13th Interview with Marc Cunningham of Grace Management & Investment. You can see all the others on PMDave.com

Post from: Dave Dugdale RentVine.com

What Happens When A Tenant Doesn’t Pay Rent [Video]

9th Interview with Marc Cunningham of Grace Management & Investment. You can see all the others on PMDave.com

Post from: Dave Dugdale RentVine.com

Why Internet Advertising is Better Than Newspapers [Video]

I posted this interview on my PMDave.com site, but thought people that read this blog might enjoy this one.

Post from: Dave Dugdale RentVine.com

What To Look For In a Property Manager [Video]

• I think we will see RentalHouses take over the number one spot from RentClicks in terms of traffic in 2007. Not rental listings, but traffic. I monitor my competitors on 4 free metric sites in terms of traffic and then I average them out. The graphs I am looking at show RentClicks dropping and RentalHouses holding their own. At the current rate RentClicks will drop below RentalHouses towards the end of 2007.
• HomeRentalAds has already lost the #2 spot to RentalHouses this year and I predict that Homerentalads will continue to fall a few more spots.
• One to look out for is RentalHomesPlus. By my calculations they are currently holding the #4 spot in terms of traffic. Their site is “young” like mine but I hear they have a good team working hard getting traffic. I predict they will move up one spot this year to #3.
• The new Rentals com beta site will move up in the rankings but will not be a contender in 2007.
• Currently RentVine holds the #6 position in terms of traffic. I predict RentVine will move up to the #4 spot. I have been working very hard at this and have many new ideas to boost traffic in 2007.
• One of my competitors will outbid RentClicks from their high level sponsorship (“Official Partner”) with NARPM and will secure that oh so precious link from the home page of NARPM.
• I predict property managers will voice their disapproval of all the new banner ads that have been placed all over the rental sites this year. While these will not go away I predict they will tone them down a bit.
• Prices? What will happen to standard pricing for placing an ad? I predict they won’t budge for 2007. However, watch out for sites like findhomerentals com which appear to be gaining traffic. Prices won’t drop in 2007, but I will predict prices will drop in 2 or 3 years because a free site will invade one of the top 3 spots in terms of traffic and listings. I think the large 30+ sales force used by the current top two sites will start to decrease as the free sites start to gain market share.
• Look for more consolation in 2007. I will guess that Primedia will purchase yet another rental site this year.

So here is what I think the order will look like at the end of next year:

1. Rentalhouses
2. RentClicks
3. RentalHomesPlus
4. RentVine.com
5. HomeRentalAds

I know that traffic is not everything in this business but it does play a large role.

I do not have the money to subscribe to the $35k yearly fee for more accurate numbers from Comscore or HitWise but I am guessing that my numbers are pretty close. If anyone has access to those traffic numbers and wants to correct anything said here – please share!

What are your thoughts for traffic in 2007? Who will win with the most traffic?

[tags]traffic, home rental sites, predictions, hitwise, comscore[/tags]

Post from: Dave Dugdale RentVine.com

Where to Place your Ad Dollars in 2007

Here are the metro areas that have enough data accurately show their average:

We have created a tool to find the average rent for the metro areas where we have the most data available to run an accurate average. We are hoping over time this tool will help people price their rentals in with the market value.

There are other average rental tools out there, and as time goes on we plan on adding those averages within our own average to provide a service that will become even more accurate over time. Our goal is to offer the largest set of average rental prices for the most accuracy on the web.

We will also be adding graphs and charts so we can display stats for rental prices by city in a historic fashion to let our readers see the trends in the rental market easily. I think we will call it “Price Distribution Graph”, providing real-time inventory and price information.

We are providing these averages totally free and even include an easy way to embed this information in different formats on your own site (so they will always be up-to-date on your site). You will find the embed code on the city you are interested in.

If you have any suggestions on different formats you would like to see or use, please let us know. We are also thinking of providing monthly rental statistics by zip code so you can search that way as well in the future. Let us know if you don’t like them broken out for apartments, houses, condos and duplexes and you would rather have one lump sum price. Perhaps a or “Cheap Rent Graph” too.

Post from: Dave Dugdale RentVine.com

Find the Average Rent for Your City

To listen go to the RadioVine Podcast page where you can listen in each week as I interview different property managers around the United States.

Today’s show is an interview with Wendy Frenzel. Wendy is an owner of A Vantage Properties located in southeast Denver Colorado. I thought the show went pretty well and we covered a lot of interesting topics.

Let me know of suggestions you might have that will make the show better. I am still new to podcasting, and I am looking for ways to improve the show. Let me know what subjects you want to hear about and the people you would like me to interview.

You can sign up for email alerts to know when a new podcast has aired. I am going to try really hard to have one guest on each week. I have my next guest actually coming on the show this Friday. My next guest is Dan Daugherty of RentMarketer.com which I am sure will make for a real interesting show.

If you want to appear on my show please send me an email, I would love to have you on the show.

Post from: Dave Dugdale RentVine.com

Launch of RadioVine a PodCast for Property Managers

Alexa is a free way to measure a site’s performance currently. If you have never tried it, go to Alexa.com and then enter your site to find your ranking among all the other sites on the web. You want to have a low number.

For instance RentVine.com’s ranking currently is 146,695 on Alexa.

The problem with Alexa is that it can be gamed way too easily. The results on Alexa can be artificially inflated by automated means. I am not saying that my competitor’s are doing this, I am just saying you really can’t trust the ranking. To be fair, a site ranking 10,000 or less on Alexa I believe is pretty accurate. Only one of my competitors has rankings below this level, which is RentClicks.com.

What I propose is a non profit .org type site that will aggregate all of the classified site’s stats similar how Google Analytics’s does. The site could be called something like ClassifiedStats.org. It would use Java Script code that reports back to the to ClassifiedStats.org each time a page is loaded.

Site’s like RentVine.com could then display a badge on the site indicating a stat which would be pulled from ClassifiedStats.org such as monthly unique visitors.

I think this would be a useful service for property managers if each one of my competitors would also included a badge on their site as well. The question is would my competitors be willing to join in?

You might think an Opt-In program like this would not be used by smaller sites like RentVine.com because they would not want people to know how much behind they are from the competition. But I would participate, because I think that property managers would appreciate my honesty. And if my smaller site is climbing in the rankings, I think property managers would notice that by looking at a graph on the ClassifiedStats.org site showing an upward trend.

I have no idea who would create the ClassifiedStats.org site (perhaps a company like Craigslist.org could). I have no idea how it would be implemented, as well as which stat would be used for the badge (I am sure there would be much debate on this issue).

This radical idea came from Jason Calacanis keynote speech at the SES conference in Chicago on Tuesday.

I believe a site like ClassifiedStats.org will be created in the next few years. I think the demand for it is here today.

What are your thoughts, do you think that this would be a valuable feature for sites like RentVine?

[tags]Alexa, Jason Calacanis, stats, property managers[/tags]

Post from: Dave Dugdale RentVine.com

Alexa replacement to measure classified ad sites

Many property managers are missing out on free top placement on Google and Yahoo for local results.

Take a look at the screen shot below from Google when looking for “Kiowa, CO property management“. Notice that it only has 2 results (up to three results are allowed). If you are a property manager in this town you can slip right in to the local results just by filling out a quick form on Google. Once you fill out the form you will get a post card from Google with instructions to complete the process – pretty painless for a top placement.

I am not sure how the Sprinkler Guy got in there, I kind of doubt that he does property management.
[tags]PubCon 2006, WebmasterWorld, Vegas, property management[/tags]

Post from: Dave Dugdale RentVine.com

If You Do not Signup for Local Now You will Hate Yourself Later

I got my first cell phone earlier this year. I spoke with several of my friends that work in the cell phone industry before I got one. I was told the phone to own was the Treo 650P. So I went down to Costco and picked one up for a bout $320 (after rebates). Since then I have come to use just about everything on the phone and I thought I would share my experiences.

The reason I titled this post “The smartphone for webmasters” is because it seems that everyone in my industry is using one. This became clear at the SES conference in San Jose. I am sure most of you have been to a conference where you see a line of computers set up to allow people access to their email, well at this conference I notice those lines where extremely short. I noticed that after each session was over a lot of people took out there smart phones and checked their email. Most of the smart phones appeared to be the Treo.

So why do webmaster love the Treo?

• Email: I use my Treo for email far more than I do making phone calls. You can check your email just about anywhere. I have Sprint service which seems to have very good data and (EVDO) coverage.
• MP3 player: I use the built in MP3 player a lot because I listen to many different podcasts during the week. I purchased a 1 Gig SD card for $39 so I can add a lot more songs and podcasts to my phone.
• Internet: I use this a lot more now that I upgraded to the Treo 700p with the EVDO package the allows for faster download speeds. I surf my Bloglines page often to get alerted when someone on my blog list has posted.
• Phone: Now with the Treo 700 I can be checking email on my phone and receive a phone call at the same time – before with the 650 the phone call would have gone to voice mail.
• Contacts: Since I can sync all my contacts on my phone from Outlook 2003 I have all my information with me.
• Camera: When I am out with my kids I can always take a photo that I might have missed before. The 700 has a 1.2 mega pixel camera which is a lot better than the 650′s camera. Using the external SD card I can quickly transfer my pictures and MP3′s using my portable card reader. The Treo also has a video camera, but it is not that good.
• Voice memos: If I am out hiking and I think of an idea, I can quickly say it in to my Treo to play it back later. This can be less geeky than it sounds because people won’t look at you funny because you are talking into a phone. I also use this feature to record conference sessions. When I lower the sample rate (using the free SoundRec program) I fit an entire conference (many hours) on my phone.
• SprintTV: This is pretty cool. You can watch live streaming shows like ABC news on your phone. The video quality sucks, but the audio is pretty good.
• Calendar: Just like my contacts I get reminded when I need to do something.
• Calculator: I don’t uses this that often, but it is nice to have.
• Word, Excel and Power Point: Another item I don’t use much, but it is nice to have.

For my business being able to check email just about anywhere is extremely helpful. Now when I go on vacation or a conference I don’t even bring my laptop anymore. Typing a long email on the phone can be a pain, so if you are out of town and need to respond to a ton of emails you can bring a long a portable keyboard that folds up really small. The other downside of bring a laptop and tapping in to Wi-Fi is that you are not as secure as you are are on the EVDO network. Free Wi-Fi can threaten your passwords and other information you are passing over the air.

When I bought my Treo at Costco they gave me some free extras like a leather case, car charger and ear buds. But the best part of the deal is I could return my phone for a full refund. So what I did was purchase a used 700p on Craigslist for $299 and then returned my Treo 650 and got $320 back so I actually came out ahead. But the downside is when you make even the smallest of change on your plan your 2 year agreement starts all over again.

I have not receive my first bill since I switched over to the 700 but I am guessing it will be around $60 a month which includes the $15 for the EVDO package.

[tags]smartphone, Treo, 650, 700, webmasters[/tags]

Post from: Dave Dugdale RentVine.com

The smartphone for webmasters

We are happy to announce the launch of mapVine! An easy way to showcase your properties on your site with a good looking map.

mapVine allows a web site owner to quickly create a map using Googleâ„¢ Maps technology for their web site with little or no programming knowledge.

How does it work? This three minute demonstration video shows how to map three properties quickly. (a) Select the metro area where your properties are located, (b) input your properties within the system, and then (c) simply copy the code provided into your web site where you want the map to appear.

You can optionally customize your map by (a) choosing the type of map you wish to display as your default (street, hybrid or satellite), and (b) choosing the map size (small or large). You can also set the default map center and zoom for any location within the United States.

While mapVine was originally designed for property managers and real estate agents it can also be used for other industries that require property mapping for their sites, such as a chain of local coffee shops.

Check out an example of a property management site using the mapVine interface: A Vantage Properties (Denver)

To signup for a free mapVine account visit:
http://www.rentvine.com/map/

Please let us know if you have any comments or suggestions on how we can improve mapVine. One suggestion we have received is providing a choice between Google Maps and Microsoft Virtual Earth (Birds Eye View), we are considering this in our next release of mapVine.

You can see the mapVine press release here.

[tags]Property mapping, mashup, property-management, real estate, Real Estate Management, brokers, Google-Maps, maps, web design, marketing, Microsoft Virtual Earth, Web2.0[/tags]

Post from: Dave Dugdale RentVine.com

Free property mapping tool – Launch of mapVine