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At long last, here is the Winter 2010 Edition of the Rental Website Ranking Reports for Edmonton and Calgary. Like the Ontario ranking report and the original rental website report, it helps you understand which rental advertising websites are dominating Google and why that’s an important thing if you have vacancies to fill.

The top websites for each category were:
Edmonton
Condos – www.rentfaster.ca
Houses - www.rentedmonton.com
Apartments - www.rentedmonton.com
Rooms for Rent - www.kijiji.ca

Calgary
Condos - www.rentspot.com
Houses - www.rentspot.com
Apartments - www.rentspot.com
Rooms for Rent - www.kijiji.ca

You can download the Edmonton, Calgary and Ontario reports below, and be sure to signup for email updates and subscribe to updates from my blog.

(PDF format, ~3MB each – Right click and ’save-as’)

The struggle to find tenants to fill vacancies is a problem known to every investor and property manager. As the Internet has grown to become a pervasive part of our lives, the choices for advertising media have grown exponentially.

This report seeks to help narrow the field, and educate investors and managers about the role search engines play in our lives.

What this report gives you is a guide to which websites dominate Google, Yahoo and Bing (Microsoft) for Alberta’s two major rental markets. For transactions like buying cars and houses, nearly 80% of people start their search online. While not all of your marketing should be online, it should be a significant part of it.

The stronger a site is, the more traffic it gets from Google and other search engines, and the more likely it is to play a role in your tenants’ search. This is only a guide to how sites rank. We strongly encourage you to adopt a culture of testing and change in your real estate business. Track the responses so you know which sites consistently refer quality leads and tenants. Use different phone numbers and email addresses, tracking where your marketing time and money is having the greatest impact.

We’ve done the hard part here; determining which phrases people use and which websites rank the best. Now it’s up to you to take the lessons from our experience, create good ads and measure the results.

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I’ve been seeing a lot of people coming to this site searching for terms like ‘Edmonton 2010 Housing Market’. There’s few people who want to come out and make clear predictions for the next year on a market as specific as a city.

Let’s see what you think.

Go fill out this form and I’ll publish the report in a week’s time or so.

And if you want to put your name down and have me list your name in print, drop me an email to chris-at-chrisdavies.ca.

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This Week – Tom Brokaw Explains Canada To Americans

March 5, 2010

I wanted to post this sooner, but NBC is stupid and removed the original video which managed several million views in just a few days. It’s really worth going to YouTube and watching it in HD.
Enjoy your weekend, and feel proud to be Canadian. I’m planning on writing offers on some properties this coming week, [...]

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You Don’t Buy a Happy Meal for the Toy

March 4, 2010
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I had an awesome question via Twitter from Ben Arledge, a REIN member and web developer.

Thoughts on life/disability insurance on rental property?
To which I replied:

Not worth it, better do deal with a real insurance broker and get the right insurance. You don’t buy a happy meal for the toy.
His next question is the important one.

What’s [...]

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Mortgage News from Peter Kinch – March 3rd

March 3, 2010

Peter Kinch’s email newsletter just hit my inbox this afternoon and it’s got some great info I thought I’d share. (Peter’s a great mortgage broker and I’ve used his office in the past.)
Here’s what he had to say:
It’s rare to see a big bank undercut its mortgage competitors publicly. Most of the time they do [...]

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Don Campbell’s New Book – Free Book Give Away

March 3, 2010
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A shiny new book showed up today, in a boring brown package. Wiley sent me a free copy (being a Facebook addict has it’s advantages), just for commenting on the wall of their Facebook group. That’s a pretty smart way to do things, and I’m going to pay it forward, but I’ll get to that [...]

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10 Reasons Why Tenants Should Give You Nightmares

February 28, 2010
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There’s something that you start to learn after 15 years of property management and thousands of tenants. There’s nothing that will surprise or disgust you anymore. I don’t claim to have seen it all, but I’ve seen enough.

The Giant TV of Doom – They’ll  bounce the rent cheques, struggle to have any sort of savings [...]

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The Killer Whale Tank

February 26, 2010

In the spirit of things Canadian, I bring you a creative interpretation of the Tragically Hip’s New Orleans is Sinking – the Killer Whale Tank Live version. Awesome song.
Enjoy your weekend! Go Canada!

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