Sun still shines

COVER UPDATE

Sun still shines

No matter the economy, Realtors need a presence on

the Web because that's where most buyers begin their search for property. CyberSunshine sticks to the top firms.

Who says real estate is dead?

Don't tell Chad and Cassandra Engeldinger, two young Fort Myers entrepreneurs who recently launched a Web site for Solid Source Realty in Atlanta, one of the biggest real estate brokerages in the country with 2,600 agents.

That's not to say things haven't slowed down. They have. Business at their 10-year-old Web-development company, CyberSunshine, is up 5% to 6% compared with double-digit percentage jumps in previous years, the Engeldingers estimate.

The Engeldingers, who design Web sites for top real estate firms in the U.S. and Europe, say prospective customers are reluctant to spend money on new portals until there's more certainty in the direction of the economy. "They have the money, but they're holding off," Chad Engeldinger says. "Everybody is hunkering down."

However, existing customers haven't stopped renewing their contracts for hosting their Web sites.

"We're still seeing very strong renewals," says Chad Engeldinger. "Ninety-five percent of customers stick around. We're not having problems with people paying." The best-paying customers are the British, he notes.

People who work in real estate today are more likely to be professionals now, a crowd that CyberSunshine has always preferred. Many people who worked in real estate part-time during the boom have dropped out.

Chad Engeldinger says fewer people attended the National Association of Realtors convention this year than last, but he got almost as many quality leads. "The serious Realtors came to the convention," he says. Besides Web sites for agencies, CyberSunshine also develops sites for individual agents who work with the agencies.

Still, CyberSunshine has had to discount some of its services to lure new customers. For example, in October the company ran a 20% off Web hosting contract. And it established a monthly payment plan for site development, allowing customers to stretch the cost over a longer period of time.

The company has expanded its services to include social media. It recently hired a blog writer who will help agents write and maintain a Web log and create e-newsletters. In addition to providing useful information to prospective customers, blogs increase referrals to Web sites by search engines such as Google. CyberSunshine charges $199 a month to write two or three articles a week.

CyberSunshine's nine employees have developed Web sites for companies in 30 states and Europe. "We really are without borders," says Chad Engeldinger. The only barrier that prevents more global business is language.

So far the company is sticking with English.

-Jean Gruss