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Category: Realty Reality (page 8 of 16)

April 6, 2008

What Do I Do Now?

by

Mega-Producing Realtor

Author website

Below are two emails I’ve received in the past week. One is from a successful veteran agent in Texas and the other is from a young man from Canada in the business just over a year. Their stories are a bit different but my response is going to be the same to both.

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From the veteran agent:

I just wanted to say Hi and wondered how things are going in your market?

Our market has seemed to turn into a foreclosure market and a significant chunk has come from that direction! 90% of listings are over-priced…but one story homes and REALLY nice homes are selling.

Interest rates are causing the market to fluctuate…and the stock market seems to be doing the same thing.

At best my business is breaking even after paying me and my wife’s salary of $200k a year….which I guess is good. If things continue then my profitability will have dropped over 50% this year. We generally NET $420,000 -$470,000 per year on sales of 1 Million.

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Much longer when from the new agent:

Hi Russell,

Thank you for returning my call and giving me the correct email address. I have a lot on my mind with this career called real estate and I need a real person who understands the psychology of the business and who can point me in the right direction. With your proven track record I know I can use what you have already applied and take it to the next level, because the company I work and the broker’s are not seeing the big picture that I am seeing and it is a little frustrating. There are great trainers say that “if you want something go out and find people that is doing what you want to be doing, and start to do what they do on a regular basis”.

Just to give you a little bit about me and to get you up to speed on where I am at in my career, and what I am looking to accomplish. I have been in Real estate for a little over a year and my first year Gross sales were $75,000. My Read more

April 5, 2008

Please Show Me How You Disintermediate Results and Superior Expertise

by

Real Estate Investments Broker

Author website

Before beginning in earnest, let me take a shot of addressing what surely will be the first comments made concerning disintermediation. Have there been instances of this happening in other industries? Sure — the ‘go to’ is almost always travel agents. I maintain the average person still uses travel agents when arranging anything more involved than visiting Grandma or a business trip. How many of us will arrange a two week tour of Europe on our own? Not me. You?

The point remains — any industry requiring real expertise and which must produce results of real value to their customers/clients, will not — cannot — be replaced by the mere act of clicking. The concept is absurd on its face.

Of course, the jury is out on whether or not I’m in the minority or majority. Opinions are just that. Certainly my opinion isn’t taken from Divine Inspiration. Empirical evidence drives me to my conclusions here. The marketplace has decided, at least so far, the experienced agent producing consistently excellent results by way of superior expertise is the dominate choice of buyers and sellers of real estate.

Click that.

Russ Shaw and I must be the last remains of the species long thought to be extinct — Trirealasaurus Rex. Apparently we just don’t get it, and are on our way out. Everyone’s eatin’ our lunch, or soon will be. Techno-Geeks who could study what Russell does for a year and still not know what he’s forgotten, insist their way, (whatever the hell that is — they argue among themselves) will eliminate him just like the meteor crashing into earth wiped out dinosaurs.

Last time I checked, he’s not feeling very threatened.

Every time I read something telling me how I’m on the verge of extinction, I consciously avoid going into Dad’s default mode, which was to extend his favorite finger in the direction of the offender. 🙂 I’d rather learn what the smartest guys in the room have to teach. They’ve taught me how to apply their Geekinology to my Old School ways. I’ve been walking that talk now for quite awhile, coming up on Read more

April 4, 2008

Can you top this? From listed to closed in 184 hours

by

Suburban Phoenix Real Estate Broker

Author website

Cathy’s $60,000 brother-in-law listing has closed in scratch time. All cash, opened escrow Monday morning, recorded this afternoon.

In theory, you can transfer title on a house in Arizona same day, but I’ll bet it’s been a few decades since anyone got the job done that fast.

How about you? What’s the fastest you’ve ever closed on an MLS-listed home?

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April 4, 2008

All In a Day’s Work for Real Estate Agents: Humorous & Heartwarming Stories

by

Mega-Producing Realtor

Author website

Seeing this post on agentgenius made me realize that I had neglected to post this email I received a few weeks ago. If you do pop over to check it out be sure and read the comments, as well.

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From: Work Like A Dog Books [mailto:editor@worklikeadogbooks.com] Penquin

Sent: Monday, March 17, 2008 3:09 PM
To: russell@nohasslelisting.com
Subject: Realtor Michael Maher suggested I contact you about a project

Russell,

I recently got in touch with Michael Maher about a book project I’m working on and he thought you would be an excellent person to contact as well for use as a possible source in the book. When he told me you used to be a stand up comedian, I couldn’t have agreed more!

Your assistant suggested I e-mail you with all the information about this funny real estate book project, so here goes!

I’m contacting agents around the country to include their stories in a humorous book I’m writing. It’s called All In a Day’s Work for Real Estate Agents: Humorous & Heartwarming Stories. Think Chicken Soup meets Murphy’s Law. I’ve spent nearly 15 years working with real estate professionals in marketing and public relations and firmly believe EVERY agent has at least one wild story. The book celebrates the real estate profession.

Would you or anyone in your company have a funny, outrageous or touching story to share from your careers? Simply e-mail a reply, letting me know the best phone number/times to contact you. I’ll then call you for the details. The whole process shouldn’t take more than 15 minutes.

Womandriver

Realtors with stories included will receive two free copies of the book and local publicity about being included in the book (once book is published). There is absolutely no cost to you.

For complete info., visit www.WorkLikeaDogBooks.com. Also at the site, you can click the link on the left (ARealtor Submission Updates@) to see which states I have Realtor stories for as well as which companies are currently represented. My goal is to have agents from all 50 states, Canada and beyond in the book. With your help, that can happen. As of today, I have stories from agents in Read more

April 2, 2008

If Your Neighbor Throws Potatoes At You Is That A Disclose Issue?

by

Mega-Producing Realtor

Author website

To disclose, not to disclose. It is always much easier, in hindsight, to have disclosed. This article, on the front page of the Arizona Republic has the headline, “Home sale lawsuit is over neighbor’s odd behavior“. At issue is whether the neighbor’s behavior constitutes a nuisance that should have been noted on the residential seller’s property-disclosure statement. “She screams and yells at people that are passing by” ,”When my daughter’s in the backyard, the neighbor’s yelling at her and making verbal threats” are a couple of quotes from the current owner. In the Arizona Republic article, according to a police report from days before close of escrow, the former neighbor and seller heard noises in his backyard, and when he went to investigate, found the neighbor throwing potatoes into his yard and screaming obscenities. She accused him of stealing from her freezer. He called police. Yet later when he was selling the house he did not think this was a disclosure issue.

Now I understand that simple carbohydrates are not supposed to be “good” for you, but I like potatoes.

Throwing Potatoes

April 1, 2008

Automated Valuation Models – My New Favorite

by

The Real Estate Group, Virginia Beach and Chesapeake VA

Author website

The quest for automated valuation is a thirst unquenched, a fire that cannot be extinguished and seeming itch that cannot be scratched. Man is forever curious about the worth of an asset. Whether it is one’s home or one’s home on the web, curiosity slays its share of felines and we all have satisfied our secret urge to automatically valuate a time or two.

Did I mention that this Automated Valuation Model is for websites? (grin). Someone at REW pointed it out to me in their blog…here’s the link to it.

OK, ready for some fun? I took a look at some interesting sites to see their automated valuation as of today.

EriconSearch.com – My SEO blog VALUATION: $135,000 and change. Huh? (Think maybe the Greatest Real Estate Agent in the World contest skewed things a bit?) Methinks that is the case. I am officially willing to sell!

HomesinLouisville.com – Our brokerage Real Estate site… VALUATION $64,000 and change. Huh? Not on your life! This site is worth MULTIPLES of that! It generated many multiples of that in commission last year alone.

BloodhoundRealty.com – $553,807! Way to go, Greg.

TheBrickRanch.com – $71,307! Whaddya say, Teri? Deal or No Deal

Sean– is $10,500 and change fair for a website that POPS??

NOW FOR THE FUN ONE:

REALTOR.com Valued at 5.7MM

SO THAT’S IT PEOPLE I AM PASSING THE PLATE. Let’s take up a collection and buy REALTOR.com out once and for all!

By the way, if you are laughing at the ridiculous automated valuations of your website right now, or maybe you are angry, or maybe you just think it is stupid. What do you think homeowners are doing when they look at AVMs like ZIllow et al?

The REAL Valuation of a REAL Valuation– Priceless.

April 1, 2008

Where Were You When The Real Estate Industry Morphed?

by

Real Estate Broker

Author website

Life is good — I’ll be going to the Master’s next week. It’s been a few years since I’ve gone. A friend has some family connection with passes and if one of his business clients back out, he gets me in. Business is picking up also. I just got a contract on one of my “flips” before I even finished and put it on the market, so now I’ll change hats and be a buyer for a while looking for another one.

Leads are coming in on a regular basis, a mixture of strong leads, not so strong and weak. They are all possibilities. I’ve even had time to browse the web and see all the distinctions without much difference being made. As topics run thin we tend to make finer and finer distinctions to prove….what? Superiority? Most likely. Hell, I always think I’m superior. Well, not really, I just like to think I am a lot of the time. In my better moments I realize I’m perpetually on a learning curve. Just as soon as I’m ready to crown myself as “Expert” I hear something from left field that sends me back to the drawing board, to tweak, re-think, adjust.

Perhaps that’s the highest value of this great learning environment called the internet, we’re contantly evolving and becoming better, never crowned for long as “Expert”. However, the more we learn the closer we get to being knowledgable enough to know what we don’t know and how to find the missing pieces.

One thing that fires my imagination and pulls me into the good and the bad of the internet is the growing “conversation”. From Maine to Florida and from Georgia to Oregon, to Canada and overseas, people typing away, posting and responding, creating conversations that for certain specific interests like real estate become Great Conversations with various ideas and concepts being woven throughout. There’s no central authority managing the conversation, there’s no hierarchy of experts, only diverse voices growing, hopefully, not into a Tower of Babel but in different directions of movement and progress until the best ideas and concepts begin forming a great change for the better.

It’s a such a Read more

March 31, 2008

ROI For 2.0/Social Media Marketing? So Many Questions So Few Answers

by

Real Estate Investments Broker

Author website

Joe over at Selsius published a piece the other day — Show Me the ROI: Is Web 2.0 a Load of Hooey or Who’s Making Hay? in which he links to some pretty interesting posts on the same subject. So much of this is what has made me crazy since I first turned onto the onramp of the 2.0 freeway.

ROI? What’s return, if it’s not measured in money, yenom, cash, closing statements, origination fees, bank deposits, or fill in the damn blank? This is silly at it’s best, and embarrassing at its worst. I don’t mean anything Joe said, just the idea. In fact I thought Joe’s observation was right on the money — pun intended.

He noted some folks have decided it might be time to ask the question, “How big is yours?”

This goes back (Please Lord, protect me.) to what I’ve always wondered about the whole SEO thing. It fits into this topic as if it was custom tailored. What’s the ROI on 2.0/SMM? What’s the ROI on all those leads yer gettin’ from your website and/or blog? I’ve simply stopped turning to the experts out there, ‘cuz I’m tired of being ignored when I ask them to please let me know what their clients’ conversion rates are.

I finally ran into an upfront, plain talkin’ expert, whose name I will keep to myself.

When I emailed them privately, asking about leads per day for RE clients, and their subsequent conversion rates, the answer was a breath of fresh air, invigorating by its naked truthfulness.

Here’s my email to this expert.

‘Blog/SEO/Lead generation expert’,

I’ve been tryin, in vain, to find out what the batting average is for real estate bloggers who’ve been successful in generating a reliably consistent number of daily/weekly/monthly leads.

I’ve heard of, and keep reading about blogs bringing in 10 a day 20 a day, even 30+ daily. What I’m not hearing is how many closed escrows are resulting from all those leads.

Whenever I ask this question, especially to those who are experts, (in reality, not just in their minds) I become invisible.

You’re one of the Read more

March 31, 2008

The Theory Of Sales Relativity

by

Mega-Producing Realtor

Author website

When we upend things in physics these days, it’s not necessarily that the old things were wrong. It’s just that underlying it is a more complete theory. Quantum Web 2mechanics tells us that a ball is made up of atoms, but Newton’s laws still work just fine. You can predict the ball’s trajectory without knowing that the ball is made up of atoms.

– Lisa Randall

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When I read the quote above by Lisa Randall I knew I had to use that quote to pay homage to this wonderful post by my friend Jeff Brown. What is the benefit of Web 2.0? Transparency. I also really liked the post by Barry and I especially liked the comment by Allen Butler in this thread.

The only problem I see here is simply this: many consumers simply don’t know, or don’t care to know. The whole thing about being “transparent” is great ad copy. However, while we are waiting around for the internet to change our lives, your average Joe is simply looking for one more way to have to actually do less research and less work. The conveniences of modern shopping have led to very lazy consumers. Maybe a Redfin customer would have the gumption to search out the facts & such. Most will not. Real estate consumers fall into two distinct categories: buyers and sellers. The buyers will end up with an agent through sheer happenstance because they don’t know and don’t care.

The sellers will go with whomever is “recommended” to them by a family member of friend. It is usually not until they have expired a few times that they actually start to pay attention.

In a market like ours, the listing agents who get the job done will remain in the game. Those who don’t. . .well, most are already gone.

Gonna go out on a limb here (flame retardant suit loosely fitted to allow breathing room) and say that all this talk of disintermediation and having to prove your value in this new “web 2. . . .world” will not pan out. The consumer is too lazy.

Then again, I’m wrong occasionally.

I don’t think Allen Read more

March 30, 2008

Black Pearl Marketing Minute Hour: Your first six months as a real estate licensee — use your time now to make money then

by

Suburban Phoenix Real Estate Broker

Author website

For years I lectured at the pre-licensing classes of the the college professor who taught my own real estate pre-licensing classes. I hadn’t done this for the last couple of years, but I did a class on January 24th, 2008. We made a video tape of my talk, but I hadn’t done anything with it until Sean Purcell’s post, What’s Your Six Month Plan?, got me off the dime. Sean’s program is more thoroughgoing. I’m just leaning on a bunch of kids to get busy now, rather than waiting for money to come raining from the skies six months from now.

I’m linking an audio podcast from BloodhoundBlog.com and the video in iPhone podcast form from BloodhoundBlog.TV. The video is basically just Fred Flintstone shuffling around and waving his arms around a lot, so you might do just as well with the audio-only version.

I know there are a lot of brand-new and soon-to-be-brand-new Realtors reading BloodhoundBlog, so I hope y’all take this to heart. We talk a lot about passive marketing here, but selling is always active — belly-to-belly. If you can’t push yourself to get belly-to-belly now, with people who already know and like you, you will not somehow achieve miracle results later by direct marketing, social media marketing or any other form of passive marketing.

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March 30, 2008

Listing real estate the Bloodhound way: Everything we do to list historic, architecturally-distinctive and luxury homes for sale

by

Suburban Phoenix Real Estate Broker

Author website

This is a detailing of the things we do to list a home for sale. We don’t do every one of these things on every home. For example, we know that if we list in a newer tract-home subdivision, much of the noise we try to make will fall on deaf ears. If I am listing a tenant-occupied investor-owned home, we won’t do much beyond the normal MLS, lockbox and sign kind of listing. But this is what we do when we pull out all the stops for those homes that are likely to excite the most attention among buyers.

  1. Setting the stage for staging. Cathleen Collins will go though the house with a fine-tooth comb, often taking many photos. She will make lists of repairs, touch-ups and redecorating she wants to do, and she will plan her staging strategy.
  2. Home-warranty pre-inspection. We put a home warranty on our listings covering the listing period and the buyer’s first year in the home. We use ServiceOne, and they do a fairly rigorous pre-inspection so that any pre-existing conditions can be addressed.
  3. Repairs, painting and cleaning. This can take anywhere from a few days to more than a week. Everything’s a trade-off, and we can’t always do everything we might wish for, but we want for our homes to be as clean, as homey, as livable and as turn-key as we can possibly make them.
  4. Staging. This is Cathleen, and she is a master at it. We own about three houses worth of furniture, and she is always trawling Craigslist to find more — period, modern, eclectic. She has tons of art and decorator items as well, and her modus vivendi is to take everything she thinks she might need to the house, then move back what she doesn’t use.
  5. Professional photography. We have just switched to Obeo for our virtual tours. They send in a local professional photographer to do hi-resolution and panoramic photos. In addition to forming the basis of the virtual tour, the hi-rez photos are also used for Obeo’s Style Designer, virtual remodeling of selected spaces.
  6. Floorplan measurement. We put an interactive floorplan on the Read more
March 29, 2008

Flipping Homes: A Closer Look

by

Real Estate Broker

Author website

First of all let me say that I distinguish between fraud and flipping. When professionals collude to trick sellers into taking a low price, then flip the home for a profit in a short time, this is not what I’m talking about, and it shouldn’t cloud the issue of flipping. Why do we always take the worst practices and make that the norm?

Hell, let’s change the name to something that better represents what I consider a legitimate real estate practice — let’s call it BuyRebuild&Sell (BRS) — it sounds like Briz, so let’s call it Brizzing, in order to give it dignity and a cool name.

So there is this dog of a house uglying up the neighborhood and no one wants to buy it. I come along and look at the home — yet I’m looking at it in a different way — I look at its soul. The poor darling is sitting there being made fun of, people are even cursing it — That damn ugly house! It’s killing values! Some even secretly wish it would burn down.

Now, I’m a compassionate person, and I’ve always rooted for the underdog and tried to protect those who were bullied and ridiculed for their appearance. And I’m a businessman. Yep, I’m a crude businessman who likes to make a profit.

I say to myself, this poor house needs brizzing. I’m a good brizzer — I’ve brizzed over a dozen houses now. It’s funny how some people look at brizzing — they like the fact the house has been brizzed but they hate the profit you make off brizzing. “I know what you paid for that dog of a house!” — “You are charging what? You only paid $60,000 for it!”

Yes, but I brizzed it, you dope! I took a chance on this poor ugly house when no one else would. I didn’t sit back and make fun of it and curse it, I brizzed it! I could have lost my butt on this, but I believed in this house — I saw its soul! And, I’m a businessman. I’m a crude businessman who likes to make a profit. So, shut Read more

March 28, 2008

Surreal Times: Election 2008

by

Real Estate Broker

Author website

Every day around the world there are brilliant people going to work performing complex tasks that make all our lives better. There are companies developing and implementing service oriented architecture (SOA), information technology solutions more sophisticated than the world has ever known. Few people outside the inner workings of these companies know what is happening, because it isn’t reported. The leaders in industry building incredibly complex systems that respond with such a high degree of flexibility that reaction time to market changes is almost immediate are mostly unknown — they aren’t sexy and they aren’t political.

There are brilliant people making discoveries around the world: scientists, mathematicians, physicists, engineers, programmers, biologists — they are mostly unknown. There are entrepreneurs with vision reshaping the way we do business in a 2.0 world. These people take chances and gamble on innovative ideas — they step forward, yet most people don’t notice them.

Every day there are improvements to the cars we drive, the medicine we take, the homes we live in — online search makes information easy and useful to access, buying and selling goods and services is offered up improved and less expensive, medical procedures extend our lives and add to the quality of our lives, entertainment is offered in diverse packages that make our lives more enjoyable, private charities are getting help to needy individuals in more creative and efficient ways. It’s all due to the myriad individuals who use their minds daily and development better and better management and delivery. The real leaders of the world, for the most part, go unnoticed.

Not only do they go unnoticed, they are disparaged directly and indirectly by politicians building power bases. It’s especially noticable this election year. You would think the world revolves around and depends on the choice between three people. Government has positioned itself in the hearts and minds of many people and in the press as the true leadership that will reshape the world and improve mankind. If this idea wasn’t so dangerous, it would be hilarious. All one has to do is sit back objectively and consider the brilliant people at work each day building, innovatiing, managing and delivering Read more

March 26, 2008

Jerry Rubin Died A Stockbroker

by

Real Estate Broker

Author website

The point of my title might not be obvious, and it’s not meant to discount youthful exuberance — God knows we need youthful exuberance. However, Peter Pan and Michael Jackson aside, we all grow up. What does that mean — grow up? I take its meaning as maturation, becoming wiser, thinking long term, becoming responsible to self and others.

Organizations, even countries, like individuals, seem to go through the growing up process — from infancy, to childhood to adolescence to young adulthood to middle age to the twilight years. If companies and countries can continuously reinvent themselves between young adulthood and middle age that’s a good thing. The analogy with individuals breaks down here, for the most part, because individuals can only “remodel” so much before the realities of age take over completely. However, individuals can stay fresh in mind and spirit for quite a long time through constant learning, reflection and openness. This freshness of mind and spirit coupled with maturity and wisdom is an attractive combination in individuals — these are the people I gravitate towards.

RE internet companies seem to be in their mid twenties. There is an emphasis, a feel, a persona, if you will, of “youth” with companies like Redfin, Zillow, Trulia and the rest. What is their phiolosphy? It’s like most 20 somethings; it’s a mixture of style, doing good, distrust of tradition, worship of change, but very little mature, rational long term vision. Unlike Realtor.com, they play their music loud, dress in t shirts and jeans, talk funny and love to give stuff away to their buds.

They are the RE version of Google starting out, just doing stuff with no business model, having fun, being different with an attitude and declaring like grandiose young mini-gods they will “Do No Evil“. Oh, I’m sure there are grown ups developing plans and thinking about making money, but this is the sense, the feel, I get from these companies.

Do they have to “grow up”? Can they survive in the business world by hanging out with their friends, creating stuff and giving it away? They will make more and more friends, that’s for sure, but Read more

March 22, 2008

An Open Letter to Agent X

by

The Real Estate Group, Virginia Beach and Chesapeake VA

Author website

Every once in a while I get a phone call from Real Estate Agent X in the Louisville / Southern Indiana area. They have bumped into something I have written somewhere or seen our site somewhere and want to “pick my brain”. They offer to buy me lunch in the hopes of picking up a nugget or two or and idea or three. Funny part is, I DO want to have lunch with them! I love getting to know folks and I have to eat anyway. But instead of lunch being a verbal exploratory surgery of what I do online, I’d much rather simply get to know THEM! I’d rather become FRIENDS with them.

One such agent called me last week and I am meeting him for lunch on Monday. He became familiar with my writing on Real Estate Webmasters and wants to chat. GREAT! I am excited to meet you, Agent X. I look forward to it.

But since you won’t be the first and you won’t be the last and I will be giving you the EXACT same advice I give everyone, let’s save our conversational time for IMPORTANT things (like the University of Louisville basketball team’s run in the NCAA tournament, for example-grin). (Or on Kentucky or Indiana’s collective demises…GRIN). I am going to send you to BHB to read this open letter and you will find ALL of my secrets right here. Interested? read on!

Secret #1: Read this blog and EVERYTHING in it. Invest a couple of nights in deep contemplation on the subject of real estate. I don’t agree with 100% of everything here. I’m not a “homer”. But it ALL stimulates my thoughts and helps me learn. You will find more in the last week of posts here in terms of GREAT advice than in lifetimes of listening to the usual speakers and typical rantings. SIGN UP FOR UNCHAINED. NOW. DON’T go reading past this. Click the link NOW. Want to truly succeed? That is honestly the best advice I can give you. Want to see how influential and effective this place is? One of the Read more

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Inventing Real Estate 2.0

Welcome to BloodhoundBlog, the national real estate industry marketing and technology weblog written by, for and about real estate professionals. Better yet, welcome to the wired world of real estate. We are busily inventing Real Estate 2.0 – technology, marketing, service and salesmanship. Like all Bloodhounds, we are smart, frisky and fiercely independent. We've built a spot on the earth – beloved over all – where each one of us can be who we are, no matter who that might be. We are committed to an idea of excellence that will flush the bums, the con-men and the crybabies out of the real estate industry. If you yearn to have your failures excused, your moral lapses absolved or your boo-boos kissed, seek elsewhere. But if you are sick to death of mediocrity – welcome home. Read all about us, subscribe to our feed and steel yourself for the hunt. We work hard, we play hard, we learn everything we can – and we bow to no one.

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