It’s amazing to me that I’ve been doing Home Sale News for 6 years! I get tons of complements from subscribers and I love that.
Here’s the first issue from June 14, 2001 that I sent out to some friends and family.
At that time I wasn’t a Realtor. My business objective was to sell advertising to Realtors. Realtors, I found out are rather… let’s say… frugal. So, that didn’t work out.
A year and a half after starting, the obvious suddenly hit me, “I keep getting emails and phone calls from subscribers who think I’m a Realtor. I’m not making any money selling advertising. Why don’t I become a Realtor?”
Using Home Sale News to generate business for my Realtor services has worked out much better for me. I still feel, however, there is a breakthrough out there waiting for Home Sale News.
Here is an issue 6 years later, June 14, 2007.
Notice that when you click on the price of the home, you are linked to the Maricopa County Assessor’s page for that home. That early improvement came out of an email exchange with a subscriber. Thanks! Another subscriber suggestion was adding the year built.
In 2006, I added a link to homes listed for sale which subscribers had constantly been asking for.
And a year ago I created this blog Arizona Real Estate Notebook so I could off load a lot of the text from Home Sale News and improve the odds Home Sale News would actually arrive in subscribers’ e-mail boxes.
Spam filters are a constant problem. Home Sale News is often mis-identified as spam because Home Sale News can look similar to mortgage spam to a computerized spam filter.
The sign-up page for Home Sale News http://www.HomeSaleNews.com is in desperate need of a makeover. Right now it looks like it should be in a museum of bad web design.
My top objective now, however, is providing great service to my clients who are buying and selling homes, so the makeover will have to wait.
Nevertheless, Home Sale News is my baby and my baby is 6 years old. One of the great thrills of creating and publishing Home Sale News is when I serendipitously run across a subscriber. I love that! For example, a week ago I promoted an open house in Home Sale News and several subscribers showed up. I loved meeting them! Great fun!
Many Realtors subscribe so it’s a thrill when I meet another Realtor who already knows who I am.
Right now I send out over 57,000 Home Sale News e-newsletters each week to over 16,000 different email addresses. (That means the average subscriber subscribes to 3+ zipcode newsletters.)
THANK YOU TO ALL SUBSCRIBERS!
I REALLY APPRECIATE IT!
Call me when you’re ready to talk to a Realtor you already know well.
John L. Wake
Associate Broker
HomeSmart Real Estate
480-596-3851
{ 4 comments… read them below or add one }
Pilar Calderon 06.18.07 at 1:32 pm
Congratulations for your successful and informative web page, it has been very helpful for me and many other people that moved to Arizona recently, I have been receiving your e-mails for almost two years and right now I have an exact idea of the value of my home. You give us information that others charge for.
henri 06.18.07 at 7:57 pm
your Home Sale News e-mail saved us at least $10K (agent was pushing us to accept a lower offer). We found it to be so much better than the comps agents were giving us when we sold our home this past Jan.
spending 10min with the email and opening up the address on google maps gave us a sense of what was selling in the neighborhood.
I recommend it to all our friends who are selling or thinking of selling.
I don’t know if you keep old data around, but I think a way to request the last X months for a zip code would be great.
We moved to Bellingham WA, but I still check your blog to see how things are doing in AZ
keep up the good work
henri
John L. Wake - Realtor 06.18.07 at 9:31 pm
God love ya, henri!
Jason Ganz 06.19.07 at 7:30 pm
Great post! I am gonna share it with my own blog readers at jason.landbrokr.com ! Thanks.