CLASSIFIED INTELLIGENCE REPORT – June 8, 2005 – VERSION 6.11 – Page 23<\/p>\n
Don\u2019t turn around . . . the Ubertor\u2019s in town<\/strong> It sounds like either the title to a John Belushi-inspired Saturday Night Live skit or the set up to an industry insider joke, a kind of \u201ctwo real estate agents walk into a bar\u201d zinger. But the proprietors of a new real estate Q: What do you call a Super-Realtor? Ubertor<\/a> is the new name for Combustion Listings (www.CombustionListings.com<\/a>) , an online consulting firm and software developer that aims to help Realtors up the ante on the competition. The name slaps the German prefix of \u201cuber\u201d \u2013 meaning above or on top \u2013 onto the \u201ctor\u201d of Realtor.<\/p>\n With more than 4,000 Realtor clients, Ubertor \u2013 despite the amusing new name \u2013 has been growing rapidly. Their differentiation: constantly emphasizing the cutting edge. <\/strong><\/p>\n Ubertor, like real estate-focused marketing firm z57 \u2013 see CIR 5.17, Sept. 14, 2004 \u2013 creates Web sites for Realtors. Both build real estate specific functionality into their offerings, tools to manage listings, track how many times features such as the mortgage calculator have been clicked, and the like.<\/p>\n But Ubertor seems to prefer exploring a bit off the beaten track. For example, Ubertor aggressively pushes Realtor blogging<\/strong> as a simple but effective way for Realtors to generate additional traffic and higher search engine rankings.<\/p>\n \u201cMost real estate sites have canned content,\u201d explained Steve Jagger<\/strong>, co-founder of Ubertor. \u201cGoogle doesn\u2019t like that. Search engines want unique quality content, updated frequently \u2013 which is what blogs do<\/strong> by their very nature.\u201d<\/p>\n All very well, but what would a Realtor write about in a blog? As we reported in our coverage of the California Association of Realtor\u2019s latest \u201cInternet vs. Traditional Buyer\u201d survey (see CIR 6.08, April 27), 71 percent of Internet home buyers only interviewed a single agent before making a choice on who, to work with \u2013 and that agent tended to be the first one who responded. Blogs, by contrast, are all about building a relationship over time. So we had to ask: Does anyone really care?<\/p>\n \u201cWell, they can write about what kind of sales they\u2019re involved in, what they\u2019re up to on a day-to-day basis,\u201d Jagger said.<\/p>\n Sure, but let\u2019s be honest: The real draw is not the blog chat but the listings. And to emphasize that point, Indeed, a Realtor doesn\u2019t even have to touch his blog for it to sport the frequently updated blog entries that Google is more prone to display. The same module works on the \u201cregular\u201d Web pages Ubertor builds for its clients as well.<\/p>\n Also, Ubertor is rolling out an e-mail alert feature, so that home buyers can subscribe and be alerted when a new home is posted on the Realtor\u2019s blog.<\/p>\n While blogs may be primarily a trick for pumping up traffic, Ubertor uses some nifty technology for making the user experience more interactive once home buyers and sellers come to a Ubertor-powered Realtor\u2019s site.<\/p>\n Ubertor employs the same AJAX technology we wrote about previously when describing Paul Rademacher\u2019s HousingMaps.com (CIR 6.08) which displays Craigslist real estate listings on GoogleMap pages. (Ubertor is rolling out its own GoogleMaps module as well, but Jagger wasn\u2019t ready to talk about it.)<\/p>\n AJAX essentially allows Web pages to load more like offline applications without the annoying wait-andrefresh process associated with most database-driven search pages. A demo of this can be seen on the Ubertor built www.HistoricModern.com site.<\/p>\n Follow the links for Properties, then choose Property Search. Select an area such as Scottsdale, then start drilling down. The screen will show in near real-time the results of your search, and even better, will only display search options that match results in the database.<\/p>\n \u201cIf there are no 1,500 square-foot townhouses for under $100,000, there won\u2019t be an option to search for it that then comes back with 0 Results, Jagger said. \u201cThis really simplifies the search process.\u201d<\/p>\n Ubertor is also pushing the envelope with its slide show feature. While nearly every real estate software system allows Realtors to post images, slide shows and even virtual tours, Jagger claims Ubertor is unique in that it allows Realtors to add MP3 audio narrations automatically into the slide show. Realtors record the narration live while watching the slide show, making the timing a cinch. With a digital camera, laptop and a wireless connection, the whole show can be created on-the-fly from the home itself. A demo can be found at http:\/\/demo2.ubertor.com\/ViewProperty\/18\/Active\/#viewdetail.<\/p>\n Ubertor was founded in 2000 in then 27-year-old Jagger\u2019s parents\u2019 house and was initially known as Combustion Hosting. He and partner, Mike Stephenson<\/strong>, didn\u2019t intend to get into the real estate business. But after they signed up a couple of Realtors by chance who wanted Web hosting, they quickly realized there were some major inefficiencies in the way their Realtor clients were managing their listings.<\/p>\n \u201cThey were getting listings faxed,\u201d Jagger told us. \u201cThere\u2019d be a 48 hour delay in getting the listing posted, then there\u2019d be spelling mistakes. They needed an engine so they could load their listings themselves.\u201d Combustion took on that task and it wasn\u2019t long before the company was growing out of Jagger\u2019s bedroom.<\/p>\n The Vancouver-based company employs 22 today and has since sold off the hosting business to concentrate solely on the real estate space.<\/p>\n While any Realtor can become an Ubertor customer, the company has focused its sales effort in several locations \u2013 its home base in western Canada and the Phoenix market which Jagger says has a heavy Canadian buying contingent.<\/p>\n Ubertor\u2019s software doesn\u2019t offer any serious lead-generation functionality to date. A recent upgrade now allows independent graphic designers and Web site builders to plug in Ubertor\u2019s most popular features rather While Jagger wouldn\u2019t reveal revenues, he suggested it\u2019s not hard to calculate. With 4,000 clients paying between $37-$57 per month, that\u2019s a potential revenue stream of close to $2 million a year. Well on its way to true, \u201cuber\u201d status.<\/p>\n CLASSIFIED INTELLIGENCE REPORT – June 8, 2005 – VERSION 6.11 – Page 23 Don\u2019t turn around . . . the Ubertor\u2019s in town BY BRIAN BLUM It sounds like either the title to a John Belushi-inspired Saturday Night Live skit or the set up to an industry insider joke, a kind of \u201ctwo real estate […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[19,12],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ubertor.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/119"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ubertor.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ubertor.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ubertor.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ubertor.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=119"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.ubertor.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/119\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":13370,"href":"https:\/\/www.ubertor.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/119\/revisions\/13370"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ubertor.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=119"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ubertor.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=119"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ubertor.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=119"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
\nBY BRIAN BLUM<\/p>\n
\nconsulting company are spot-on serious about their business.<\/p>\n
\nA: An \u201cUbertor\u201d<\/p>\n
\nUbertor\u2019s most powerful module is one that automatically posts new listings from a Realtor onto his or her blog.<\/p>\n
\nthan forcing them to use Ubertor\u2019s software and templates. Ubertor runs free training sessions in its Vancouver office and on the road.<\/p>\n