After much request, I’m pleased to report that we now have the ability to search by date on our open house search, allowing the consumer to enter a date range for open houses.  Meaning, if they want to see opens for December 5th only – they can enter that date.  The best part?  We’ve taken it a step further and made it easier for the consumer who may be unsure of how to enter the date – when they “click” in the field to type in that date, they are prompted with a calendar where they can simply click a day and it will fill in the blank for them.  Here’s a screenshot of it in action:

This is just the first of a series of open-house enhancements on our site that are coming in December.  Many have also requested a printable list of open houses – well, we’re working (very hard) on that.  We have the “raw” data now, we’re just working on prettying it up in a format more suitable for your customers.  We’ve also promised you that “hosted by” agent info will be available on your opens, again, that’s in the works – it’s scheduled to be released on December 16th.  I’ll have a preview sometime next week for you.

Other things that are coming on the December 16th web release that many of you have requested:

• Email directions straight from the “Map/Directions” page on listing info.  There will be a link right below the “Print” icon that will allow those directions to be emailed off.
• Mobile site – Find an agent/office – Agent and Office search will be available on the mobile website.  Currently this feature was left out in previous releases as it wasn’t ready yet, but it will be on the 16th release.
• Mobile site – redirection to mobile pages – currently if you click a saved search email that arrives to your phone, or if you attempt to go directly to a property (see one of my previous tips on this) it will simply redirect back to the main mobile website.  Come the 12/16 release, this will now be supported, so you can do more with your mobile device and the mobile website

Much more is coming in early 2009 as well.  We have some site redesigns that will finally see the light of day, and they really look amazing.  We’ll have some other small enhancements, along with company blogs, that are going to be creeping up during that time.  However, one thing that always helps these enhancements is the person reading this post – you!  Most of these enhancement have come from ideas, or complaints that you have had about our site.  Feel free to contact me with any ideas, and I’ll see what we can do.

Quick Tip Of The Day: Did you know that getting a .com for your agent page is cheap, easy, and a amazingly powerful marketing tool?  For about $10/year you can purchase a .com, and have that address associated with your agent page.  Instead of having to rattle off a long site – such as yourname.homerealestate.com/yourname.woodsbros.com – to your clients, you can have a shorter .com that will stand a better chance of sticking in their heads.  In addition, using a .com in your marketing takes up less space, and again – has much more potential for being retained by your clients.

If you’d like to get a .com for your agent site, feel free to contact me, and I’ll be happy to show you how.