As the real estate slow down continued through 2007, real estate agents were put to the test… and many may find themselves reassessing their strategies. Maintaining a steady stream of business has been challenging in many markets, but new online channels continue to emerge and present opportunities for the serious agent. In this issue of iHOUSE Blueprint, we present several online articles summarizing the year of 2007 in real estate news.

RISMedia takes a look at the market slowdown, and comments on how taking a proactive approach can bring you success. Check out this and other great articles here.

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Prepare Your Marketing Plan for 2008.
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This month’s Customer Close Up features Jenny Chissus and her website www.seldoviaproperty.com.

In the quaint Alaskan town of Seldovia, there is one doctor, one school, one year-round restaurant and one REALTOR®. With a population of only 300 people year round (900 during the summer), and accessibility only by boat or plane, Seldovia would seem like a difficult place to make a living. But not for RE/MAX® agent Jenny Chissus, she’s devoted her efforts exclusively to the people and properties in Seldovia, and thereby managed to handle almost 90% of the local real estate market. You may wonder how Jenny ended up as a REALTOR® in this remote wilderness in the first place… “It’s funny how sometimes everything you’ve done in your past careers and experiences leads up to the perfect job for you…” More…

When you ask for lead information from a website visitor always remember to make it clear that they will be getting something worthwhile in exchange. Consider creating a “Members Only” section of your website that has extra valuable content protected by a password. Point visitors to a form they can fill out to become a member. If you place the password in the autoresponse field of your form it will be automatically sent to people by email when they fill it out.

Last month we asked our readers how they felt about today's market. Nearly 85% of survey participants were optimistic about our future market!

What was your most effective marketing channel overall in 2007? (Poll is now closed.)