Following the recent decisions by several brokerages (ARG & Edina) to stop syndicating their listings, Howard Hanna has partnered with Zillow on a new marketing agreement. Here’s the video explaining their reasoning: As Rob mentions on Facebook, “This is a much, much bigger deal than people…

Tonight’s #retechchat was free form, but centered around linkbuilding and SEO. Here is the text transcript that I saved for those who want to read through the entire discussion: Download it HERE (best to use TextEdit on a Mac from what I hear). Alternatively, you can view the…

I firmly believe that SEO is at the route of this listing syndication discussion that has been picking up steam since Edina and ARG stopped syndicating their listings, so wanted to expand on the SEO discussion that Sam picked up on. Some have defended the SEO tactics…

It happened — Metrolist and Santa Barbara booted Diverse Solutions (now owned by Zillow) from their list of approved IDX vendors. The Metrolist decision was reported by Geek Wire, while Inman picked up on the fact (premium content) that Santa Barbara had also pulled the plug. Eric…

I wanted to take this opportunity to introduce the steering committee members for Geek Build 2012. The steering committee will review all feedback from the Geek Estate community, and make final decisions for the participants sites in Geek Build 2012. The committee will consist of…

Here at Geek Estate, we’re going to undertake a fun iniative in 2012, which will be called “Geek Build 2012” (maybe we’ll do this again next year). What is it? Building a local real estate website/blog (or several) from scratch, with all decisions voted on…

In any vertical, the goal of a business website is to help you make money. Real estate is no different, meaning your local real estate website needs to bring you clients in order to be worth the time and money it takes to operate it….

Here is a video response by Fred Glick to the Abbott Realty Group’s decision to pull their listings. This is going to be an ongoing discussion for most of 2012 I would guess, as brokerages and agents around the country decide whether or not listing…

What are the best and worst real estate agent/broker websites on the web today? Best Here are two of the best in my mind. MSQRealty.com What’s not to like? My prediction — this will be the best site in the entire industry within 6 months….

Every home has a story — some long, some short. The history of a home includes a lot of things, depending on the age of both the home and the community it resides in. In the case of my parents home in Sammamish, that includes…