We are proud to say, we have secured an additional “Angel Investment” and can now offer our service to you FREE OF CHARGE. That’s right. PocketListings.net and all of the wonderful things we have created for you to do more deals and give your clients an alternative means to listing property for sale is 100% free to use, and incredibly easy to join.

We hope you and your colleagues take advantage of the opportunity placed in front of you to get on your way to more closed transactions. We encourage you to think outside of the box that we have all been forced to work in for so many years, and realize EXPOSURE and NETWORKING (the #1 and #2 methods to sell property), can (and will) come through participation on our site. Use PocketListings.net to your advantage and help your sellers sell, and your buyers find what they need.

Go ahead. It’s FREE!

-PocketListings.net Tutorial
-PocketListings.net

Putting buyers and sellers together through their real estate agent…that’s what we’re here to do. If you’re still not sure about how our site can work for you and the real estate market, have a look at our tutorial to get you started.

-PocketListings.net

The National Association of Realtors released their Existing Home Sales Report not too long ago, and despite a drop in existing home sales from the month prior, there were still roughly 4.91 million transactions (not counting commercial and industrial transaction) for the year. Let’s just call it an even five million to make things easy. That’s pretty darn cool, right?

But the focus is always on units sold or sellers. Another way to say it is, there were roughly five million sellers of residential property last year. But everyone forgets about the five million buyers it took to make those transactions happen! Right? A transaction is never going to happen without a buyer. So why, until now, has ALL of the focus been on a place for sellers to list their properties for sale, and nowhere for the buyer to be heard? The importance of the buyer has been overlooked, for as many sellers as are out there, there is likely an equal or greater number of buyers.

Lawrence Yun, NAR’s Chief Economist, says it right here, “[T]he volume of successful buyers is higher than a year ago and is remaining fairly stable – this speaks to an unfulfilled demand.” Translation, buyers are out there, and they’re looking for property!

We encourage you to think outside of our industry box, look at the technology that is available to you, and use it to your advantage. Post ALL of the buyers you have looking for property on PocketListings.net, share their wishes on your social networks, and let your fence-sitting sellers know about the buyers out there that might like to view their property. Buyers are an extremely important piece of the transaction puzzle. Let’s give them the attention and exposure they deserve, and get more property sold.

A sale is a sale is a sale, and we’re here to help you get more.

-NAR Existing Home Sales Report
-PocketListings.net (Real Estate Match Making Service)
-PocketListings.net: How it works
-Weather.com (pray for snow!)

PocketListings.net

Welcome to PocketListings.net, a Website For Open Exchange Of Not On MLS Real Estate Opportunities (Pocket Listings & Buyer Needs), An MLS Alternative & Real Estate Match Making Service. You can read this tutorial in it’s entirety top to bottom and know exactly what we do, or if you simply have questions about (new) features, click around and be enlightened.

Index
Concept
Homepage
Who Can Join And Become A Member
Create An Account
Invite Your Colleagues
Activate Your Account/Verify Email
Pending Verification
Post A Pocket Listing
Privacy Options For Posts, Pictures, Description, Addresses
Share With Public Or Members Only
Principals Only
Post A Buyer Need
View, Edit, & Share Your Post
Publish, Unpublish A Post
Sharing Posts Using Social Networking
Real Estate Match™
Control Panel/My Account
Adding/Removing Favorites
My Posts, My Favorites, Saved Searches/Matches Tabs
Advanced Search
Saved Search
Removing A Saved Search
Email Notifications Of New Matches/Saved Searches
Property Detail Page
How We Use Twitter To Get Your Posts More Exposure
Cancel Your Account
Get Started!

The Concept
You (a licensed real estate professional) post property on our site that is for sale and not listed on the Multiple Listing Service (MLS), such as “coming soon”, “pre-mls”, “withdrawn”, commercial, and other listings. You also post ALL of your buyer needs. We (PocketListings.net) provide a service to search, share and produce a Real Estate Match™ for your post. You get paid. Your clients sell their property without any hassle or drama. Your buyers give you high fives and hugs.

Any post can be searched, linked to, ranked, Shared, emailed, marketed, and seen by potentially thousands of people around the world. We also feed every post you do to our Twitter page (respecting your Privacy Options, of course).

The goal being to get you closing more transactions, give your sellers an alternative listing place, and get your buyers property otherwise not marketed for sale, through as much exposure as possible of your posts…if you want it. If you and your clients prefer to share things more quietly, we give you Privacy Options to do just that too.

Combine Google, Craigslist, and Match.com… for real estate. That’s us.

–

The Homepage
Front and center, you’ll notice a large Keyword Search bar, which enables you to quickly search Neighborhood, City, Zip Code, and any keyword you can dream up.

We have a Latest Activity feed that comes directly from any new posts that are made on our site. This makes it easy to come back to our site often and see if there is anything new that might pique your interest. You can also follow us on Twitter to get a live feed of new posts and zero in on any metro area. (To learn more about how/why we do that, check out this article.)

We have some fun stats that we’ll continue to expand and elaborate, as well as all of the important login, join, search, and about us links. We also have the all important Facebook Like Button in the top left corner. Go ahead…Like it!

back to index

–

Who can join? Only licensed real estate professionals may join and post to our site. The public can browse, search, share, “Like”, and view any information (description, address, pictures, contact information) that is made public by the real estate professional who did the post.
–

Creating an Account
Step One: We require only the most basic of personal information, including your active real estate license number, and we verify every single one that comes our way.

Step Two: We require your credit card information upon signup, but you WILL NOT be billed until your 30 day FREE trial is finished, and you are completely satisfied with our service. Our price is an incredibly low $4.95 per month (less than a glass of wine), and we plan to keep it that low. Cancel anytime.

-

Once you join successfully, you will easily be able to post a pocket listing or buyer need, search the site, go to your control panel, and more importantly, Invite Colleagues. The more of your colleagues that join you on PocketListings.net, the higher your chances of real estate success, so we make it easy for you to invite them right away.

back to index

–

Activate Your Account/Verify Email
Another extremely important step is to check your inbox for an email from us titled “Please Activate Your Account“. You must find this email, open it, and click the link. If you do not do this, nobody will have access to your contact information or posts.

back to index

–

Post a Pocket Listing
Now that you’re in the club, you’re going to want to close some deals. If you have a pocket listing, we make it easy to post. Select the beds, baths, parking, enter a price, write an awesome description, share a link to a website, upload photos, and be as specific or vague as you like. Keep in mind, details = matches, and matches = sales.

If you know when this property might be going on MLS, you can enter that date on this page as well, and we’ll automatically pull the post down from our site on that date. All posts will expire from our site and be pulled down after 30 days. Don’t worry, it’s easy to Republish at any time. We do this to keep content fresh.

When posting, you can select various Privacy Options for each post and which information you’d like to share Publicly or keep for Members Only (address, pictures, description, your contact information), as well as one extra feature you won’t find on any property listing site anywhere…Principals Only. Select this option if you’d like to make it clear that anyone contacting you will be asked to act as a principal. (Principals Only option not available when posting a Buyer Need)

We do not require you enter an address, but we do encourage it for future applications we plan to release. You can always choose to share the property address with “nobody”, and that means nobody but you will be able to see it.

Like with every post, we do our part to get your pocket listing more exposure, and we give you the options to let everyone you know that you have a great property looking for a new owner.

back to index

–

Post a Buyer Need
If you have one or one hundred buyers, you should post their needs on PocketListings.net. By posting buyer needs you give yourself and your clients an opportunity to be contacted by other professionals who either have a seller willing to sell but they have not placed their property on MLS, other professionals that might have their property on MLS but be very willing to negotiate and afraid to announce this to the world on MLS, or even a seller him/herself hoping you can bring a buyer to their property directly and discreetly.

Just like posting a pocket listing, we make it easy to post a buyer need. You can select multiple property types, a range for beds, baths, parking, square feet, and price. You can choose multiple cities, and multiple zip codes as criteria. You can even select with whom you’d like to share your description and contact information (Public or Members Only).

Post your buyer need and we’ll do our best to find you a Real Estate Match™, get your post as much exposure as possible (if you want it), and give you the options to let everyone you know that you have a great buyer looking for a great property.

back to index

–

Viewing, Editing, Sharing a Post…and Getting Matches
Once you post successfully, what next?.

View/Edit Your Post. Like any good artist, you’ll want to see what you just created. Click View/Edit this post from the above referenced page immediately after posting, or find your post in the Latest Activity feed on the homepage, Search for it, or go to your Control Panel to check it out. Make sure your criteria are correct, price is correct, and pictures are of the amazing property and not the amazing cocktail party you attended last night. If all looks good, use our Sharing Features to get the word out about this post.

If all is not good (like this photo below of our founder sucking back a few pints), click Edit Post from any Property Detail Page (when logged in), go back to the Post Success page, or find the My Posts section of your Control Panel, click your post, and get rid of bad photos, and add more good ones. If you’re really panicked (like our founder should be here), you can Unpublish your post right then and there, and breathe a sigh of relief.

Unpublishing a post removes it from any past or future search results, matches, or favorites. Republishing makes it live and searchable, matchable, and favoritable (not a real word) all over again. You can Unpublish and Republish a post from your Control Panel or Property Detail page anytime.

Any time you are logged in and you click on your property detail page, you can edit, share, unpublish, link to, and enjoy your work of art.

back to index

–

Share This Post – via Email, Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, and so many more social media applications, it’s amazing! Get the word out to your circle, so they can share with their circle, and you can get a deal closed. We all know real estate is a social game. If you get people talking about your property or buyer, you will get the deal closed. So start sharing everything you post with everyone you know.

Members can share immediately after posting by using the method above, and anybody that visits our site (even members that are not logged in) can also share a post using the methods shown below (Share This, Grab Link), and of course by simply clicking the good ol’ Facebook Like Button.

-

-

-

The best way to get property sold is through exposure. Take advantage of the internet and social networking and expose your posts, and your friends’ posts! Keep in mind, if you want exposure, but also privacy, we make that easy too.

back to index
-

Real Estate Match™!
Once you post your pocket listing or buyer need, we do some behind the scenes magic to show you potential matches for that post that might be suitable to you and your clients. If no matches display right after you submit your post, don’t panic. We’ll email you as soon as a match hits our site, and we automatically produce a Saved Search/Match for your post in your Control Panel, which you can always login and refer to later.

The old way of selling real estate is one sided: seller markets property, buyers search. We let you do that too, but now there is a new kid on the block…Real Estate Match™, enabling both sides of the equation to be heard, and matches to be made. It’s dating for real estate! Simply wonderful.

Your matches show up here in your Control Panel.

back to index

–

Control Panel/My Account
This is your command central. The page where you’ll find your account and billing information, the page you’ll go to change your password, and of course the page you’ll find all of your posts (pocket listings and buyer needs) under the My Posts tab.

You’ll find any posts you added as a favorite under the My Favorites tab (adding properties and buyers to favorites allows you to track them and save them).

You’ll find any Saved Searches you performed under the Saved Searches/Matches tab. The Saved Searches/Matches Tab is also the place we automatically house your Real Estate Matches™ we automagically generated based on your post criteria.

You’ll notice the above photo shows Pending Verification. This will display on your posts instead of your contact information until your email address (your end), and real estate license (our end) are verified. To verify and activate your account/email, simply find the email from us in your inbox titled “Please Activate Your Account“, open it, click the link, and you’re done. The rest is up to us.

back to index

–

Advanced Search
This page is pretty simple in appearance, but very important in the scheme of a real estate listing site. You can always begin your search in the large Search Bar on the top of almost every page, but you’ll end up here to see the results.

Here you’ll be able to either narrow or expand your search. Use the sliders to adjust minimum and maximums. You can select multiple property types, pocket listing, buyer need (or both), and search by multiple zip codes, and multiple cities. Select Refine Search to get new results.

Members can also save any search you perform, and refer to that Saved Search later.

back to index

–

Saved Search
We make it extremely easy for members to save a search, because we know real estate and representing clients is a marathon, not a sprint. Whether there are a ton of matches, or none at the time of posting or searching, staying informed of all of the opportunities out there that might work for your clients is paramount to successful representation.

Once you save a search, we’ll email you when something shows up on our site that is a match for that Saved Search. You can also come back to PocketListings.net and perform the exact same search over, and over again by finding it in your Saved Searches/Matches tab mentioned above and found in your Control Panel. You can also perform that saved search, Refine it, and save that search as a completely different search. Pete and Repeat until you eventually find what you need.

If you no longer want or need a Saved Search, and you don’t want to be emailed Matches for that Saved Search/Match, simply login to your Control Panel, find the Saved Search, and Remove from my searches.

Such a nice feature.

-

back to index

–

Property Detail Page
Details, Details, Details…you want to provide them, people want to see them, and you should certainly do everything you can to share them. The property detail page is your advertisement, your virtual statement, your flyer. It’s where everything you posted, and all of the privacy options you selected, show up.

On this page you can see Location(s), Property Type(s), Beds, Baths, Parking, Photos, Square footage, Price, Description, Website links, and Contact Information.

You can also add this post to you favorites (members only), edit this post (members only), publish or unpublish this post (members only), share via link, email, Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, and so many more. You can’t do that from the paper statements your printing and killing trees with and handing out at open houses, which we all know don’t sell property. Real buyers make appointments. Anyhoo…..

A picture is worth a thousand words…Upload them if you have them, wow the audience, and get to know, love, and share your property detail page.

back to index

–

How We Use Twitter To Get Your Posts More Exposure
We know social media. We know blogging. We know Google. We know Search Engine Optimization. We know Facebook. And we really know Twitter.

Another thing we do that no other real estate listing service in the country does is take the posts you do on our site and immediately share them on our Twitter Stream (respecting your Privacy Options, of course).

When we say immediately, we mean immediately. You post…it goes…our followers get immediate notification of new real estate opportunities in their area in real time. We get new Twitter followers every day from all parts of the world and they all have an interest in real estate, and we have an interest in helping you close more deals.

We already did a very informative and detailed blog post about our Twitter feed, so please take a moment to familiarize yourself with just one of the amazing things we do to get your posts more exposure via Twitter.com/PocketListings (respecting your Privacy Options, of course).

back to index

–

Cancel Your Account
We’re not sure why you’d ever want to cancel your account (unless you leave the business) and give up your chances at not only doing more deals on and off market, but giving up the chance to impress your clients with your connections to deals they otherwise would never have heard of. But if you’re going to cancel, just like everything else, we make that easy too.

You can cancel your account by visiting your Control Panel, and following the links. We will no longer bill your credit card, and your account will be active until your current membership expires.

We’re always sad to see you go, but we understand, sometimes you just gotta let go. Best of luck to you if you do cancel.

back to index

-

Get Started
That brings us to the end of the PocketListings.net Tutorial, and the beginning of many more closed transactions, happy buyers and sellers, and glasses of wine you’ll be buying all of your friends for sharing your posts with the world!

We hope you visit our site today!

back to index

[Some pocket listings and buyer needs shown and used as examples above are not real and were created by our team for demonstration purposes only.]

Last week, we rolled out a fix to our Facebook Like and Sharing feature. Previously, when you Liked or Shared a post on Facebook, you were only able to display our logo. As much as our logo is awesome, a picture in real estate is worth a thousand words and we want people spreading the word about your property, so we thought a little thumbnail teaser would help accomplish that. Now, when you click “Like” or use Share This to spread the word about posts on Facebook, you will be given the option to include a thumbnail, or not. Cool! Right?

But what if you set your privacy options to not display a photo publicly? No problem, your posts will be shared with our logo and not a thumbnail.

Buyer needs, of course, do not have pictures associated with them, so our logo will display.

As always, we gotcha covered and are here to help you close more deals, so do us a favor and tell your colleagues, join, and use our service.

PocketListings.net