iHOUSE Website Customer Close-Up
“Ana Alancastro is the Broker-Owner of Mountainside Realty in Hendersonville, North Carolina. After working 6 years for local brokers in the Hendersonville area, she decided to branch out and become an independent broker. While it was risky, things started to work out fine. Did she plan to open her own company? No it was a last minute, spur of the moment thing. “Since I began my own operation on January the 4th of this year, I have picked up 3 listings within just a few weeks. In addition, I am in the process of picking up another few listings.” Ana uses her iHOUSE® website and emails to network and get people to view her website. She is now working on increasing her referral work again by networking and getting people to visit her website. “I am finally starting to get so much traffic that my website is starting to payoff beyond my expectations. Being a bilingual broker has been beneficial. Local brokers who visit my website are starting to refer their Spanish-speaking clients to me as well as brokers from other states.”
Ana has experience running her own company in the past. Before becoming a REALTOR®, Ana was a licensed painting contractor and owned her own painting company. “I worked with a lot of general contractors and with people flipping homes. They always used my services for several reasons. I specialized in color consultations and stage painting to create the right atmosphere. My job was to provide a color scheme that would help sell the house.”
“The thing I enjoy the most on my iHOUSE website is that you can change the layouts. I love to change the appearance a lot. Depending on what the season is, I will change the colors. I think there should be an excitement to a website and it shouldn’t be the same boring thing all the time.”
Early last year Ana attended a meeting on marketing and advertising, which is where she first learned about iHOUSE real estate web sites.
“After close examination of the products iHOUSE offered, I decided to give iHOUSE Web Solutions a test drive. I was a new broker on the market so getting a quick start and getting exposure to be successful was critical and important to me. Within the first month of setting up my account, I got a call from a lady who had received a link to my website from a friend. The lady told me she had viewed my website and had had no intentions of listing or selling her property but after viewing how professional I was, she wanted me to represent her and sell her house. I can’t help but say that I was in shock at how fast my website produced a seller for me. In addition, my website would produce a buyer for that seller within 30 days. Within six months of having my website, I was able to list 9 homes and sell six, that’s almost one closing per month during a soft market. How great is that!”
“I found that iHOUSE Web Solutions had a great team of professionals who were eagerly ready and willing to help. Their customer service representatives are knowledgeable and creative with new ideas every time I call. It is nice to be able to call their customer support line and know there is always somebody there. They are always very courteous, helpful and understanding, and always willing to walk you through questions you might have. I get compliments on my website all the time. My clients refer friends and family all the time and they find the website to be informative and easy to use. I am proud of my iHOUSE website and would recommend iHOUSE Web Solutions to anyone who is in the real estate business looking to not only build fast business via the Internet but looking for a professional appearance and most of all professional and courteous support.”