Paragon Real Estate Group® first brokerage in San Francisco to provide Clarus touchCMA™ to its REALTORS®

Paragon has always been a company that is light on its feet, highly responsive to new ideas and opportunities, and now the time has come to take big steps in virtually every facet of our business to take us to the next level – Paragon CEO Bob Dadurka.

San Francisco, CA (PRWEB) September 26, 2013

“Since we opened our doors in 2004, we’ve been gratified by being able to build Paragon into one of the most successful brokerages in San Francisco. 2013 is shaping up to be our best year ever – with total sales up 20 percent and luxury home sales up a whopping 82 percent, we should go well beyond a billion dollars in sales – and our agents now have one of the highest averages sales per agent figures in the country. San Francisco has always been a very competitive market, the price point is very high and our clients are extremely sophisticated financially and technologically and in what they expect from the professionals who serve their needs. Paragon has always been a company that is light on its feet, highly responsive to new ideas and opportunities, and now the time has come to take big steps in virtually every facet of our business to take us to the next level,” Paragon CEO Bob Dadurka.

These steps include spinning off their investment real estate division, already one of the biggest players in that market segment, into the separate Paragon Commercial Brokerage in beautiful new offices at 1700 California. Another big piece of the plan is the centralization of Paragon’s residential brokerage operations in the 4-story building they purchased and completely renovated at 1400 Van Ness. This will then be followed by the opening of new, mobile-oriented, hub offices in other areas of the city such as the luxury home market of Pacific Heights-Marina, Potrero Hill, South Beach-SoMa and the Hayes Valley-Noe Valley area. Paragon is also actively growing the number of agents working in Marin, Napa and Sonoma, where their business is growing quickly. According to Paragon Managing Broker, Sally Stull, “The way people do business is rapidly changing and the way our agents serve our clients is changing. Big old-style offices with desks and phones are much less important; cutting edge technology that improves client communications, property marketing and the delivery of highest quality market analytics is what helps our clients most and what they want. So we are moving resources from an older business model to this more dynamic and more mobile model. We are extremely excited about the large investments we’re making in improved technology and more streamlined operations right now. This will be a huge win-win for Paragon and for our customers.”

Paragon has been investing particularly heavily in new marketing technologies. Paragon’s Director of Brand and Digital Marketing Lisa M. Norman highlighted a few of the biggest initiatives: “Marketing is one of the core products a real estate brokerage offers its clients and Paragon has always invested heavily in stand-out marketing across the multiple media platforms. But now we’re taking a quantum leap in digital and mobile marketing. Both our website and new online resource, ParaScopeSF, offer comprehensive information about living in the Bay Area and its complex real estate market. We’re the first brokerage in San Francisco to offer touchCMA, a highly sophisticated iPad-based presentation and market analysis tool, to all our agents and clients. Paragon has moved to a new, mobile marketing platform, Imprev, that allows marketing staff and agents to create incredible materials from wherever they are in less time than ever. As our footprint in the luxury home market grows by leaps and bounds, we are designing new programs and developing new partnerships to meet the special needs of that market segment. And finally, within the realm of traditional marketing, Paragon is redesigning and upgrading all its print marketing materials to a standard currently unmatched in San Francisco real estate sales.”

About the Company:

Paragon’s main residential office is at 1400 Van Ness Avenue in San Francisco and its Commercial Brokerage at 1700 California Street. Paragon can be found online at paragon-re.com and ParaScopeSF.com.

PDF


Print

Article source: http://www.prweb.com/releases/real-estate/San-Francisco/prweb11166036.htm

Station 2, the HOK-designed building Shutterfly will likely occupy at Bay Meadows

J.K. Dineen
Reporter- San Francisco Business Times

Email
 | Twitter
 | Google+

Shutterfly is looking at possibly moving its corporate headquarters to Bay Meadows in San Mateo, but corporate officials cautioned that nothing has been signed yet.

Several Peninsula brokerages sources stated that the digital personalized photo firm is looking at taking all the office space in Station 2, one of five office buildings slated for the 83-acre former racetrack. The five-building campus will total 763,000 square feet.

Gretchen Sloan, Shutterfly’s director of corporate communications, said that no lease has been signed and that the company continues to look at its options across the Bay Area. The company is growing and currently has 40 job openings, according to its website.

Station 2, located at the southwest corner of Delaware Street and 28th Avenue, is an L-shaped structure composed of two rectangular wings — one parallel to 28th Avenue and the other adjacent to the Caltrain rail line. The building includes large floor plates on levels two through four, with space for retail and active use on a portion of the ground floor. A landscaped courtyard links the building’s two-story office lobby to Delaware Street. Parking is hidden below the building and within its lower levels at the rear of each wing. The building includes 177,000 square feet of office space and 11,000 square feet of retail, which will include a 3,000-square-foot restaurant.

The architect is HOK.

Shutterfly is currently located in Redwood City at 2800 Bridge Pkwy.

Bay Meadows master developers Wilson Meany and Stockbridge Capital Group have submitted building permits for foundation and grading on Station Blocks two, three, and four. The developers have also pulled a superstructure permit for Station Block Two, the building Shutterfly is looking to take, according to Darcy Forsell, an associate planner with the city.

Shutterfly makes photo books, personalized holiday cards, announcements, invitations and stationery, as well as custom home decor products and photo gifts

The potential Shutterfly lease comes as Bay Meadows is making tracks on multiple fronts. This week Wilson Meany and Stockbridge announced that they have started construction on Field House, a 108-unit apartment complex. In addition TRI Pointe Homes and Shea Home are well underway on 156 for sale town homes, 97 of which have been permitted. The 30 homes released so far sold out immediately.

Bay Meadows will also include a 12-acre park and a campus for the Nueva School, an independent school that is building a 2.76-acre high school.

On May 28th Forsell gave San Mateo planning commissioners an update on the project and said that she expects the three Bay Meadows office buildings could be under construction this summer.

A Shutterfly deal at Bay Meadows would be a huge boost for the development, which a decade in the making, is an ambitious effort to build a dense, mixed-use, transit-oriented community in an area that often resists density and change.

J.K. Dineen covers real estate for the San Francisco Business Times.

Article source: http://www.bizjournals.com/sanfrancisco/blog/2013/05/bay-meadows-lands-first-big-corporate.html?page=all

Through the use of technology, marketing, and presence in the San Francisco Bay Area, Climb is becoming the brokerage of the future. With my experience and relationships, I wanted to be a part of that change.

San Francisco, CA (PRWEB) February 12, 2013

San Francisco-based Climb Real Estate Group is pleased to announce their affiliation with Michelle Balog, who will join the real estate team as Sales Director. An accomplished residential real estate agent, Michelle is one of San Francisco‘s top 50 Realtors and has sold everything from parking spaces to multi-million dollar homes. With a reputation based on experience from her numerous transactions, she has built strong relationships with her fellow Realtors as a professional who not only gets the job done but always does the right thing.

“I was attracted by the company’s mission to revolutionize the real estate industry,” Michelle said. “Through the use of technology, marketing, and presence in the San Francisco Bay Area, Climb is becoming the brokerage of the future. With my experience and relationships, I wanted to be a part of that change.”

Michelle Balog comes to Climb with over 12 years of sales experience in residential general brokerage. Most recently, she has been consistently recognized as being one of the very top performers at Vanguard Properties. She has also been recognized as a top producer at Pacific Union International and TRI Coldwell Banker. Her background has helped Michelle Balog to make an easy transition into her current role with Climb Real Estate Group. Having worked at some of the city’s top brokerages, she has had a chance to see several different approaches to real estate and she is excited about Climb’s innovative marketing. Climb has been a progressive company to watch and was recently named one of the country’s Next Generation Brokerages by Better Homes and Gardens.

Tiffany Combs, Climb’s Managing Broker, said, “I am pleased to announce that Michelle has joined the Climb family. She is an important part of our commitment to hire San Francisco’s top tier real estate agents. In addition, Michelle’s decision to join the company is a clear endorsement of Climb Real Estate Group and of the hard work and commitment of each and every one of our associates. I am excited to be partnering with Michelle and our entire management team, including Sales Leader Sean Sullivan, and will continue to work towards our future.”

“We are thrilled to have Michelle Balog on our team. She represents a new era for Climb Real Estate Group,” says Mark Choey, a top agent and co-founder of Climb. “As I have always said, we are in this for the long term, and we do what we do day in and day out so we can deliver the best possible service to our buyers and sellers throughout the Bay Area.”

As Sales Director, Michelle will still continue to provide her buyers and sellers excellent service with their real estate needs, and as a part of the senior management team at Climb Real Estate will be assisting and mentoring Climb’s sales team as they continue to grow and succeed in San Francisco’s vibrant real estate community. She is the most recent addition to a rapidly growing team of talented real estate professionals at Climb Real Estate Group. “I am honored to join Climb Real Estate Group,” says Balog. “We are strategically well positioned to to serve the needs of buyers and sellers in San Francisco for all their residential and leasing real estate needs.”

PDF


Print

Article source: http://www.prweb.com/releases/climbwelcomes/michellebalog/prweb10420616.htm

Experimenting with video, producing local content and shoring up holes in mobile presence were hot digital initiatives for brokerages in 2012, and some firms who took those steps last year are looking to refine them in 2013.

Decision makers at three large brokerages — The Corcoran Group in New York City, Alain Pinel Realtors in the San Francisco Bay Area, and Nothnagle Realtors in Rochester, N.Y. — agreed to share with Inman News readers what they’re focused on in 2013.

A smaller brokerage — Do Good Real Estate in Wilmington, N.C. — also provided insight into how much can be accomplished even with more limited resources.

“2012 at Corcoran was all about expanding and strengthening our digital ecosystem,” said Matthew Shadbolt, director of interactive product and marketing at Corcoran. The new year, he said, will be about smoothing out the user experience between all of the firm’s established digital products — social media, video, apps, website — and creating a more personal, local, adaptive service.

Alain Pinel has a similar goal for 2013 — a focus on customer experience, said Alain Pinel executive vice president Rainy Hake.

By expanding its video offerings, improving its mobile presence and adapting its agent training protocol in the new year, Nothnagle Realtors hopes to stay at the cutting-edge of technology and marketing techniques, said Armand D’Alfonso, president and CEO of Nothnagle Realtors.

Producing exciting agent videos, developing quality local information and taking the leap to a cloud-based transaction management system are key goals in 2013 at Do Good Real Estate, said Ryan Crecelius, the firm’s founder and owner. 

Building a local, responsive brand

“Midtown Manhattan is a very different place in the morning than in the evening,” said Matthew Shadbolt, director of interactive product and marketing at Corcoran.

Shadbolt said Corcoran — a 2,200-agent brokerage based in New York City, with additional operations in the Hamptons and South Florida — wants to adapt its customer service and its social media-sourced info to the nuances of a neighborhood like Midtown Manhattan in 2013.

After launching a new website with a location-focused, agent-forward platform and character, the Realogy Holdings Corp.-owned firm is looking to go a step further this year.

“Contextual, location-aware information, delivered in a timely and relevant way, is something we’d love do a better job of,” Shadbolt said.

Matthew Shadbolt

After doubling its digital presence in 2012 with big investments into its website, mobile apps, video production, social media and advertising — and its first-ever TV ad, this year Corcoran is “going to focus on the spaces between all of these products and how customers can move seamlessly among all of these experiences,” Shadbolt said.

Technology should help people use their time more efficiently. By applying the notion of the “quantified self” — which typically involves tracking aspects of an individual’s daily life and activities — Corcoran hopes to help employees identify activities that generate the best return for the time spent on them, he said.

As Corcoran’s digital footprint increases, Shadbolt said he’s encouraging Corcoran to shift its perspective of its online community. “It’s important for us to stop calling or thinking about Corcoran’s digital audience ‘consumers, followers, fans or viewers,’ ” he said. “If you’re serious about building business online, these people are your customers.”

Video for all listings

Having updated its website in 2012, San Francisco Bay Area luxury real estate firm Alain Pinel Realtors — ranked by Real Trends as the fifth-largest brokerage in the U.S. with 2011 deals totaling $7.51 billion — is also looking to refine its digital presence.

This year, Alain Pinel plans to improve customer experience by simplifying the firm’s presence across mobile platforms. The firm will also sharpen the visual features on its website by requiring high-definition photo and video for all listings, and creating dozens of professionally-shot, neighborhood-focused videos, said Alain Pinel executive vice president Rainy Hake.

“Visual marketing is one of the best ways to communicate the attributes of a home and create an emotional connection with possible homebuyers,” Hake said of the impetus behind the firm’s decision to roll out its high-definition image platform this year.

Rainy Hake

Alain Pinel has mobile apps – like a comparative market analysis tool for iPad — for all major devices, Hake said. But the firm is focusing this year on coordinating them into “one responsive interactive unit,” to simplify the firm’s multi-platform presence.

Along with an enhanced visual presence, Alain Pinel will be launching several online magazines with interactive video and content like market statistics and lifestyle information, laced with hyper-local community content. The online magazines, like the local videos, are an effort by the firm to produce more local content.

“We are looking to make our online content more robust and interactive,” Hake said.

After experimenting with augmented reality for a couple of years, 2013 could be the year Alain Pinel begins to incorporate the technology into some of its print materials, allowing users to turn a printed page into an interactive document with their smartphone camera and screen, Hake said.

Hake noted that the firm dropped quick response (“QR”) codes — which allowed users to scan a small pixelated box with their smartphone cameras to access specific online data — from its marketing materials in 2012. Augmented reality, on the other hand, may succeed in leaving its gimmicky reputation behind and entering the mainstream.

Agent videos, enhanced mobile and old-school training

Rochester, N.Y.-based Nothnagle Realtors — a 625-agent firm ranked by Real Trends as the 37th-largest brokerage in 2011 with 8,070 transaction sides — is also looking to beef up its video and mobile presence in 2013.

The brokerage began exploring video marketing in 2012 with agent profiles, said Nothnagle Realtors President and CEO Armand D’Alfonso. This year, he said, the firm will expand video to property spotlight pieces, which will “not only showcase the properties but also allow each agent’s unique personality to shine through as each video includes narration and commentary from the agent.” 

Armand D’Alfonso

In addition to video, the firm wants to enhance its mobile offerings to ensure that agents respond quickly to customer needs, and consumers have access to more, immediate information.

“Consumers want immediate response and access to information and data wherever they are and we can continue to provide that through an enhanced mobile platform,” D’Alfonso said.

Nothnagle Realtors will augment its agent training in 2013 with a dose of low-tech, by increasing hands-on, live seminars. D’Alfonso said the firm has found that agents, despite having access to online, on-demand training tools, still value and want the classroom experience.

The brokerage as music label

A smaller firm, Do Good Real Estate, based in Wilmington, N.C., is looking to solidify its business model and add agents, do more video and launch a marketing campaign and a new website in 2013.

“In a sense, we see our brokerage as a music label,” said Ryan Crecelius, who founded Do Good in 2010 and has generated some buzz by donating 20 percent of all sales commissions to local charities. The firm wants to produce a video (like the one below, that Crecelius commissioned for himself) for every agent that comes on board, Crecelius said.

Video profile of Ryan Crecelius.

“When we sign a new ‘act’ we want to make sure we create buzz and give our agents a proper launch,” he said.

The firm will launch a new website this year focused heavily on local content including in-depth area guides and neighborhood details. Crecelius said website will embody the brokerage’s 2013 marketing campaign slogan: “LOCAL. HONEST. ALWAYS.”

Ryan Crecelius

Do Good already uses paperless solutions like DocuSign, Dropbox and Evernote. This year, it’s also planning to transition to a cloud-based transaction management system like Cartavi, Reesio or dotloop, Crecelius said.

“It would be great to have everything in one place so that we can access all of our agents’ transactions to be able to offer support, keep things efficient and deliver a consistent customer experience,” Crecelius said.

Where its branding is concerned, Crecelius said Do Good is focused on being unique in the new year.

“We want our customers and our agents to feel that they are engaged with a brand that is different.”

Ryan Crecelius will be a speaker on the panel “Pushing the Envelope: Beta-Brokers” at Real Estate Connect New York City, Jan. 16 – 18, at the Grand Hyatt New York.

Contact Paul Hagey: Twitter Facebook Email Letter to the Editor

All rights reserved. This content may not be used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever, in part or in whole, without written permission of Inman News.
Use of this content without permission is a violation of federal copyright law.

Article source: http://www.inman.com/news/2013/01/14/4-brokerages-share-their-2013-game-plans

Trulia Inc. is providing “premium placement” of all listings represented by San Francisco-based Alain Pinel Realtors under the terms of a “strategic partnership,” the companies announced today.

With 1,400 agents working out of 32 offices in the San Francisco Bay Area, Alain Pinel was ranked by Real Trends as the sixth-largest U.S. real estate brokerage by dollar volume of transactions handled in 2010.

Premium listings show up on top of search results on Trulia.com with a brokerage’s branding. Trulia claims a branded homebuyer request form that appears next to the premium listings generates three times more leads than are generated by the company’s nonbranded form.

If agents have not “claimed” them, listings on Trulia are often accompanied by “Trulia Pro” lead forms that generate leads for agents who work for competing brokerages. The lead forms appear at the bottom of a listing, and invite site users who want more information about a property to contact up to four agents. Brokers and agents can also purchase dynamic Trulia Local ads, which appear higher up on listing detail pages.  

“There are no competing agents on the lead form for any clients, paying or not, as long as the listings have been claimed by the broker or agent, which can be done for free,” said Ginger Wilcox, Trulia’s head of industry marketing. “For Premium Listings customers, additional advertising is pushed down on the page.”

A few brokerages that object to such ads and lead forms have said they will stop providing listings to third-party sites like Trulia, Zillow and Realtor.com. Other brokers and franchisors are willing to pay so that their listings will stand out on third-party sites.

In February, Pittsburgh-based Howard Hanna Real Estate Services announced it would pay Realtor.com and Zillow to promote its listings on the sites unaccompanied by ads or lead forms for competing brokerages.

Howard Hanna, ranked by Real Trends as the seventh-largest brokerage by dollar volume in 2010, said it would pay a seven-figure sum — between $1 million and $10 million — for special treatment of its listings on both sites.

Last June, the nation’s largest brokerage company, Realogy Corp. subsidiary NRT LLC, announced it had signed agreements to add advertising enhancements to 100,000 property listings on Trulia, Zillow, Realtor.com and Yahoo Real Estate.

Under the terms of an agreement announced in April 2011, Trulia also offers brokers affiliated with Realogy subsidiary Century 21 Real Estate LLC discounts on premium listings. As part of a listing syndication deal announced in March 2011, Re/Max agents and brokers receive “partner benefits” on Trulia Pro and Trulia Local ads.

Wilcox said the company has agreements with “hundreds of brokers and franchisors across the country.”

Contact Inman News: Email Letter to the Editor

All rights reserved. This content may not be used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever, in part or in whole, without written permission of Inman News.
Use of this content without permission is a violation of federal copyright law.

Article source: http://www.inman.com/news/2012/03/14/alain-pinel-listings-will-top-trulia-search-results