How Creative Agents Thrive in a Tough Market

RISMEDIA, August 4, 2008-Connecting Neighbors, a division of Reply! Inc. and provider of online neighborhood marketing programs proudly introduces three real estate teams who are creatively using Neighborhood Website sponsorship to succeed in today’s market. With over one million real estate professionals in the United States, Art Gregoire, Terry Nelson, Vanessa Saunders and Steve and Vickie Thomas have found a way to set themselves apart from the competition and continue generating revenue in their communities. Each of these teams sponsors their individual community’s website, while adding personal touches to build crucial business relationships.

Art Gregoire and Terry Nelson, Cathedral City, California agents, sponsor www.MyCCCove.com in their 500-home community. The team not only sponsors their website, but also hosts community awareness events, featuring local government leaders as speakers. Through these efforts, the team has proven their dedication, and in turn, developed key relationships that have led to new business. Gregoire and Nelson explain, “as a result of our Connecting Neighbors website, we’ve become more involved in the community and have gone from selling two homes in the Cove in 2006 to selling 10 in 2007. We are now the dominant agents in our community and plan for this growth to continue.”

Vanessa Saunders has only been in the real estate industry for two years, but has successfully developed and executed a niche marketing strategy that has made her the number one agent in Rockland County for the past four months. As a result of providing www.PositivelyPiermont.com as a free community resource for the town of Piermont, New York, including allowing local businesses to advertise for free, Saunders has built crucial partnerships, ultimately creating a brand for herself as the Neighborhood Expert. Saunders reports, “I have taken nine listings in the past 13 months as a direct result of my site! Several of these listings were for over $1 million.”

As the real estate market continued to turn downward in 2007, Stephen and Vickie Thomas were looking for a way to set themselves apart from other agents and win business from buyers and sellers. They created a marketing strategy, focused on their 5,800-home Bryan, Texas community to do just that. By focusing on their niche market, meeting as many business owners and local leaders as possible, and ultimately connecting with residents through their Connecting Neighbors website (www.BryanNeighbors.com), the Thomas’ have built a reputation in the area as agents who care. This reputation, along with all of their efforts, has generated more business for the team and helped them stay on top in a tough market. As the Thomas’ explain, “we really feel like our community website gives us an edge over our competition and has tremendous potential to help our business grow exponentially.”

According to the company, Connecting Neighbors provides real estate professionals a unique way to share their local expertise with residents outside of the typical real estate marketing methods. Each Connecting Neighbors program, sponsored exclusively by a local real estate professional, includes a neighborhood website, newsletter, personal marketing support and a relationship manager tool.

For more information, visit www.connectingneighbors.com/sponsor.