I’m always on the lookout for interesting Shows. When I saw the Real Estate Shows Chris Kealing of OwnerWillFinanceHome.com has made, I knew I’d found something great!

Many home buyers have trouble seeing what isn’t there. Chris obviously doesn’t have a problem imagining what could be, and he can make you see it, too. He takes houses in ROUGH condition and transforms them into the beautiful homes they were meant to be!

Real Estate Shows are a great way to showcase your specialty.

Chris can transform an abused house into a beautiful home and he can prove it through his Shows. His work can and does speak for itself. He’s using Real Estate Shows as a very effective way of illustrating his expertise.

Whatever your specialty (new construction, first time homeowners, commercial, acreage, area, etc.), why not make a Real Estate Show that can be featured on your website or blog to show off your skills? You can even add a link as a part of your signature on your emails.

Please let me know if you give it a try! Thank you for letting me share your Shows, Chris!

One of my friends just subscribed to Real Estate Shows. His name is Dale Chumbley and he co-writes a blog called Clark County Real Estate Guide with Chris Hyde, who is in the mortgage industry. (Dale, along with his Mom, Tracy, and wife, Bridget, make up the Chumbley Team at Prudential Northwest Properties.) Together Dale and Chris cover many issues in the real estate market, but what I really love is when they write about local stuff in their city of Vancouver, Washington.

I wasn’t surprised at all when Dale’s first Show was amazing – fabulous pictures, great titles and an overall feeling of “love of place”. He loves where he lives and it shows!

But what really got me was when they worked together on a post. They visited a new restaurant just before the grand opening. Dale took pictures and whipped up a Show while Chris wrote the text.

And it was WOW!! I read this first thing in the morning and was ready for some Mexican food before breakfast! Click here and read, you’ll see what I mean!

OK, let’s talk about why this is so good. First of all, it’s great to blog about local stuff. People are going to see this new restaurant and want to know more. They look in a search engine and this post pops up. Now they’ve found a couple guys who know all about the area they’re living in – and how about that, they’re real estate guys! If they like the blog and keep coming back, who just became their go-to guys? You guessed it! (Hint: This is why you blog!)

Also, they wrote just in time for Cinco de Mayo and people might be looking for local stuff in connection with that, too. Give people what they want – they like that! Keeping up with events as they happen in your community can lead readers right to the welcome mat on your blog. (Dale does not seem to have a problem testing out restaurants and showing them off, as evidenced here.)

And the Show, this part is magic, too! In the place of one picture, they now have nine. This gives their readers a little power, if they want to see more pictures, they can push that little arrow button. If not, they don’t have to. People like to have choices … and they’re curious so I bet they push the button! RES Shows great way to show more of something without overwhelming your words or creating a post that looks so long it scares off a casual reader.

They’ve realized right from the start that Real Estate Shows are for much more than just showcasing listings – they can help illustrate nearly anything you want to say. If you have a website or a blog (and you should) RES may turn out to be your favorite tool.

Thanks to Dale and Chris, I look forward to seeing what you do with your Real Estate Shows next!

Cathy Tishhouse is a new Real Estate Shows client. And she asked the following question in the comment section of a blog post on ActiveRain:

I subscribed to Real Estate Shows a few weeks ago after seeing some posted by Missy Caulk and my seller’s love them - really adds to my listing presentation. Just when I was doing the trial run, I found out that RE/MAX has a similar tool in their design center but liked this one better… I have noticed that the pictures on the Real Estate Shows end up zooming into a particular spot that I might not have chosen - is there a tutorial to say what angle is best to take the pictures in the future - don’t want to go back and retake them all. Thanks for your help.

Well, we did have a tutorial on camera movement that I could have sent her to view, but I wanted to test a brand new piece of software, ScreenFlow, so I made the following video to answer her question.

ScreenFlow: Editing Camera Movement in Real Estate Shows from respres on Vimeo.

I sent the video to her via email and this was her response:

It worked great – thanks so much – I have changed my shows and very quickly. I am having trouble with the sound on my lap top – very faint and volume is turned up the highest. So, I could hardly hear but the visuals were enough to do this quickly. I love that I don’t have to watch the way I take the picture but can adjust the focus here. Great idea – this is why I chose yours over the free version that RE/MAX offers J and Thanks for the quick response!!

It was, of course, my pleasure. I was asked twice last week why someone would choose to pay for Real Estate Shows instead of opting for some other “free” option. I’ve been asked that question many times. But I’ve never had anyone ask me that question who had actually given Real Estate Shows a try.

There’s an old adage, “free is usually worth what you pay for it.”

Success and mastery are always about the subtleties. Many presentations look the same until you examine them more closely. Then the details emerge, details that mark the difference between successful presentations and those that just go through the motions but don’t deliver great results.

You are in business to get results and earn a living. We’re in business to help you do that.

There have been several times when I’ve thought to myself, “That is the best, most original use for a Real Estate Show I have ever seen!” It has happened again, and this one is truly going to be hard to top. I just don’t see how it could happen. (But please, you guys go on and try!)

Shortly before Christmas, Monika McGillicuddy of Prudential Verani Realty/Hampstead woke up from a very vivid dream that she’d written to her husband’s unknown birth mother. The dream was so real that she felt a need to go ahead and write that letter, and like a the fabulous blogger that she is, the letter came out in the form of a post.

Monika thanked Jay’s birth mother, and spoke as one woman to another about the love they share for him. It’s one of the most touching, personal posts I have ever read.

And at the end of her post, Monika made a Real Estate Show of Jay growing up before our eyes. What an absolute treasure that must have been for his mother!

Because yes, thanks to Monika’s post, Jay DID find his birth mother – and siblings! He wrote about it on his blog.

This is one of the more amazing blogging stories I’ve heard, and I wanted to share it with you. Here’s Monika’s Show. I’m sure that even if you don’t know Jay, you’ll understand what a gift this must have been for his newly found family.

Monika and Jay, thanks from me, too — just because you let us share in the journey.

Are things a little tighter in your real estate market lately? Wondering how you can set yourself apart from the competition?

Let me tell you a little secret. The things you are doing already are probably wonderful, fabulous things that would make any client proud to choose you. But unless you can show them what you’re doing and how that is a benefit to them, you might as well not even be doing them.

As an example let’s look at Bob Carney of Long & Foster Real Estate, Inc. Bob recently posted on his Focus On Frederick blog about caravan tours. His company still does the “old fashioned” caravan tour once or twice a month to view the new listings. A client might wonder how this is any better than just looking at the pictures of the house, as many offices do now that technology makes this so easy.

There is nothing like being in a house to see how it feels. Even our wonderful Real Estate Shows is not meant to take the place of actually walking around in a house, but hopefully it shows you the house in such a way that you want to see more. (And maybe are even pre-disposed to fall in love with the house.)

Bob explains that having a bunch of agents view your home in person is something you would very much want to happen. If you are a seller, you will gain a lot of useful information from the tour. These trained, experienced agents are going to let you know exactly what might get in the way of a sale. They are also actively working with buyers, and once they see your house they may realize they have a buyer who will LOVE it.

After listing your house with Bob Carney or one of his coworkers, you now have a whole team of agents who have seen your home, know it’s condition, are familiar with the neighborhood and will keep it in mind to see if it fits the needs of their clients.

In Bob’s post and Real Estate Show, he takes us along for the ride and lets us experience the tour for ourselves. We see the advantage because we feel like we’ve been there, done that for ourselves.

If you’re an agent looking for a way to set yourself apart, maybe you don’t have to do anything different. Maybe you just have to find a way to show what you’re already doing.

*Ahem*. I’ve heard Real Estate Shows are a great way to do that.