Vision Realtors

It is best not to use this as an excuse to try and get a better deal, but it can be a great way to get the seller to help with the cost of some of the repairs that may be needed to be completed for closing.

If there are repairs that need to be completed on your Elk Grove CA home you will want to get some estimates on the costs for these repairs and weigh the costs of having them done before the closing as opposed to doing them at a later time yourself.

Keep in mind that the lender may have repair requirements that they need completed themselves to process the loan.  After the appraisal the lender will let you know what has to be repaired before you can get the loan.

When your inspections are out of the way it is time to have the appraisal of your house in Elk Grove CA scheduled.  The lender needs to be contacted and informed that the appraisal needs to be ordered.

The appraisal is one of the costs that will have to be paid up front (along with any inspections that need to be done on the property.)  The quicker all these steps take place the quicker you can close on the house.

If you are not working with a Realtor, it is best to contact your mortgage broker or lender once a week just to make sure they are not missing any documentation that you may need to get them, and that the process is moving ahead smoothly.

Once a week you will also want to contact your escrow officer that is in charge of the closing at the title company.

They are very busy, but just let them know it is important that you stay notified of anything you can do to help with the loan.   Like any other business it is the squeaky wheel gets the grease.

At this time you will also want to call your insurance agent and inform them you will be buying a house and will need coverage for the closing of the loan.  The title company will send you out a form that you will fill out with your insurance information, but it is a good idea to contact your agent up front and get the wheels moving as fast as possible.

Whenever the title company or the lender calls you requesting information get it to them in a timely manner.  The quicker you respond the quicker the loan process will take place.

You can generally expect a closing to take about 30 days from the time an offer is accepted,  If you have all your ducks in a row you can move the closing forward about a week.  But that is about the quickest you can expect the closing to happen.

You can talk with your mortgage broker and get a figure from them as well on what their average closing time is in Elk Grove CA.

There are a lot of people involved in any single home purchase in Elk Grove CA, but by understanding the order in which things take place, it will help you to make sure you will get the keys to your property in a timely manner and that you will have made the process as easy as possible.

There is a lot of free information available to you about buying, selling or investing in Elk Grove CA real estate. For complete information about the Elk Grove CA real estate market including current homes for sale, property values and more please www.MyElkGroveHome.com visit the most complete website online dedicated to everything Elk Grove CA real estate. So please feel free to contact me with any of your real estate questions and I will me more than glad to answer your questions. Call me on my cell at (916) 690-3145 or email me at info@finance600.com.

There is a lot of free information available to you about buying, selling or investing in Elk Grove CA real estate. For complete information about the Elk Grove CA real estate market including current Elk Grove homes for sale, property values and more please visit the most complete website online www.myelkgrovehome.com dedicated to everything Elk Grove CA real estate.

Many home buyers and sellers use the term “REALTOR®” to describe all real estate agents, but there is a big difference. REALTORS® have more training and accreditation than the average real estate agent, and can draw upon more resources to get the best deal for your real estate investment. This article outlines some of the benefits of working with a REALTOR®, so you can make the distinction next time you’re looking for professional assistance buying or selling.

REALTORS® have membership in the National Association of REALTORS® (NAR), which oversees practices and co-operative efforts between more real estate agents than any other organization in the world. NAR has more than one million members in 60 countries worldwide, and is based in Washington, DC, where it lobbies government on behalf of the real estate industry and buyers and sellers. NAR also conducts extensive research on the economic, political, and structural effects of changes in the real estate industry, and passes those findings onto its members. REALTORS® have the opportunity to network with each other and compare notes on regional industry conditions at regular NAR events, including an annual conference and expo with more than 500 exhibitors. In effect, NAR provides representation and education for its members, which enhances their real estate expertise.

Perhaps NAR’s greatest value is that it upholds a well-established code of ethics which covers every practice in real estate. NAR’s Code of Ethics is updated every year to keep pace with changes in the industry, and is followed by its members around the world. These rules help promote a common standard for real estate beyond NAR, and maintain trust between consumers and real estate professionals. In order to meet the code of ethics many REALTORS® take courses offered by the NAR’s REALTOR® University, which provide education on things like foreclosure markets, second home markets, and real estate safety.

Buyers and sellers working with REALTORS® also get an upper hand on the rest of the market, with access to more Multiple Listings Service (MLS) data. REALTORS® enable their clients to list their home on the MLS and view other homes for sale, whereas other real estate agents may not be able to provide access to this service. REALTOR® partnerships also enable buyers and sellers to view home for sale data across the nation and the world, so they can get to know the market faster.

With the market is still running as a decidedly buyer’s market, many sellers are thinking twice about paying a realtor’s commission to sell their home. After all, if they are selling their home for less than it was worth even a couple years ago, the thought of paying a realtor six percent of the sales price of their home in commissions is a hard pill to swallow.

 

In the past, however, selling by owner was a tough road to travel, as sellers could not list their home on the MLS (Multiple Listing Service).  Today is a different story, as many real estate companies offer sellers the option of paying a small, flat fee to list their home on the MLS.

 

Being able to list your home for sale on the MLS is a big deal, as it will guarantee your home gets the maximum exposure you need for it to sell. Because all realtors use the MLS system to list their homes for sale, the vast majority of buyers and buyer’s agents use the MLS to find homes. In short, if you want your home to sell – and sell fast – you must list it on the MLS.

 

Substantial Savings

 

If you wish to conceptualize the money you may save using a Dallas Flat Fee MLS service, consider that, on a 0,000 home, for example, you may save up to ,000 in realtor’s commission.

 

The only additional fee you may need to pay is the buyer’s agent commission.

 

Other services often included with the fee paid for Dallas Flat Fee MLS service include: lockboxes, for sale signs, and even contracts.

 

Work Alongside other Realtors

 

If you decide to sell your home yourself and use the services of a Dallas Flat Fee MLS, you will likely work alongside realtors who want to show your home to their clients. This can afford you a number of benefits, as you can be assured that the potential buyers have been preapproved. Plus, the buyer’s agent is willing to show your home because you will ultimately pay him or her a buyer’s agent commission. However, you are still eliminating the need to pay a seller’s agent, thereby saving you a considerable amount of money!

 

The Key to Success

 

The bottom line is that your best chance of success when selling your home FSBO is to get it listed on the MLS as Houston Flat Fee MLS Listing. If you don’t want to use the services of a seller’s agent and pay him or her a large commission (and therefore a large chunk of your proceeds), you can still get your home on the MLS using a Dallas Flat Fee MLS Service.

 

The flat fee charged by most Dallas Flat Fee MLS services is a fraction of what you would pay a realtor, so it pays to look into the advantages of using this type of service.

Whether you are selling a single-family home, a condominium, a townhome or vacant land, it pays to consider the many benefits of a Dallas Flat Fee MLS Service.

What do you think of when you hear the marketing term “Referral Letter Marketing”? I’ll bet you you think I’m talking about getting letters of recommendation and testimonials from your past clients, right? That’s a good marketing idea for Realtors too but I’m talking about getting a constant stream of client referrals from professionals like CPA’s, mortgage brokers, financial planners, attorneys and contractors; all with just a personal letter written by you, the world’s best Realtor.

Here’s the referral letter marketing idea for Realtors or agents in a nutshell: Generate a list of professionals that are likely to have clients that could potentially be your clients too. Put together a very personalized letter to mail to these professionals (regular mail, not email). Get creative on the envelope or package you send it in as well at some type of additional marketing piece, like a DVD you make using Animoto. Follow up with each professional by phone, if possible, and continue to mail/contact them once per month.

Many savvy Realtors and agents use this single marketing method to fuel their real estate businesses for their entire careers! There’s nothing wrong with following the leader.

First, let’s start a list of professionals that actually have the clients you could work with…

* Certified Public Accountants

* Mortgage Broker and Lenders (obviously)

* Financial Planners and Advisors

* Attorneys

* General Contractors

* Interior Designers

* Real Estate Appraisers

* Title and Escrow Officers

* Electricians

* Plumbers

* Landscapers

* Roofers

* Tree Service Companies

* Handymen

* You get the idea…

That list should get you off and running but there’s many more you can add in the future.

So how do you generate this list of specific professionals to market to? Great question. You have a couple of options, depending on how much money you have in your marketing budget.

One option is to search the yellow pages online. You should already have a geographic area you stick to so you’ll want to stay within that region, for the most part. The time consuming part about this option is the manual labor. You have to go through each person listed and find their name, phone number and mailing address. It could take you a while but if you have more time than marketing dollars, this is the way to go.

Another option for building this marketing list of professionals is to simply buy a list. In the same way you’re probably on one or more Realtor or agent lists being sold out there, just about every profession has their own list for sale too.

This isn’t some kind of “black market” or illegal list, don’t worry. These types of professional lists are out there because professionals (like us Realtors or agents) will sign up for various publications, organizations, events, etc. and their information gets compiled and sold. Surprised? Well, now you know where all that junk mail and spam comes from.

There are quite a few list companies out there but one of the largest that I’d recommend would be InfoUSA. You should be able to go to them for just about every profession out there, rather than going one company for a CPA list, another company for an attorney list, and so on. It’ll cost you a few bucks but it’ll save you a pant load of time!

So once you have this marketing list of professionals (however you chose to get it), it’s time to write your VERY personalized “referral letter”. I’m not going to get into how to write sales copy here though. That’s a topic all by itself. For now, you need to know that this letter can’t be a general “sales” letter that you’d mass mail to a farm area to generate listing leads, OK?

When one of these professionals gets this referral marketing letter, they need to feel like they’re the only one who got it, even though you may copy most of it and send it to other professionals.

It’s all about writing the letter as if you were talking to the person face-to-face. Don’t use a bunch of “salsey” clichés and standard “professional jargon” you read in the letters you get from your bank. Talk to them like a real person and capture their interest. (by the way, this “personalization” goes for just about all your marketing pieces: postcards, flyers, ads, emails, etc.).

The “meat and potatoes” of the letter needs to explain that you want to build a professional relationship with them where you can refer business to one another. You want to be their “go to” Realtor or agent for the rest of their career. Emphasize how they’ll benefit without trying to “sell” them on it, you know?

If you know something personal about their company or the area they work in, throw it in the letter. If you know of a client who’s worked with them, throw that in there too. Unless you start talking about their mom, there’s no way you can get TOO personal.

I would highly advise you to write this letter yourself, in your own words. But if you just hate writing this type of marketing material, you can take a look at http://www.elance.com. At Elance, you can sift through freelance writers from all over the country and world. You can check reviews on them, see what they’re charging for prices, contact them to ask questions, etc. You can even post the job you’re looking to fill and have writers come to you. It’s great.

OK, so now that you have your marketing list and referral letter written, it’s time to mail it out. But please don’t just send it in a plain white envelope like everyone else……please.

Find another unique mailing package or envelope with some color or size to it. You want that letter to stand out from all the other mail this guy or gall is getting that day. I would also hand-write the address and return address, as it’ll appear more personalized to the recipient. Think about how to prioritize your mail? Hand-written addresses go to the top of the pile, every time.

Next, you want to include a marketing piece, other than just the letter. One marketing idea would be to put together a video with Animoto, burn it on a DVD and send it with the letter.

One of my friends, a life insurance salesman, sent out a similar mailing and included poker chips with his contact info on them. His theme was “Don’t gamble with your life”. Genius! That’s the kind of creative juice you need to have flowing if you want to be the top dog Realtor or agent.

By the way, in this referral letter, I would direct them towards your website and phone number. Give them the option but make sure you give them both. You never know who hates talking on the phone or who hates looking at websites.

This last step is probably the most important. Repetition is king when it comes to marketing. Marketing industry statistics show a consumer needs to see or hear from you at least 7 times before they become familiar enough with you to act.

So keep following up with these professionals on your marketing list. I’d say shoot for once per month, either by phone or another letter, after you make the initial follow up phone call after your first mailing. If you have their email address, you can start using that for the follow ups too.

Just please be careful about not smothering them. Be courteous and give them space but at the same time, don’t let them forget which Realtor or agent they should be sending clients to.

As a side note, if you have the money but don’t have the time, think about hiring a teenager or college kid to stuff these mailers. You can write the referral letters yourself (or have someone from Elance do it), but have your hired-hand address the envelope, stuff it with the letter and marketing piece and have them mail it out. It’s cheap labor, just like US companies do when they hire overseas workers for their customer service call centers. (did I just throw in a cheap shot?)

Bottom line, I just think this is one of the best marketing ideas for Realtors or agents out there. Eventually it can give you a free stream of leads and prospects that can make you a top producing Realtor or agent, as long as you stick with it and build these referral relationships right. Focus on helping them as much as you want them to help you and the money will flow in.

Looking for real estate in one of the hottest markets in the country? You are if homes for sale San Diego is on your current “to buy” list. Whether you have already committed to scouring the listings for homes for sale San Diego, or you are a victim of curiosity, there are some things about the homes for sale San Diego market that make it unique and intriguing.

Unique Traits of Homes for Sale San Diego

While the cost of homes for sale San Diego is not what makes them appealing, it certainly makes this housing market stand out. Some segments of the San Diego area have average sale prices in the millions. But there are vast differences between the neighborhoods in this area. And this is part of what inspires thousands of homebuyers each year to pay premium prices for this real estate Mecca by the sea.

The differences between the neighborhoods where you will find homes for sale San Diego is epitomized by looking at Del Mar and El Cajon. Both neighborhoods are about 20 miles outside of downtown San Diego, but the feel of each (not to mention the price of the homes) is dramatically different.

Homes for Sale San Diego and El Cajon

El Cajon means literally “the box.” But what a gorgeous box it is. The El Cajon valley is bordered by awe-inspiring mountains on every side. This former cowboy territory is home to about 100,000 people and offers a beautiful escape from downtown San Diego. El Cajon is considered among the more affordable homes for sale San Diego districts. Some listings report an average price for single family homes around the 0,000 mark. Top end homes peak at about .4 million, while the least you will buy into the area for is around 0,000. Other sources report the median price at around 5,000. This community is accessible to more families than most other San Diego homes. Either way, these numbers are a bargain when compared to other homes for sale San Diego.

Homes for Sale San Diego and Del Mar

While El Cajon prides itself in diversity and humble cowboy roots, Del Mar is shamelessly luxurious and affluent. If you have the means to peruse homes for sale San Diego with the goals of comfort and ease, then Del Mar real estate is the place to start your search. Two miles of prime coastal homes with some of the country’s most accommodating golf courses make this area attractive to buyers who have earned the right to buy the best. You’re not likely to find homes for sale San Diego in the Del Mar area without paying at least a cool million. Probably more as the average list price is around .7 million. But owners of homes for sale San Diego who choose to make the Del Mar region home rarely regret the choice.

To really learn the secrets of each homes for sale San Diego market, I recommend you seek out a realtor from that specific area. Each neighborhood is unique and appealing. But only one will be home.

Are you searching to watch Inverness vs Dundee U. games on-line – by way of your Laptop? Just a couple of many years back, this was practically impossible – but now these days, you’ve several fantastic options. It’s actually fantastic that, because of engineering, you may simply switch on your Computer system or lap to and view all of the football you’ll be able to stand – for free of charge! Did I say totally free? Yep – you bet! If you have high-speed broadband internet and also a decent Computer system or laptop – you are in enterprise! Oh, and, needless to say, an cheap proprietary small software package that’ll make those Inverness vs Dundee U. matches seem on your laptop or computer rapidly and reliably – and inexpensive, too. Don’t worry about the bandwidth – that was a problem years back, but, thanks to today’s technologies, bandwidth is not an issue anymore, and will not interfere along with your Inverness vs Dundee U. action.

Watch Inverness vs Dundee U. MLS Online Live Free

It’s no secret that followers of Inverness vs Dundee U. can watch more than 150 games (typically in true higher definition (HD) format) in your laptop or computer – and enjoy them more than the program of the whole season!Regardless of where you stay – in the US or abroad (Europe, Middle East – no matter) you may observe your favourite teams play Stay . Every single Sunday, you may have your eyes glued to the screen (the display screen to your laptop – or personal computer!) and cheer your favored staff on to victory!

The motion is even greater as engineering pushes ahead and additional people are observing Television on their Computer system. Naturally, when you’ve got cable or satellite Tv, you are able to watch whatever is on ESPN – hopefully it’s your workforce that’s playing, but no guarantees! But, if you actually want to watch genuine Inverness vs Dundee U. motion – dwell, you actually really should look at viewing your Inverness vs Dundee U. on your Laptop.

Watch Inverness vs Dundee U. MLS Online Live Free

About 6 months ago, I had to travel to Europe for business, but I was heading to be away for two weekends – that indicates I would miss two Inverness vs Dundee U. games! I made the decision that I wasn’t heading to miss any motion and, just before I left, I downloaded that affordable () proprietary software onto my laptop. When I finally settled into my tiny hotel in London, I was ready to catch practically all in the sport! To me (and many other followers, I’m positive) this was really important – why not use modern technology to create life far more enjoyable? I did! You’ll never must skip another Inverness vs Dundee U. game ever once more!

Looking for your dream home? Maybe you are looking for that high end estate, vacation home or just a great long term investments?

In the good old days you would pay at least .5 million for about 1 acre lot and between 0 to ,000/SF for quality high end finishes. Today you can have it all for a fraction of the cost. 

There are currently 51 homes in the ARMLS (Arizona Regional Multiple Lisiting Service) system listed at M or over. The greater Scottsdale/ Paradise Valley market offers once in a lifetime opportunities for the savvy luxury home buyer. Some of the most quality homes in our area are priced well below replacement cost (from 8/SF to over 0/SF).  A few bank owned luxurious mansions has over 12,000 SF with as many as 9 bedrooms and 14 baths.

Many of the homes are located in exclusive gated communities, golf course communities, hillside homes with stunning views and upscale amenities. Some are even located the most known upscale communities such as DC Ranch, Desert Mountain, Troon, Whisper Rock, Silverleaf, Estancia, Camelback Country Club, Arcadia, Desert Highlands, Troon North, McDowell Mountain Ranch, Scottsdale Ranch and Grayhawk.

Even though, attractive mortgage financing is available for qualified buyer, if you can, consider making all cash offer and a quick closing.  This kind offer may save you a lot more money. I believe this is a prime time to buy into the luxury home market.  Some people where waiting for years to take advantage of the opportunities we see in our market today.

1.      General

The Business Strategic Systems (BSS) of latest generation systems include an impressive range of native building blocks – value added services domain related – integrated into some modular Product/ Solution Suite designed to penetrate saturated Markets and create strategic advantage. Such systems will position the Network(s) Operator to support services growth through a cost effective approach by: 1) capitalizing on existing investments, 2) utilizing the advantages of a full standardized and Plug’n Play modular Product/ Solution Suite and 3) push a set of specific strategic advantage Platform specific and native value added services to achieve Market differentiators using an agile approach. This article is focus on collateral value added services achieved through the implementation of the business strategic systems platforms as seen in the latest developments. It is outlined also the characteristics such platforms bring to be able to orchestrate together the new value added services set as collateral capabilities.

2.      Relevance

The importance of Business Support Systems (BSS) has increased dramatically. This is because these systems play a critical role in generating and managing revenues as well as reducing service providers’ operating costs while reaching the business targets which are getting more and more complex. To have a positive impact, such solutions must integrate quickly, simply and cost-effectively into the operating environment this is why modularity and flexibility as well as standardizations are critical. From this perspective capitalizing more functionality natively (in the value added services area) on these platforms is a definite asset for the enterprise.

3.      Market Differentiator

In the context of systems engineering, “modular design” is a complex approach aiming to subdivide the system into modules and layers that can be interconnected. What is aimed is a cost effective proposition of the system through reduction in cost, flexibility in design, modularity offers further benefits such as scalability and service augmentation – adding capacity and new native embedded value added services by just plugging new modules is a definite advantage. The unique bucket of value added services which is sometimes specific only to such implementations (natively embedded) makes a certain market differentiator for the OpCo in promoting unique services and revenue streams.

Players

BSS Suppliers, Convergent Operators, (Multi) Networks Operators, VARs, Resellers, MVNE(s), MVNO(s)

Modules

Operating Companies (a.k.a OpCo) willing to enable an integrated concept of Business Strategic Systems with Platform natively embedded value added services securing collateral revenue streams need the modules enumerated below as minimal foundation while searching suppliers. The Modules can be part of the same Supplier Suite or different Suppliers being plugged as 3rd parties within an integrated blend. The best would be to have an supplier securing all the deliverables rather than multiple 3rd parties to avoid integration overhead

 

USSD
IVR
Service Mediation
Service Billing
CRM
Service Provisioning
Service Self Care
Roaming
IPB (Inter Partner Billing)
SCP
Business Process (BP)
Point of Sales (POS)
Customer Analytics
Service Creation
Loyalty Management
Trouble Ticketing
3rd Party Web Service
Work Order Management
Resource Management
Fraud Management
Voucher Management
Finance Management
Accounting Management Reporting Management
Marketing
OSS/ J Compliance
eTOM Service Management practices compliance
SOA and Web Services compliance
Seamless customer experience on “unified channel” : Self Care Web, IVR, USSD, STK(SIM Tool Kit), Email and SMS – the ubiquitous customer access to the info. on both ways is a critical factor and Suite feature

 

Standardization

Business Strategic Systems (BSS) should be a native enablement for the following collateral Services considered Platform specific (natively) into the deployed platforms:

 

Multi-Play
Real Time Billing (RTB)
Service Controls
Spending Controls
Services Discovery
Balance Management 
Notifications Management
Raw Counters Services

4.                  Technical

Multi-Play

The implementation of the multi-play product utilizing Business Strategic Systems as enablers may consist:

1)    Pre-Requisites: Use Workflow Manager(BP) to set the Multi-Play Service

2)    To the customer level:

Enable the Service
Use Service Creation to set and shape the behaviour of the service components
Use Notifications Management mechanism

Value Service: “Single Bill” Management

Real Time Billing (RTB)

As concept the real time billing (a.k.a hot billing) is the capability to perform real time billing and seamless (post/ pre) customer bill reporting through the “unified channel”. The implementation of a Real Time Billing Service utilizing Business Strategic Systems as enablers may consist of:

1)      Pre-Requisites: Use Workflow Manager to set the Real Time Billing Service

2)      To the customer level:

Enable the Real Time Billing Service
Use Service Creation to set and shape the behaviour of the service components
 Use Notifications Management mechanism

Value Service: “Bill Shock” Management

Service Controls

The concept of service controls comes from the related “parental controls” implementations. Gated (on/ off) services have been around for some time however enabling them natively through Business Strategic Systems (BSS) proves a superior implementation and approach also.

1)      Pre-Requisites: Use Workflow Manager to set the Service Controls Service

2)      To the customer level:

Enable the Service Controls Service
Use Service Creation to set and shape the behaviour of the service components
Use Notifications Management mechanism

Value Service: “Parental Controls” Management

Spending Controls

The spending controls implementation introduces a set of customer services aimed to set limits on various way of managing the costs. The idea behind is to allow the customer the possibility to control and set its own spending behaviour yet preserving a dynamic to this preferences by allowing also interactive changes.

1)      Pre-Requisites: Use Workflow Manager to set the Spending Controls Service

2)      To the customer level:

Enable the Spending Controls Service
Use Service Creation to set and shape the behaviour of the service components
Use Notifications Management mechanism

Value Service: “Smart Expenses” Management and avoid “Bill Shock” – this is and it will be a Regulatory demand in many countries as the data services and customer mobility increases therefore roaming is getting more motion as revenue stream.

Services Discovery

Services Discovery means the capability to add, remove and update Services subscriptions based on preferences and context. This Service is presented to the customer as “push menu” through the “unified channel” in active or passive way. Active Subscription Management is pushing Services (context- aware push) – inviting the Customer to perform service/ plan switching actions and Passive Subscription Management is meant to have the customer initiating such actions. The idea is to allow the customer possibility to control and set its own behavioural context dynamically and interactively

1)      Pre-Requisites: Use Workflow Manager (BP) to set the Services Discovery Service

2)      To the customer level:

Enable the Services Discovery
Use Service Creation to set and shape the behaviour of the service components
Use Notifications Management mechanism

Value Service: “Push and Pull Value Services” Management

Balance Management

Balance Management related services create seamless means of handling balances for post and pre pay for various use cases. The concept allows the customer to handle various ways the balance.

      Pre-requisites: Use Workflow Manager (BP) to set the Balance Management Service
     To the customer level: Enable the Balance Management
Use Service Creation to set and shape the behaviour of the service  components
Use Notifications Management mechanism
Enable sub services:

Balance Value Cost Management
Wallet Management (e.g. family, corporate, personal…s.o)

Value Service: “Smart Balance” (and account) Management

Raw Counters Services

The Raw Counters (a.k.a customer analytics) based Services implementations introduce customer services aimed to use real time raw counters data based decisions and trigger various actions (or subservices) accordingly (e.g. if congestion on a cell areas (peak hr.) takes place to the cell level tease the customer to postpone the call by giving a $ voucher through an SMS code…so). Triggering special tariffs applying various cells and traffic load …for example whenever the load is low teasing the customers to make voice/ data calls “in the next 5 minutes or so” to get special discounted rates. Some other examples would be to trigger advertising based on cell area (or even orchestrated with Location Services) to basically fund calls using partner channels (e.g. advertising and loyalty based). The counters based services capitalize and efficiently use the existing network capacity by taking active decisions using it. Such services are active services.

1)      Pre-Requisites: Use Workflow Manager to set the Raw Counters Services Service

2)      To the customer level:

Enable the Counters Services Service
Use Service Creation to set and shape the behaviour of the service components
Use Notifications Management mechanism

Value Service: “Special Value Tariff” Management

Notifications Management

Notifications Management related services create seamless and ubiquitous means of handling interactions with customers for various use cases. The concept allows the Operating Company (OpCo) to interact with the customer to handle in various ways the communications through “unified channel” consisting of: SMS, USSD, Web Self-Care, IVR, Email and STK (SIM Tool Kit)

1.      Pre-requisites: Use Workflow Manager (BP) to set Notifications Management Service
2.      To the customer level: Enable the Notifications Management
Use Service Creation to set and shape the behaviour of the service  components

Value Service: Promoting “Unified Channel” Management 

5.                  Architecture Definition

To be able to implement the set of Services mentioned above a bit of dive into the concepts of related and supporting architectures is necessary. Decomposition of a Revenue Stream Flow

1)       Network Transport Plane à Charging Interface to Network Element (e.g. SCP Node)

2)       Network Control Plane à Network Transaction done by Charging Interface (e.g. CAMEL Protocol)

3)       Service  Control Plane à Service Transaction done by Network Control Plane (e.g. Prepay Call Session)

4)       Charging Control Plane à Charging Transaction initiated by Service Control Plane (e.g. CDR Spooling )

5)       Business Control Plane à Business Transaction done by Charging Control Plane  (e.g. CDR rating)

6)       Presentation Control Plane à Presentation Transaction done by Business Control Plane (CDR Report)

 

Functionality and Interactions

The charging mechanism is very important for Platform Specific BSS Services. Although they can be considered within value-added-services area the situational environment is different. Let have a quick recap how most commonly the charging for Services takes place in Telco environment:

Flat Fee – Recurring charge or one time charge
CDR – Usage based and discounted on usage
EDR – Event based and discounted per event occurrence
Bundle Flat – Recurring or one time charge discounted through bundled product association
Bundle CDR / EDR – Usage/ event based and discounted through bundled product association, amount$ , usage

Recommendation: Business Strategic Systems Platform Specific (native) Value Added Services will be more appropriate to be charged as combination of any of the below methods:

-          Bundle Flat Fee

-          Flat Fee

-          Both (of the above)

There is an explanation behind this approach and that is such collateral set of Services can be properly handled as add-on(s) to the existing Customer Plans. There is no real Network Transport behind such Services therefore there will be no Network Transactions (e.g. xDR). The BSS Platform Specific native embedded Services are based on Service Creation building blocks leveraging on features and orchestrated functionality of the other Network Elements.

Revenue Flow Diagrams

Multi-Play 

Internet + Phone + Wireless + TV (Quad Play) Aggregated Revenue Flow  – Multi Play Bundle

 

Considering 10% ARPU margins in our commercial business model for the “Bundle Product” the aggregated margins are higher than any of the Services offered independently (silos) before any discounting is applied.
The Bundle Multi Play Service is an integrated product having an aggregated type margins commercial proposition with enough room for discounting and other marketing warfare related tools to sustain and even grow the Market – that is, a strategic advantage consolidated into few customer value propositions:

-          “You will have one bill for all the services”

-          “You will enjoy more discounts than ever before”

Real Time Billing (RTB)

Offerings of RTB (real time billing) can occur in pre pay as well as post pay use cases – the RTB service can be offered to competitive prices on various customer segments:

Business Users (B2B) – business users on the go or heavy usage
Consumers Users (B2C) – heavy intensive usage (on the go customers)
Corporate Users (B2B) (global account) – set limits on corporate basis

Notifications Management Service will be by default enabled as part of this add-on Service. During Service Creation on RTB shaping this Service behaviour various notifications will be triggered. It is important that balance information to be broadcasted through the “unified channel” and as such communicated within value proposition

There are some related commercial value propositions:

“You will know your bill at any moment”
Spending Controls

The Spending Controls Service is a set of services focus on spending limits. The ability to allow the Customer to manage its own balance either post or pre is an important business advantage and soon to be a Regulatory one (“bill shock”). Notifications Management Service mechanism has to be triggered also within Spending Controls account activation to be able to inform the customer on reaching limits and actions to be taken. Within such actions Service Discovery activations may be required also to push on-the-fly subscriptions to the new plans more adequate the spending habits of that particular context or customer. Among some of the value propositions:

“You will control your spending habits”
Service Controls

The main scope for the Service Controls is to allow the customer some way of gating (on/ off) the Service behaviour entirely or on various configurable portions of the Service

 

The “gate” Service concept provides a mechanism to shape service behaviour and push few customer value propositions as such as:

“Your calling parties will be always screened”
“Your kids will be safer with parental controls”
“You won’t get any call you do not want”
Services Discovery

Services Discovery consists of a set of push services meant to increase the customer satisfaction with the overall subscription. That being said push services discovery reduce churn and offer an enjoyable experience of triggering the customer online and on the fly subscription the right plans shaped to its situational behaviour

 

Balance Management

Balance Management services are means/ ways of managing the customer account balance both post/pre pay customers. There are various ways to manage the account transactions:

 Prepay2prepay
 Debit2postpay
 Debit2prepay
 Postpay2prepay
 Prepay2postpay
 Credit2postpay
 Credit2prepay
 Loyalty2prepay (Loyalty à air miles / fidelity points)
 Loyalty2postpay (Loyalty à air miles / fidelity points)
 Ads2postpay (Ads à advertising channel)
 Ads2prepay (Ads à advertising channel)
 remium2postpay
 Premium2prepay
 Voucher2postpay
 Voucher2prepay
 Cash2postpay
 Cash2prepay
 ScratchCard2prepay
 ScratchCard2postpay 
 Postpay2postpay

The payment tools should be mapped to seamless experience making possible payments on all customer channels (a.k.a “payment channel”) and using Notifications Management as mechanism of acknowledge of such actions.

IVR
 USSD
Self Care
SMS
STK (SIM Tool Kit)
Email

 

Wallet Management

Through Business Strategic Systems (BSS) the customers can manage their balance over the day between corporate time and personal time enabling and alternating at time intervals the right wallets. The opportunity is for blending B2B and B2C within the same account and as strategic advantage of such service is the ability to differentiate on corporate and personal wallet per time intervals within the same account. Wallet Management is add-on to the Balance Management BSS Service

Balance Value Cost Management  

Through Business Strategic Systems based on the amount ($ ) on various account wallets the cost of balance can be paid for more value ($ ) replenishments/ payments. (e.g. buying 20$ top up (post/ pre) will secure 5c per min. while buying 30$ top up will drop to 3c per min. for example). Balance Value Cost Management is add-on to the Balance Management BSS collateral Service

Notifications Management

The notifications management mechanism is key stone in defining a proper user experience – it means mainly communications with customer as well as timely acknowledge and information about actions and transactions which were taken place either initiated or recommended by both: Operating Company (OpCo) or Customer.

6.                  Specifications and Standards

The Business Strategic Systems (including additional services) as Practice have as requirements the Service Creation Environment (SCE) along with Workflow Manager (Business Process (BP)) to support process and service creations as well as to shape the behaviours whenever the services and processes are triggered.

Graphical Call Flow Representation — Service Creation Environment  (SCE) users easily build applications using drag-and-drop Action Components (a.k.a building blocks) to enable various built-in operations, linking them in a flow-chart style representation to construct the Service.
Workflow Manager(BP) is based on open internet standards
User authentication through Single Sign On (SSO)(e.g. active directory or LDAP)
Collaborative process modeling architecture
Export process models to PDF, PNG, RDF for further processing, analysis, and reporting
Services built with the Service Creation Environment (SCE) building blocks are translated into XML (eXtensible Markup Language) and then executed via handlers when the trigger is fired
The Service Creation Environment (SCE) and Workflow Manager runs in a web browser, zero software installation
The Business Process Engine (BP) is a process platform – stakeholders can process model based on Web and integrations with wikis 
Service Creation Environments and Workflow Manager (BP) are extensible, can be added as plug-in(s)
Workflow Manager(BP) should support process modeling languages (e.g. BPMN)
Environment Requirements
Support of all basic editor features like Copy & Paste, save (as), print, undo/redo and so on
Creation of shapes by dragging the shape from the shape repository onto the canvas
Creation of shapes by using the context specific shape menu
Step-by-step modeling of processes via shape menu and following nodes to the user
Changing of a shapes properties via the property window with property types
Editing labels by double-clicking on a shape
Grouping of shapes
Syntax checking for process models

The business process execution language (BPEL) is XML-based language to specify environment business processes. The activities of the business processes are implemented as Web Services (WS-*). BPEL was defined by Microsoft, IBM and BEA in 2002 as BPEL4WS 1.0. Version 2.0 was defined by OASIS as WS-BPEL 2.0 in 2004. BPEL processes can invoke other web services and they can be invoked from other web services. The web service interface is defined in the web service description language (WSDL). The Simple Object Access Protocol (SOAP) is used as transport protocol between Web Services.

Technology Implementations Solutions

The technology supporting such Business Strategic Systems (BSS) native value added services platforms functionality is usually Service Oriented Architecture (SOA) and Web Services based. Highlights over the technology descriptions and solutions characteristics can be enumerated below as such:

Modular components Web based (front end)(e.g. XHTML) Accessible through Mozilla and Firefox from within various Operating Systems (OS)

Modular components Linux EE open source (back end) Red Had OS (critical) based platforms (EE)
Fedora OS (non critical) based platforms
Apache Software Foundation (Apache Web Server)
JBOSS Application Server (EE)
Open Laszlo (for Self Care)
jBPM BPEL ( JBOSS)
Layer 7 content based  Load Balancers
Nagios (performance monitoring)
IN components (C/ C++) (cluster)
USSD/ IVR SIGTRAN M3UA Cards (RFC4666)
Mediation (C/ C++)
MIB based Fault Management
MySQL Cluster DB
N+1 architecture for critical nodes
SOAP/ xml based Provisioning
Eclipse based Service Creation Environment (SCE)

OSS/J and SLEE compliance (www.jcp.org)
Web Services based modules plug-in(s ) and connectors for extensibility
jBOSS ESB (Enterprise Service Bus)
Integrated Business Process (BPEL)
xml based Graphical Service Creation Environment
eTOM business compliance (user plane – service plane – network plane)
x86 based processors and 19″ rack able units (42U Cabinets)
DC power and CAT6 STP cabling with multimode fibre optics to SAN

In terms of roadmap short term evolution the Open Source will dominate this area however the web stack is probably the most exposed to a quicker evolution due capacity and agility demands…let have a quick recap on Web Stacks over the past decade:

1998 – Netscape – Bea/ SAP – Oracle
2008 – Apache – PHP/ Perl/ Python – MySQL
Soon to come…- lighttpd – Hadoop – MogileFS
What is long term evolution of such integrated services platforms…?

“It’s one of the foundations of the next generation of computing. . . It’s a world where the network is the platform for all computing, where everything we think of as a computer today is just a device that connects to the big computer we’re building. Cloud computing is a great way to think about how we’ll deliver computing services in the future.”

Tim O’Reilly, CEO, O’Reilly Media

The Cloud Computing is coming into Business Strategic Systems domain also with a clear trend recent to push public and private clouds in solving such business needs. The explanation behind these trends is considerable drop in prices driven by the strong footprint the Open Source is taking into this domain. Enabling technologies for cloud computing can deliver capabilities on unprecedented scale.

Sophisticated file systems (such as ZFS) can support unlimited storage capacities, integration of the file systems and volume management.
Patterns in architecture allow for accelerated development of super scale cloud architectures.
Machine images can be instantly deployed simplifying and accelerating resource allocation while increasing agility.

The long term benefits of migrating and employing in the future cloud computing are:

Efficiency/Economy – promoting clear “green”-computing concept. It enables server clusters to function more efficiently and saves costs on energy, cabling, HVAC minimizing capital expenditures
Reliability/Availability – service-level availability through the built-in hardware-level availability features from failover to clustering to dynamic reconfiguration
Density/Scalability – high density and large number of Cores per rack and transactions per rack unit
Agility – multiple hardware architectures to customize systems to workloads enabling sharing of resources (and the associated costs) for: Centralization of infrastructure in areas with lower costs (e.g. real estate)
 Peak-load capacity increases without engineering for highest possible load levels

“The rise of the cloud is more than just another platform shift that gets geeks excited. It will undoubtedly transform the IT industry, but it will also profoundly change the way people work and companies operate.”

—The Economist, “Let it Rise,” 10/23/08

Case Studies
Operator A (Italy) Loyalty based Value Added Reseller (VAR) and MVNO using TIM Network. It has its own Global Title(s) range but SIM range is within TIM ranges. The company uses Business Strategic Systems to co create value blending streams of loyalty points on top of the corporate B2B discounted offer from TIM for their existing customer base. The customers are provisioned within Business Strategic Systems with the following collateral  value added Services : Real Time Billing (RTB) Service for all the calls (voice/ data)(leveraging 1) strategic advantage on web self-care and real time bill reporting)
Notifications Management Service (leveraging 2) strategic advantage on Customer Care on “unified channel” and “payment channel”)
Balance Management (which will leverage 3) strategic advantage on two(2) methods: loyalty2account and ads2account)

Operator B (Holland) Loyalty based MVNE using KPN Network to provide services to various MVNOs. It has its own Global Title(s) (GT) ranges and its own SIM ranges (e.g. it has its own MCC – MNC). The company uses Business Strategic Systems (BSS) to co create value partnering with various retail channels blending their loyalty points on top of its MVNE B2B discounted wholesale rate with KPN. The following Business Strategic Systems collateral  Services are enabled: Real Time Billing (RTB) Service for all the calls (voice/ data)(leveraging 1) strategic advantage on web self-care and real time bill reporting)
Notifications Management Service (leveraging 2) strategic advantage on Customer Care on “unified channel” and “payment channel”)

Balance Management (which will leverage 3) strategic advantage on two(2) methods: loyalty2account and ads2account) 
Operator C (Israel) Service Discovery àRoaming Services – intercepting through SCP (and CAMEL IDP) the VLR ID will give an indication that the customer is roaming not homing. The Service Creation will trigger in the Business Strategic Systems (BSS) SCP to push and list a set of Roaming Products through BSS USSD on the screen (and SMS, Voice Mail also). This service gives an option for better user experience by subscribing (1) to Real Time Billing (RTB) and (2) opt-in to Services Discovery.
Spending Controls –Balance Management limits capabilities along with the notifications and related triggers will help operators increase their customer satisfaction offering an option to the customer base to self manage the expenses and behaviours turning into an agreeable and peace of mind user experience any potential costly usage of the service (e.g. roaming)
Operator D (Poland) Service Controls – parental controls are very important services. Intercepting (SCP) Calling Party (CAMEL IDP) the Business Strategic Systems can restrict and/or redirect the CS Calls and Diameter (Data). The subscription would be to (1)Real Time Billing as well as (2)Service Controls
Operator E (Romania) Quad Play – The Service Creation Environments of various network adapters helped leveraging a large number of chargeable service points both post pay and prepay and across various domains as Wireline, Cable and Wireless. The offline and online charging as well the automation of discounting (usage based) across domains for the overall Quad Play bundle was a strong value proposition for B2C customers and a considerable market differentiator on B2B segment
Grab and Go – Promoting “hot” handsets kits (MSISDN/ IMSI activated in HLR) through sales channel partners this implementation of Service Controls will get the account activated via USSD code or SMS or IVR ( or through any methods within customer “unified channel”)

Operator F(Moldavia) Off – Peak Calling – Implementing Balance Value Cost Management through Customer Analytics Module (subset of Raw Counters Services) offers real time reporting of the SCP load therefore for the customers subscribing to the Real Time Billing (RTB) the customer analytics would help increase customer satisfaction by teasing customers to make calls into areas (or cells) where the load is low to better capitalize on existing traffic available capacities.  The dynamic calling plan tariff can be added on top of RTB as add-on offering large discounted calls on various destinations teasing customers for more traffic.

7.      Technology Evolution

Technology direction trend is to be used considerably the open source developments employing highly redundant architectures. Open Source evolves rapidly making an attractive cost benefit propositions for Carrier Grade Service Level Agreements (SLA) and Key Performance Indicators (KPI). The current evolutions of existing technologies – mentioned above – are to harden more and more the critical areas of the real time processing which is still close source dependent (e.g. Oracle DB and Windows OS for example in some supplier implementations or mediation and SCP implementations to others). Few other trends:

Hardening SCP/ USSD/ IVR – Network Hardware (HW) Components with fault tolerant capabilities
Solution Architecture (including Security) – SOA and Web Services
Increased open source solution availability and reliability (moving from 3 x 9s (open source) to 4 x 9s (mixed) to 5 x 9s (close source) through open source only)
Increase solution performance and flexibility (including User Interface) through Java/ Web  only technologies (some areas are still C/C++ especially where real time processing is required(e.g. SCP)
Enrich Ease of Use and open standards integration points especially on critical User Experience
Achieve Carrier grade OAM (including Backup and Restoration)
Enhanced Reporting – see below what it has to be as minimal implementation

Dynamic Decision

Reports done in real or near real time to support tactical decision based on call volumes including customer analytics and interpretations related to them

Performance

Reports on commercial criteria based on any database field product combinations to support new product development introduction or existing commercial portfolios

Forecasting

Reports on problem management on topics as such as dimensioning and traffic analysis based on historical data to be able to support the planning process on commercial and technology also

8.      Market Overview

Telco markets are saturated in Wireline and near saturated in Mobile, leaving Telco to explore developing nations as potential growth or innovating disruptive business models and services approaches. Business Model variations bringing new value propositions and making commercial difference in the existing landscape are considered critical. Business Strategic Systems Platform Specific collateral Services are part of such innovative set of new services making a difference

Ecosystem

Usually the Value Chain of the Business Strategic Systems is the following:

USSD
IVR
Service Mediation
Service Billing
CRM
Service Provisioning
Service Self Care
Roaming
IPB (Inter Partner Billing)
SCP
Business Process (BP)
Point of Sales (POS)
Customer Analytics
Service Creation
Reporting Management
Loyalty Management
Trouble Ticketing
3rd Party Web Services
Work Order Management
Resource Management
Voucher Management
Fraud Management
Finance Management
Accounting Management
25.   Marketing 

9.      Market Predictions

General trends in the last yrs. driven by Standardization bodies (TISPAN and 3GPP) the Business Strategic Systems start approaching convergence (for both post pay and pre pay) and multi networks across the business lines related integrated products as new business enablers and market differentiators to:

-       Generate revenue

-       Reduce CAPEX and OPEX

-       Increase attractiveness, reduce churn

-      Create strategic advantage through native value added services

Strategy and Evolution Trends

The integrated products and services offerings are taking larger footprints within Telco. Higher margins specific of such offerings are becoming more attractive within the overall commoditization process of Telco services and a constantly saturated market. The current ongoing experience of the Operators into the silos services (e.g. wireless only, or Wireline only) has proved not viable into the existing competitive business environment. Combined revenues coming from large integrated products and services across networks and line of business addressing a full spectrum of communications can secure strategic advantage on such complex markets and be the next steps forward maintaining service profitability. Most of the existing Telco Business Strategic Systems cannot support, based on their current technology, new coming differentiated value propositions as having certain limitations and the most critical being their implementation is not flexible and agile enough to cope with the business pace in terms of requirements and technology.

Key Concepts

Few key concepts from this article: Integrated Services Platforms (BSS + VAS) are going to take a larger footprint due their strong native support to fast pace business requirements and higher ARPU margins as well as their agile approach (cost/ benefits) (native VAS) to the enterprise. The standardization and modularization are critical as next step will be cloud computing implementations which will cover module to module migrations. The price per subscriber within such integrated approach is under 3$ for Tier 2 and under 1$ for Tier 3 OpCo(s) within a 10 yrs. period (see below).

Today’s implementations of such platforms are not securing the integrated services platforms concepts, even the main function(BSS) is tampered in various of its dimensions either through missing functionality or not completed implementation of such functionality and this is for most of the implementations which gives a lot of drawback to properly implement and support the business beyond such technology.

Costs

Let have a quick look over the TCO (Total Cost of Ownership) of acquiring such Business Strategic Systems in the presented ecosystem presented above as integrated services platforms and enablers

OpCo Size à less than 1 mil. Customers

5 yrs. time frame between 3$ to 5 $ / sub.
10 yrs. time frame between 2 $ to 4 $ / sub.

OpCo Size à less than 5 mils. Customers, higher than 1 mils. Customers

5 yrs. time frame between 1$ to 3 $ / sub.
10 yrs. time frame under 1 $ / sub.

 

Benefits
Reduces Churn and build loyalty

-      Stimulates usage

-      Enriches end-user experiences

-      Improves new user experience & usage habits

-      Increases and optimizes revenue through enablement of new services

Business Assurance

-       Immediate service creation

-      Customize to changing needs

Unified customer experience by enabling all channels: Web Self Care, USSD, SMS, STK, Email and IVR – the “unified channel”

10.  About the Author

Marinel Rosca is senior market and technology development professional having a successful track record in the advancement and leadership of regional, national, and international ventures. The broad experience in Telecom was acquired being part of various initiatives over the last +15 yrs. in companies as such as AT&T Mobility in USA, Ericsson Canada (www.ericsson.com), Fido Canada (www.fido.ca) and recently with Wind Mobile  (Orascom Group) spear heading telecom enterprise technology developments and innovation initiatives as head of various departments. Marinel has a masters’ degree in engineering from Carleton University in Canada and can be reached at: mrosca@connect.carleton.ca

11.  Acknowledgements

The work at this article was supported through an extensive research on both Operating Companies (OpCo(s)) as well as Telco Suppliers Lab Trials during the summer of 2010. The author of this article has spent a large amount of time collecting information and interviewing stakeholders for this study (and article) with various suppliers and OpCo(s) which are Industry top of the class of such integrated services platforms to determine and classify various flavours of implementations of Business Strategic Systems native embedded Value Added Services as well as their immediate (or long term) benefits for the OpCo enterprise.  Whether you plan to create a sophisticated BSS RFI/ RFP or just invite various suppliers on workshops to see how they meet your requirements (implicitly your business needs) this article is guiding you to get the maximum of such time.

12.  References

Ioakim (Makis) Marmaridis, Bhuvan Unhelkar, “Challenges in Mobile Transformations: A Requirements Modeling Perspective for Small and Medium Enterprises,” International Conference on Mobile Business, 2005
Cloud Computing for the Enterprise—Forrester Research, February 2009
Software-As-A-Service Adoption Expands—Forrester Research, February 2009
Gartner Top 10 Strategic Technologies for 2010  

The Toronto condo market is a great alternative to home ownership if you are a first time real estate buyer or looking to downgrade your current real estate investment due to changes in your personal finances or other outside factors. As each year passes, condos are eating up a larger share of the total Toronto real estate market with no end in site.

With the Toronto condo market hot, many construction companies have helped to fuel a condominium construction boom in the GTA that has been under way for more than 7 years now. The result of all of that construction is a massive influx of people moving into the downtown core to live and work.

An interesting fact: Toronto is the number one city in N. America for new condo construction and availability.

Clearly the people of Toronto as well as the new home construction companies working there are telling us that the people of Toronto are looking for more affordable ways to live downtown.

The average price of a condo in Toronto last year was 5,000 compared with 0,000 in the previous year. While average condo prices may be rising this number is clearly much lower than the average cost of a new home in Toronto.

The number of home sales in the downtown core, when you include new and resale condominiums in the mix, greatly exceeds those in the other parts of Toronto and also experiences more competition from buyers helping to drive up the prices for real estate in the downtown core in general.

Buying a condo does not have to feel like “settling for less” as most condos come with first rate amenities such as a sizable terrace, a great view, a true loft, a location close to public transit or perhaps even a swimming pool or gym in the building.

If this is your first foray into real estate ownership or you are an existing homeowner who would like to reduce their debt load you can have confidence that investing in the Toronto condominium market will be a smart investment decision.

Toronto has indeed earned it’s reputation as the top market for condominiums in North America with over 260 projects planned or already under construction. “Deteriorating affordability levels in major Canadian centers have led to the resurrection of the condominium lifestyle in recent years,” said Michael Polzler, executive VP of Re Max Ontario-Atlantic Canada.

With the costs associated with home ownership continuing to climb upwards year after year condominiums can help to play a role in bridging the gap for people who would like to invest in Toronto real estate but cannot afford to buy a home. This option becomes quite attractive to first time buyers or buyers without a lot of responsibilities such as having a large family to plan for.

While condo prices may be heading upward, there is still opportunities for the bargain hunter to find a condominium in a nice neighborhood for less than 5,000. The advent of the internet has made finding these bargains easier than ever with the MLS as well as private sale real estate sites easy to access.

With record sales in 2007, forecasts for the 2008 Toronto real estate sales market are lower than 2007 record levels with average prices expected to rise at a slower pace.

After posting many articles about real estate marketing on my blog referencing the Three C’s of internet marketing: Create Traffic, Capture Prospects and Cultivate Clients, I received several post that disagreed with creating a capture form over the MLS page on their real estate web site.

I firmly believe that a capture form over the MLS page should be mandatory for a serious real estate agent utilizing the internet to capture real estate leads. First, most users want to view the MLS. That is their objective: compare prices, search by location, view pictures, etc. Therefore, if you are giving that information away for free, you are missing out on a huge opportunity to expand your business.

Second, you will create a filter that eliminates “tire kickers” and “time wasters”. Please understand that not all traffic is qualified traffic. In fact only five to ten per cent of the traffic is qualified. Therefore, nine out of ten people visiting the site will not complete a form, but that’s ok. By capturing five to ten per cent of the traffic, you have exceeded the standards of most conventional real estate marketing campaigns.

Many agents feel that by creating a capture form over their MLS page they will drive traffic away because the prospect is able to search the MLS elsewhere without divulging personal information.

Analyze the traffic that is driven away: is it serious qualified traffic or is it “tire kicking” “time wasters?” Are they looking for a real estate agent to help them search for a new home or are they searching to compare prices for their next refi? I think we both know the answer. If the prospect is serious about purchasing a home in your area of expertise, then they will not hesitate to provide you with contact information such as name and email address.

Now as an agent you have to ask yourself a couple of questions:

Are you trying to capture qualified traffic that will be purchasing real estate in the next 3-6 months?

Or, are you trying to build a large database, regardless of intention?

If you are agent one, then put a capture form over your MLS page. If you are agent two, keep it just the way it is and offer raffles, prizes & give-aways to create contacts.