Dear CyberAgent user,

The economic environment and the property industry in particular remains challenging. We have seen in the last month how estate agents has come under huge pressure as the market sees the worst slowdown in years. According to the latest ABSA house price index the market slowed to a nominal 6.8% year-on-year in April from 7.8% in March.

Should the man in the street feel sorry for estate agents? The answers should be yes but do they feel this way? No, they do not. Over the years estate agents have been found guilty of lying, exaggerating and of not being trustworthy. But, the ever so but, did they complain or got angry when the prices of their properties were being ridiculously over inflated, photos of their properties appeared on the pages of expensive glossy magazines or when it was described as castles, "must have's" or photographed at flattering angles? No they did not! Guilty!

What ever you do, do it to your best and stick to it. It can only work in the long run for you.

Our agencies and agents that is using our CyberAgent software are special to us. Two months ago we started sending birthday wishes to those who's dates of birth we have on our system. Never did we expected to receive such great response;

Thank you CyberAgent Team for the birthday wishes. Much appreciated.

Kind regards
Lizette Louw

Hello CyberTeam

Thank you for the message – so by the way – all your wishes for me came true – it was a perfect day!!

Thank you for remembering my special day …

Regards
Eric Botha - Basie Botha Eiendomme/Estate Agents

Thank you for your lovely birthday card and greetings. Yes I did have special day and felt spoilt and loved

Sincerely
Marlene Anne Porter Properties

From the CyberAgent team, thank you to all of you. A small thank you can make a huge difference.

Lastly, I must highlight two items; website updating and agents working in a team.

Website updating - We have managed to add another website to our list of affiliated websites www.safindit.co.za, one of South Africa's top Mega Directory websites. Currently we are also busy with a data feed to another International site. More news on this one in our next newsletter.

Agents working in a team - We had a request from one of your agencies to make provision for agents working in a team. It is now possible to select multiple agents in one team.

Greetings!
The editor

Click Here for printable .pdf file

"Moorings" was added to property type

2. Sales Manager Module now in CyberAgent Anywhere

CyberAgent Anywhere now has the Sales Manager active.

This Module is only available to Administrators and to Group Administrators.

The module begins with a list of current and past sales for the agency. A new filter has been added to this list.

Filtering includes:

1. Agency lookup for Groups
   
2. Date range
   
3. Closed, Pending and Cancelled option included

Administrators can then drill down to the underlying sale and view the sale detail.

The sale detail is broken down into 6 sections:

1. Sale detail
   
2. Commission
   
3. Commission Splits
   
4. Property History
   
5. Accounting Setup
   
6. Sales Reports

There is also a page to setup your bank and attorney details.

3. Validation errors

Property Manager

With validation errors in the Property Manager a red Warning will now be displayed just above the Erf No. If all is fine it will display 0 Warning. Should you want to know more about the warning click on the Warning button.

4. Agents working in a team

Agent Manager - Agent Teams

It is now possible to select multiple agents in one team. Click on New to add a new Agent, complete all the relevant fields. Now click on the Is Team checkbox and select the agents belonging to the team by clicking on the Team Members button. The first agent selected will be the team leader.

Alternatively an existing agent can be changed to a team leader.

Teams will be marked with a (T) in all agent selection pull down menus.

Of importance:

• On the website all information of all the team members will be displayed when doing a property search
  
• Should a prospective client wish to contact the agent by SMS an SMS message will ONLY go out to the team leader
  
• Should a prospective client wish to contact the agent by email ALL team members will receive emails provided that they have a valid email address
  
• When data is exported to other websites that is not hosted by us (e.g. Propertytrader) ONLY the detail of the team leader will be sent through and displayed on these websites

Should you need any assistance please contact support at support@cyberprop.com or 011 955 9100

It was reported in the media that crime has increased at show houses targeting estate agents specifically during weekend show houses in the southern suburbs of the Western Cape.

“A year ago the average number of buyers visiting a show house was around 15 to 30 with homes in middle price brackets being the most active. We are now seeing between four and 12 visitors coming to show houses over weekends,” said Jeanne van Jaarsveldt, RE/MAX of SA finance and marketing director. This a 50% drop.

Furthermore there are agencies who called for a ban on showing of houses.

"Show houses and residential exhibitions will always remain a key component in an agent’s pool of marketing activities. We condemn any criminal activity interfering with this, and we will utilise our infrastructure and influence to assist all South African agents and real-estate agencies to address this issue.”

Article by: RE/MAX of SA

Rawson Properties new dossier tells agents how to protect themselves and in doing so, the seller's property, it also helps ensure the safety of potential buyers when visiting show houses.

While it is now a concern in the real estate marketing sector that open day show houses can be a security risk, it would be a great pity if they were dropped, says Tony Clarke, MD of Rawson Properties – because they are effective in selling property fast. The small firm with limited advertising budgets would be particularly hard hit, he says.

Clarke has drawn up three full pages of advice to Rawson agents on how to protect themselves and “keep ahead of the bad guys” in all situations, but especially at show houses. Some of the key pointers mentioned in the document are:

>> Read More

Doriana Mastroguiseppe, Brigitte Pompa, Wanda Bollo and Michael Pompa of Wanda Bollo Nationlink have been named by the Nationlink estate agency group as its National Agents of the Year. Their award was presented at Nationlink’s recent annual conference.

A team from Bedfordview has been named as the Nationlink estate agency group’s top performer of the past 12 months.

The team, consisting of Wanda Bollo, Doriana Mastrogiuseppe, Brigitte Pompa and Michael Pompa, snapped up the National Agents of the Year award at the group’s recent annual conference, which was held at Spier in the Western Cape.

Maria McKay of Leigh Nationlink in Sandton was named as the top performer in the individual sales value and commission earned sections, while Marie van Rooyen of Nationlink Plattekloof won the individual award for the most units sold.

The sales team from Nationlink Projects, consisting of Jimmy Duff, Jan Louw, Annemarie Meyer and Bernie Topper, topped the sales value, commission earned and units sold sections of the team category, while Nationlink Somerset West took honours as the most productive office and Nationlink Amanzimtoti as the best run office.

Special certificates of excellence were awarded to Duncan McLaggan of McLaggan’s Nationlink in Port Elizabeth for auctioneering and to Jennie Ling of Wanda Bollo Nationlink for commercial and industrial sales.

Leigh Nationlink was the top performing office when it came to the Ooba Awards part of the event, scooping the top supporting office prize as well as the national awards for the top supporting agent bond value (Maria McKay) and joint top supporting agent bond units (Lynn Duncan).

Annatjie Tichelaar from Nationlink Plattekloof was the other joint winner of the top supporting agent bond units award while Alan Box and Fran Pritchard of Asset Nationlink on the West Rand were named as the Ooba top supporting partnership.

From: www.nationlinkproperty.com

We now provide you with FREE training session in the following areas;

• Gauteng
• Kwazulu Natal
• Western Cape
• and the Garden Route

During these training sessions more information will also be provided on:

• CyberAgent Anywhere
  
• Keep me Informed Function
  
• New developments in CyberAgent
  
• New Update Manager
  
• REEP (Real Estate Evaluation Portal)

Property trader is a free real estate magazine, targeting all sectors of the South African residential property community. The publications provide compelling local market editorial with informative national features and columns delivering a truly unique perspective for those of you interested in the property market. As a group we currently publish in excess of 60 million pages of advertising per month via more than 400 000 issues weekly in the Western Cape, Eastern Cape, Gauteng, Kwazulu Natal and Mpumalanga.

Your properties are now advertised online with Property Trader as part of your monthly CyberAgent subscription!

www.propertytrader.co.za

We'd like to bring to your attention the fact that the www.Properazzi.com property portal to which we're exporting your data have identified certain problems with the way they are handling the data, their developers are attending to the problem and we should have confirmation from them shortly - confirming that everything is well.

A warm welcome to all new Agencies April 2008:

We trust that by now you are well aware of what CyberAgent can do for you. If you need any assistance, please do not hesitate to contact us at support@cyberprop.com or phone us at: +27 (0)11 955-9100 or 086 112- 9237

Most Internet enquiries April 2008:

&

Now you can update directly to SAhometraders when you do a property update in CyberAgent.

USP Designs (Pty) LTD and SAhometraders have formed a working relationship that now allows CyberAgent Users to update to SAhometraders without double property capturing.

USP Designs have negotiated a reduced monthly subscription of R250.00 excl. VAT to SAhometraders for all CyberAgent users.

If you are interested contact Sandy on 011 955 9100 or complete the form on this link and we will contact you shortly.

http://www.cyberagent.co.za/traders.shp

Betterbond has paid out almost R1-million in rewards to members of the Blue Door incentive programme since being launched on October 15 last year.

Estate agents registered with Blue Door have now reached 5 000 with 30 percent of those agents reaping the rewards. Agents receive their payouts into a VISA debit card.

Deon Lessing, marketing director of Betterbond says there are other prizes also on offer when the programme is concluded on October 31 including a grand prize of R100 000 for the estate agent with the highest rand value of bonds granted. Agency principals stand to win an overseas trip to the value of R50 000.

Article from: www.betterbond.co.za

This serves to advise that the EAAB has now scheduled an Overflow Examination, to be conducted under the old curriculum, for all those candidates who previously wished to write the examination but who, due to the overwhelming demand, could not previously be accommodated. This examination will take place, country-wide, on 10 July 2008. Successful candidates will be granted full status as estate agents pursuant to the old regulations. Such candidates will, thereafter, be able to proceed, in the normal course of events, to have that prior learning, as well as any other relevant prior learning, recognised and assessed pursuant to the RPL arrangements that are provided for in the new regulations. The EAAB believes that this latitude will, undoubtedly, benefit the many persons who are still seeking to gain full status as estate agents under the old regulations and will, also, serve as a useful transitional arrangement for the introduction of the new Outcomes Based dispensation for estate agents.