Now this is a hot subject in real estate marketing, luxury or otherwise. How to generate traffic to your website by using social networking sites. There appear to be more social networking sites than fleas on a dog, so the first thing to do is determine which social networking sites you are going to use and how to best use those sites to generate traffic and links to your own website or blog.

After deciding which sites are appropriate for you, the next thing to do is be active on those sites. And I don’t mean spend 12 hours a day on the ‘net, just some activity. To all those I hear muttering, “But I don’t have time,” - Find some time. There is no rule that says you must have a website, or that you must spend time social networking on these sites, but if you have decided you are going to have a web presence - then have a web presence.

I am constantly amazed at the amount of people I interact with on these sites, and what a waste of time most of this interaction is. I will give a for instance. I am a member of facebook and this is a link to my profile there - Mark Knowles on facebook.

At facebook, I joined a real estate bloggers group, thinking I would find a great group of real estate bloggers to network with After a little wandering through this group’s activities, I slowly came to the conclusuion that there were no bloggers there - the thing is chock-a-block full of advertisements for property for sale and “investment opportunities in Pakistan.”

In frustration, I posted a message to their wall which basically said:

Hellooooooo ! (echo, echo, echo) Are there any actual real estate bloggers here because I want to do some networking with you? I’m a really cool guy and I run a very high quality luxury real estate blog and can send some great links your way. (I am nothing if not modest)

751 members. Guess how many responses?

One!

That is correct - one single, solitary response.

The person who responded is Suzanne Grace, of Grace & Associates, a real estate agent in Thousand Oaks who sells real estate in California. This the welcome message on her website:

We are Grace & Associates, YOUR Real Estate Agents for REAL Life, and we LOVE helping YOU with all of YOUR Real Estate needs… the opportunity to help the first-time buyer buy that first home, the family relocating to their next home or helping a seller get the most money, the quickest sale, all with relative ease, gives us a great deal of satisfaction!

So, if you are wondering how to use social networking sites to drive traffic and links to your real estate blog or website, this is a good example. Just by responding to a simple question and saying hello in a friendly fashion, Suzanne now has a high quality backlink using fantastic anchor text from a high page-rank, authority real estate blog to her website

It may not pay off today, or even tomorrow, but some when in the future, this link will either send a visitor or cause the search engines to rank her page just a little higher when some one is looking for real estate in California and bingo ! Worth the time?

I bet that headline got your attention. I am not sure if the part about being lazy is true, or more the fact that real estate agents in general are still having trouble coming to grips with the crossover between online and offline networking.

I have begged for and been given ten tickets to the upcoming soiree at the Zen Mansion in Denver, Colorado and have offered them to various luxury agents I have an online relationship with.

Only one person has taken me up on the offer so far. This is the flyer for the event. Ignore the recommended cover charge – these are freebies from me.

So, seriously – if there are any luxury real estate agents in the Denver, Colorado area interested in what has to be one of the best networking opportunities in luxury real estate marketing – for free ! Drop me a line, Mark Knowles or call 877-LUX-SOIREE and tell them Mark sent you.

Every one knows you “have to have a blog to get ahead in real estate marketing.” At least, that is what many of the gurus tell you. And it’s true – sometimes.

So, let us assume you have decided you need a blog, and have also decided that you wish to host it yourself on your own domain name. This actually makes the most sense. It is a little more work than one of the free options I wrote about last time:

You need a blog to get ahead in real estate marketing

So why would you choose to host your own blog rather than use a free one and what is the best way to go about doing so?

It offers almost total control and much more importantly – allows you to carefully select some of the keywords you will want to target. This site for instance-

Luxury Property .com

Any guesses as to some of the keywords we wish to attract? Silly question but when considering a domain name for your blog, vital. So, let’s say you are a luxury property agent in Little Rock, Arkansas.

A quick search at who.is.com tells me that the domain name luxurypropertyarkansas.com is available. You can take it from me that if you are wanting to target the keyphrase “Luxury Property in Arkansas,” this is a good starting point, and if I was a luxury real estate agent in Arkansas, I would be snapping up this domain at the bargain price of $5.99

Luxuryrealestatearkansas is taken by the way. But it is a dead site and I suspect for sale if anyone is interested.

Do not be persuaded to buy any of the other domains such as .biz, .net, .org, .anythingbutcom. They are available for a reason. Only buy them to prevent others from doing so or to redirect to your main .com domain.

So, let us now assume you have decided on a domain name and it is available. The next step is to buy the domain. Nothing could be easier. I usually use godaddy and it is a matter of a few mouse clicks and giving them your details and credit card.

Now you have your domain and the next step is to buy some hosting. I use bluehost.com for my own domains, but there are no shortage of hosting companies.

The other thing I recommend is to buy the domain from one supplier, but host it at a different company. That is why I buy them from godaddy but host them at bluehost. Just in case.

Next step is to transfer the domain to your hosting company. This varies from company to company, but is, once again a matter of a few mouse clicks. Instructions will be found on whichever hosting company you have chosen’s FAQ page.

Now the fun starts……… to be continued. And if anyone wants to buy luxurypropertyarkansas, I will happily talk you through the process. Leave me a comment.

Any piece of luxury real estate worth it’s salt will probably have a swimming pool on the property. Inside, outside, or both perhaps. This is a guide to the most luxurious, most insane, most expensive, most photographed, largest - and even the ugliest swimming pools in the World

Although this started as a serious look at swimming pools in luxury homes, it is now just a little fun. As I began researching swimming pools I discover some pretty amazing variations. Not all these are private, luxury swimming pools, in fact, some of them are just plain scary. But they were so interesting I decided to forget about private pools and just make this a compilation of swimming pools from around the world.

Some of them are privately owned and in some of the most luxurious homes on the planet, but some of them are open to the public and a few of them are even free of charge. The pool at the top of the page is inside the Raj Palace Hotel in Jaipur, India. If you like what you read here, please feel free to submit this page to your favorite social bookmarking site.

The most-photographed/most famous pool

It could be argued that the most famous pools are the Hearst Mansion pools.

Interior

Exterior

The world’s largest outdoor swimming pool

The largest outdoor swimming pool in the world is actually a man-made salt water lagoon in San Alfonso del Mar resort in Algarrobo, Southern Chile. Now, they might have a big pool, but I certainly hope the same engineers didn’t build their website. If this one takes a long time to load, don’t be too surprised, all their electricity is going to keeping the pool filtered. The enormous pool uses a computer- controlled suction and filtration system to keep fresh seawater in permanent circulation, drawing it in from the ocean at one end and pumping it out at the other. The Guinness book of records acknowledged the pool as the largest in the world - 1,013 meters in length, covering 8 hectares. Many more photos after the jump. More on Luxury Real Estate - Swimming Pools

The cost of a square foot in some parts of the Burj Dubai has just increased to Dh13,000. ($3,500) Prices in the world’s highest tower, which is due to open by the end of 2009, start at Dh10,000 per sq ft compared to Dh4,000 just a few months ago.

The Burj Dubai’s biggest competitor in terms of price is the Palm Trump International Hotel and Tower, where the square foot rate recently topped Dh12,500.

Prices in both these towers are widely considered the highest in the UAE and are expected to top any other developments in the GCC countries, said Ali Al Rahma, CEO of real estate information website Eqaraat.com.

The Palm Jumeirah has retained first place in terms of returns as the rate has risen to more than 600 per cent over the past six years. More photos after the jump. More on Burj Dubai Price Soars Again

Another eco-friendly real estate development in Costa Rica was announced recently. This is their press release. Although I am publishing this as-is, the last release from the same source we published on an Eco-Friendly Luxury Real Estate Development in Belize, came in for some considerable criticism from local inhabitants, claiming the development was anything but Eco-Friendly. Their photographs certainly make this one look attractive. Comments welcome.

Press release:

Limoncito in Punta Leona, Costa Rica Is at Home With Nature Featuring Spectacular Scenery, Exotic Wildlife and Pristine Beaches

Adjacent to the Only Four-Star (highest rank) Blue-Flag Rated Beach in Costa Rica, Butterfly Farm, and Canopy Zip-Line Tours, Resort Places an Emphasis on Environmental Preservation

Punta Leona, Costa Rica (May, 2008)-Limoncito, a new luxury 58-room condo-hotel, is set to establish a serene retreat in the middle of some of Costa Rica’s most spectacular natural attractions. The new resort will combine the uniqueness of a 30-year-old beach club infused with modern day luxuries built with environmental preservation in mind. More photos after the jump. More on Eco minded Luxury Real Estate Development in Costa Rica

Following Donald Trump’s sale of his luxury Palm beach mansion as the most expensive knock-down in the history of knock-downs, I wonder if this bears good tidings for the other mega-priced mansions currently still on sale in the U.S?

Despite a price drop of $25million, the sale price was still a substantial one for a piece of luxury real estate in Florida, and there are several other mansions still available in this price range.

Top of the price list is still the Hearst Mansion

Once owned by William Randolf Hearst, the Jacobean Manor house on 40 acres in San Simeon, California, this property is available for $165 million. I don’t think this one bears knocking down though.

The Hearst Mansion was originally constructed on a 40,000 acre ranch that William Randolph Hearst’s father, George Hearst, purchased in 1865. Hearst jnr grew to love this site during many childhood family camping trips. He inherited the ranch, which had grown to 250,000 acres from his mother, Phoebe Apperson Hearst, upon her death in 1919. He began building that year and continued through to 1947, when he stopped living at the estate due to ill health. San Francisco architect Julia Morgan designed most of the buildings. Hearst was never 100% satisfied and would tear down structures and rebuild them at a whim, so the estate was never completed in his lifetime. Containing 56 bedrooms, 61 bathrooms, 19 sitting rooms, 127 acres of gardens, indoor and outdoor swimming pools, tennis courts, a movie theater, an airfield, and the world’s largest private zoo. Zebras and other exotic animals still roam the grounds. Morgan, an accomplished civil engineer, devised a gravity-based water delivery system from a nearby mountain. One highlight of the estate is the Neptune Pool, which features an expansive vista of the mountains, ocean and the main house.

[Show as slideshow]

Photo Credit - Jim Epler

A little further down the price scale, the Portabello estate, a 30,000 square feet property in Corona Del Mar still begs to be knocked down and turned into something a little more attractive. Even with 8 bedrooms and an “interesting,” design, the proximity of a busy road and public beach make this one unlikely to reach it’s current $75 million price tag. The real estate agents have also gone to the touble of creating a website entireley devoted to the Portabello estate. And the luxury brokers, have even made a special aerial shot of the property with a big red arrow pointing out the “interesting,” design - just in case you failed to see it. Although, if that is the case, I doubt you will be able to appreciate the view

Jumping back up the price scale again is the Tranquility mansion, Lake Tahoe.

Situated on the tax-free side of the lake, “Tranquility,” sits on 210 acres of prime real estate. The main house covers more than 20,000 square feet and is built in the California-Faux-Northern-European-mansion style. 9 bedrooms, 14 full bathrooms and a 3,000+ bottle wine cellar with a bronze carved door that was previously owned by none other than William Randolph Hearst. Small world. Currently owned by Joel Horowitz, co-founder of Tommy Hilfiger we will see if Mr. Trump’s sales success will be followed by any of these in the near future.

With or without the 20% discount? Comments welcome.