Category Archives: Real Estate Websites

Union Street Media News

Why We Don’t Support IE6/7

Internet Explorer 6 and 7 were some of the most popular browsers in existence. So why does Union Street Media no longer support them? We get this question a lot.

There are a number of reasons we came to this decision:

  • IE6/7 use is trending downward.
  • Microsoft itself is trying to rid the world of these browsers (http://www.ie6countdown.com/).
  • Technology has advanced a lot in the last decade and we want to provide our users with fast, reliable and engaging content.

IE6/7 use has been trending downward for the better part of 3 years. In 2010 both browsers combined commanded an impressive 28% of the market place. Their use in 2013 has declined to 7% globally and a mere 1% in the USA. On our platform combined use is sitting at 1.7%. This is due to a number of factors, the most important one being Microsoft’s own involvement in eradicating these browsers.

+ Continue Reading

Comments
John Merse

Natural Language: Search The Way You Speak

When a prospective homebuyer arrives at your website, they already know what they want. They have a mental image of their dream home, and they want to get started finding it. We haven’t (yet) built software that can read users’ minds, so we need to give them a way to communicate that dream home to your website so that it can show them what’s available. Traditionally, websites give the user a form to fill out, offering an overwhelming multitude of options. Nobody likes to fill out forms.

+ Continue Reading

Comments
John Merse

Compass: A New Listing Exploration Tool For Real Estate Websites

Turning a website visitor into an enthusiastic, dedicated client is the ultimate goal of every piece of a real estate website, and at Union Street Media, we’re continually searching for new ways to make that happen. Any real estate website can take a visitor’s search criteria and present them with a list of matching properties; the real question is “what do I do now?”

+ Continue Reading

Comments
Union Street Media News

BarCamp Fairytales – Debunking Common Real Estate Marketing Myths

In mid-June, Union Street Media had the pleasure of attending and participating in Boston Real Estate BarCamp 2012. This “meeting of the minds” was a great opportunity for real estate agents, social media consultants, and web developers to present, discuss, and debate current trends and developments in technology and how to best apply that technology to the real estate marketing.

+ Continue Reading

Comments
Union Street Media News

The State of Real Estate on the Web

In between reading exciting espionage thrillers and inspirational sporting biographies, I like to keep myself honest with a little online real estate statistics.

This month I delved into the National Association of REALTORS‘s Center for REALTOR Technology. To save you some time, I cherry picked what I believe to be the most interesting data and what it means for real estate professionals. (Skip to the bottom to get the data, but only if you leave a comment!) You can also view the full report here

+ Continue Reading

Comments
Union Street Media News

Top 10 Tips for a Realtor Online

I’m often asked by real estate clients, what they can do to drive traffic to their site to get more leads. It’s a simple question but with no one simple answer. There is no secret sauce or silver bullet. In my experience, it’s about hard-wiring various marketing techniques into your daily or weekly schedule.

+ Continue Reading

Comments
John Merse

Vermont Has Fewer Foreclosures Than Any Other State

Vermont ranked 50th in the nation for foreclosures, with only one foreclosure for every 62,849 homes, according to a report released by RealtyTrac Thursday. Foreclosures nationwide were down by 9 percent in April from March, and were down 34 percent from April 2010, but RealtyTrac cautioned that the improvement was because of delays in processing foreclosures, not an improved housing market.

+ Continue Reading

Comments