This post is a continuation of Paper flyers versus Online Advertising.

Advertising in print still has its place, especially for real estate agents that are part of a community. Many times advertising in a local paper has more to do with community then a businesses bottom line.

If you already see the value of community papersm, you can still try online advertising. Try sponsoring charity events/places in your neighbourhood that add website links to their sponsors. An example would be Friends Riverdale Farm in Cabbagetown, Toronto. Notice: Richard Silver, a Cabbagetown Real Estate Agent, and HomeZilla are both listed there. For about $60 a year you get a great link to your website and support your community.

No matter what your current advertising, take 10% and try spending it online…online advertising is here to stay. Online real estate advertising is getting more interesting in Canada with companies like ZooCasa and HomeZilla’s own Hyper-Local Real Estate Advertising.

Give online advertising a try… you won’t regret it…

In my opinion, green brokers face an extra, and not mentioned, challenge. They are going to be required to build long-term relationships with home buyers. Most real estate agents don’t maintain a relationship after the transaction. Green agents are going to be needed during the lifetime of the home. Renovating a house to be green can take years and to provide full ‘value’ the agent must be there whenever the home buyers have questions.

Green agents are educated by NAGAB on six main areas as part of their Greenrealestate™ training:

1. Help reduce energy waste through increased energy conservation,
2. Promote environmental awareness,
3. Reduce monthly home energy costs,
4. Lead to increased sale prices of Greenrealestate™ certified homes,
5. Help leave the world a better place for future generations,
6. Reduce energy reliance on offshore interests.

Unfortunately, the NAGAB website ‘Find a Member’ does not work so finding a green real estate agent can be very difficult. HomeZilla starting a project to collect a list of green brokers and agents across Canada. If you are a green agent reading this blog, drop us a line to be added to our directory.

Keep watching this blog to see when we launch this feature.

Having a Toronto based group to share Geo stories, especially over a beer and a game of pool, is exciting. This group should help accelarate all the GTA based companies using the GeoWeb. If you are interested in any realted to the geography and/or the web; come join us.

Do you know what is unique about West Vancouver—Sunshine Coast—Sea to Sky Country ? Check out the list of Canadidates to learn about a first in Canadian history. (hint: it is home to a party’s first MP)

My personal favorite, The Broadview Lofts, came in second. The lofts, located at Eastern and Broadview, embrace their industrial roots. This allows the neighbourhood to keep its historic feel while at the same time moving forward. Queen St East has been transformed since the completion of the Broadview Lofs. I, for one, can’t think of a better example of one new building having a huge impact on a neighbourhood.

For more information about the 2008 Pug Award winners check out National Post’s story.

There are 21 buildings on their list for voting. Check out HomeZilla’s map of all the locations (or for the geeks, download our Pug Awards KML file and make your own maps mash-up). How many of the buildings did I like? Not many… only 5 of the 21 got a ‘tip of my hat’. This is very unfortunate as these new building are going to be part of Toronto for the next 40, 50, 60 years or more.

The Pug Awards concept is fantastic. This competition gives a voice to the wisdom of crowds to help define the direction of our city, Toronto. Imagine how you would feel if a beautiful new building was added to your neighbourhood. What if it was a terrible building? Architecture can make or break a community. But architecture is subjective, what flies in Toronto won’t work in San Francisco or New York.

6 Laurier Ave

Does winning a Pug Award increase the desirability of a building? Very likely. Young condo owning urbanites want to live in the ‘cool’ building; they don’t want to know that 40,000 of the 50,000 voters hated where they live. Could Pug Awards losers end up en route to becoming a dilapidated building in the style of St. James Town highrises? Probably not, but designers beware. When the wisdom of crowds is unleashed, unexpected results happen.

Make your voice heard… vote in the Pug Awards… let’s tell developers how we want our city to look; results to be annouced June 5th. But remember, just reward those you really love. We don’t want the Toronto Pug Awards to have the same credibility as a Toronto standing ovation.