HGTV and FrontDoor.com Gear Up for Inman Connect in New York City

HGTV and HGTV’s FrontDoor.com will join hundreds of real estate professionals from across the country at Inman News’ Agent Reboot and Real Estate Connect conference at the Marriott Marquis hotel in Times Square on Jan. 11-14.

On Jan. 11, Samantha Kleier-Forbes and Sabrina Kleier-Morgenstern, stars of HGTV’s hit show “Selling New York” and executive vice presidents at high-profile Manhattan brokerage Gumley Haft Kleier, will talk about their experiences in the most competitive real estate market in the country.

On Jan. 12,  HGTV “Design Star” judge and celebrity designer Vern Yip will explain why design matters more than ever, especially in a tough market.

If you’re a real estate agent attending the Inman conference, be sure to stop by HGTV FrontDoor’s kiosk and sign up for an agent profile — it’s FREE!

Frustrated with your real estate agent? Try these 10 strategies to find the right one for you

I hear so many real estate agent horror stories from homebuyers and sellers (and have experienced my own nightmare situations) that you’d think “agent bashing” is some sort of national pastime.

While there are some bad apples out there (as there are in any profession), that shouldn’t reflect poorly on the industry as a whole. In fact, I know many people who rave about their real estate agents and consider them part of the family.

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Finding an agent is easy. In any given area, hundreds of professionals are vying for your business. Finding the right agent for you is the hard part.

You’re trusting someone to help through one of the biggest purchases in your life, so it’s important to do your research.

Check out FrontDoor’s Top 10 Strategies for Choosing the Right Real Estate Agent.

Real estate professionals discuss social media etiquette

None of my friends are real estate agents. And a lot of my friends’ friends aren’t agents either. They just never happened to roll in my social circles. Not really sure why that is. Perhaps it’s because I’m naturally skeptical of people who make a living from selling things — be it a house, insurance, a car or a story pitch.

So you’d understand why people like me who don’t normally socialize with real estate agents in our personal lives would feel weird about “friending” an agent on Facebook without having met him/her in person and establishing some sort of relationship. Even now, as a homebuyer, I’m not going to search for agents to friend.

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So it was especially interesting to listen to a panel for real estate agents about using Facebook as a professional tool.

(The FrontDoor team is in San Francisco this week for a real estate and technology conference called “Real Estate Connect,” hosted by Inman News.)

FrontDoor, for one, has a Facebook fan page (thanks to those of you who’ve joined it!) and is doing some interesting things with social media, such as integrate Facebook Connect on the site so readers can comment on articles through their Facebook profile.

At the panel, Craig Donato, CEO of online classifieds site Oodle, talked about their service, which would allow agents to automatically load their listings into their news feed and their friends’ feeds.  Someone in the audience quickly pointed out that that was the “fastest way to get me to de-friend you.” Indeed. I know I would.

So that begs the question — what is the proper etiquette, for any business, to build relationships on social networking services like Facebook and Twitter, without scaring away people? We’re discussing that here at Inman Connect. If you’ve got an idea, please share it!