FloorPlanner Partnership Press Release

July 16, 2010

San Francisco, CA (PRWEB) July 16, 2010

FloorPlanOnline.com, the leading provider of Interactive Floor Plan Tours for real estate listings in the United States, announces a major upgrade to its virtual tour platform with the launch of FPO 2.0, a customizable virtual tour system that features floor plans and photos in dedicated property websites. As part of this upgrade, FloorPlanOnline is including a new RoomPlanner tool, which allows buyers to drag and drop furniture, rugs, and other household items onto the floor plan, at no additional cost. The RoomPlanner tool is powered by FloorPlanner.com, a leading provider of online floorplanning tools.

Future upgrades to the RoomPlanner tool will allow buyers to see the floor plan in 3D view with 3D objects, which will enhance the capability to take a “virtual walk through” of the property when combined with the other media on the FloorPlanOnline tour. It will also allow real estate agents to “virtually stage” a home as part of their FloorPlanOnline account. This future enhancement will also allow customers to edit floor plans in real-time and eventually, allow them to draw their own floor plans and add the plans to their virtual tours automatically.

“The addition of the RoomPlanner tool as been a great enhancement to our new FPO 2.0 Tour. It is interesting to see how the tool has engaged buyers – some of the designs buyers have created with the RoomPlanner tool are amazing! We have even received a phone call from a buyer who used the RoomPlanner on a home she was purchasing in another state. She loved the functionality so much, she is creating a tour for the home she is selling, ” said Kris Cone, CEO of FloorPlanOnline.com. “The functionality is part of an ongoing upgrade path to make FloorPlanOnline the most comprehensive service for selling or renting real estate. And it all centers around the floor plan! Buyers want to see it, and FloorPlanOnline’s goal is to provide the most comprehensive content and tools online to meet this very under-met need.”

“According to independent research, buyers want to see photos first, with floor plans a close second, in terms of essential information for real estate listings. Yet, most listings today have few floor plans (not to mention interactive ones) and often, the photos have a ways to go in terms of meeting the online buyers’ needs. Floor plans are hard to get, so they get ignored, and things like online videos get more hype,” said Cone. “Yet, we make it pretty easy to get a high tech solution from a low tech process. We can do floor plan clean-up of existing architectural drawings, marketing brochures, or hand drawn sketches; or we can use one of our authorized service providers to visit the property to create a floor plan from scratch. With service in 49 states, we’ve got most of the metro areas covered with floor plan services. We can also do a self service tour anywhere in the world.”

“We are excited about our new relationship with FloorPlanOnline,” said Jeroen Bekkers, CEO of FloorPlanner.com. “This technology agreement is part of our licensing plan to work with key website properties around the world and enable them with the FloorPlanner tools. FloorPlanOnline obviously has a great customer base that values the services they provide to make getting a floor plan easy, and we are excited to help enhance their product offering with the RoomPlanner tool.

Their strategy is right on – one of our integrated partners in the Netherlands, Funda.nl, just had interactive floorplans overtake videos as the most popular premium feature on Funda.nl. Buyers want to see floor plans and plan their new potential home…and why not, it is the most expensive purchase decision most people make in their lives!”

About FloorPlanOnline.com

FloorPlanOnline was co-founded by Kris Cone on 2004, and it started commercial service in 2005. It has created thousands of Interactive FloorPlan Tours over the last 5 years on a self and full service basis. It serves many of the top real estate brands and has thousands of registered users. FloorPlanOnline has maintained over a 95% customer satisfaction rating and continues to get high marks for its tours and its customer service. FloorPlanOnline has country specific service offerings in the Unites States, Canada, the United Kingdom, and South Africa. Learn more at www.floorplanonline.com.

About FloorPlanner.com

FloorPlanner.com started business in 2006. Jeroen Bekkers, a trained architect, heads up a small interactive design shop in Rotterdam called Suite 75. He created Floorplanner to get, much more simply, the same results that professionals gin up with sophisticated computer-aided design software. FloorPlanner.com has partnered with many real estate oriented properties around the world to bring their drawing tools to their users and customers. Learn more at www.floorplanner.com.

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New 1099 Requirements Coming in 2011!

July 8, 2010

I saw this article in USA Today that refers to a little known requirement passed as part of the health care reform law. Click here for the full article.

It will require YOU to issue Form 1099’s to anyone you buy $600 or more from in a year! Doesn’t matter what you buy for your business, or from whom….   Previously, this Form 1099 requirement only applied if you paid $600 or more to contractors that worked for you.  So, if you buy a $700 computer from OfficeDepot, you are going to have to issue a Form 1099.

WHAT IS CONGRESS THINKING?

In my option, this is going to be next to impossible to implement.   As a small business owner, I have enough to deal with, yet alone creating and issuing hundreds of Form 1099’s.   I already do this today for the different service providers and other services I buy…but now for anything I buy?  Come on.

This will impact real estate agents….and if you do not have Quickbooks….I suggest you get it…because you are going to need it.

Write your Congressman. This one needs to go.

-Kris Cone

FloorPlanOnline Around the Nation

June 7, 2010

The New FloorPlanOnline FPO 2.0 Product launch has generated interest from Jacksonville to Chicago, From Tech Forums to Green Living Groups! Here are some of the most recent News Articles and blogs that talk about FloorPlanOnline Real Estate Marketing.
Thanks to these respected publications for helping share the FloorPlan Online growth and development story.

http://atlanta.daybooknetwork.com/story/2010/05/26/32181fpo.shtml

http://www.greenbuiltblog.com/floorplanonline-offers-unique-virtual-tour-tools-507/

http://www.earthtimes.org/articles/show/innovative-virtual-home-tour-website-launches-upgraded-version,1310750.shtml

http://www.atlantarealestateforum.com/floorplanonline-launches-version-2-25731/

http://jacksonvillerealestateforum.com/2010/05/26/tour-homes-online-with-floorplanonline%C2%AE-virtual-home-tour-website-launches-updated-site/

http://www.carolinarealestateforum.com/agents-need-floorplans-323/

http://www.chicagolandrealestateforum.com/2010/05/26/web-site-upgrade-makes-virtual-home-tour-better-than-reality/

Official Press Release for FPO 2.0

May 19, 2010

FloorplanOnline® version 2.0 provides Buyer, Seller and Agent valuable resources

ISSAQUAH, WA –FloorPlanOnline® (FPO), an interactive floorplan website that offers buyers and real estate agents the ability to virtually tour properties online announces the launch of FPO 2.0, a redesigned and upgraded version of its interactive online floorplan tour.

The new version includes a more user-friendly integrated website that consists of upgraded navigation with different property content and multiple tour customization options. The advanced site presents the consumer with a myriad of Media options; including a Floor Plan Viewer with zoom-ability and full screen, Photo Viewer with large, high quality photos, WalkThruTM Video, and the new RoomPlanner that allows the user to drag and drop furniture onto the floorplan to experiment with furniture placement and design. The site also allows the listing agent to perform search engine optimization (SEO) on individual properties and do their own tracking via Google Analytics (or other tracking programs).

“FPO 2.0 brings a new, high level of information to the home buyer about a listing. Our goal is to provide the most robust content platform for properties online,” said Kris Cone, CEO of FloorPlanOnline®. “To be able to see the floorplan of a home, click on a room and see the photo of that room – it’s a powerful tool. To then further make it your own with the RoomPlanner gets the buyer interested and engaged. We are taking great care to offer this premium service affordably and efficiently through full or self service options.”

FloorPlanOnline® launched in 2005 to provide home buyers with an accurate depiction of property online including big crisp photos, video, disclosures and floorplans. The new and upgraded version of the original floorplan website builds upon the success that FPO has already established, including being mentioned by real estate guru, Barbara Corcoran on the Today Show in 2009.

Research completed in 2009 by the California Association of Realtors showed that 20 or more photos online reduced the time a home is on the market up to 50 percent. Other independent research has shown that floorplans were second to photos when buyers were asked what they wanted to see when looking for a home online. FPO provides both.

Top agents and companies like Shea Homes know how important statistics like these are and have called upon FloorPlanOnline to help them market their homes. Recently, universities like UCLA have also asked FloorPlanOnline to build interactive campus and building maps for new and prospective students.

About FloorplanOnline
FloorPlanOnline created the Interactive FloorPlan Tour to fill the gap in the market created by traditional virtual tour services – namely, the inability to see the property layout before an actual site visit. FPOs products can save the Buyer, Seller and the Real Estate Agent valuable time while providing them key information that has been requested for years. FPO can be used for residential or commercial real estate listings, leases, retail centers and land development.

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FPO 2.0 New Tour Issues

May 3, 2010

Hi FloorPlanOnline Customers!

Well, the dust has settled from our weekend release of the new tour.  The release went surprisingly well….probably one of the best releases we have ever done in terms of few issues and the issues getting fixed quickly.   I did want to point out a few things that have come up today regarding the new tour and tour conversion.

1. Portrait vs Wide-screen View. Depending on your screen resolution, you may see a little different content view for photos, video and the floor plan.  If you have a screen resolution of 1024 pixels wide or less, you should see the “Portrait” version of the tour, which has photos in a 4:3 aspect ratio (similar to the old TV size before we had wide-screen TVs) and the Floor Plan View is the embedded floor plan vs the side by side floor plan view.  We have set it up this way because the content would have to be very small or it will run off the page to the right.  So to provide users with these screen resolutions the best view, we alter what they see to the Portrait view.  Users with screen resolutions larger than 1024 will see the Wide-screen view which has photos in a 3:2 aspect ratio (what most digital SLRs shoot today) and 16:9 photos will be supported with an ability to mouse around the photo.  In addition, the Floor Plan View will have the photos (here they are in a 4:3 aspect ratio) side by side with the floor plan, similar to the old tour view.  You can always change a Portrait version to a wide-screen by adding &ws=1 to the end of the tour lnk, such as www.seetheproperty.com/presentation_v2/presentation.php?order_id=61383&mode=branded&ws=1 ….so if you do see the portrait version, you can see how the Wide-screen will look.

We have noticed that on some computers, the widescreen version is not showing up as the default view when it should be…the Portrait version is, so that is something we are working to fix.

2. FloorPlan/Photo Icon issue for tours created between April 15th and April 30th. For tours produced between April 15th and April 30th, we have done some work to ready the floor plan for the new tour by making a version of it in Flash, so it can be zoomed in if it is used in the new tour.  Right now, if you convert a tour produced during this time frame to the new FPO 2.0 format, the floorplan on the tour is automatically changing to this flash version.  This causes all of the photo icons on the floor plan to be mis-placed because it is a different size and file type.   Therefore, be aware that if we convert the tour, the photos may need to be repositioned.  You can do this for free or we can do this for the $20 conversion fee – if this issue was brought up to you before the conversion.   We are working on a fix here.

3. Content Area View-ability. On some computers you may not be able to see the complete content area without scrolling.  We are aware of this issue and are working on a fix to adjust the size of the content window if your vertical screen resolution is 900 pixels or less.  We will make the content area  a little smaller so it fits on the screen without scrolling.

4. Some Internet Explorer Issues. On some computers, the Photos and Video may not load…you may get a blank area.  It appears to be an issue with Adobe Flash.  The simple fix is go to www.adobe.com and download the most recent version of Flash.  Install the update, close out your browser window, and then open it up again and try the tour.  This seems to fix the problem.   We are investigating what changed, as it was fine last week….this could have been caused by a recent Windows Update.   The tour works in Firefox, Chrome and Safari.  Go figure…another issue with Microsoft software???

We have had some great comments so far.  Please send us comments, testimonials, complaints and more!

Cheers

-Kris Cone

Room Planner Is Live!

March 15, 2010

FloorPlanOnline is excited to give you a glimpse at FPO 2.0 with a cool new floor plan tool – the Room Planner!  The Room Planner allows buyers to move furniture and other items into your FloorPlanOnline Virtual Tour.  And the best part – for the Spring Listing Season,  Room Planner is FREE for any tour produced and approved on or after March 15, 2010. That is a $20 value provided at no additional cost!   To learn more, watch the Room Planner Video below or  click here to see a sample tour. Just click the  icon in the floor plan area to open the Room Plan tool.

How to order. The Room Planner will automatically be added to all tours produced AND approved, on or after March 15, 2010.  There is no need to do anything! You should expect to be Planning rooms on your tour within 1 business day after your tour approval.

If you would like the Room Planner added to an existing tour created before March 15th, call or email us and we can add it to your tour for only $10. (50% off the retail price!)  Just call 866-810-3816 option 3 or use the form below and select the Room Planner option.

Floor Plan Online is proud to offer Premium Marketing tools for top of the line Real Estate Agents. Our Products are Simple to use, Effective with buyers and Affordable – feature rich with out a long term contract.

New to FloorPlanOnline & Want to Get Started? Click here to Register Fast and Free!

If you do not want this tool on a specific tour, its easy to remove.  You can elect to not have it created for your tour as you place the order, under Tour Upgrades – see the Tour Upgrades box right after you confirm your tour to remove it from your order.  Alternatively, the Room Planner can be removed if it has been added to your tour by going to Manage Orders>then Edit Tour>then Edit Photos on FloorPlan – just drag the RoomPlanner icon to the right under Pictures Library and save.

Corporate & Sub Account Support

March 9, 2010

I have talked to a lot of customers recently about situations where they have multiple accounts and need access to those account. So I wanted to let you know we support what we call a Corporate/Sub Account structure. Normally, when you register with us, you create an individual account. However, you can create a corporate account, and then once you have a corporate account, you can create sub accounts (this is done in the corporate account under the Manage Sub Accounts on the right when you are logged in), or with the corporate account info, an agent can create a sub account underneath your corporate account. All they need is the Company customer ID and the company password. The option to register as a sub account is located on our registration page, or click here.

With the Corporate/Sub account structure, you can have one person manage the office tours, for example, but each agent can get access into their own account.  The corporate account sees all tours for each sub account.  You can also place tour orders out of the corporate account for any sub-account.  Just select the drop-down on page 2 as you are placing an order.   This account structure is quite handy for companies that do some of the work for agents.

We can also set things up so the corporate account pays for all sub account tours.  Please call us at 866-810-3816, option 3 if you would like to set up a corporate/sub account structure or you can always send us an email.  Just use the form below.

-Cheers,

Kris Cone

The next crisis: Commercial real estate

February 11, 2010

Just in….A little scary, and Halloween is still so far away…

WASHINGTON (CNNMoney.com) — A congressional watchdog panel warned on Thursday that mounting commercial real estate losses could endanger the banking system and thwart economic recovery.

A total of $1.4 trillion in commercial real estate loans will require refinancing in the next four years, the Congressional Oversight Panel said in a report. More than half of those loans are underwater, written for properties whose value has dropped like a rock.

Click here to read the full article.

-Kris Cone

The Stevens Estate

February 9, 2010

Check out the Stevens Estate, a $16+ million listing in New Jersey.  This property was featured on a metro NYC NBC station over the past weekend.  The property is listed by Erica Levey of Weichert Capital Properties.

www.TheStevensEstate.com

Buyer Search Info

February 5, 2010

I was looking through the 2009 Profile of Home Buyers and Sellers research report published by the National Association of Realtors, and I thought I would share some interesting information.

1. What website features buyers value. 97% of buyers thought photos and detailed property information were helpful (not sure what the other 3% are thinking here…?).   89% thought virtual tours were helpful.  I would like to think if they all saw a FloorPlanOnline tour, that number would be close to 100%!   I would also like to point out that other companies have done research around online content, and several studies have indicated that Photos score the highest in terms of essential content and floor plans score #2!  So, if your listing does not have its Floor Plan Online….it should.

2. More and more Buyers are Online to search. The first step taken by far in the home buying process was go online to look for properties for sale – 36% listed this as the first step taken.  This was double the next highest action, which was contact a real estate agent (18%).

In addition, 90% of all buyers used the Internet to search, while 93% of first time buyers used the Internet. Again more than any other source.  In the key buying group of 25 to 44 year olds, 96% of the respondents used the Internet to search.

3. Websites used in the Home Search process. The most used site by far was the multiple listing service (MLS) website.  This could be a factor that agents typically email listing info to their buyers, so it is pushed to them.  Some MLSs have their own consumer oriented search site…but I know some do not.  The total list of websites used by Buyers (percentages are for All Buyers surveyed):

• MLS – 60%
• Real Estate Company website – 46%
• Realtor.com – 46%
• Real estate agent website – 45%
• Other websites with real estate listings (Trulia, Zillow, etc) – 30%
• For Sale by Owner websites – 17%
• Newspaper website – 9%
• Real Estate Magazine website – 4%
• Social media websites (Facebook, MySpace, etc) – 1%
• YouTube – <1%

It is interesting to note that the types of sites used by different age brackets did not differ much at all. The top site for all groups was the MLS, followed by the company site and Realtor.com.  Also, there is a lot of hype about social media and YouTube…but this is not necessarily translating into buyers using these sites for searching.   For example, between the age groups of 18 to 24 and 25 to 44, only 1% said they used social media websites.  The 45 and over crowd said less than 1%.  Surprisingly, 2% over 65 said they used YouTube, while all the other age groups responded with less than 1%.  Now, this does not mean there is no value to social media or YouTube…these outlets just need to be used in the right way and for the right reason.  I also think there is some search engine benefit to posting content on these sites.  Note…we will address the YouTube video posting issue in 2010.

4. The Internet is getting results. 36% of respondents FIRST found the home they purchased via the Internet search.  This was the same as through a real estate agent, and up from 32% last year.  No other source was higher. Print newspaper was down to 2% now….ouch.  Also, 77% of buyers drove by or viewed a home after finding it online, while 61% walked through the home.  Another interesting stat – 28% found the agent they used to buy the home online.  There was also a high correlation in people that used the Internet to search and those that used an agent to buy – 79% used an agent to buy.

Implications – I think  what all of these stats boils down to is YOU need to be online and you need to have the best online content for your listings, because chances are, if you make an impression online, you are going to get a buyer to call you, drive by or tour your listing.  The first step is getting the right content. People want to see photos and floor plans.  All the other fancy stuff like spinning 360s, deep zoom, property videos with voice over has actually scored lower on the desirability scale.  In some cases, like voice over and music playing when you first open a tour scores negative.  People want to see the essentials quickly and easily.

The second step is get this content distributed to the KEY places people search. Your virtual tours need to be linked to your MLS (use the unbranded link – in many markets we do this for you automatically), on Realtor.com (we link the tour for you automatically….and it is FREE if you are a Realtor.com Showcase member), your company website and your website/blog.  This will get you 95% or more there. You can then use our tools to link the tour to your Facebook site, Twitter, and more.  Realtor.com has a nice Facebook widget to add your listings to your Facebook profile.  We also are posting listings to Google Base now.  We will be working to add more sites like Zillow, Trulia, Craigslist, etc. in  the coming months (however you can do this now manually).

In addition, talk to your company IT people about posting the company tours to Zillow, Trulia and others.  As part of this make sure your virtual tour links come through with the data feed. Most if not all of these sites can include the virtual tour link…but the company needs to send it along.  As I stated in a previous post, your company should really be posting tours to these other websites….There is a hierarchy Zillow and others use, and companies like us are the last on the list.  So if we link a tour to Zillow, for example, and your company pushes the listing there, it will push our link off…and if the company info does not include the tour link, your tour will not get exposure on Zillow. So, push your company to post listings to these other website portals and make sure the virtual tour links are included. You paid good money for the content and you deserve the most exposure!

All for now…time for the weekend.  Thanks for reading

-Kris Cone

As always, please feel free to contact me.

Linda Cone – Salesperson of the Year

February 2, 2010

I am very pleased to announce that one of our long standing FloorPlanOnline customers (actually, THE FIRST customer in the US, since she is my mother!) was honored last week as the 2009 Kansas City Regional Association of Realtors Salesperson of the Year!  Congratulations Linda!

Linda is an agent with Reece and Nichols in Kansas City.  She has used FloorPlanOnline from the beginning….so I would like to think we had something to do with her success, but I am also sure her hard work and dedication to her clients and community contributed to receiving this great award! Linda can be found online at www.KansasCityLifestyles.com (note, this site is something I put together for her using Wordpress…..it is a great tool for real estate agents.  Contact me if you want more info).

We  found out last week when we are all vacationing in Maui as a family.  I took a video (using my iPhone, so not the best) of the announcement by Catherine Clark, Linda’s broker. Just play the video below to see more (Hawaii was awesome, by the way… ).

If you have news about you or someone else that uses FloorPlanOnline, we would also love to hear from you.  Just email us and we can create a blog post and possibly even create a press release to mutually benefit both of us!

Best regards,

Kris Cone

REOs & Short Sale Success

December 29, 2009

If you had a strong background as a project manager in the corporate world and decided to take on a new opportunity in real estate as a career, where would you focus your attention in the market today?  That question was on the mind of Rhyne Gamble, RE/MAX Realty Suburban, Shawnee Mission, Kansas, just over two years ago when he decided to leave his career as the director of a sales and service company and join his my wife, Tonya, who had been in real estate for 15 years, to create the “The Gamble Team”.  The Gamble Team now numbers five employees with Rhyne specializing in listing only and his wife and the rest of the team working with buyers.

After analyzing the market conditions and what prognosticators felt would be happening, Gamble’s choice for direction was to focus on the distressed property segment of residential real estate.  What he saw was a financial market which was focused on foreclosure and was being “shepherded” by a special type of real estate agent who was focus mostly on the transaction, not the relationship with the homeowner.  As he observed, “The typical REO agent just put a sign in the yard, put the listing in the MLS, did not spend any money on marketing the property and proceeded to answer their phone once a week to sort through all the calls from interested prospective buyers so they could find one offer to present to the lender owning the property.”  He saw how long this process took and learned how costly this process had become to both homeowners and lenders as the U.S. residential real estate market continued to escalate downward.  Industry experts estimate that the cost of foreclosing on a residential property have been running as high as 50-60% of the value of the property during 2008-09, for example.

Gamble’s analysis led him to focus on the Short Sale approach as the preferred way to address distressed properties.  His research revealed that over 50% of homeowners who have fallen behind on their loan payments have never contacted their lender (mostly out of fear or lack of understanding) and that after 3-4 months of the lender not getting any communication from those homeowners, the lender proceeded with foreclosure actions.  And, in many instances the homeowner became emotionally distraught enough to proceed with trashing their own home, thereby further increasing the cost of foreclosure.  He reasoned that there was a huge disconnect between the lender and the homeowner—-and, certainly a very poor communication channel between the two and that there had to be a way to mitigate the communications gap between the two.  He reasoned that it would be far better to reach out to homeowners who were delinquent, helping them understand that there is help available to them before it is too late and providing them with assistance in negotiating with their lender so the homeowner does not let their credit rating be destroyed with a foreclosure and so the lender is able to liquidate the property at a much lower cost.  As Gamble says, “It just seemed to me that there is a true “win/win” solution which was not being focused on by enough lenders and homeowners.  I felt that there had to be enough lenders and homeowners who can be brought to understand that there is much more good in negotiating a Short Sale than continuing down the path of foreclosure.  I also believe that it was most important to invest in marketing the property vs not spending anything on marketing like most REO agents have done in the past.  The need is to get this sale completed as fast as possible—everyone benefits if the transaction is completed faster!  So, I researched the market for a concept which would be easy to employ, which would be state-of-the-art and which would differentiate my listings from all the others in the market, so my sellers’ properties would be on the market for fewer days and sell at a higher percentage of the listing price.  I found that the FloorPlanOnline (www.floorplanonline.com) concept gave me a solid competitive advantage and I have utilized it on properties priced as low as $200,000 most successfully.”  50% of his business today is distressed properties and by far the majority of Gamble’s Short Sale listings are sold to owner occupants as a result of his marketing program.

Gamble soon learned that he was a bit naïve’ in thinking that all parties would automatically recognize the virtue and the “win/win” in his Short Sale approach and, when the average Short Sale took from 90 to 180 days to close after submitting an offer to the lender, he quickly learned how to cut corners within lender’s organizations so the homeowner’s situation could be mitigated prior to foreclosure proceedings being enacted.  In fact, during Gamble’s two plus years of focusing on Short Sales, he has only had 1 transaction which went to foreclosure.   Gamble’s success ratio (% of Short Sale transactions which get closed) is 95% vs the national average of 20%.  But Gamble believes there is good news on the horizon.  Gamble believes that lenders are finally getting the message from the federal government, which is strongly encouraging lenders to focus on Short Sales as the primary approach to liquidating their deliquent home loans vs the foreclosure approach.  Gamble believes that lenders are increasing staffing so Short Sales can be negotiated faster and so Short Sales can be closed much faster, thereby salvaging the credit of more homeowners.   Rhyne Gamble can be reached at rhyne@key2kc.com or 913-220-0818.

Mouse Over & Embed Enhancements

December 29, 2009

Mouse Over with Photo Thumbnails. Today, we released a small but useful feature – Photo Mouse Over. Now, when you are viewing an Interactive FloorPlan Tour, you can mouse over a camera icon and a small thumbnail image of the photo will pop-up next to the camera icon. Click, and the photo will change on the left. This new feature will allow users to quickly preview photos of interest, and then click to get a larger view.  It is available and live today on all tours – you do not need to do anything!

Embedded Object Enhancement. We have also enhanced the embeddable object for the Interactive FloorPlan to include the mouse over feature, although a larger size photo does show. In addition, we have included navigation buttons on the photos to allow for easier navigation between photos – just click the arrow buttons to go forward or back.  The old way required you to click a camera icon, then close it, and then click another camera to navigate between photos.  This new feature should make it much faster to view photos on the embeddable FloorPlan Tours.

You can easily add an Embeddable FloorPlan Tour to your blog sites or on many company sites (like Windermere, John L Scott, Coldwell Banker Bain, and others).  Just think of the SEO benefits of creating a blog post for each of your listings – name the Post the address of your listing, add your marketing text, and then include the embeddable FloorPlan Tour.  You can also add the video if you want as well!  It adds more content to your website, keeps browsers there longer and turns them into buyers!

To configure your tour’s embeddable objects, just go to Manage Orders, then click the View link under Marketing Materials, then click the Embeddable Object button to get to the set-up page. You can change the colors of the buttons and the text on the buttons, and you can elect to show a “Full Tour” button (or change it to other text), which when clicked, will open a new window with the complete branded tour.  All you need to do when you have completed your customization is hit the Apply button, then click the link above the code and right click your mouse to copy the embeddable object code. Then, go to your blog or listing detail page for your listing and right click your mouse to paste the code in the desired location. Add additional explanatory text on top or below the code, and save. That is it! It is cool, effective, and keeps the buyer on your website longer to become a buyer!

Just try the example below to see how it works.

2010 Housing Forecast

December 17, 2009

I found this article posted on Facebook, so I thought I would share.  It predicts there are still some rebounding issues for 2010 in the housing market.  In the Top 100 Markets, Pittsburgh is the only city projected to have an increase in home prices.  Ouch.  Places like Seattle (-3.42%) and Kansas City (-1.81%) will see slight declines.  Florida and California markets lead the pack in terms of largest additional declines.  Miami is projected to be the worst at another 32.99% decline in prices.  Ouch. Ouch.

Click here to read the Fortune Magazine article.

2010 Real Estate Outlook Poll

December 10, 2009

We would like to get your opinion on the outlook for 2010. Just cast your vote below and see the results from others.

Holiday Sale!

December 3, 2009

Seasons Greetings!

To celebrate the Holiday Season and to show our appreciation, we are providing our great customers a special offer. Save $10 on any tour during December by using code Dec2009 in the coupon code field when you place an order. The offer is valid for only one tour per account, must be used when you place a tour order, and the code expires December 31, 2009.

In addition, we are introducing the Value Pack Offer. If you prepay for a certain number of self service tours, you can save anywhere from $5 to $25 per tour, depending on how many tours you pre-buy. While the discount is based on self service tours, you can use the coupon on any tour type or service level. For customers in North Carolina and Washington, we may be able to offer you larger discounts.  The coupons expire 1 year from the date they were created.

This is how it works, just prepay for a Value Pack Offer of 5, 10, 25 or 50 tours, and we will provide you with a coupon code good for the value of the Value Pack you purchased. For example, if you bought the 25 Value Pack for FloorPlan Tours, it will cost you $975, but your total tour value is $1,475, a total discount of $500 and $20 off each tour!

To request more information, please call one of our sales representatives at 866-810-3816, option 2, or use the form below to submit your request.

Thank you for your past patronage and we look forward to a happy 2010 and the return of healthly real estate markets!

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New Website Launches!

December 2, 2009

We are proud to announce the release of the new FloorPlanOnline.com website!  It is built using Wordpress so it is completely search engine optimized and we can easily manage the content to provide our customers with more relevant and timely information.

We welcome any comments or suggestions.

Real Living Sold!

November 11, 2009

It looks like Real Living is the latest to get gobbled up by the market turmoil, as they were sold to Toronto based Brookfield Asset Management. They purchased GMAC Real Estate in September of 2008 and own the Royal LePage brand in Canada. You can read more about it in the Vancouver Sun article.

Cool Boat Tour

October 1, 2009

Check out this unique tour of a private yacht for sale. Just click the image to see the tour.