recent Milken Institute/Greenstreet Real Estate Partners Best-Performing Cities Index.

Austin moved from its 2008 fourth position place to capture the top spot. Sales of MLS properties have enjoyed four straight months of sales figures higher than the 2008 sales with better sales prices also. It looks as if the Austin real estate market turned the corner in the spring of 2009. Real estate websites targeting the downtown resale market are poised to take advantage of Austin’s most active real estate area. In 2008, Austin made homes for 60,000 new residents – creating a better economy than towns in states that are suffering a population exodus.

Helping Texas real estate is its tax structure. In a time when California and New York are increasing state personal income taxes, states like Texas and Florida a benefiting from the homeowners moving to better tax states as part of their wealth protection measures.

Houston, always an oil industry center and international port, made a big jump from its 2008 16th place position to 5th place. Internet Marketing Consultants’ (IMC) has designed Houston real estate websites for agents who are successfully selling to incoming jobseekers, first-time homebuyers as well as the second home and lake-front home markets. Housing prices are holding steady overall and starting to move up in the more sought-after Houston neighborhoods.

The San Antonio’s real estate market, benefiting from the city’s low cost of living and warm climate, is the number one real estate market military retirees chose to find their post-active duty home. As for “creating and sustaining jobs and economic growth”, the Milken Institute 2009 Best Performing Cities Report ranked it #11, up four places from 2008.

With many of Texas home buyers searching for homes from out of state, having a well-designed and optimized real estate website is a must. To see how quickly you can improve or start your online real estate marketing campaign, contact the real estate web design pros at IMCD Web Design – we know how to give you a Texas-sized Internet presence!

Real estate agents increased their website usage according to the National Association of Realtors 2009 Technology Report. In fact the Internet had moved into the third most important position for generating leads after referrals and repeat business.

The top four uses are to post listings, communicate with clients, provide maps to properties and generate sales leads. 58% of agents update their personal websites, with 25% using their real estate blogs to increase business. Podcasts and YouTube videos are not as highly used, partly due to the technical learning curve needed to create the audio and video files. The technology barrier does not stop 36% of the Realtors and brokers polled from downloading and listening to podcasts for business purposes.

With real estate websites able to send emails automatically alerting agents that a lead has been submitted on the website, it is no wonder that the top mobile device agents use are Blackberries (32%), Palm Treos (14%) and iPhones (10%). These smartphones have keyboards and wireless Internet capacity that allows for reading and sending emails as well as the much used functions of phoning and texting. 42% of the real estate agents were planning on buying or replacing their smartphones in 2010 (compared to 9% who were planning on obtaining or replacing a basic cell phone with no texting or Internet capacity).

Overall, real estate agents are going more portable with digital cameras, smartphones and laptops far and away the most popular hardware agents are looking to purchase or upgrade. Over 50% of Realtors and brokers use a web-based email service like Yahoo or Google, allowing them great latitude in where they can check their email – at the office, at home or at an Internet cafe.

Brokers and Realtors both are increasingly using their brokerage and personal real estate websites to post listings. From 2007 to 2008 brokers increased usage from 72% to 83% and Realtors increased using their personal agent websites for listings from 53% in 2007 to 59% in 2008. Overall, 81% of the survey respondents have listing search capabilities on their real estate websites

When it comes to custom websites versus template real estate websites, over 50% of the brokers and a third of the agents invest in more customized websites with increased branding, personalized content and added options like article managers, integrated blogs and list managers. If you are looking to increase your real estate website’s return on investment, contact IMCD to see how quickly we can improve your online lead generation!

Real estate agents positioning their real estate websites for the expected influx of troops from Fort Hood in the coming months can use this information to attract potential clients. By utilizing a real estate blog to inform newcomers to the Colorado Springs market of both real estate news and home mortgage and first-time homebuyer benefits, agents position themselves on the Internet as experts in the Colorado Springs market. Building “creditworthiness” is key to moving your real estate website visitors to becoming warm sales leads.

Colorado Springs real estate market, with its large military housing market, is benefiting from the recent extension of the $8000 First-time Homebuyer Tax Credit. For most markets the extension ends in 2010, however real estate markets, such as Colorado Springs with several bases in the area. Benefit from the military first-time homebuyer’s extension that runs until April of 2011.

Since many of the military getting assigned to Fort Carson are newcomers to Colorado Springs, their referral network relies to a greater extent on Internet real estate searches. Internet Marketing Consultants (IMC) clients have used their IMC semi-custom real estate template websites to target this growing market. By utilizing a real estate blog integrated into their website, they can quickly write about changes in mortgage and tax laws affecting military personnel as well as new homes coming on the market.

Though on-base housing can accommodate some military families, housing forecasts expect 75% of the troops will require off-base housing due to shortages of available housing real estate.

Colorado Springs is also the second most popular place for military retirees to call home after San Antonio Texas. With close proximity to Denver and Southwest Airlines inexpensive travel routes, retirees have the ease of transportation of a large city while comfortably enjoying the benefits of living in the Colorado Springs real estate market.

Whether your Colorado Springs real estate website needs to target the military market, growing high tech sector or the commercial real estate area, IMC has the real estate template website or custom package to meet your online marketing investment needs.

Realtors just starting out with their personal real estate websites may be daunted by the task of gaining visibility in a mature online market. However, what agents have in their favor is the level of entropy in the online marketplace. IMCD Web Design (IMCD) has created Realtor websites that have achieved success in breaking into the search engine ranking by leveraging key elements in the web design. Why do these key techniques work time and again to drive successful real estate website launches?

The “if it is not broke, don’t fix it” psychology rules online website maintenance and upgrading thinking. Successful brokerage firms and agents put up websites and update listings, but they don’t usually have a pain point to update the website’s underlying technology until the traffic has already moved away.

IMCD constantly upgrades the unseen, “under the hood” web design architecture of our real estate websites to give our clients the much sought after “unfair business advantage”. In online marketing, advancing web design technology and adherence to ever evolving web standards always penalizes the static first-to-the-field websites. New real estate web designs, by their very nature, have an advantage in the this developing online market.

The best way to assess your real estate website, is to think in terms of “if I was to relaunch today, what would I do differently?” With this mindset, real estate agents can always entertain ideas that will improve their website, for example, adding more interactive Web 2.0 features like blogs or online surveys. The worst mindset to have about your website is to see it as a static marketing investment, like a billboard or bus stop bench. Static marketing in the online market is always left in the dust by actively updated websites.

After technology, comes the keywords targeted in the content. Newer keyword research detects the shifts in home buyers’ and home sellers’ search patterns allowing real estate agents to recast their marketing in the way searchers are looking. If certain keywords are dropping out of your tracking results of keywords used by web visitors to find you, it is an early warning that either the market has shifted or you need to fine tune your keyword placement.

If you are ready to launch your new real estate website or replace your old technology website, contact IMCD’s cutting edge web designers. We know what it takes to give you an unfair business advantage!