Need to Generate More Revenue? 7 Ancillary Services Brokerages Should Consider
Running a real estate brokerage is rarely a wildly profitable enterprise, but the current environment has been exceedingly tough for even many experienced brokerages. High mortgage interest rates and inflation have combined to put a big damper on would-be buyers' ability to purchase a home, and the lack of inventory means that many would-be sellers are reluctant to leave a good-enough home for the wilds of the unknown. So how can brokerages help to push back against shrinking margins and find new areas of profitability in their businesses? It's not the easiest thing to do, but it's far from impossible. If you haven't yet considered adding one of these ancillary services to your business, then it might be time to ask yourself if it could generate the revenue you've been missing. 1. Mortgage loans Just about everyone who's interested in buying a house — and many people who are interested in selling — are going to need to apply for a mortgage loan. Most buyers need to secure a mortgage loan in order to buy a house, as very few people have the cash on hand to purchase a home outright. And sellers will almost certainly need to move after selling, unless they plan on negotiating some kind of rent-back deal. Instead of referring borrowers to an outside mortgage lender, why not offer your own mortgage loans through your brokerage? Even if only a segment of buyers decide to go with your mortgage loan, the additional revenue could make a big difference for your bottom line. Companies like HomeLendia provide franchise opportunities that can allow brokerages to offer these kinds of products and services without an unreasonable upfront investment. (On Tuesday, October 24, HomeLendia is hosting a webinar to explain how its mortgage franchise works; register now to learn more.) 2. Rental services Another potential area of expansion and growth is helping landlords or investors find qualified tenants for their rental properties. While some rental owners prefer to do this on their own, if they don't live locally or if they only have one or two properties to rent, they may not have a very robust network of people who would make high-quality tenants. As a brokerage, it's almost certain that you have access to a network of aspiring buyers, move-out sellers, and young adults moving out of the house for the first time. If you can leverage that to help landlords and investors fill their properties quickly and seamlessly (and charge a fee for it), that could be a decent amount of extra revenue for a relatively small lift. 3. Property management Both long-term and short-term rentals, especially single-family homes, will require some kind of property management oversight. Short-term rentals like vacation rentals need to be cleaned in between each visit, and if something breaks at a rental property, owners will typically have to call someone to fix it as opposed to fixing it themselves. Many real estate brokerages have existing relationships with house cleaners, general contractors, plumbers, electricians, and other problem-solvers that a property management company might call up to help with a rental. Property managers can charge either flat fees or collect a portion of the rental money, but either way, it's some additional revenue for your balance sheet. 4. Title and escrow To move a real estate transaction from offer to close, title and escrow companies must become involved in order to handle any earnest money deposits, review the home's title and provide title insurance, and serve as notaries on closing day, among many other duties. These tasks are typically outsourced to title and escrow firms, which charge to fulfill them. Offering these services in-house as part of your brokerage can be a good way to increase your bottom line. 5. Relocation help Here's a fact: While people might enjoy shopping for a new home, almost nobody enjoys the process of moving itself. Providing services around moving, from packing to loading to hauling, can generate more business for your brokerage (people love full-service options) as well as potentially create a new revenue stream. 6. Staging and photography services Sellers who want their homes to capture the best possible price are usually going to be interested in professional cleaning, staging, and photography. If you can find the experts and create a suite of products around home staging and selling that cater to this need, you could even consider outsourcing the offerings to other real estate firms. 7. Investing advice and opportunities Many people would like to get their foot in the door of a real estate investment property, so to speak, but they have no idea where to start. As the expert on real estate in your area, providing advice and data to aspiring investors can be another way brokers can increase their baseline sales business while also generating new income in a new way. The market might be tough, but you have options! Remember to register for the HomeLendia webinar to learn more about adding mortgage ancillary services to your brokerage.

HomeJab Reveals Top Trends in Pro Real Estate Photos, Video, 3D Tours, Aerial and more
Do your agents use professional real estate photographers to shoot every listing? They should if they want to stay competitive, as today, 73% of all agents use professional photography to promote every property they list. Professional photos, video, virtual staging immersive 3D tours, aerial photography, and the use of twilight photos by agents are all covered in a brand-new survey from HomeJab. If you use professional photographers and other visual assets to promote your property listings and don't know HomeJab, you should. Go to HomeJab.com and see for yourself how they connect you with top local photographers and deliver a lightning-fast 24-hour turnaround. Founded in 2013 by real estate industry veteran and real estate photo and video expert Joe Jesuele, HomeJab has emerged as America's most popular and reliable on-demand professional real estate photography and video service for real estate pros. HomeJab is also one of the hottest startups in its category. The new HomeJab study uncovered some fascinating recent tech trends, including: Video tops 3D tours: While immersive 3D interactive tours continue to soar in popularity, real estate agents pick video over 3D. Thirty-six percent said they preferred video tours versus 21% for 3D tours. Additionally, 30% said they use both video and 3D tours, depending on the seller. Virtual staging narrowly beats traditional staging: HomeJab found that 30% of agents now prefer virtual staging, slightly more popular today than traditional staging at 29%. Only 7% of agents shoot their own listing photos: Despite the advancements in smartphone camera technology, professional photography still beats DYI – by a wide margin. Agents know that pro photos positively showcase their personal brand, HomeJab notes. Aerial photography is hot and getting hotter: Sixty-seven percent of real estate agents said they had used aerial photography with their listings. Fifty-five percent of agents said their use depends on the property. Twelve percent said they use aerial photography with every property listing. The newest trend is the growing popularity of virtual twilight photos: Seventy-six percent of agents have used them to promote their property listings or are interested in using them. Forty percent of agents said they use twilight photos. Thirty-five percent say they love them, and 5% say they use them but don't love them. This new data from HomeJab showcases how high-quality and innovative imaging assets have become the cornerstone in property listings marketing. More importantly, it's great to see new data points on this hot topic, as much of the existing research is mostly dated. Here is their full news release on the recent HomeJab survey. To view the original article, visit the WAV Group blog.

How to Edit Your Matterport Spaces Anywhere, on Any Device
Whether you are using a Pro1, Pro2, BLK, a supported 360 camera or the new Matterport for iPhone, now there are more choices than ever to scan your spaces with Matterport. Wouldn't it be great if you could also edit and stage those spaces, on the go, using your favorite mobile device? Last month, Matterport rolled out changes to Workshop to enable editing of spaces on mobile phones and tablets, which makes the editing experience easier and more intuitive across the board.

The Ethical Use of Photoshop in Real Estate Marketing
Marketing or Misleading? The home buying process now starts online, which makes it critical to present your listing in the most appealing way possible. From creative word play in your property description to engaging imagery in your online tour, the intent should be to attract attention to the home, never to misguide offers. But digital manipulation is ubiquitous in online marketing, and recent advances in photo editing technology have created challenges in defining what is presenting a property in a positive light—and what is outright misleading.

Building Your Brand Voice and Referral Business with Instagram
With over one billion users worldwide, Instagram has quickly become one of the most popular social platforms for brands to market themselves. For real estate professionals, Instagram has become a great way to promote their listings, offer a peek into their open houses, highlight restaurants and shops in desirable neighborhoods and much more.

Creativity Brings Closeness: Brokerage's Photo Contest Unites Team
What started as a simple employee photo contest at Better Homes and Gardens Real Estate Reliance Partners in its East Bay region quickly became a celebrated event. Its real estate agents and staff submitted more than a hundred pictures capturing "heartwarming moments in time" as part of its "Art of Living Better" contest. While the winning images were spectacular, the contest became a case where life reflected the art: it brought its team members even closer together. The winning images First Place: Lois Harris, Realtor, Oakland office – Photo: Couple jumping in the water Second Place: Mark Hardwicke, Realtor, Berkeley office – Photo: Dog eyeing breakfast Third Place: Maria Elola, Realtor, Fremont office – Photo: Two children laughing "The real estate business – and being an agent – is more than just about selling homes," said Matt Cord, President & Owner of Better Homes and Gardens Real Estate Reliance Partners. "Agents are people and having a balanced life means there is more than just real estate 24/7. Agents have families, kids, dogs, cats -- and life is a joy. This photo contest captures living better in a profound way," he said. The architect of the photo contest Shelley Altura, Chief Strategy Officer at BHGRE Reliance Partners, was anticipating "a handful of entries" when she announced the contest in the Fall. She was soon deluged with entries. "We called the contest the 'Art of Living Better' because we wanted to celebrate what our people do outside the office. What they shared with us are dozens and dozens of genuinely heartwarming moments in time," she said. Altura said she watched the contest do something unexpected. "As agents and staff shared their photos, they shared their stories behind the images. When you share your life's most precious moments with your colleagues – and many of these photos capture these memories – it brings everyone closer. That was pretty magical," she said. Honorable Mentions included: Arian Diaz, Realtor, Berkeley office – Photo: Father and daughter near the ocean Brenda Walker, Realtor, Berkeley office – Photo: Wedding in Mumbai Miranda Fong, Office Administrator, Fremont office – Photo: Fabric as art Kristin Lanham, Realtor, Walnut Creek office – Photo: Dog and Kristin in the backseat of a car Rose Brudigam, Realtor and Suzie Tinsley, Realtor, Walnut Creek office – Photo: Rain Hats in Vietnam - both agents are in the photo Victoria Curtis, Realtor, Berkeley office – Photo: Skydiving Winning entries were judged by a team that included fellow Realtor Michele Landes of the Danville office, who also is a professional photographer, and Altura. Images were judged based on a criterion that included impact, theme and artistic quality. The brokerage provided the winners with hundreds of dollars in gift card prizes. View more winning photos here: http://bit.ly/bhgre-rp-art-of-living-better    

How to Turn Instagram Likes into Real Estate Sales
Are you looking for a great way to reach the young, growing Millennial demographic, which has quickly become the largest generation of current homebuyers? Do you want a digital medium, which is perfect for sharing photos, listings, tips, testimonials, and video content? Then Instagram is a great social network for marketing your real estate business. Ahead, we'll take a look at strategies for success on Instagram, along with what you can do to turn Instagram "likes" into real estate sales.

Stay Safe When You Use Drone Photography and Honor Others' Privacy
As drones become ever more popular in the business and home entertainment sectors, privacy concerns abound – and incensed Americans are taking offensive action. With some states allowing private citizens to shoot at drones, safety and the protection of privacy and property are becoming an increasingly important facet with drone video usage in real estate marketing. How can you protect yourself?

5 Tips to Finding Images for Your Website
Images communicate, draw attention and create interest. Images can keep people on your website if chosen correctly or lead people to leave your website. When choosing images for your website, it is important to choose images that are high quality, relevant, aligned with your brand, aesthetically pleasing and attention grabbing. So where can you get great images? Here are five ways we get images for our own site.

The Do's and Dont's of Instagram for Real Estate
Instagram is one of the most popular platforms in social media when it comes to the real estate industry, and there are some very good reasons why that's the case. The first is that Instagram is a highly visual medium, and real estate is a natural source for attractive, shareable photos. Just as importantly, Instagram is directly integrated with Facebook, which remains by far the most common, popular social media site on the planet. Success on Instagram may not be instant, but you can speed up the process dramatically by learning the "do's and don'ts" of Instagram for real estate.

Drone Photography Can Take Your Real Estate Business to New Heights
Look at video usage in real estate marketing from a different view, with the help of drone photography technology. No longer a tool for cutting edge, tech-savvy agents, drones are rapidly becoming a must-have for today’s successful Realtor, particularly those specializing in the luxury market. Recent changes to federal rules governing their operation are making it easier for agents (and photographers) to climb aboard.

5 Steps to Upgrading Your Instagram to Business
Social media marketing is proving to be a major key to succeeding as a business today in 2016. Social media marketing itself is all about presenting quality and relevant content in a professional manner. And we've talked about how to make your brand Instafamous before and how that fame could be attainable for all of us, but now it's time to take it a step further. Since then, we have upgraded our own Instagram account to the new business profile. Our profile now features a contact button and a hyperlink to our headquarters' address, which goes well beyond what a basic Instagram profile generally displays. Along with the new look, we now have a new set of Instagram's native tools for assessing how exactly our posts are performing. The tools include statistics on posts and followers, as well as an easier way to promote posts. So how do you upgrade your profile? Below are the five easy steps for getting your Instagram profile to business official and a few reasons why it may be beneficial for you and your marketing efforts. Upgrade Instagram to Business There are upwards of 500 million monthly active users on Instagram. Yes, we know that's a lot of people (as if you didn't have enough to worry about when you posted a picture on Instagram), but think about it this way—that's a pretty big number of possibilities of people who could made aware of your business. And what's better than more exposure for your business? The biggest perk of upgrading your account is that it puts your address and information front and center on your profile, along with a 'contact' button. This signals that you are in fact a business and gives your followers legitimate information if they need to reach out to you.

Master Tips On Using Instagram To Sell Homes
Social media should be a key tool you are using to help your business grow, and as we all know, the human brain is very image-oriented. Hardcore Closer Ryan Stewman goes over some key strategies he utilizes with Instagram to get his clients’ attention. Check out the 2:43 mark for an important tip.

The One Photography Tip That Will Make You More Money
How do you make your listing photos look like they were shot by a professional photographer? If you want to get more homes sold faster, you will need to learn how to make those listing photos pop! Find out how to use this tool to edit exterior home photos and recreate a home that sells.

How to Stage a Home for Listing Photography
Listing photos for a home can make or break the potential of getting prospective buyers to book a viewing appointment. Do you know the real estate photography and home staging tips and tricks for playing up the strengths of your saleable listings? Want great listing photos? These tips and tricks are tried and true: Lose the clutter. When professional stagers prep a home for market, they typically get rid of half of a home's "stuff." This includes too much furniture, one of the main contributors to a cluttered look, as well as closets, a high priority sales item. Sellers reluctant? Ask what's worse: Clearing clutter – or missing an opportunity to sell? Lighten up. Great lighting adds a warm, welcoming feel. Ditch a dreary ambiance by aiming for 100 watts per 50 square feet. Don't fear furniture relocation. Temporarily moving furniture, art, and accessories can help you set the stage for superior real estate photography.

Take the DIY Approach for Your Real Estate Listing Photos
Studies show that bad real estate photos can delay the sale of a home, but are real estate professionals getting the message? Many real estate listings feature photos that either don't do justice to the home or make it look much, much worse than it does in real life. Of course, serious buyers will request a showing in spite of blurry or awkward listing photos, but why risk it? Here are a few pointers for improving your digital photos. Clear the clutter: In the broadest sense. Make sure nothing (trees, bikes, toys, clothing) is blocking a pure view of your subject. That includes fingers in front of the lens. Also, before taking photos consider hiring a maid to do a one-time cleaning at the house to make sure everything looks in order. Plan ahead: Arrange your shots to make sure you have enough light and capture both the inside and out at an optimal time. Focus: Advanced digital cameras will zero-in on a focal points to give your overall shot balance, but if your camera doesn't comply, make sure the center of the image is the subject of your photo, whether that is a bed, a doorway, a garden, etc. Ordering: Follow a logical path in your series of photos. Some buyers like the photos to begin at the front of the home and move through from room to room. Depending on the listing, however, you might decide to do exterior shots first, then go inside. Whichever route you take, try to follow that logical path to make the experience almost the next best thing to being there.

Five Best Practices for Listing Photos
Today's consumers are highly visual, especially when it comes to online property searches. Since 90% of home buyers start their search online (NAR), a well stocked arsenal of listing photos can quickly attract attention. While the right listing photos can draw in potential buyers, the wrong ones can scare them away. According to NAR, "98% of home buyers who searched for a home on the internet found photos to be among the most useful features." Here are five best practices to keep in mind when preparing your listing photos. If it fits in to your budget, hire a professional. Professional photographers have the skills, training, and equipment to make each shot look its best. At the same time, a photographer may not know the house as well as you do. If you're going to be hiring a professional, make a list of the top selling points of the house so the photographer will know what to focus on. If you are unable to hire a professional, invest in some decent equipment. While most smartphones boast an 8 to 16 megapixel resolution, digital cameras are usually better for capturing quality images. In fact, 90% of REALTORS® prefer a digital camera to a smartphone when taking their listing photos (NAR). Also, a good flash and a tripod can turn an adequate photo into a great one. When you're taking the pictures, open all the curtains and upgrade light bulbs to a higher wattage — the more light, the better. Remember that taking pictures from the corners can make a room look more spacious. Finally, avoid snapping your own image in mirrors or reflecting windows. Potential buyers should be left thinking about your listing, not your outfit.

FAA Finally Approves Drones for Real Estate: Will it be Worth Your Time?
Drones have stirred up quite a buzz in the real estate marketing world, but there have been a lot of unanswered questions regarding how they can be used. That is until recently, when the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) released a twenty-six-page docket that grants REALTORS® the right to use drones on a case-by-case basis. In order to legally use one of these unmanned aircraft systems (UAS) for commercial purposes, you must have the expressed permission of the FAA. As of January 2015, only 12 out of the 214 commercial entities that have applied for one of these exemptions have been approved. What does the FAA consider commercial use? According to knowbeforeyoufly.org, a website dedicated to providing consumers with insight on drone usage, there are three main categories that make up commercial use: Selling photos or videos taken from a UAS, Using a UAS to provide contract services and Using a UAS to provide professional services. Plan on using one of these unmanned aircrafts for you business in the near future? Then it's important that you read through this document in its entirety to keep yourself from landing in hot water with the FAA. You'll notice that the docket is filled with legal jargon, so here are four tips that will help you decide if taking the time to figure out what it all means will be worth your while.

Tech Talk: iCloud Photo Sharing for Real Estate
Are you ready to hear about one of the greatest free tools you probably already have access to and didn't even realize it? If you have an iPhone or iPad, this post is for you! iCloud photo sharing is a free way to share your images privately with your clients using the cloud. You can share in real time from anywhere you are, making it simple for you to send snaps without heading back to the office or composing yet another email. Better still, the people you are sharing your photos with can like or comment on them, kind of like on Facebook, giving you instant feedback and the opportunity to answer any questions your clients may have in a snap. Here's the skinny: What is iCloud photo sharing? iCloud photo sharing is a free way to share photos instantly and seamlessly with a select person or group of people using the cloud. Why is it a good idea for real estate pros? Setting up a shared photo stream with active buyer clients is a great way to share photos of new listings, home tours, detail photos and more while you're on the go. Simply snap a quick pic with your iPhone or iPad and add it to the shared stream with a caption or comment (like "check out this new listing" or "here's a closer look at the kitchen"). The only people who will be able to see your pictures are the people you invite. Once a picture is added to your shared iCloud folder, an instant notification will pop up alerting any and all members that a new photo has been uploaded. Viewers can 'like' or comment on your photo.

What the New iPhone 6 Camera and Video Features Mean for Real Estate
They said it wouldn't be done. Late Apple founder Steve Jobs, specifically, said his company would never develop a larger smartphone like those rival Samsung and others were deploying, because, in his words, "No one's going to buy that." Now four years later, Apple has introduced — finally — large-screen iPhones that are designed to, well, meet consumer demand. And, just to make sure everyone was happy, Tim Cook, Jobs' successor as Apple CEO, introduced two new sizes: the 4.7-inch iPhone 6 and the 5.5-inch iPhone 6 Plus. Ironically, some of Apple's biggest smartphone rivals are reportedly ushering new, smaller models to market to compete with the smaller of the two new iPhone models. While the new, bigger size is what's grabbing the most headlines, there are some neat new photo/video related features packed into the latest iteration of Apple's smartphone. First, Apple has added a new A8 processor in the new iPhones. This will help ensure smooth camera, browsing and app use, but the upgrade may not be too evident except under heavy use. Like the previous iPhone, the iPhone 6 has an 8-megapixel camera, but this model features what Apple is calling "focus pixels," a technology previously found only in professional DSLR cameras (this is very important). Enhancements include a sensor that can determine focus direction and how far to move the phone's lens, plus the ability to lighten or darken a photo from within the preview frame, a Retina HD screen, and image stabilization technology that will reduce shake and make low-light photos better. Bottom line: This phone may stop my relentless jabbing at agents who take photos of listings with their phone, versus using a higher-quality camera.

The Future of Drones in Real Estate
When one hears the word drone, most often the brain conjures up an image of a gigantic unmanned military plane. Recently, however, Amazon unveiled their plan to use drones as unmanned delivery machines, built to deliver packages directly to your front door. In addition to Amazon, what implications might drones have, specifically for the real estate industry? The rise of commercialized drones has been interesting, to say the least. With the unprecedented availability of remote control flying technology, ranging from low-cost remote control helicopters to high-end octocopters, people are finding new implementations for drones every day. Right now, the largest market for them is hobbyists who fly drones for entertainment. However, drones have recently started to make the transition into new areas such as filming action sports like snowboarding and motorcross, delivering beverages to affluent people in pools, and of course, taking aerial selfies! But there are even more effective uses for these unmanned flying vehicles. Once reserved for luxury-home listings, aerial photos and videos are popping up in listings for moderately priced homes, thanks to the use of increasingly affordable drones. These drones provide an opportunity for brokers and agents to take breathtaking photos that they couldn't have taken previously. Not only is it a much cheaper alternative to renting a plane and a photographer, it allows for closer and crisper shots. While NAR recommends that REALTORS® avoid using drones until the FAA issues rules on commercial drone use next year, as directed by Congress, some practitioners are taking their chances. Brandon Doyle, a sales associate with Edina Realty in Maple Grove, Minn., has experimented with DJI's F550 drone since October 2012. He states that drones will be particularly helpful for showing off high-acreage property. "It's very difficult to show what 40 acres looks like in a photo, but with a drone, you can get a feel for the topography and where the boundaries are on a property."

Inner Beauty: Do Homebuyers Care?
For some time, the real estate community has analyzed and wondered, "What features sell listings the most?" Or, "What information would be the most valuable to highlight on my website, on my listings page, or during my open house?" Let's say you have two listings. The first has a chef's kitchen, large square footage and beautiful views, but belongs to an area with low school ratings, moderate crime rates, and long commute times. The second listing is smaller, has a moderate kitchen, and the best view is of the next house two feet away. However, the schools are great, the crime is low, and shopping and offices are only five to 20 minutes away. Which one is easier to sell and what do homebuyers value more: a home's inner beauty or a home's external community? Realtor.com recently conducted the Luxury Homebuyer Survey to reveal the buying motivations of home shoppers as well as their highest desired home features. The Survey found that 13% of their 1,500 respondents are looking to purchase a high-end luxury home while an additional 26% of respondents stated they might consider purchasing a high-end luxury home. The survey also showed that 54% of homebuyers crave a chef's kitchen, 44% of homebuyers want significant home views of the ocean, mountains, or cityscape, and 38% of homebuyers want large square footage. Based on the Luxury Homebuyer Survey, focusing and highlighting the home's inner beauty should be any Realtor's predominant strategy.

Smartphone Photography Gets an Upgrade
Guest contributor Melissa Dittmann Tracey of REALTOR®Mag says: Many real estate professionals like the convenience of snapping photos of homes from their smartphones, but sometimes the quality of the photographs can suffer. At the International Consumer Electronics Show last month in Las Vegas, several manufacturers introduced ways to upgrade your mobile photographs with attachable lenses, cameras with more megapixels, and portable printers. Some companies are looking at transforming your smartphone into a higher quality camera by adding the ability to just clip on a lens. For example, Sony's QX10 is the first-ever lens-only camera that can clip onto your smartphone to take photos. You can also take photos from it when it's detached and later upload it to your smartphone for sharing and editing. The camera boasts a 10x optical zoom. The lens-only camera is compatible with iOS and Android smartphones and retails for $250, and a QX100 version is also available with greater zoom capability. The Olloclip is another snap-on lens product, made for the iPhone. You can snap one of four lenses onto your smartphone, allowing you to be able to capture wide-angle and fish-eye photos of spaces in a home too. Smartphone cameras have been getting continuous upgrades in recent years with higher megapixel cameras that rival many point-and-shoots. Sony debuted its Xperia Z1s smartphone at CES, which was touted for being waterproof and able to be submerged in nearly five feet of water, but the smartphone also boasts a 20.7-megapixel camera.

13 Sources of Free and Low-Cost Images for Your Blog Posts
This post comes to us from the RealEstatePointe blog: We create a lot of content for our client's websites--community pages, buyer and seller resources, pages all about the company, etc. We also blog and post to social media accounts for several of our clients. So, it is an important part of our business to be able to find good images to use royalty-free for a small cost, and even for free. If you're blogging, remember that "a picture's worth 1,000 words" and use images in your blog posts. One image is good for short posts. For longer posts, you should break up the text with additional images. Very important: you are responsible for the lawful use of any images you find online. Be certain that you are not violating the specific copyright laws associated with an image. Creative Commons Image Databases The Creative Commons Copyright License allows images to be reused. The image is still owned by the creator, but may be freely reused without the creator's permission. In most cases a simple attribution (photo by artist name and a link to their website or to the page where the image resides) is all that is required for lawful use. I can't stress enough that you should read the terms of use and be sure to follow instructions for the lawful use of each image. Here are the Creative Commons image databases that we use the most: Wikimedia Commons (we use Wikipedia for community research and find the photos here as our #1 source of area-specific images) Flickr Creative Commons Wylio

My Favorite Tablet Photo Editing App is Now Available on Your Desktop
Last year, I wrote a post that highlighted one of my favorite photo editing apps for the iPad (also available on Android). Snapseed is a fantastic program that allows you to selectively adjust certain areas of an image. This approach comes in handy, especially with real estate photographs that tend to have a high dynamic range. Snapseed was available on your desktop ($19) for a brief period of time, then disappeared. Well, to my surprise, when I logged into my Google Plus account and clicked the edit button, I was confronted with Snapseed's familiar interface! This is included in the platform absolutely free. Check out the video on the next page for a quick overview of some of the features and small changes they made to the system.

360° Photos for Real Estate With Pano
Guest contributor Diverse Solutions says: A Real Estate Professional's Tool 360 degree panoramic photos showcasing your properties are made easy with the Pano Photos App. Whether you are an Apple or Android phone owner, this post is made for you. Technology has come a long way in a short time, particularly in regards to smartphone cameras. Right along with better cameras, apps for panoramic photography have been improving. There are quite a few apps available for either Apple or Android, but we'll take a look at one with good reviews that is available for both. "Pano" is an app highly rated for both systems. Go here for the iPhone App and here for the Android App. Though there are minor differences between the app on the two operating systems, the major functions and features common to both include the following.

Instagram for Real Estate Pros
It might not seem like it at first glance, but with over 100 million monthly users, 40 million photos posted per day and over 1000 comments per second, Instagram is one of the largest social networking platforms around, even surpassing Twitter in mobile traffic late last year. This free photo sharing application for iPhone and Android makes it simple to create stunning images that can easily be shared with your network in a matter of moments. Users can like and comment on photos, search photos by location or hashtag and even tag other users in their own photos. So with all the hype – and a billion dollar acquisition from Facebook – why is Instagram often overlooked by real estate folks when talking about social media and online marketing strategy? After all, you would suspect that a social network built for smartphones (which never leave many agents' hands) and built around sharing images (listing photos are the core of real estate advertising) would be a no-brainer, but we've hardly seen anything around the web explaining how to put Instagram to work in your own real estate business. So let's change that, shall we! Here are seven different ways that you can starting using Instagram to increase your listing exposure and promote your business online. 1. Showcase Your Listings and Business The most obvious use of the bunch is also the most important. Since Instagram is all about sharing beautiful photos, snap a picture of a listing's most interesting/beautiful/gorgeous features add one of the available filters and voila, you've got a drool-worthy listing photo that rivals some professional shots. But remember, think beyond the listing photo; you can use pictures to showcase any part of your business. Be it photos of the charitable causes you donate your time to or photos of the neighborhood you specialize in. Pro-tip: Just make sure you don't go overboard on the filters and effects. There is nothing worse than a photo that is too manipulated.

The Rule of Thirds for Video and Photography
Video production expert Stephen Schweickart sheds some light on how the rule of thirds in photography can make you a better filmmaker. The rule of thirds is one of the most basic principles for composing a shot on camera. When the same principle is applied to video production it can help you capture more compelling videos.

How to Easily Transfer Photos and Videos
We talk a lot about high tech issues here at RE Technology--SEO, web design, listing syndication. Sometimes, though, it's good to get back to the basics. My Computer Works' latest video tutorial reminds viewers just how easy it is to transfer photos and videos from their camera to their computer. In the age of the smartphone, where all images are instantly available for upload to the web, it's important to know how to move and store images on your computer. Photos can make or break a listing, after all, and once saved to your computer, images can be cropped and edited for maximum impact. My Computer Works' tutorial shows viewers how to: Transfer image copies via USB or an SD card reader How to use your computer's native photo import program' How to tag photos (we suggest tagging real estate photos by property address for better organization) How to delete photos from your camera after saving to your computer Click through to the next page to watch the video.

Displaying Great Photographs
This is the second part of "Photography: The Most Visible Reflection of Your Company’s Brand." This whitepaper by Brian Balduf, founder of VHT, Inc., explains to brokers why, in the age of iPads and Pinterest, they are missing the boat if they are using MLS photos on their websites, instead of original, high-quality photography. Read Part One here. This is where most companies fail completely. Even if an agent gets or takes great photographs, if they aren't displayed properly it defeats the purpose and makes it hard to enforce standards. Why buy a Picasso and then not put it in a place of prominence? Size Nothing is worse than small photographs. Most MLSs shrink photos to almost unviewable sizes to save on file space – relatively low-resolution 320x240 photographs scream, "Our company is stuck in the 90s." The storage wars ended years ago. Storage and bandwidth are cheap. Photos come out of today's cameras at huge sizes, so go big or go home.

2012 Multimedia: DIY or Professional?
Guest contributor Michael Antoniak of REALTOR® Mag says: Creating effective multimedia productions can be a labor-intensive, time-consuming process. Will you be better served developing new skills as a multimedia producer or entrusting that job to a professional while you focus your time and effort on real estate sales? Many video tour service providers now promote themselves as multimedia specialists. For a flat fee, they will put together an interactive tour or presentation. These services will relieve you of a marketing responsibility, but you may surrender some creative control. Fee-based services typically limit you to a set number of pictures, a maximum length for the video, and inclusion of specified other elements. Anything beyond the basic package ups the cost. You're also dependent on the service provider's schedule and workload.

Take A Picture, it lasts Longer...
With all the hype surrounding the popular iPhone and Android picture app Instagram, we have contemplated what this awesome application can do for real estate. To understand more thoroughly the importance of Instagram, we will begin by investigating the initial uses of Instagram and how it can benefit the real estate market. For starters, let's explain what Instagram is before we get too ahead of ourselves. In a recent article by Rebecca Babicz of Seo.com, Babicz states, "Instagram is a SmartPhone application that allows users to snap photos, edit them using various artistic filters, and upload them to Instagram's mobile platform. Users can then share photos on Facebook, Twitter, Flickr, Tumblr, Posterous and Foursquare." With that stated, not only can you upload and edit your own pictures on your cellular device, you can also upload the pictures to other photo sharing apps, making the entire process simple and accessible virtually anywhere. No more uploading to a computer and then having to sit down and fix pictures one by one, now you can just use your phone. You are probably wondering how this could benefit your business, that is where we come in. You see Instagram acts as a photo sharing device, not only is it a picture app, but these photos are very pleasing to the eye, check out the pictures below and see for yourself! The Instagram application uses filters that are very pleasing to the eye, and since we are all more stimulated by visual images, what better way to promote your product, than with a gorgeous picture of it!

Leprechauns, Unicorns and Property Marketing - Part 2
This is the second part of an excellent whitepaper published by VHT. To read Part One, click here. Consumer Expectations Today's web-savvy consumers are accustomed to being dazzled by sharp, colorful, professional photography and elegantly designed retail sites. They are used to features, functions and presentations that help them picture themselves wearing or using the merchandise they see on the web. Can you imagine going to a top retailer's web site and seeing fuzzy, unfocused pictures of merchandise? How much time would you spend shopping on a site that showed grainy or distorted photos with bad lighting? Or photos with poor composition that appeared hastily shot? You would be shocked to see a leading consumer brand such as Macy's use anything less than vivid, full-color photographs in its online merchandising.

How to Search Engine Optimize Real Estate Photos
  The following article, by Anita Koppens, appeared originally on the Dynamic Page Solutions blog. You’re always hearing from us on the importance of link building and frankly, we know that most of you build your links with blogs because it’s fairly easy and quick. For those of you that can’t bear to write a lengthy blog post but are handy with a camera, it’s time to assess the value of search engine optimized real estate photos within your blog post. It’s true that in the past, search engines put very little weight on image meta data-but now, with blended search-images, maps, places and news show up on search engines results page for queries. Here’s how you can take advantage of this as a real estate agent. Take an exceptional photo Make sure to use .jpg file extensions because .jpg are the preferred file format for photos. Other acceptable file formats are .gif and .png USE KEYWORDS in the image file name – If the photo depicts a beautiful sunset in DC Ranch, Scottsdale, this would be a good file name: dc-ranch-scottsdale-sunset.jpg. Note that the keywords precede “sunset” and there are dashes in between the keywords. This is to help differentiate each word in the image