The Estate Agent

Originally uploaded by henry_yates

The Estate Agent interviewed estatecreate in their April issue. Unfortunately it is print only, so here is a screenshot.

4th FEBRUARY, 2010 – estatecreate has launched a new service for estate agents that will drive more web traffic to their properties from search engines.

Search Engines such as Google are putting more and more emphasis on website content and domain names. By using estatecreate websites to showcase properties on key street names in an agency’s neighbourhood, agents will increase their search traffic and drive more leads to their properties.

Henry Yates, estatecreate Chief Executive, said “Search engine optimisation (SEO) is one of the most cost-effective marketing tools available to estate agents. By investing in SEO you should see increased traffic and increased business for years to come. Our SEO solution is part of the overall package estate agents buy into when they sign up to estatecreate.”

The service is very easy to set up. First an agent needs to identify key roads where they sell houses in their neighbourhood.

The agent then sets up estatecreate sites for the key addresses around the agent’s branch. These sites will all point back to the estate agent’s website. Whenever the agent has a property for sale on a key road, they showcase it on the appropriate website. You can see an example website here: http://dovehousestreetsw3.com/

estatecreate is a new tool for estate agents to showcase a vendor’s home with a standalone website for their property with its own domain name. The service is very easy to use - estatecreate takes a feed of data from each branch and the agent can then easily add content and publish to a domain name of their choice.

The service is the holder of The Negotiator’s Innovation Award and the Web Marketing Association’s WebAward.

estatecreate was founded by Henry Yates and is the first company to offer this service to estate agents in the UK. Yates is an experienced entrepreneur who has previously co-founded and sold two businesses, Face, the research and planning agency (www.facegroup.co.uk, sold to Cello PLC) and Univillage.com, the social network for students (sold to www.sub.tv).

Tim Price, group sales & marketing director at The Live Organisation said:  “We are constantly looking for ways to give clients the tools to sell properties to customers in the most efficient and user friendly way. Sitemaker provides a contemporary and comprehensive marketing tool which goes well beyond a simple listing.”

“Winning instructions is the life blood of any agent and Sitemaker allows Live agents the opportunity to enhance their portfolio of marketing services, especially for middle and up market properties. And it is exactly this type of sophisticated improvement which can help agents win more business.”

Henry Yates, CEO estatecreate, said “We are excited to be working with The Live Organisation, they have a fantastic client base that will really benefit from using the Live SiteMaker service.”

The Live Sitemaker software allows clients to create an individual website for each property and a personal domain name. The format is easy to read and understand, allowing customers to view the property information with no confusion. Clients have more online space to include information about the local area, schools and contact details, as well as substantial room for photographs.

The easy to use software only takes minutes to create and publish websites. Clients can share the personal property websites through social networks and get more leads from other agents. The personal domain name is more memorable, making it more effective for advertising purposes. The websites can be branded for users, making them more visually appealing. There is no duplicated entries as the software auto-populates the sites for you.

Tim Price added: “Individual property websites are innovative and functional.

We offer estate agents the easiest and most cost effective way to create standalone websites for individual properties. The sites have their own web address and unlimited pages to showcase photos, floorplans, 360 tours and walk throughs.”

More details of Live’s new service can be found at www.live-sitemaker.com.

12^th November, 2009 – estatecreate won The innovation Award last night at an awards ceremony organised by The Negotiator magazine in association with The Digital Property Group.

Henry Yates, estatecreate Chief Executive, said: “I am very pleased that the team’s hard work has been recognised by winning another award. The judges were unanimous in voting for estatecreate, which is a great vote of confidence in our product.”

Mark Milner, The Digital Property Group’s (Primelocation.com, FindaProperty.com, Homesandproperty.co.uk and FindaNewHome.com) Chief Executive said: “The success of the Negotiator Awards is a testament to on-going excellence within the market, with firms such as estatecreate gaining much deserved recognition. It’s a pleasure to celebrate their achievements as well as toast the impressive performance of the estate agency industry in challenging times.”

estatecreate is a new tool for estate agents to showcase a vendor’s home with a standalone website for their property with its own domain name - the 21st century glossy property brochure for the web. You can see an example website here: http://dovehousestreetsw3.com/

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The service is very easy to use - estatecreate takes a feed of data from each branch and the agent can then easily add content and publish to a domain name of their choice. You can see a product demo here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mIGk-9Bxp4Q

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The judges of the 2009 Awards read like a Who’s Who of Estate Agency. They included:

Peter Bolton King, CEO, National Association of Estate Agents

Paul Broadhead, Head of Policy, Building Societies Association

Nicholas Leeming, Corporate Client Director, Property Finder

Mr Bill McClintock, Chief Operating Officer, The Property Ombudsman Service

Julian O’Dell, Founder, TM Training & Development

Ian Floyed, Chief Executive, My Home Move

Peter Rollings, Managing Director, Marsh & Parsons

Mr Ken Waller, Former Chief Executive of Connells Residential

Lucy Morton, Managing Partner, WA Ellis

John McGrath, Chief Executive Officer, McGrath Estate Agents

James Howard, Associate Director - Development, Urban Splash

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estatecreate was founded by Henry Yates and is the first company to offer this service to estate agents in the UK. Yates is an experienced entrepreneur who has previously co-founded and sold two businesses, Face, the research and planning agency (www.facegroup.co.uk, sold to Cello PLC) and Univillage.com, the social network for students (sold to www.sub.tv).

Today estatecreate is thrilled to announce that we have been nominated Best Estate and Letting Agency Technology provider at the 2010 Property Professional Show Awards.

The judging was based on the following categories: design, innovation, content, technology, interactivity, copywriting and ease of use. estatecreate received a score of over 9/10 in every category. One of the judges noted: “The demo truly sets it apart”.

estatecreate WebAward Scores

Henry Yates, estatecreate Chief Executive, said: “I am very pleased that the team’s hard work has been recognised by winning this award. We are in good company as Zillow won the same award last year.”
estatecreate is a new tool for estate agents to showcase a vendor’s home with a standalone website for their property with its own domain name - the 21st century glossy property brochure for the web. You can see an example website here: http://dovehousestreet.com/

The service is very easy to use - estatecreate takes a feed of data from each branch and the agent can then easily add content and publish to a domain name of their choice. You can see a product demo here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mIGk-9Bxp4Q

The Web Marketing Association was founded in 1997 with the intent to improve industry standards. Over the years, the recipients have created a benchmark for future Internet marketers and professionals around the world. This year, more than 45 countries participated.

estatecreate was founded by Henry Yates and is the first company to offer this service to estate agents in the UK. Yates is an experienced entrepreneur who has previously co- founded and sold two businesses, Face, the research and planning agency (www.facegroup.co.uk, sold to Cello PLC) and Univillage.com, the social network for students (sold to www.sub.tv).
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More information on the WebAwards and estatecreate’s entry here: http://www.webaward.org/winner.asp?eid=12565.

estatecreate has been shortlisted for The Estate Agency Innovation Award category of The Negotiator Awards 2009, organised in association with The Digital Property Group, FindaProperty.com and Primelocation.com.

Clare Bettelley, The editor of The Negotiator, the leading magazine for the world of estate agency, said: “We’ve had a terrific response and estatecreate has done brilliantly to get shortlisted from such a huge field. Britain’s estate agents are certainly having a tough time at the moment, but this is an industry awash with talent, entrepreneurialism and creativity, so we’re delighted we’re able to organise a ceremony to reward those firms that are delivering industry best practice”.

Henry Yates, estatecreate Chief Executive, said: “we are excited about being shortlisted for The Estate Agency Innovation Award. We have had a great response from estate agents across the UK and it is very satisfying to be recognised by The Negotiator for the work we have done within the industry.”

estatecreate was founded by Henry Yates and is the first company to offer this service to estate agents in the UK. Yates is an experienced entrepreneur who has previously co-founded and sold two businesses, Face, the research and planning agency (www.facegroup.co.uk, sold to Cello PLC) and Univillage.com, the social network for students (sold to Sub.tv).

Henry Yates, estatecreate Chief Executive, said: “we are excited to be working with GMG Property Services. They are the market leader with over 35% of agents using their software. This partnership delivers great value to the estate agency market.”

Henry added “offering potential clients their own website for their property is a great way of wining instructions. estatecreate single property sites are the 21st Century’s answer to property brochures.”

Mark Goddard, Group Managing Director, GMG Property Services, said “estatecreate is an ideal partner for us as it enables us to offer our customers a great tool to win new instructions. In the US just under 30% of all properties have their own website, we anticipate that this will become more popular in the UK.”

estatecreate is designed for people without any technical skills. Once an agent has been set up with their own template and a feed to automatically upload properties, the agent can easily move text, photos and video, add pages and drag and drop content around each page. To see a video demonstration of the product click the following link: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mIGk-9Bxp4Q.
estatecreate was founded by Henry Yates and is the first company to offer this service to estate agents in the UK. Yates is an experienced entrepreneur who has previously co- founded and sold two businesses, Face, the research and planning agency (www.facegroup.co.uk, sold to Cello PLC) and Univillage.com, the social network for students (sold to Sub.tv).

GMG Property Services is made up of Vebra, Core Systems, CFP Software and The Media Design House. It is wholly owned by Guardian Media Group, one of the UK’s leading multimedia companies.

Web User magazine has selected estatecreate.com as one of their best new websites. I can not provide a link to the article as it is not yet on the web(?!). But this is what it says:

“estatecreate.com could be useful to anyone wanting to sell or rent out property without involving an estate agent. It lets you create a dedicated website for your house or holiday home, with photos, videos, maps and contact details. This can then be promoted on property sites, social networks and other online channels. estatecreate.com is easy to use and lets you build a decent site in minutes. A basic account with web hosting, unlimited storage and listing on partner sites costs from £5.95 per month, but you can create an ad-supported site for free.”

I could not have said it better myself.

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Great post here by Paul Graham on why people will predominantly watch TV over the internet. Here’s an exerpt:

“About twenty years ago people noticed computers and TV were on a collision course and started to speculate about what they’d produce when they converged. We now know the answer: computers…

The somewhat more surprising force was one specific type of innovation: social applications. The average teenage kid has a pretty much infinite capacity for talking to their friends. But they can’t physically be with them all the time. When I was in high school the solution was the telephone. Now it’s social networks, multiplayer games, and various messaging applications. The way you reach them all is through a computer. Which means every teenage kid (a) wants a computer with an Internet connection, (b) has an incentive to figure out how to use it, and (c) spends countless hours in front of it…

After decades of running an IV drip right into their audience, people in the entertainment business had understandably come to think of them as rather passive. They thought they’d be able to dictate the way shows reached audiences. But they underestimated the force of their desire to connect with one another.

A recent article in the Wall Street Journal described how TV networks were trying to add more live shows, partly as a way to make viewers watch TV synchronously instead of watching recorded shows when it suited them. Instead of delivering what viewers want, they’re trying to force them to change their habits to suit the networks’ obsolete business model. That never works unless you have a monopoly or cartel to enforce it, and even then it only works temporarily.”

Looks like the Murdoch clan have a lot of work to do reworking their business models for newspapers and TV.

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