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Carpenter Realtors moves to the Cloud with Google Apps for Business
January 27th, 2012
Carpenter Realtors held their annual Kickoff for 2012 yesterday. Amid the many exciting announcements and new programs, we unveiled Google Apps for Business to our sales team.
Google Apps for Business is a paradigm shift in communications, breaking away from the old way to do business – the tired approach of loading software onto one machine and either lugging that machine around or doing without all your documents. The USB sticks, the merging of multiple versions of documents, lost files, inaccessible files, etc. are a thing of the past.
The new paradigm is cloud computing. Everything is stored, processed and accessed on Google’s servers – the “cloud.” The device accessing the data is no longer anywhere near as important. If you’re about to give a presentation and your laptop dies, under the old paradigm you’re completely shut down. With Google Apps for Business you can log into your Google account from any computer, any tablet, any smart phone and access your documents, including that presentation and the show goes on. Google Apps for Business gives our agents 25GB of storage. Consider Dropbox starts at 2GB and our old email server provided 3GB of storage for comparison. Old sales files from years ago can now be kept for the day that buyer from years ago becomes a seller. The platform gives our users business Gmail, Google Docs, Google Video, Google Sites, Chat & Video Chat. And instead of buying one license from Microsoft that gave us one copy of Office to install on one computer (and one copy to upgrade, for a fee, down the road) we get with one license of Google Apps for Business access to all those features on a multitude of devices – as many as that user needs.
Consider an example – an agent creates a document on a walk up computer in one of our offices. They email that document and walk away. Two hours later while they’re on the other side of town they get a call and need that document again. Maybe they retrieve it from their sent items or they drive back to that office. Maybe someone deleted the document. Or someone is sitting on that computer. Or worse, they created the document in Word 2010 and the recipient has Office 2003. Or doesn’t have Office at all. Whatever, it’s less than ideal. So you track down the document, make the changes, email it back to them and later get to the closing table and they’re using the wrong version of the document you emailed. They’re on version six and version nine has all the corrections. Ugh.
Now with Google Apps for Business that same agent creates a document and shares it with someone – not emails it, shares it. The recipient gets access to the document in Google Docs. No software to install, no compatibilities to overcome. No file size limitations to worry about with email. The recipient says they need some changes made. Great; Use the Google Docs App on your smartphone or tablet. Or log in from any computer to your Google Apps account. Make the changes. You’re done. It’s already a shared document. You don’t have to email it again. Or worry about which version of the document they’re going to use. As Google says, there’s only one version of the “truth.” One document, one version that everyone has. Edit it umpteen times and there’s still just one copy of that document. You could be in China or in a cave with really good wifi and you’re just as connected to your stuff as you would be sitting at your desk in your office.
This is the tip of the iceberg – and it will be just like Titanic – the one that grossed hundreds of millions of dollars, not the one that sank – and we will find uses and functions and solutions to problems we didn’t even know existed with this platform. It will reduce sales friction, another Google-ism, and make our agents that much more productive. Oh, and we’ll be writing a six-figure check to Google for these services while providing this to our agents at no additional charge. Carpenter Realtors partners with our agents and continues to look for agent friendly tools to enhance their value proposition.
Posted by: 
George Christodoulou
REALTOR® Foundation Awareness Week
September 12th, 2011
REALTORS® don’t just sell houses.
Today marks the start of the 5th Annual REALTOR Foundation Awareness Week. The REALTOR® Foundation is a non-profit entity dedicated to serving the philanthropic needs of those interested in solving homelessness in central Indiana. The Foundation has granted more than $100,000 this year to deserving charities and organizations on the front lines of homelessness. This week’s activities include a chance to give, a chance to help, and there’s one thing you can always count on with REALTORS® – a chance to eat!
Give: Financial support for the Foundation is always welcome and this week REALTORS® are encouraged to set up Transactional Giving - an automatic donation each time the close a property. You can also make a donation here.
Help: Volunteers can roll up their sleeves and help with clean up and planting in the St. Claire Place area on Sept 16th from 9am – noon. To sign up contact Claire Bleby at 317-956-5232 or .
Eat: Feed the Fight is a Taste of Indy event that will be held at Flat 12 Bierwerks on Sept 14th. Get a behind the scenes tour of the brewery and enjoy food and beverage tastings from a number of local establishments.
So there’s a little something for everyone this week. As I was writing this today I thought back to yesterday, September 11th. I was lucky enough to enjoy a beautiful day on the golf course. As we finished putting out on the final hole, as is often the custom, we shook hands and thanked each player for coming. I didn’t play very well, but I mentioned to one of the gentlemen as we walked off that regardless of my score playing a round of golf was certainly better than reading the names of a friend or loved one at the 9/11 Memorial as we had watched that morning. We reflected quietly for a moment and then each headed home. Today I find myself reflecting just a bit differently …I’m thankful for that home I went to last night. Thankful for the clean bed, the shower, and the pantry full of food. According to the REALTOR® Foundation website there were over 1,500 people in central Indiana who didn’t have that luxury last night. Even more eye-opening, it’s estimated that 16% of those are children under the age of 18.
This would be a good week to make a difference.
Posted by: 
Ryan Carrell
Carpenter's GFC Fundraiser - It's Not Just About Selling Houses
July 8th, 2011
Although the selling houses part is important, it’s not just about selling houses. It’s about giving back.
And so, the weather, golfers and our vendor hosts all turned out for the 2011 GFC/Carpenter Realtors® golf classic fundraiser.
On June 17th, at Noblesville’s Pebblebrook Golf Course, our 18th annual fundraising golf outing came off without a hitch, and raised more than $20,000 for Indianapolis’ Gennesaret Free Clinic (GFC), which provides free medical and dental care to adults and children in need.
Thanks to a ton (technically more like 3-4 tons) of Carpenter volunteers, our guests – both golfers and hosts, enjoyed an incredible day of food, golf, fun, more food and prizes. Our golfing teams consisted of dozens of top Carpenter agents to host foursomes to the occasional ringer. Word was that they all enjoyed a great day. The weather was perfect, the course was in fantastic shape and no one went hungry of thirsty. Both lunch and dinner are served and there were many games and prizes. Ask us about the hula hole. Cold beverage, brats, ice cream were the hits of the day.
Anyone have a story to tell? Share them with us!
Many thanks to our big sponsors of the day. We hope you’re back again next year.
Major Hosts
- Bailey and Wood Financial Group
- Bardach Awards
- Dee Sign
Lunch and Dinner Host
- Malone’s Catering
Vacation Raffle Host
- H.S.A. Home Warranty
Hole-in-one Host
- US Bank Home Mortgage
Shirt Host
- Indianapolis Star
And … Arbor Homes, Managepoint, QuantumDigital, Community Association Services of Indiana, Lawyer’s Title, Chicago Title, Stonegate Mortgage, First American Title, LPS, Andrew White, Citizen’s Bank, Investors Titlecorp, Meridian Title Corporation, Realty Wholesale Carpet, SoJo Title Agency, Catalyst Construction Management, PrimeLending.
Carpenter Realtors® has been involved with Gennesaret Free Clinic for over 20 years. In that time, we’ve raised nearly $1,000,000 to benefit GFC.
GFC provides free medical and dental care to persons in need through the volunteer efforts of doctors, nurses, dentists and clerks. The health care services GFC provides are needed now more than ever and are vital to keeping the homeless and working poor in our community healthy.
Posted by: 
Jim Newell
"Packaging" a home for sale
May 27th, 2011
It seems I’m always on the bandwagon about marketing homes for sale. About how Carpenter Realtors® has the most effective and most comprehensive program to market homes for sale. How we consistently promote listings better than the competition.
But as a marketer, I can’t just consider promotion and take the day off. In fact, promotion is only one of marketing’s “P”s that I consider. Doesn’t the business world now has five “P”s in marketing: Price, Place, Promotion, Package and Product? (I’ve seen four, five and seven. Can’t we all just agree?) In real estate, we have input in three P's: Price, Promotion and Packaging.
Pricing a home for sale is best left to the agent, who has the knowledge and the tools to advise the homeowner on their options. A home for sale must be priced “competitively” in order to sell quickly and near list price. A good agent and cooperative homeowner will always make the right call.
Promotion. That’s what we do, what we reconsider and what we retool every day in order to stay ahead of the pack. It’s the Carpenter Home Marketing System, an exclusive package of online and offline promotional opportunities that has been shown to better expose a home for sale to more potential buyers. Ask any good marketer and they’ll tell you the key to promotion is just that: expose a product to the greatest number of potential buyers
Now for packaging. I’m not talking about a box on a shelf, or a logo on the box, or a usage claim below the logo. I’m talking about packaging a home for sale - prepping it for the best showing it can have. Can’t tell you where this came from, but I recall a study where 63% of consumers make a product purchase decision according to the packaging and decoration. You can bet that this number is much greater when it comes to buying a home.
In packaging a home for sale, consider these important points: photos; curb appeal; cleaning/clutter; paint/carpet. Too often we see agents and homeowners who ignore/forget packaging a home – the way it appears “on the shelf.”
The part of packaging I want to talk about is photos. The listing agent can control the quality of their photography. The homeowner can expect quality photography of their home. The broker can train their agents to take quality photos.
More than nine of ten homebuyers use the internet to search for their new home. By the time they even have a discussion with an agent, they’ve considered hundreds of homes. I call that process “speed dating.” A web visitor gives any home for sale a few second of consideration to decide on an “online showing.” Those few seconds, in seeing the price, reading the short description and … viewing the primary photos … makes it or breaks it. Thus the speed dating. We have a few seconds to convince a buyer to do go on a date, i.e. an online showing, which can result in a second, live showing. The primary photo is, well, primary, in their decision. Crummy photo = poor packaging = lazy agent. Quality photo – good packaging = involved, active agent.
At Carpenter, we’re always training our agents on how to take the very best listing photos possible. Training, coercing, nudging, yeah sometimes even a polite shove. All the promotion and pricing in the world can’t overcome poor packaging.
Posted by: Jim Newell
The Relocation- Directors Council (RDC)
May 26th, 2011
I had the privilege of attending the spring meeting of the Relocation Director’s Council last week. RDC is a truly dynamic organization that brings together the most experienced Relocation Directors from across the US. Relocation Directors wear many hats, but most are typically the liaison between real estate companies and corporations that need assistance in relocating existing or new hire employees. Membership in the RDC organization is based on an individual’s experience and the recommendation of his peers, versus any franchise or company affiliation. The RDC website sums it up rather nicely:
Collaborate – Educate – Innovate
The meeting was well attended with over 100 leaders in relocation services sharing ideas and gathering the most recent industry information.
Many corporations and third party relocation companies prefer to utilize real estate companies whose Relocation Director is an RDC member. At this meeting, I had the opportunity to host several round table discussions about enhancements and new ideas in training real estate agents in the niche of relocation. The conversation was lively and the ideas superb. Technological advances continue and relocation trained agents are often the most savvy. Training focuses on the marriage of market knowledge and technical knowhow, all coming together to provide a faster, less stressful relocation for the transferring family. So the next time you or one of your co-workers are relocating, be sure to call on an RDC member…you’ll be glad you did.
Posted by: Ryan Carrell
Putting some effort into marketing luxury homes
May 3rd, 2011
Typically, Carpenter Realtors® is not known for having a large inventory of what would be described as luxury homes- those larger, higher-priced homes with more amenities and creature comforts. Call it geography or outdated perceptions, consumers often don’t think of Carpenter as an option to sell their luxury home. Whatever the reason, we actually put more effort into, and are more successful at, selling those McMansions.
Here’s a great example: On Sunday, the Indianapolis Star published a special homefinder real estate section. This section, called Tour of Luxury Homes,” focused on … well, luxury homes.
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In that section, the editorial discussed the lifestyle and amenities of living in a luxury home. The advertising portion of the section allowed agents to promote their $275,000+ Indianapolis and central Indiana homes for sale. Now, if I were a normal agent, I’d take advantage of every opportunity to promote my clients’ higher-end luxury homes for sale. Which shows, once again, why I’m not normal.
Obviously, those brokers and agents who claim to specialize in luxury homes don’t feel the need to market those luxury homes to potential buyers. Maybe just a sign in the yard is enough? Out of all the luxury homes advertised in the Indy Star’s special section, Carpenter agents represented 23% of the advertising. Two of the hoity-toity brokers on the north side who claim to be specialists in luxury homes had 11% and 7% of the ad space purchased. In fact, Carpenter agents had as many ads as three of the supposed “top” companies in high-end properties.
Really, people – is that the best you can do for your luxury home sellers? Promoting their home to 300,000 educated newspaper subscribers isn’t good enough? Maybe you’re right. The yard sign is seen by literally dozens of people every day. Your web site generates dozens, if not hundreds of visitors a day. The newspaper can’t match those numbers.
Carpenter’s exclusive Home Marketing System is an aggressive total package to market a home for sale to the greatest number of potential buyers. From our Indy Star ads (including Home of the Day) to the best web real estate site in Indiana (including GPS HomeSearch) to our TV Showcase of Homes to … well, you get the point.
Gotta go. Time to change some old perceptions!
Posted by: Jim Newell
callcarpenter.com's real estate web site quality certification
April 27th, 2011
According to the Leading Real Estate Companies of the World, it appears that our hard work at making callcarpenter.com the best real estate home for sale search website in Indiana is paying off.
I’ll quote: “Congratulations! You have successfully completed the requirements to earn the 2010 LeadingRE Website Quality Certification (WQC) designation.”
In order to help its members provide the most complete, efficient and enjoyable web experience, LeadingRE organized a panel of impartial web experts. The panel reviewed members’ web sites and graded the sites in a number of categories. All based on, and from, the consumer’s viewpoint – as in member websites were reviewed thoroughly and looked at through the eyes of a consumer.
The primary categories included:
- Site design Is this real estate website easy-to-use? Is this site focused on its real estate product? Can visitors easily find content?
- Search experience Does the consumer have all the home for sale search criteria they’d want? Are the results easily identified and sorted and displayed well?
- Relevant content Is the site’s content relevant to a home for sale search? Is there a plethora (word of the day!) of information on local communities – with the most detailed statistics? Can the consumer find all the information they need/want in their home search on this site?
After that review, Carpenter was awarded the Quality Certification designation. Judging was based on a scale of 1-10 in 6 categories. Only companies that received a minimum 45 out of 60 points received the WQC. Callcarpenter.com scored 51 out of 60. Next year we're shooting for a perfect 60. Can’t be that tough. We’re almost there already.
Posted by: Jim Newell
The Future Looks Bright for Corporate Relocation
April 22nd, 2011
Like many parts of the economy, corporate relocation has been negatively affected by the challenges in the economy. With the average cost to move an existing home-owning employee topping $90,000 (Worldwide ERC Survey), many companies moved relocation from the necessity to discretionary category.
But as they say, this too shall pass. Corporate relocation activity in central Indiana, though slowly, is picking up. Pent-up relocations that have been on hold for two years or more are now starting to develop. Further evidence can be found in Atlas Van Lines 44th Annual Corporate Relocation Survey. The survey results were based on the responses from over 400 corporate individuals responsible for employee relocation. Here are two items that really caught my eye:
- 30% of companies plan to relocate a worker this year, the highest percentage in 6 years
- 87% of companies said they will spend as much or more on relocation this year as in 2010, the highest percentage since 2007
The corporate relocation industry has a long way to recover. It won’t happen overnight, but the tea leaves certainly point to better times ahead.
Posted by: Ryan Carrell
18th golf outing benefits GFC Clinic
April 19th, 2011
We’ve gone and done it again. We’ve scheduled our annual GFC/Carpenter Realtors® golf classic fundraiser.
The 18th Annual Golf Classic will be held on June 17 at Noblesville’s Pebblebrook Golf Course. Proceeds benefit Indianapolis’ Gennesaret Free Clinic (GFC), which provides free medical and dental care to adults and children in need.
Golfer or possible sponsor? Be there. Everyone is welcome to participate. It’s been described (by impartial participants) as one of the best outings they attend each year. Both lunch and dinner are served and there are fun games and prizes. Plus, you’re never more than a few steps away (literally) from a cold beverage, brat or ice cream. Golfing and gaining weight – an American tradition! It’s a chance for companies, past clients, friends and neighbors to join us and enjoy the day while supporting a very worthy cause.
Carpenter Realtors® has been involved with Gennesaret Free Clinic for over 20 years, raising over $900,000 to benefit GFC.
GFC provides free medical and dental care to persons in need through the volunteer efforts of doctors, nurses, dentists and clerks. The health care services GFC provides are needed now more than ever and are vital to keeping the homeless and working poor in our community healthy.
Posted by: Jim Newell
Realtor luncheon benefits Children's hospital
November 17th, 2010
Just last Thursday, for the 25th consecutive year, Carpenter’s Northeast office (formerly “Castleton”) held a Thanksgiving luncheon and raffle to raise money for the Larue D. Carter Children’s Hospital.
Clint Williams (office manager, ret.) gets credit for starting this tradition. At Larue Carter, they care for 42 underprivileged children with mental disabilities. Only 42? With only 159 beds, the hospital has a cap on beds and its ability to treat children. The hospital is described as an intensive specialized treatment, training, and research center for the State of Indiana Division of Mental Health system. A lot of words for a simple goal – to make people better.
The challenge is that these 42 children have little or no Christmas to look forward to. The office’s goal is to give them something to brighten the holiday. And a brighter holiday we think they’ll see. The luncheon is an office pitch-in where they invite co-workers, family, friends and vendors to join them. Those co-workers, family, friends and vendors are also invited to bring their checkbooks. Checkbooks that are slightly depleted after the lunch. This year, the checkbooks were depleted to the tune of nearly $1,500! Fifteen hundred dollars. Fifteen hundred bucks. Fifteen hundred greenbacks. Fifteen hundred clams. Fifteen hundred mazumas. Fifteen hundred smackeroos. That’s money that will go toward making this Christmas a brighter one for the 42 children at the hospital.
Lunch? Some incredible home-made Thanksgiving items. Raffle prizes? Treasury Liquors, of Crested Butte, Colorado donated a number of very (verrrrrrrry) nice gifts as raffle items while office members created several beautiful additional holiday-themed prizes.
It’s great to see that an office with ever-changing personalities (over 25 years) can continue to come together and make such a huge difference for children who have so little. On behalf of those children, thank you to everyone on our Northeast office.
Posted by: Jim Newell
In Indiana, Small Towns = Safe Towns
November 9th, 2010
Do you ever wake up in the morning and cringe when the local TV news team reports another shooting, break-in or crazy robbery? Almost every day, right? But if you look deeper into it, central Indiana is actually a very safe place to live, with crime rates well below the national average.
The fact that these stories are considered news is proof that they’re uncommon, right? Well, that‘s what we call a theory.
Looking to prove the theory as true, we go to neighborhoodscout.com. They call themselves a “web-based patented neighborhood search engine that uses neighborhood statistics to build neighborhood profiles.” Those numbers are used to create an index that outlines, among other stats, the safest cities and towns in Indiana and America.
Where do we Hoosiers stand? Pretty well, as a matter of fact (not theory). Typically, suburbs and small towns have the lowest crime rates – one case where your stereotype meets the truth. And we have plenty of those small towns. While heavily-urban downtown Indianapolis gets a fairly low score, Fishers is one of the safest towns in Indiana. Look at this list of towns near Carpenter offices that score at, or well above the national average for safety (in truly random order):
Pittsboro, Danville, Clayton, Coatesville, Greenfield, Fairland, New Palestine, Carmel, Zionsville, Clermont, Brownsburg, Avon, Whiteland, Southport, Bargersville, Trafalgar, Sheridan, Atlanta, Cicero, Nineveh, Springville, Roachdale, Reelsville, Pendleton, Cumberland, Frankton, Wilkinson, Morristown.
It’s like a small-town Who’s Who, isn’t it? Needless, to say, when Carpenter has a home for sale in any of our central Indiana towns, we have great stories to tell. Reasonable prices, low crime, family-friendly, etc. For more information detailing crime rates by city, take a look at this chart.
Posted by: Jim Newell
A Time-tested Commitment: Carpenter Realtors and the Gennesaret Free Clinic
July 15th, 2010
Over the past 19 years, Carpenter Realtors® has raised over $900,000 for the Gennesaret Free Clinic (GFC) through a variety of fund-raising activities. Years ago, we held “The Great American Yard Sales” at the various Carpenter branches. It was a lot of work and we raised a little money. We held the annual Canal Walks along the canal downtown. That was more fun and we raised more money. Then we began to hold our annual GFC/Carpenter Golf Classic. A lot more work, more fun and we raised much larger sums of money. Last month we held our 17th annual Golf Classic and raised $28,000. Not bad considering these tough economic times. Each of these fund-raising activities reflects a time-tested commitment made 19 years ago by Carpenter Realtors® to become a major contributor of money and people to the then new idea of a free medical clinic devoted to the health needs of homeless families in central Indiana.
The Gennesaret Free Clinic’s mission statement reads:
“The GFC is composed of health care professionals and other concerned individuals [like Carpenter’s Associates, Managers and Staff] who have heard a calling to offer their talents and training [and fund-raising abilities] to the homeless and indigent. Through their volunteer efforts, they endeavor to provide competent, accessible and compassionate health care to the needy. Their faith moves them to show special respect and dignity to those who have been neglected and they realize that in such a healing encounter they are all made more whole by God.”
GFC has stood the test of time in their unwavering commitment to their mission statement. And, Carpenter Realtors®, its Associates, Managers, Staff and participating vendors have continued to fulfill their time-tested commitment to funding the Gennesaret Clinic. That commitment is as strong today as the day we began 19 years ago. The need is never-ending and so is Carpenter’s commitment.
Posted by: 
David Caveness
Carpenter Realtors Holds 17th Annual GFC Carpenter Golf Classic
June 25th, 2010
On June 18th Carpenter Realtors hosted its 17th annual GFC Golf Outing at Pebble Brook Golf Course in Noblesville, IN to support the Gennesaret Free Clinic. GFC is comprised of local health care professionals that are committed to providing competent, accessible, and compassionate health care to central Indiana’s indigent and homeless. Carpenter Realtors’ agents and staff support GFC with fundraising efforts in its real estate branch office throughout the year, culminating with our annual golf outing. Over the years, Carpenter has raised over $900,000 in support of GFC and its mission. Though the economy has challenged many, this year was no exception, and Carpenter’s business partners step up to the plate and made the event a success. Thanks to those partners, sponsors, and golfers, this year’s GFC Outing will raise approximately $25,000 and provide much need health care services to the area’s needy.
To learn more about GFC, visit their website at www.gennesaret.org, or contact me at .
Posted by: Ryan Carrell
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