Technology Tools
It’s hard to keep up with all the changes. As soon as you buy a phone it’s out of date. Your choice of computer is personal and it suffers the same demise of being out of date almost before you open the box.
I’m going to share a list of what I use, a brief reason why and tell you a few pros and cons of each. Your mileage may vary.
I’m not trying to start a fight either. Those of you who are sold on a particular brand or company who don’t agree with me can keep scrolling if you want 😁
Phone – I just bought a Pixel 4a. I am an Android for sure. I’ve had one since the Nexus line came out and I use it on Google Fi as my cell provider. I tend to purchase the latest phone available when I buy a new one and keep it until Google stops updating it (about 3 years) or I break it.
My wife is an iPhone and it does cause some struggles since I am tech support in our house but we manage most of the time.
Computer – I have 2 Chromebooks and a Windows 10 Desktop made by HP. One Chromebook is older and does not run Android apps but the other one is newer and does. The newest ones are coming out with the option of Windows apps and some will even run Windows.
The Chromebooks are able to keep up with my needs on the road and can do everything I need for real estate except editing videos and photos.
I shoot my own photos in RAW format and I need the Windows box to edit them. Affinity is my editor and it does everything I need for $50. Not monthly, just $50 to purchase the program.
A decent Chromebook will cost you about $250 and if you use Google for your office tools, it can do everything you need to do in this business. I like them because they are cheap, lightweight and the battery life is extraordinary. I can get 6-8 hours from one charge.
Cameras – I use a Nikon D5100 DSLR with a wide angle lens to shoot photos. I also use a Ricoh Theta SC2 to shoot 360 photos and create virtual tours. I’m a recovering engineer and I enjoy the tech side of photography. I’ve invested about $1000 in all this gear and since I shoot my own photos it’s paid for itself.
Now that is not something I suggest for everyone. If you don’t have the equipment, budget and time to dig into how to shoot real estate photos, hire it done. For me, it’s fun and I guess as close to a hobby as I have.
Blog platform – I use WordPress. I have Inmotion Hosting provide my server in a remote location, installed WordPress for free and I use a few paid plugins. My inner geek enjoys doing most of this and it is something I’ve done for about 10 years or more. I’ve written about 1000 articles, enjoy doing the work and I can attest to the fact, the more I write, the more business comes my way.
There is a correlation but I’m really not able to pinpoint causation. I think it’s just ‘top of mind’ sort of activity and it seems to work for me.
My blog is the platform for a lot of my social media posting, my virtual tours are there as are all of my posts and podcasts. I maintain 2 blogs to keep my mentoring activity separate from my real estate sales business. There is some overlap but mostly they are separate.
I’m going to stop for now. We’ve hit 500 words and that’s about all anyone reads at one time these days. I’ll dig more into some of the software tools I use like Evernote, YouTube, Vimeo, Screencaster, Loom and there are more.
Feel free to email me or comment on any questions or requests for detailed articles on these things and I’ll add it to the list of Technology articles to do in the future.
Thanks for listening,
Jerry Robertson