Category: Marketing & Technology

New Facebook Anti-Discrimination Rules

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A few months ago, Facebook was hit with a lawsuit by the department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) that claimed Facebook was engaging in housing discrimination. According to the suit, HUD accused Facebook of allowing landlords, home sellers and agents to set parameters on ads that limited which prospective buyers could view it based on race, religion, sex and disability, to name a few.

Some of these allowances included blocking ads to users based on their interests in certain topics such as “child care” or “mobility scooters.” Others gave the advertiser the ability to block ads by specific zip code.

In response to this accusation, Facebook has changed their rules for ads related to real estate. Now, advertisers can no longer set these kinds of parameters and discriminate against any person based on race, ethnicity, color, national origin, religion, age, sex, sexual orientation, gender identity, family status, disability, medical or genetic condition.

 

What does this mean for you?

As a Homesale Realty agent, these new rules just mean that the more general your audience, the better. When setting the target audience for your ads, choose both men and women and select as wide of a geographical range as possible. Counties tend to work very well for the geographical parameter.

If, for some reason, Facebook thinks you have set a parameter that violates these new rules, they will flag your ad and send you a notification that it has been denied. From here, you can adjust the parameters and resubmit or send the ad for a manual review if you believe it has been flagged in error.

 

For more information about these new rules, check out Facebook’s advertising policies here.

 

New Feature Just For You!

At Homesale Realty, we believe that the quickest way to grow our company is to grow our people. That’s why we continually look to invest in resources that will promote your success with clients. We are excited to announce a new feature that has been added to the Active Listings page on HomesaleCenter.com.  The new feature displays the total number of inquiries on each of your listings, year to date. It is available to all agents, regardless of whether you have a website with us or not.

 

How to find this new section:

  1. Go to Homesale Center (Online.Homesale.com)
  2. On the left-hand side, click on the Listings tab
  3. Click Active Listings
  4. Lead Requests will be listed on the far-right side

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With this new feature, you can monitor the total number of lead requests each property receives throughout its listing duration. This number can be impactful for price reduction conversations, keeping track of the activity on your listings and when looking at new marketing strategies.

Soon you will see the number of lead requests per listing appear on the Seller Reports as well.

 

Additionally, we have re-worked the marketing button that appears on the Active Listings info page.

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With one click of the marketing button, you can send an ecard, print a flyer or set up a Seller Report. This small change can have a huge impact on your marketing strategy with potential buyers.

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October Market & Tech Stat

October’s Marketing & Tech Stat focuses on the incredible impact of Homesale Realty’s Facebook marketing efforts. This would be good information to share with sellers who are interested in listing their home with us. Share, email, or mail this to your sphere and remind them that you are here for any questions they may have.

Click the links below to access the corresponding items:

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PDF Version: If you have issues viewing the flyer, save it to your computer first. This can be printed and then mailed with your business card.

JPG Version: You could use this graphic by saving it to your phone and uploading directly to Instagram and other social media sites.

Click here to easily share this as a blog article on your social media sites (Facebook, Twitter, etc.). You’ll be redirected to AskHomesale.com where you can simply scroll to the bottom of the article and select the social network you want to share it to.

You can also access the ecard template on the Market REsource by selecting ecards and searching for “Market & Tech – October 2018”.

Protect Yourself Against Wire Transfer Scams

The real estate industry is a huge target for wire transfer scams. It’s up to you to protect yourself and your clients, but how? What are wire transfer scams? How do you know if you are a victim? What should you do if it happens to you? Read below to find out more…

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A Little Info About These Scams

These scams normally come from groups operating out of Ghana, Nigeria and other African nations. Individuals in these groups try to connect with potential victims through email and even on social dating sites in order to foster a relationship. The groups, as a whole, send out millions of emails constantly, waiting for someone to click on it. They are smart, creating believable stories about why they need bank account information and convincing the victim in the relationship that by divulging this information and partaking in this deal, they will be helping them out greatly.

 

How to Recognize One

Some scam attempts are obvious, but others can be unsuspecting. If you have an online friend who has started nonchalantly asking personal questions about your financial status, it might be a scam. If you received an email from an address you don’t recognize, it might be a scam, but if you’re not sure, read the content of the emails. Many scam emails will have funky wording, some phrases won’t make sense or words will be misspelled.

Other scam emails can contain content about you needing to make a payment for a medical account or they want you to review your recent payment. If you haven’t made any payments recently or the email address isn’t the same as your health account portal, delete it and don’t click on any prompted links. Lastly, never download any file from an unknown address.

 

How to Protect Yourself Against Them

  • Block IP addresses from nations listed above
  • Avoid using web-based email accounts (they are easier to hack)
  • Be careful what you put on social media (job functions, salary, hierarchical information, etc.)
  • Don’t accept friend requests from people you don’t know
  • Don’t disclose personal information to people you don’t know
  • Be wary of any requests for secrecy or pressure to act quickly

 

What to Do If You Suspect Something

  • Immediately call your bank and talk to the person who has authority to recall a wire transfer
  • Tell your bank that you want them to fully cooperate with the police
    • You have to state this as the bank cannot help the FBI without your consent
  • Report the incident to the FBI at ic3.gov
    • Provide as many details as you can about the beneficiary; account number, contact information, names, etc.
  • Contact the closest FBI field office
    • For an international wire transfer, they can try to create a Financial Kill Chain

 

 

Reference: https://www.wavgroup.com/2018/10/08/how-the-fbi-foiled-a-wire-transfer-scam/

There’s An App For That

With appointments, meetings, phone calls and personal life, how are you possibly supposed to keep track of it all? Well there may not be one singular app to organize every aspect of your life, but here are a few that can work in harmony to make sure things don’t start falling through the cracks.

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Evernote

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This comprehensive note-taking app allows you to attach articles, documents, audio or video files to notes that you took during a meeting or phone call. You can choose from the basic, premium or business version to fit your exact needs. With this app you can create notes, checklists or even put a notebook together for multiple notes, making sure everything you need is in one place.

 

 

Google Calendar

If you don’t have a Google account, it might be worth creating one just to reap the benefits of the Google calendar. The calendar can be shared with whomever you choose so everyone who has access can see the schedule for the rest of the group. This can help with avoiding scheduling conflicts and setting up meeting times. You can alter the reminder notification for each event to hours, days or even weeks before the event based on your preference.

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IFTTT

With your busy schedule, there might be tasks that you postpone frequently or even forget about. With IFTT, derived from the phrase “If this, then that…,” you can set rules for your media to do things for you. See the example graphic below. You can set a rule to get the weather report every morning at 7 a.m. so you can decide what to wear or you can have Twitter send out every Instagram post as an organic tweet to make social media engagement a breeze. There are thousands of programs you can incorporate in this app to make your life more hands off and less time consuming.

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September Market & Tech Stat

September’s Marketing & Tech Stat focuses on the time-saving benefit of texting. This would be good information to share with both buyers and sellers who are interested in current real estate communication trends. Share, email, or mail this to your sphere and remind them that you are here for any questions they may have.

Click the links below to access the corresponding items:

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PDF Version: If you have issues viewing the flyer, save it to your computer first. This can be printed and then mailed with your business card.

JPG Version: You could use this graphic by saving it to your phone and uploading directly to Instagram and other social media sites.

Click here to easily share this as a blog article on your social media sites (Facebook, Twitter, etc.). You’ll be redirected to AskHomesale.com where you can simply scroll to the bottom of the article and select the social network you want to share it to.

You can also access the ecard template on the Market REsource by selecting ecards and searching for “Market & Tech – September 2018”.