I recently spent a weekend in Chicago. It had been a couple of years since I had been there, and I was amazed by the way the city has evolved. From the loop going South to Roosevelt and West to the United Center, the city is unrecognizable. Building continues unabated. Old neighborhoods that never got a second glance ten years ago, are now turning into upscale urban living centers. It seems like the housing bubble will continue indefinitely. The realtors there have not seen a significant slowdown, and depend on old and tired traditional methods of advertising such as print and local newspapers.  When I returned, I was surprised to see that I had received an egreeting from a Chicago realtor.

This demonstrated that even in strong markets like Chicago, there are realtors who will not be complacent and do not expect the boom to continue indefinitely. They are willing to innovate and adapt their marketing methods to reflect the market and the latest social trends. The egreeting realtor also uses a real estate blog to market to clients.  The egreeting realtor is growing her business and overtaking her competition.

According to CNNMoney, the real estate downturn is hitting real estate agents. During the boom’s peak from 2002 to 2004, the National Association of Realtors (NAR) saw memberships soar 26 percent. Today, over 1.2 million Americans call themselves Realtors. The NAR forecasts existing home sales to fall 7.6% in 2006.  It seems that agents with 3+ years of experience are reaping the benefits because people are utilizing experienced sales agents to buy and sell their homes.

If realtors have less than 3 years experience they must invest wisely in certain marketing programs.  People start their home search online.  Are you visible on the search engines?  Do you have a blog strategy?  It would be wise to start putting your dollars into something that will help your visibility online and expand your brand.

In the recent UCLA Anderson forecast of economic activity in the real estate sector, housing prices are due to fall but the thought is that a slowdown will not necessarily affect other market segments or bog down the economy overall.

According to the study, sales volume will drop at a faster rate than home prices, affecting people associated with real estate transactions such as mortgage brokers, real estate agents appraisers etc. If prices are remaining fairly constant, there is still money to be made. Real estate related firms just need to step up their marketing and reach a smaller pool of increasingly fickle buyers. One method is for firms to use blog branding to differentiate themselves from the competition and to keep from losing valuable market share.