A la mode, a real estate technology company, has launched a product for its real estate agent customers that allows them to podcast information about properties for sale.
Using a la mode‘s podcast technology, called Propertycast, the company’s 7,500 agent customers can record and distribute audio files with property descriptions — known as podcasts — for home buyers and sellers to hear on their home computers or download to their iPods or other brands of portable digital audio players, the company announced today.
The Propertycast technology available to the company’s Agent XSite Web site customers at no cost. “National research shows that the time is right for podcasts as a means of communicating with consumers: Earlier this year, the Pew Internet and American Life Project found that 22 million Americans own an MP3 (digital audio) player and that 29 percent of them had downloaded a podcast. What’s more, Apple has sold 28 million iPods since their introduction. And by 2006, 30 percent of new cars are expected to have an iPod option,” the company reported today.
“Podcasting has exploded because it delivers content automatically for ultimate consumer convenience,” said Rusty Lindquist, vice president of agent products for a la mode. “It’s the perfect medium for pushing listing information.”
He added, “It allows our customers to walk into a listing presentation confident they can market a property like no one else. That’s something today’s increasingly tech-savvy home owners look for, and can be the tipping point to winning the listing.”
Typically, Lindquist said, agents would need to spend hundreds – possibly thousands – of dollars to customize their Web site for podcasting. “With an Agent XSite, our Propertycast technology is available immediately and at no cost, so agents can begin podcasting home information to prospects today.”
With the podcast technology, home shoppers can sign up at their agent’s XSite to automatically receive new listing podcasts in the neighborhood they’re looking whenever they plug their iPod or device into their computer, a la mode announced. First-time visitors to an Agent XSite can listen to the podcasts on their computer, too, and can receive e-mail notifications when new podcasts are available if they don’t have a player or don’t “synchronize” their device on a regular basis.
“Podcasting is a remarkably cost-effective marketing tool that enables me to better service both buyers and sellers,” Todd Ernst, a Keller Williams agent from Grand Rapids, Mich., said in the a la mode announcement. “Podcasting gives buyers more detailed listing information at their leisure and provides me with a huge advantage when it comes to listing presentations. Sellers are impressed that they I can now market their homes to tens of millions of iPod and MP3 users.” Ernst’s personal Agent XSite is http://www.toddernst.com/ target=blank.
In August, a la mode announced it had embedded Google Earth home-mapping technology in its client Web sites. The company will demonstrate Propertycasting at booth #2237 at the National Association of Realtors Conference and Expo in San Francisco, Oct. 28-31.
A la mode develops desktop, mobile, and Web tools for the real estate and mortgage industries. The company’s clients include appraisers, agents, inspectors, and lending professionals.
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