Technology | Milestone - Kentucky Houses

Five Ways To Find Your Next Kentucky House On Black Friday

November 25, 2011

By John Day

Today is notoriously one of the busiest shopping days of the year. Special store hours and insanely good bargains bring the masses out for just about anything. A big name chain pharmacy located right beside our Lexington office is even getting in on the deals!

As the retail and department stores move towards offering additional online exclusive deals, we at Milestone wanted to remind you about how efficient our online search tools are. In between bargain hunting and untagging those embarrassing photos of stuffing your face at the Thanksgiving table, be sure to check out MilestoneKY.com. If you’re in the market for a Kentucky house or just thinking about looking, it really couldn’t be easier.

1. Property Search – The most basic of our search tools, this is the gold standard in searching for a home. With all of your basic fields such as bedrooms, bath, square footage and price – you start with a blank page and slowly get to narrow down to your ideal home. Be sure to sign up for a customer account which gives you access to saving your favorite homes and saving custom searches.

Map Search

2. Map Search – A very powerful tool, the Map search allows you to create your own boundaries for where you’d like to live. Click the red Draw New Polygon button in the top left above the map and then left click in the area you’d like to create a shape. As you add more points, the red area on the map you’re creating will begin to fill with homes for sale. Whenever you’re done, just make sure to close the shape by clicking where you started. From there you can click on the houses within the shape(s) or click on the the List View tab above your map to see the homes in a detailed list.

3. Lifestyle Search – Our newest home searching tool, Lifestyle Search is ideal for those not particularly familiar with the area. Using the sliders to rank various lifestyle requirements from lowest to highest, we can recommend a neighborhood, zip code or census area. From there it’s simple to view community data, demographic information and actual homes for sale. Golfing, Shopping, Health & Safety and Population Density are just a few of the major filters you can create.

4. Proximity Search – If you know a major landmark or business that you need to live by, Proximity Search is perfect for you. Paired with some basic search filters, Proximity Search allows you to select points of interest such as the University of Kentucky in Lexington or Toyota Motor Manufacturing in Georgetown and then find homes within a set radius.

5. Mobile Search – Our Mobile Search is also a powerful tool for those on the go. SmartPhone ready, including iPhone and Android, this search tool uses your phone’s GPS to find homes near you. Built to function as an app, various predefined search terms are at your fingertips giving you access to thousands of homes at any time. The same basic search tools from our Property Search is also available for those who really want to narrow down their options. Simply visit our regular website with your web ready SmartPhone to take advantage of this tool.

Be sure to check back regularly as we will be re-launching our website in the next few months with even more tools to assist home buyers.

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Rocky Mountain High

October 14, 2011

By Judy Craft

John Day, April and I recently attended the ActiveWeb Conference in Denver, CO. Although we have religiously trekked to the Rocky Mountains each October, this conference was (the best ever!!) informative, exhilerating and right on time! The conference started with keynote speaker Ze (pronounced Zay) Frank, a popular online entertainer and comedian. Ze’s topic was Collaboration and Engagement which was echoed throughout the conference by all presenters. Ze demonstrated the art of engaging the public with certain questions or theories and asking for their input.

Ze Frank

The answers and creative responses from multiple although random sources were absolutely amazing. The point to Ze’s presentation was this – you have to reach out and invite others to participate in your life and business to fully appreciate your world.

This was evident recently when we hosted Joepalooza – a fundraiser for one of our team members faced with major surgery and an extended recovery. People turned out in droves to support Joe and send him warm wishes and hopes for a speedy recovery. We wondered, when proposing the event if we would have any interest whatsoever. Boy, were we pleasantly surprised. Everyone could relate to his situation and we felt a commraderie we had been missing within our ranks.

We are now excited about moving forward with our team, staff and agents alike, with fresh ideas and a great new attitude. While it is true that we cannot change the economy, we can change our outlook and work together to form a strong and cohesive team, dedicated to serving the consumer in their quest for a new Kentucky house! Watch for new sales and marketing ideas and tools as we implement many of the great offerings from the Conference!!

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Lifestyle Search

June 1, 2011

By John Day

We’re very excited here at Milestone to announce a brand new home searching tool to add to our already expansive list of search options. We’re calling it Lifestyle Search and it’s truly a remarkable tool and the first of it’s kind in the area.

When a home buyer searches for a potential new home, they usually have an idea of beds, baths, price, square footage and other pre-determined data choices that we’ve all come to know and love on most real estate websites. Typically we search for this static data that we want our house to fit and then ponder how a particular search result will fit into our every day lives. What if we could reverse that thought process? What if you could run a search that allowed you to rank different aspects of your life by order of importance and then look at a list of neighborhoods or zip codes that filled that need? We give you Lifestyle Search.

Broken down in to ten categories, LifeStyle Search will let you rank Arts & Culture, Family Friendly, Fun, Hip & Happening, Golfing, Great Schools, Pet Friendly, Car Transportation, Shopping, Health & Safety and Population Density on a scale of importance and then recommend neighborhoods or zip codes that will best fit in to your way of life. Your lifestyle.

Lifestyle Search

To see this in action, I’m going to walk you through a search for a Lexington home that is close to highly ranked schools, has easy access to vets and pet stores and is also near retail and department stores. First, I select Fayette County and then I ranked Schools as very important, Pet Friendly as less important and Shopping as important. When I hit search I get a list of neighborhoods in Fayette County with Aylesford Place ranking first. From there I can view community information, detailed data and stats, a map and most importantly properties for sale in that area.

Lifestyle Search

Powered by Onboard Informatics, we hope that this extremely powerful searching experience will be useful for home buyers. If you’d like more information on this search, Onboard Informatics or Active Website please check our Lifestyle Search Press Release. Make sure to go ahead and try it out for yourself! We are eager to hear feedback on it.

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Simplify Your Life with Texting…Your Clients Will Love It!

May 13, 2011

By Judy Craft

Have you ever put off a phone call because you didn’t have time to have a conversation or go through the pleasantries? Are there times you simply need to convey a quick message to someone with information only? Most of our clients work at a job outside their home and don’t have the ability to engage in a phone conversation during work hours – how do we communicate with them effectively without inconveniencing them? Most importantly, how do we communicate with our clients in a quick, easy and professional manner that provides outstanding service in a timely manner to help “de-stress” their home buying or selling process?

Bluegrass homes

TEXT! We used to think of texting as something the teenagers did with clever abbreviations. Although it was true, we now realize that many “non-teenagers” have not only discovered the ease of texting, but have embraced the technology as a way to simplify their overwhelming life. According to CTIA (International Association for the Wireless Telecommunications Industry) in the 12 months ending June 2010, more than 1.8 billion text messages were sent and received (or 4.9 billion per day).

As real estate practitioners, it is vital that we stay in touch with the new consumer and utilize the tools that work best for their lifestyle. This disallows the excuse that you are “too old” or “too set in your ways” to text. If you’re not texting, you’re not as serious as you should be about your career in real estate!! Let’s talk about some of the barriers to text messaging.

Outdated Cell Phone – If you have to punch the number buttons on your phone a few times to access each letter then your phone is too outdated for our business! All carriers have cell phones with keypads for ease of texting. You should invest in a smartphone if you don’t have one as it is vital to your productivity.
Unsure of Lingo – Don’t worry about the lingo. Some may roll their eyes when they receive a text from me because I spell everything out but that is okay. Many cell phones actually pre-fill a word if it makes sense in your conversation which can make it very easy for you. Besides, unless you are a teenager, we don’t know what you are saying anyway if you use the lingo…lol!!
Additional Cost – Most cell phone plans are unlimited as far as phone calls and texting are concerned. Our cell phone is our lifeline in real estate as we sell Bluegrass homes so make sure you have everything you need. It typically is very affordable. If not, then you should shop around for a good plan.

At Milestone we are constantly working towards improving our service and skills to best assist our customers and clients. Don’t let one of the best technologies around pass you by!!

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MilestoneKY.com Launches Proximity Search

April 1, 2011

By John Day

On a day dedicated to pulling pranks and telling fibs, we’ve decided to launch a new and exciting tool over on our website. It’s been a few months in the making but we have finally made our new Proximity Search live for the public. First seen on a fellow Active Enterprise Network member’s website, Hasson Company – Portland Homes, we were very eager to add this search option to our list of search functions to help give clients more options for finding a home. Sounds wonderful, but what does Proximity Search even mean?

Proximity Search

To be topical and another excuse to talk about our Kentucky Wildcats being in the Final Four this Saturday against UConn, let’s say I want to purchase a Lexington home in close enough proximity to Rupp Arena that I could easily walk to the games. This search gives me different points of interest in a drop down along with some simple home searching options such as price, beds, baths and the key feature, a radius to select how close I’d like to live. You’ll notice that as you select different criteria you also a get a preview of how many homes will be in the search in addition to a map of how far reaching the radius you selected will be. For my example I click search and can see all 177 home meeting my criteria of a residential home that is $100,000 – $200,000 and within 2 miles of Rupp Arena. Simple and effective, it’s almost like a quick map search tool.

There will be other exciting tools coming in the near future all aimed at really helping a user narrow down where they want to live based on their day to day lives and less on the pre-determined data search fields we’ve all grown accustomed to. We feel this Proximity Search is a step in the right direction and are eager to hear feedback from our agents and users. In other news, lets go Cats!

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Leaving My Old Kentucky Home for the National Women’s Council of Realtors Convention for 2010!

November 19, 2010

By Sherry Spanyer

Shannon King, Speaker

New Orleans, LA hosted to the National Women’s Council of Realtors Convention for 2010 from November 3 – 7, at the Marriott on Canal Street. I had a great visit! Not only did I see that New Orleans had returned to all its’ glory, but because I also had the opportunity to network with Realtors from all across the country. There were many questions raised at the convention about newest selling strategies, best practices for working with buyers, and promoting our listings. The answer was always “technology, technology, technology”!

Amy Chorew, Speaker

I took classes on Twitter, Blogging, Business Pages for Facebook, Smart Phones and all the new apps to help me sell more Louisville houses. I was especially impressed with one pair of speakers; Shannon King and Amy Chorew, both experts in the field of Technology. Shannon is a recipient of NAR’s distinguished 30 under 30, a co-founder and an owner of two different Real Estate Companies. Amy Chorew is currently Director of Education and Training at the Social Media Marketing Institute as well as a nationally acclaimed real estate strategist and instructor. After four days at the convention and their words of wisdom, I returned to selling Louisville houses armed with a tweeked business design, more tools for my trade, and an action plan made for success!

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Milestone attends Active Website’s Annual Conference in Colorado…

September 29, 2010

By Becky Locknane

Milestone staff travels to Denver, Co to attend the Active Website Conference

Milestone representatives, Becky Locknane, Katie Rowan, April Roe and John Day attended the 3rd Annual Active Enterprise Network Conference in downtown, Denver, Colorado last week.

This is undoubtedly, one of the best conferences that I have ever attended in the real estate industry. I found it so enlightening to learn more about how Active Website really is working hard to make the websites of the Enterprise Network members’ be “state of the art” and to optimize our presence on the internet.

Active Website represents ONLY independent real estate companies and the theme of this year’s conference focused on INNOVATION, CUSTOMER CENTRICITY AND INDEPENDENCE.

As independent companies, we must be innovative in order to lead the way in the real estate industry. We must be totally “customer centric” and focus on who matters. And most importantly, stress the advantages of being an independent, local company and fly our own flag!

One of my favorite things about the conference is that representatives from the Enterprise Network presented ways in which their companies utilize and maintain their websites. We were given the opportunity to ask questions and hear ideas from other independent brokerages some different ways that we can change and improve.

We were privileged to have renowned author and speaker, Steven Johnson, present trends that are revolutionizing the way we share information at the local level. His message was that it is essential for us to embrace innovation or we will be left behind.

I believe that the “nuggets” from this conference, once put in place, can help us sell more homes and put Milestone at the forefront of local independent real estate companies that sell our Kentucky houses.

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Interest Rates, Inventory and Indecisive Buyers

August 3, 2010

By Judy Craft

Market Statistics

Interest rates are at an amazing all time low hovering around 4.5% for a 30 year fixed rate loan and as low as 3.975 for a 15 year loan. When I first started in the real estate industry in 1985 rates were at around 13% for a 30 year loan down from a high of around 22% in the late 70′s, early 80′s. This fact alone would cause those of us in the business to be incredulous as to why we aren’t seeing more active buyers in the market today. It seems many are simply sticking their toe in the water afraid to jump.

When asked what must happen to get people buying again mortgage broker Peter Buchsbaum of Arlington Capital Mortgage in Horsham, PA says, “The answser is confidence – confidence in the value not falling and confidence they’ll still have a job.” The combination of job loss and sagging real estate values across the country has had a devastating effect.

Locally, our real estate market has remained stable through the first half of the year, much of which can be directly attributed to the federal tax credit program. Our market statistics show homes sales increased by 20% for the period of January-June 2010 over the same time period in 2009. The average sales price has increased by 2%, median sales price by 1% while the average days on the market has actually decreased by 3%. All in all a great report card for Central Kentucky houses!

Are you a prospective home buyer? What are you waiting for? With record interest rates and plenty of inventory, there has never been a better time to buy a home!

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Make It Happen

July 21, 2010

By Becky Locknane

How many times have you had a closing fall apart at the eleventh hour? I think probably every seasoned agent has had it happen before.

To paraphrase Mary Sand, in Realtor® magazine, “having a contract is only the beginning”. According to recent Realtor’s® Confidence Index surveys conducted by the National Association of Realtors®, between 10 percent and 14 percent of pending transactions don’t close. Another 20 percent are delayed but eventually close.

Does this happen to all of us selling Kentucky houses? You bet it does!

Kentucky houses

As Managing Broker for Milestone’s Lexington and Louisville offices, I am told of various types of closing problems almost everyday. Some of these problems include closing and possession dates, repair requests as a result of the home inspection, homes not appraising for the sales price and finally, loan approvals falling through at the last minute.

New condominiums can be a loan challenge as well, because FHA requires that 50 percent of the development’s units must be under contract before the agency will approve financing for individual condos.

Certainly, unexpected issues can develop, but if you are careful, detailed and have a system in place with a checklist of things to do and important questions to ask you will reduce the risk of closings falling apart. Be sure to always allow enough time for things to be completed and reflect this upfront when negotiating a closing date.

Most of all, educate your buyers and sellers about the process and timeline from the moment the offer to purchase is accepted and becomes a bona fide contract until the hour of closing.

If you will try to anticipate problems before they happen and be proactive, you will be that much closer to payday and to a happy client!

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Inman Technology Conference – Takeaways

July 19, 2010

By Judy Craft

Inman Technology Conference 2010 in San Francisco CA... a multimedia experience!

Milestone doesn’t just sell Bluegrass homes; we travel all over the nation so we can always be ahead of the curve in all things real estate and technology for better services and information for our clients. We actually just got back from San Francisco where the weather was cool (mid-60′s) but the information was hot, hot, hot!! Katie, April, John and I attended the Inman Technology Conference last week and were absolutely amazed at what we saw and heard from the industry’s leaders. I attended most of the Broker training programs while Katie focused on Blogging and WordPress, April on Marketing and John on everything else. I sure was happy to have someone under the age of 30 to explain to me in layman’s terms what everything meant. Some of the highpoints of the meeting:

1. From 2002-2007 Yahoo flatlined while Google skyrocketed in the search category. In the past 2 years Google has flatlined while Facebook has taken off. It is being said that Facebook will be the next big Search company due to knowledge of their client base.

2. The future of Facebook is in Search, as an Advertising Platform and Sydication.

3. Redfin and Sawbuck presented at the Broker training and implored Broker’s to get “on board” with them with regards to Online Broker Partnerships. This was a complete turnaround from a couple of years ago when Redfin boasted that their business model would put the traditional Broker out of business.

4. Social Media is everything but you need to know how to use it in an appropriate manner. We are able to reach an unlimited number of people at no cost which will enable us to reduce our marketing dollars and generate additional revenue.

5. The public isn’t interested in the individual agent. They are looking for a brand they can trust. The key to a successful Brokerage is to stay relevant, give the agent tools they can use and the consumer more value.

6. The New York Times Research and Development reported that the paradigm shift is from publishing to communication. Smartphones will outsell PC’s by 2011. Time on email has flatlined while time on Social Networking has skyrocketed.

7. Errol Samuelson of Realtor.com reported that 90% of the population ages 65-72 have email and 40% of Amazon book sales are now e-books.

8. Google reiterated that they are not trying to take over the real estate industry. They are trying to organize all the world’s information geographically and real estate is a big part of that endeavor. We shall see….

9. Real Estate websites are not just to provide information anymore, they are about building community.

The media portion of the Conference was absolutely incredible! All in all it was a great trip.

Let us know what you think about our takeaways by posting a comment!

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