Data Sharing and The Rise of the Market Blog
Altos Research has released four new WordPress Plugins that make it dead simple to go deep in to the numbers and create data rich local market blogs.
Altos is among many real estate data providers out there, but is unique in that many of its core products cater to individual Realtors rather than large institutional or corporate clients.
These new plugins allow subscribers to easily embed Altos charts on new posts or pages on their blogs through a very easy interface. The upshot to all this?
It makes it dead simple to create new web properties dedicated to answering real estate consumers’ biggest question right now… “How’s the Market?” – Market blogs are on the rise.
LoCo Market Stats is an Altos-powered blog that is doing just that. Realtor Heather Elias is using the charts to illustrate a week-by-week snapshot on the Loudoun County Virginia real estate market.
Realtor Eric Stegemann at stlhomedata.com is taking a slightly different tack – and using one of the plugin’s most powerful features; which is the ability to create static pages per city or zip-code and then have the data flow in to each page dynamically – like this one he created for Valley Park, Missouri. This means that, unlike the static charts, each time the page is reloaded, the data is refreshed.
Call it the fire-and-forget method to building out market blog.
Real Estate 2.0 is probably best characterized by the explosive growth of social media that allowed Realtors to begin to publish real estate related content to web. I believe the next phase in this phenomenon will be tools that allow individual brokers and agents to begin to expose, publish and interpret the data that drive local markets. This is the premise underlying ventures like the RPR (see NAR Leaps into the Fray — In a Big Way) and what every MLS executive in the country should be thinking about right now.
The winners in this game will be the ones that blow open the doors to the deepest, richest data but, more importantly, make the it easiest, cheapest and most intuitive for the masses to share.
With this release, Altos stands at the head of the pack. At least for now.
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Overland Park Homes for Sale | Nov 18, 2009 | Reply
Thanks for the information Joel. The only thing people seem to like more then statistics is statistics with graphs!
James Adair | Nov 18, 2009 | Reply
wow! that is a great tip. I’ve been really impressed with the mortgage calculator app that I just installed at my new site.
Greg Fleischaker | Nov 19, 2009 | Reply
Great post, I’m a huge fan of statistics and what it can mean to your real estate business. Just yesterday, I got a solid lead from an out of town buyer. She found me, and liked me, because of the blogging I do with Altos Research graphs. It immediately branded me the expert, and she was confident I could help her negotiate the price of a house down more because I know the stats so well.
Sean OToole | Nov 19, 2009 | Reply
A few have predicted RPR would be the death of Altos. For now RPR seems to have made clear that the data they will provide is for the sole use of Realtors, with no possibility of widgets or API’s for external display. As such I don’t think this is the “premise underlying” RPR at all.
Robert Schroell | Nov 19, 2009 | Reply
Hey i was looking for the contact information for this blog and i have been unable to find it. I have a quick question so i was wondering if you could send me an email at robert@fharesearchcenter.com.
Nashville Grant | Nov 22, 2009 | Reply
What is the cost of these plug-ins? I have not been able to find on Wordpress.org list of plug-ins or in this article.
Jim | Nov 22, 2009 | Reply
Those Altos plug ins would make pumping out great, relevant content almost automatic. Thanks for the heads up, I am probably going to sign up and incorporate that into a local real estate newsletter or blog.
Eric Stegemann | Dec 10, 2009 | Reply
In the interest of making sure facts are accurate, While I’m a member of the National Association of Realtors, I’m not an actively practicing Realtor…. I’m Director of Business Development for Tribus a new concept for real estate technology.
Kelsey Cottrell | Feb 14, 2010 | Reply
Another great full-implementation of the Altos’ graphics and stats can be found St Louis Real Estate Today’s Market Stats Page
montego bay flights | Feb 14, 2010 | Reply
yea, these are really great plugins, i’m integrating these plugins in my online driving school website…. thanks john