You Oughta Know...

As in the past, we bring to you in-depth interviews of people that have a great impacton the success of Boca Grove Plantation. In this issue we are featuring, Zev Freidus, the founder and President of Boca Executive Realty as it was his inspiration and dedication in making Boca Grove a household name when it comes to online marketing. All of us — homeowners, buyers, sellers and real estate agents - will greatly benefit from his talents that he put to use for the benefit of Boca Grove.

MH: Zev, you have been a very busy person these last 5 years building a successful real estate company in this economic climate. This is unheard of and an anomaly when other companies are either closing offices or going out of business completely. What is different about Boca Executive Realty (BER) that has allowed you to grow and continue to open new offices in this down market?

Zev: While others continue to spend their efforts and resources on soliciting sellers to list with them, we focus our efforts on generating buyers which in turn causes sellers to seek us out because we have the buyers.

RB: Why should someone list with your company?

Zev: Because for the last 5 years, we have accumulated a database of more than 100,000 prospective buyers, over 10,000 of which are specifically researching country clubs in our area.

MH: Why is your website more successful than others?

Zev: The best analogy I can offer is newspaper advertising, prior to their becoming obsolete. Back when home buyers used the newspaper to shop for homes, the value of the publication was based on the circulation, or the audience it would reach. Now, with 94% of all home searches originating online, websites must be measured by the amount of online traffic they capture. The Boca Executive Realty website was voted “#1 Broker Website in the State” by the Florida Association of Realtors and Google certifies that we are now reaching over 250,000 people on a monthly basis, which incidentally is more than the Sun-Sentinel circulation was at the height of its popularity. When selecting a listing agent to market your home, I would strongly recommend
you ask any candidate agent to quantify for you the audience they will reach through their online presence.

RB: Why is your circulation so much better than those of other companies?

Zev: This is achieved through search engine optimization (SEO).

MH: For those of us that aren’t as computer savvy and are unsure of what this means, could you simply tell us in layman’s terms: How Do You Do It?!!

Zev: Well, that’s a best kept secret but I will tell you that I was proud to be part of the process of redesigning Boca Grove’s website, adding real estate listings and through SEO, Boca Grove is now one of the first websites to pop up when buyers are searching Google for ”Boca Raton Golf Communities”. Boca Grove has always had a special place in my heart since the first few sales we generated online were homes in Boca Grove, which as you know, is how we originally met!

RB: Anything else you would like to add?

Zev: Yes. The internet has transformed how business is conducted in virtually every industry, yet Realtors have been slow to embrace its potential. Home buyers and sellers on the other hand are using the internet almost exclusively. According to statistics published by the National Association of Realtors, 94% of buyers use the internet to search for homes, yet 90% of Realtors are not generating a significant amount of business online. This striking disparity suggests that the majority of the business is now being captured by a select few Realtors. At Boca Executive Realty, wholly 60% of our sales are generated online! And because our online strategy is geared towards generating buyers, we have been fortunate in this buyers market to represent the
buyers in 70% of our transactions. This means we have approximately 2 buyers for every listing we accept. While most other firms are blaming “the market” instead of adjusting their strategy, BER enjoyed gross sales of $150 million in 2009 and is expected to exceed that number in 2010.

Thank you for taking the time to talk with us today and for your great time and efforts in putting Boca Grove ON THE MAP! We appreciate no longer being the Best Kept Secret as more and more Internet users are seeing Boca Grove first and foremost when searching for a great new place to call home.