Jamie Burke

Jamie (she/her) is a Writer with Real Estate Magazine, as well as Partner of a marketing agency, Burke By Burke, with her husband Eddie. She is an avid reader, self-proclaimed foodie, urban land economics enthusiast, Barry’s Tea drinker and part-time yogi. She lives, works and plays in Port Moody, BC, on the ancestral and unceded homelands of the kʷikʷəƛ̓əm (Kwikwetlem), səlilwətaɬ (Tsleil-Waututh), xʷməθkʷəy̓əm (Musqueam), Sḵwx̱wú7mesh (Squamish), q̓ic̓əy̓ (Katzie), qʼʷa:n̓ ƛʼən̓ (Kwantlen), qiqéyt (Qayqayt), and Stó:lō (Sto:lo) Peoples

The post Speeding up the FINTRAC grind: How Fintracker’s technology is setting out to support, not replace, realtors appeared first on REM.

Jason Lo

Jason joins Dealpath as Head of Canada & Managing Director from Altus Group, where he most recently served as Senior Vice President of Go-To-Market, Intelligence and Strategy after successfully heading up GTM execution for its Data Solutions Division. Prior to Altus Group, he was Vice President of Sales and Client Services at RealNet Canada and played a key role in Altus Group’s successful acquisition of the company. He has also held leadership roles at other firms including FiLogix, where he was an integral part of its sale to Davis + Henderson Credit Solutions Group, and co-founded GUI Software Systems which was acquired by FiLogix. Jason holds a law degree from Osgoode Hall Law School and is a member of the Law Society of Upper Canada and Real Estate Council of Ontario.

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REM Editorial Team

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Where do you get started? Don’t worry, we’ve mapped it out for you step-by-step.

Your handle versus your name

Your handle is shown at the top left of every piece of content you post. It’s also used when people want to tag you in their content.

Choose your username carefully and make sure it’s easily searched. If your handle looks something like @bestrealtor86725, it’ll make it hard to impossible for potential followers/clients to find you. We recommend you use your company name. This way, those aware of your brand will be able to type in your name and find you right away.

Your name is listed above your bio and is the perfect opportunity to use searchable keywords so people who don’t know you can find you. Think of what your ideal client would type into Google search to find you. We recommend going with your service, followed by your location. For example, Toronto Realtor or Vancouver Real Estate.

Once you’ve selected your name, head over to the Explore page and type those keywords in. Does your name pop up? If so, you’re all set! If not, try different keywords.

Take full advantage of your bio

Instagram limits the number of characters you can use in your bio so it’s vital that you include as much relevant information as possible. Instagram bios are searchable too, so using relevant keywords can help new followers and potential clients find your account.

This is also a good opportunity to let people know exactly what you offer, list more specific areas you serve in and show off your brand’s personality.

Stay away from bios like this:

I can sell your home over asking! Give me a call 416-555-1234

Or worse, no bio at all.

Instead, try writing a bio like this:

📍Helping you navigate the Toronto real estate market

🏡 200+ happy clients since 2018

💚 Less house, more home

Let’s find your dream home together! ⬇️

Use your website link wisely

This one may seem obvious. Put your website link where it says website and you’re done. Before you do that, we’d like you to consider something first. This area is the only place, outside of your Stories, where you can add a clickable link.

We often see people add links to their post captions but not only are they not clickable, you can’t copy and paste them either. Make sure you keep links out of your captions and instead include call-to-actions inviting your followers to tap the link in your bio.

That being said, you definitely need to make sure you make the most out of your one link.

Using a website like Linktr.ee or the Link In Bio feature if you have a Later.com account (a post scheduling platform) allows you to create a landing page where you can add multiple websites under one link.

Your profile picture – the first piece of branded content

Followers and potential clients want to feel like they have a clear vision of your brand before reaching out. The first thing they’ll see when visiting your profile is your picture.

Low-quality, busy pictures should be avoided at all costs! Ensure that your picture is high quality, clear and the correct format so your image is centred and not cut off within the circle. Keep it simple, it’s a small space. Try to avoid small text or multiple elements. We recommend using a professional, well-lit headshot or, if you’re a team, stick with your logo.

Your contact button

Just like the link, followers aren’t able to tap or copy and paste contact information left in captions. If you’d like them to contact you, include a call-to-action inviting your followers to tap the Contact button in your profile.

To add a Contact button to your profile with your phone number and email address, tap “Edit profile” below your website link, select “Contact options” and type in your information. Once you’ve filled that out, a Contact button will appear on your profile page.

Your Instagram story highlights

Instagram stories only last 24 hours, then disappear. With Instagram Highlights you can save specific stories to your profile long-term. This is a great way to introduce yourself and your team, show testimonials, let people know what you offer, show off your current listings and any other company pillar.

We’ve created a few Canva templates with Highlights covers that you can customize and use on your profile. Simply tap each link to save the templates to your Canva account.

Highlights Template 1

Highlights Template 2

Now you have everything you need to optimize your Instagram profile. Have questions? Leave them in the comments below.

Jennifer McNamara

Hi, I’m Jen and I’m a social media marketer with Just Sell Homes & REM. I’d love to have a clever bio written for you but it’s just not my strength. What I can do is teach you how to create a social media strategy customized to you and show you how to put it into action. Whether you’re just looking to refine the strategy you’ve got or you’re, shall we say, technically/social media challenged? Either way, I’ve got your back.

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The physical business cards use near field communications (NFC) technology to make it easier for agents to share their contact information with potential clients. They enable agents to share contact and business information to another smartphone with a tap of the card onto a recipient’s NFC-eligible mobile device. With this tap, the agent’s Sotheby’s International Realty Canada 

Agent ID contact card opens on the recipient’s device with the option for them to instantly add the agent’s contact to their smartphone, making  information-sharing touchless. An agent’s professional information, including contact details, business specialties, service areas and professional social media accounts are instantly shared. 

Each  Sotheby’s agent has a unique QR code that is accessible to them on the company’s proprietary cloud-based marketing and real estate brokerage management software, Gateway. Each personalized QR code is also printed on the agent’s business card in case a  prospective contact prefers to save their information by scanning a QR code, rather than using the NFC-technology enabled tap.

Agents may also add their personalized digital business card to their smartphone’s Apple Wallet or Google Pay as a digital wallet card.

“In a world that is increasingly digital and touchless, Agent ID physical and digital business cards simplify the exchange of professional information in a way that is both seamless and strategic,” says Tahan Martins, director of brand innovation. “As a company, we are proud that this latest technology addition positions our agents and brokers as being on the leading edge of real estate business innovation with each networking interaction.”

The cards enable agents to share contact and business information to another smartphone with a tap of the card onto a recipient’s NFC-eligible mobile device.

REM Editorial Team

realestatemagazine.ca

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HonestDoor says it will use the funds “to scale its real estate platform to facilitate the on-demand delivery of automated valuation models on any property in Canada at a consistently high level of accuracy.” The company also plans to test its model in select U.S. markets.

HonestDoor says it leverages real estate data, machine learning, data science and a team of data analysts to provide estimated property valuations on houses and condos. The company, which was founded in 2018, also aggregates property taxes, transaction data, permit data and neighbourhood growth rates to provide a resource for real estate information in Canada.

“Using HonestDoor, Realtors and existing/potential homeowners can make more informed decisions based on trends, predictive metrics related to the rental market or resale shifts in neighbourhood valuations, permits requested for a property they are considering buying, home assessments and more,” the company says in a news release.

The company says it will soon provide this information for almost every property in Canada, not just those listed for sale.

Daniel Belostotsky, founder and CEO of HonestDoor, says, “With this injection of capital, we can build on our success to date. That means scaling our platform and fine tuning our data models to ensure that Canadians across the country have real estate valuations at their fingertips, backed by an unmatched degree of accuracy.”

HonestDoor is currently a real estate resource for those living in British Columbia, Alberta and Manitoba. It says it has a median error rate of 2.48 per cent for listed properties and 7.55 per cent for off-market real estate.

“In the same way as Canadians sign up to receive updates on their credit score through companies like Borrowell and Credit Karma, since January 2022 roughly 10,000 users have signed up to monitor their HonestDoor price,” says Belostotsky. “We anticipate this number to increase substantially over time.”

HonestDoor says it has also become a resource for real estate agents and brokers that want easy access to land title transactions and are looking to provide their clients with home valuations by adding the HonestDoor widget (API) to their websites. Lenders and mortgage brokers also rely on HonestDoor to help inform decisions for mortgage applications, the company says.

“HonestDoor is the first of its kind real estate search engine to provide key data, facts and price predictions on properties,” says David Nault, general partner at Luge Capital. “The real estate market in Canada lacks a central resource for complete property data and price insights. HonestDoor’s comprehensive property and valuation reports are helping consumers, real estate agents and lenders make better decisions.”

REM Editorial Team

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More than 10 years ago, Flaherty and his team began using virtual environments to market homes for sale. They produced what they call “Video Narrated 3D Animated Online Showings”. Flaherty says the service is unique and its value was proven in the marketplace when it pushed him to be “the No. 1 top-producing Realtor in his former brokerage for 10 straight years based on gross sales over 1,800 other agents.” He says the feedback his team receives is that buyers know more about the home from his online showing than actually going to the home.

Flaherty says his team has already built over 700 virtual environments for homes they’ve listed, but they were only viewable in a video format. “These virtual environments are exactly what’s coming for web 3.0 or what many are calling the Metaverse,” he says. “To the best of my knowledge, there are still no other agents or brokerages anywhere that are building virtual environments for marketing homes.”

He says he believes virtual reality and augmented reality technology is the “biggest opportunity for success the industry has ever seen.”

At the event, Flaherty says agents will be shown how they can benefit by using these virtual environments. “We will be demonstrating the future of this technology in real estate but more importantly showing what we’ve learned about providing the service and how it can be implemented and utilized today,” he says.

For more information and to sign up for the event, visit www.ReChargeFREE.ca

REM Editorial Team

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BrokerBay and Supra will provide a one-stop shop for Realtors that “combines scheduling and mobile lockbox access in an intuitive, user-friendly showing experience to empower agents, reduce workload and provide actionable analytics,” says Carrier in a news release.

The software’s ability to reduce a brokerage’s administrative workload, streamline the real estate scheduling and showing experience, as well as standardize electronic lockbox access, will strengthen Carrier’s leading access solutions offering within its fire and security business, says the company.

Fayyad Sbaihat

Fayyad Sbaihat, president of Supra & Onity at Carrier, said Supra is a market leader in access management for the real estate industry.

“We will provide a first-of-its-kind experience for real estate agents where the scheduling of the appointment is tied to the lockbox and the access,” Sbaihat says. “So ultimately people – both listing agents or homeowners – can be assured that access to the house is only tied to appointments when they choose that setting and they can verify who is coming in.

“They know exactly how long they’re coming in for and staying, as well as a connectivity between the information of the scheduling appointment and the stay, which we can then provide to the real estate agents to see true activity around the listing. So they’re always aware of activity around their homes, how many people are coming in to look at the listing, how many viewings are taking place, so they have real-time information that enables them to adjust the type of listing they have or listing information to make sure they react to market conditions. This integrated feature will be coming out here in the coming months and our customers are very excited to hear about it.”

Sbaihat says the technology that Supra uses “is also applicable in several other industries like automotive, commercial and industrial sites, as well as banking and telecom. But the primary market for Supra is real estate.”

Supra, which has its headquarters in Salem, Ore., has been around since the early 1950s when it began manufacturing a lock for bicycles. In 1955, Sbaihat says, the company came out with the first lockbox that was used for real estate. It was a mechanical combination lock, which the company continued to innovate over the years.

Sbaihat says more than one million real estate agents across North America use Supra.

“As we reached out to them over the past months and years, and we regularly reach out to understand their feedback and their needs, it became obvious to us that they’re really interested in having additional services that enable them to conduct the showing experience in a more efficient, more organized way,” he says. “This is one of the key areas they pointed to as a need, especially if it’s integrated with that access solution they have. So we acted on the feedback from our customers and defending their needs and decided to add this capability to our portfolio and so far the feedback from our customers has been very, very encouraging.”

He says BrokerBay gives Supra the appointment schedule for showings of homes with its user-friendly mobile app that allows buyers to schedule or request an appointment for home showings and automatically access information about the listing. It also sends a notification to their real estate agent as well as the listing agent and their buyer – so all parties involved are aligned on the appointment time for a showing.

Sbaihat says Supra is helping expand the footprint of BrokerBay into the Supra customer base both in the United States and in Canada.

Jurgen Timperman, president of Carrier Fire & Security, said in a statement that Supra’s real estate lockbox management and mobile credentialing business paired with BrokerBay’s capabilities to deliver advanced digital solutions will improve efficiencies for North American real estate agents, while also driving the company’s strategy of increasing recurring revenue through enhanced services.

Supra enabled 45 million property showings in 2020.

“With increasingly high volumes in real estate showings, there is a need for agents to act with speed and efficiency,” says Jeffrey Stanek, managing director, Global Access Solutions, Carrier Fire & Security, in a statement. “This acquisition will further ensure they have the best solutions available to succeed.”

The terms of the transaction were not disclosed.

Mario Toneguzzi

Mario Toneguzzi is a contributing writer for REM. He has more than 40 years of experience as a daily newspaper writer, columnist, and editor. He worked for 35 years at the Calgary Herald, covering sports, crime, politics, health, faith, city and breaking news, and business. He now works on his own as a freelance writer for several national publications and consultant in communications and media relations/training. Mario was named in 2021 as one of the Top 10 Business Journalists in the World by PR News – the only Canadian to make the list.

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Funding for the Rentals.ca Network was provided by Rentsync, formerly known as Landlord Web Solutions, a St. Catharines and Toronto-based firm. Rentsync provides rental housing marketing, advertising and software solutions in North America.

“This transaction creates opportunities to pool resources and provide a more sophisticated set of tools for renters and landlords in Canada,” says Steve Cowan, CEO of Rentsync. “We are tremendously excited about the opportunities ahead.”

The network features map-based search, neighbourhood scores and commute times, 3D virtual tours, floor plans, open house dates and artificial intelligence to detect fraudulent listings.

“We are passionate about offering renters an exceptional experience through intuitive design on mobile, tablet, desktop and voice devices,” says Matt Danison, CEO of Rentals.ca. “With an understanding of the next generation of renters, we are focusing on interval searching, where renters might only have five minutes to scan our rental inventory while waiting in line, commuting on the subway, or during a lunch break.”

More efficiencies are on the horizon as technologies are integrated, and best practices and key features are applied to all marketplaces, the company says. The Rentals.ca Network has already achieved synergies by merging sales, human resources and billing, which provide cost savings across the network, it says.

For the renter, the new network will provide more quality listings, a faster, safer search experience and more features to examine in each listing, the company says.

For the landlord, it will drive more quality leads and save time in posting and editing listings on multiple websites. The company is also promising “exceptional customer service”.

Although the network works with major REITs and property managers across Canada, most of the property listings come from small landlords posting their apartments, condos, townhouses, detached homes and basements for rent directly to one of the six brands, the company says.

In August, the network received 26 million page views, 4.3 million sessions and 2.3 million users, it says. In the last 12 months, the network has generated 50 million sessions, with 24 million users resulting in 5.4 million leads generated for landlords across Canada.

Since 2019, it says 110,000 small mom and pop landlords have listed properties with one of the six rental marketplaces, resulting in over 240,000 listed properties.

REM Editorial Team

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The post Rentals.ca Network launches with 6 Canadian rental marketplaces appeared first on REM.

It says the platform was developed to address a growing need to modernize real estate payments in Ontario. “SureFund will free up resources for real estate lawyers and law clerks to work more closely with clients by saving significant time and effort from manual processes, such as running cheques, facilitating bank drafts, making deposits and co-ordinating with couriers,” says Teranet in a news release.

“Teranet has been a trusted service provider to legal professionals in Ontario for decades,” says Teranet CEO and president Elgin Farewell. “We are excited to once again extend and enhance the ability for legal professionals to collaborate and transact electronically more efficiently and securely, particularly as working remotely becomes the new normal.”

“Teranet’s rich experience in platform and registry technology will enable the modernization required for the transfer of funds when closing a real estate transaction, while leveraging the payment processing power of exclusive service provider, FCT,” says the company.

REM Editorial Team

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