BloodhoundBlog

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Month: January 2007 (page 9 of 9)

January 3, 2007

ShackPrices.com takes on the big fish from a lofty perch . . .

by

Suburban Phoenix Real Estate Broker

Author website

ShackPrices.com hits the big time at InmanNews (free for now):

The latest real estate site to trace its roots to this rainy city is ShackPrices.com, which plots home listings in the Seattle area and western Washington state on Google maps.

ShackPrices.com went live a few weeks ago, and joins a growing list of sites aiming to simplify the hunt for real estate. Its founder, Galen Ward, has a technical background in mapping and databases and is a contributor to the Rain City Guide real estate blog.

Other real estate search sites vying for consumer attention include Trulia, HomePages.com, Realtor.com and the many broker-operated sites that also include listings.

“Our goal at the site is to make the process of finding and buying a home easier for consumers,” Ward said. Unlike some real estate search sites, ShackPrices is a member of the multiple listing service, which enables it to display a more comprehensive list of local properties for sale than a site operated by a nonmember.

The site enables consumers to enter home-search criteria from the homepage, and also features “Suggested Shacks” — homes that buyers might be interested in viewing based on their criteria and a proprietary algorithm.

Ward notes the importance of “all the niche decisions that go into buying a home” like neighborhood information that he felt were lacking in many existing real estate sites.

“When I started making maps and working in spatial databases four to five years ago, it occurred to me one day that the world is really lacking in info about what’s nearby a house. You could look up the price and size and stats on a house, but it was really lacking on the context of what the neighborhood was like, how close it is to amenities, what the views are,” he said.

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January 2, 2007

Riccelli.com launches — with a chance for you to win . . .

by

Suburban Phoenix Real Estate Broker

Author website

Erstwhile BloodhoundBlog contributor Richard Riccelli has launched his new web site. Richard’s real job is circulation marketing for magazines, and that is the new site’s focus. He’s looking for help ironing out the wrinkles, though. If you pay him a visit and offer constructive criticism, you might just win a free subscription to a magazine:

The new year starts with a new and improved resource for subscription marketers.

Click and you’ll get 113 Certainties for Circulation Success plus several other free and fun-to-read articles.

You’ll see examples of e-mails, landing pages and banners that captured new subscribers.

And check out the new logo. Yes, that’s a carrier (actually homing) pigeon on the badge. Humble and hard-working, soaring but direct — you get the idea… 

Bonus: You can win a free subscription to The Week or Harvard Business Review — your choice — just for taking a look and telling me what you think.**

Hope to hear from you soon. And happy new year!

Richard Riccelli, Inc.
32 Claremont Park
Boston, MA 02118-3002 USA
T +1 617 266 1036
F +1 617 266 0191

Riccelli.com –> new web address –> but no worries…

…your old bookmarks and e-mail addresses should automatically take you to my new site and inbox.

 
**P.S.  I’m after picky-picky-picky criticisms, frank reviews, even anonymous “you-need-to-knows.” Anything and everything you think would make the site better (or at least better spelled). Send them to richard@riccelli.com. The best comment or contribution before January 31st wins a gift subscription to one of two splendid magazines. OK, you’re right, they’re clients.

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January 1, 2007

Our Home Has Only Been Shown One Time In Five Weeks

by

Mega-Producing Realtor

Author website

Heather wrote in an email to BloodhoundBlog:

We listed our house right before Christmas. It has only been shown one time in 5 weeks. Can this be attributed to the holidays, our realtor, price? We have listed in the area listings papers and homes and land and we have signs but that has been the extent of advertising. An open house is scheduled for in 2 weeks. What would
you suggest we do? Thanks

When we look at the subject of marketing it is important to know WHO we are marketing to. Marketing isn’t done to “the public” but to “A public”. The two primary “publics” a home seller needs to reach are other Realtors and home buyers. The communication lines used to reach those two are not necessarily the same. For example, “Homes and Land” can be a good way to reach possible home buyers but would not be a reliable method to reach other agents.
Open houses have almost NOTHING to do with actually getting a home sold. I know there are people who will want to disagree with that statement – but they have not fully examined the facts. All real buyers either are or are not working with an agent. If the buyer has an agent the open house would have nothing to do with them seeing the house, even if they happened to stop by while the house was being “held open”. The buyer with an agent will usually wind up seeing the house when it is convenient for them (which is seldom Sunday afternoon). If the buyer did not have an agent the only thing it is necessary to do to get them to call is NOT put a “take one box” on the sign. The original purpose of a “take one box” was to improve the quality of sign calls. Skip the box with a flyer and if they see the house, don’t have an agent and like it – they will call.

Open houses, ads in picture magazines, web sites, Realtor.com, etc. are ALL attempts to get a buyer (who does not have an agent) to originate a Read more

January 1, 2007

Today’s Forecast

by

Realtor, Associate Broker

Author website

From my 14-year-old daughter, the very girl that brought you “Louis Vuitton and the French Revolution”, and the (unpublished) account of a local police chase which, according to Emily, resulted in the bad guy “varnishing a weapon”, we have her weather report: A chance of participation. We call her our little American Idiom.

So I am here with my New Year’s resolution: Participation. Ardell warned me, in response to my coming-out acceptance speech when asked to join the Bloodhound gang:

Welcome to “the juggling act”! Let’s see…my blog, their blog, my blog, their blog eenie meenie minie mo…

Oh, youthful exuberance! It has become clear that time management is becoming critical. Unlike Greg, I am not a Broker-Owner, just a Broker Associate. Unlike Russell, I don’t have a multi-level office support structure in place; my organizational chart includes Steve and myself. Unlike all of the other contributors (Cathleen excepted), I don’t have a wife. I am the CEO, COO, CFO, IT and Marketing and Business Development and Human Resources Departments, the wife, the mother, the orderer of the take out dinners, and the cleaner of the litter box. So Ardell’s prophetic juggling act has me, at present, precariously poised on a high wire without a net below.

Despite this, I, like Dan, am committed to more frequent posting of substance (the “of substance” part being the operative) and more consistent and meaningful commentary. Somehow, amidst all of this madness, Steve and I will continue to represent clients in 40 to 50 transactions a year – Pathetically modest by Russell’s standards, but as Greg would say, a respectable amount of Ramen.

Along those lines, I endeavor to accomplish the following in 2007:

  1. Bring more structure to my work day. Being a notes-on-the-back-of-a-cocktail-napkin kind of girl, I have hit the glass ceiling of efficiency with this approach. I need to set times to work, times to play and times to blog. And I need to set some boundaries.
  2. Produce those podcasts rattling around in my head. I vow to have a how-to library completed by year’s end for consumers, available on-line and on disk for potential clients. I am ever Read more
January 1, 2007

That’s The Way It Goes – First Your Money – Then Your Clothes

by

Associate Broker

Author website

It’s funny how just when you start to learn a little about this blogging thing… and about monetizing your blog… you then start to notice the thieves out there stealing your content.

At first, I thought I should feel flattered that someone felt my stuff was good enough to steal. Kinda felt good, in a perverse way.

Then I got pissed and started writing emails demanding the practice stop. As a blogger, you don’t want to be penalized for the duplicate content. Rojo is already hosing me as my content often gets indexed there, first.

Now I’m thinking more about revenge.

Oh, it’s not just my blog… a bunch of you guys are being ripped, too.

So I am noticing this latest theft, and I sez to myself “Self – let’s have some fun!”

The recent theft was of my last post, which included a picture. Oh yeah… they are stealing my bandwidth, too. So I went in and replaced the picture with another one. Oh – I kept the original… I just renamed it and relinked it for my blog. The theives, however, get a new one: (click on it to enlarge)
blogtheft.jpg
You can go see this particular thief at www dot nakedrepublic dot com. While you’re there, take a look at the other blogs they’ve ripped. Including BloodhoundBlog.

Next time you find yourself getting thieved on – have a little fun!

January 1, 2007

NAR dead pool . . . ?

by

Suburban Phoenix Real Estate Broker

Author website

One of the things Cathy did yesterday between finishing her real estate work and popping the cork on the champagne (she makes me do that, of course), was paying our dues. Not figuratively — literally. Yesterday was the deadline to pay the following creditors:

  • Phoenix Association of Realtors
  • Arizona Association of Realtors
  • National Association of Realtors
  • Real Estate Buyer’s Agent Council (ABR)
  • Council of Residential Specialists (CRS)

I don’t know what this cost us, but I’m sure it wasn’t cheap.

Here’s the interesting thing, though: How many people didn’t do it?

The first three are paid in one lump sum. You don’t have to belong to ReBAC or CRS, but you have to belong to the local, state and national Realtor’s associations to call yourself a Realtor. Taking account that we know that some significant number of Realtors didn’t do very well in 2006, how many, do you think, did not renew their membership?

The NAR Fact Sheet touts 1.3 million members for now. How many fewer will there be at the next reckoning…?

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January 1, 2007

LongTail.TV: Welcome to five-hundred-thousand-channel television . . .

by

Suburban Phoenix Real Estate Broker

Author website

I’ve written a lot about radio here, to the extent that you might get the idea that I really like radio. I do, and I think this might apply to a lot of people who habitually work very long hours.

One of my very favorite radio movies is Pump Up The Volume. It’s actually a teen angst film, I suppose, but the interesting wrinkle for me is pirate radio. In the end the protagonist calls upon his audience to set up their own pirate radio stations, to break the mainstream media monotony monopoly with thousands of new voices.

That much is impractical, of course: Pirate radio stations cost money and require technical expertise. But guess what? The there that could never be there turns out to be here, in weblogging. This is pirate radio made practical, 57 million alternatives to Dan Rather. Quality comes and goes, but — my goodness! — choice abounds.

Here’s a further development on the same theme: WatchItVegas.com. What is it? A net-based, on-demand TV station. The owner produces the videos used by the DiamondScan signs on Las Vegas Boulevard, so he has the technology and the content to set up his own TV station.

What does it mean? In the short-run, practically nothing. It’s net video, after all, small and crappy. But in the long-run…

I have an uncle who shoots trap and skeet. He’s good, maybe two or three rungs below the Olympic level of competition. The guys who do this are fanatics in the best web-based sense of the word. There aren’t many of them, but they are devoutly interested in what they do, and they are free-spending to the point of extravagance to get their hands on the absolute best of everything.

Can you say LongTail.TV? Sure you can!

We are graduating from five-hundred-channel television to five-hundred-thousand-channel television. If there is a niche, if there is content and if there are advertisers, there will be a net-based TV network. The advertisers are optional, actually. We don’t want them here, for example.

But: Advertisers want the biggest possible return for the smallest possible outlay. If an internet television network devoted to fanatical Read more

January 1, 2007

Real estate resolutions: Cough less, earn more . . .

by

Suburban Phoenix Real Estate Broker

Author website

When I get sick, I get really sick. I’ve had full-blown pneumonia twice in recent years. I have always been able to blast through illness, but, sometime after my arms got too short to read without glasses, that privilege was revoked. In consequence, when I get a respiratory infection now, I try to take it very seriously. Not as seriously as Cathy and our doctor might like, but I do my best.

In consequence, I’ve been laid up through the span of time we might have spent on big-picture business planning. Our course is well set, so we didn’t have a lot to worry about. But today Bonnie Erickson goes us one better with an excellent list of real estate resolutions for the coming year. Here’s a sampling:

  • Narrow my marketing focus to a manageable farm or neighborhood where I can meet the people and become known personally.
  • Focus my existing marketing to the narrowed sphere.
  • Contact each person in my sphere of influence at least once a quarter.
  • Contribute more to my networking group possibly through technology.
  • Finalize a cold calling system and stick to it.
  • Continue to contact expired and unrepresented listings.
  • Restructure my blog to incorporate more consumer friendly resources.
  • Re-examine my websites for consumer friendliness and SEO.
  • Continue to "bird dog" for investment properties which will be purchased for rehab and sale, rehab and holding, or sale without rehab to other investors.
  • Learn from losses in the business.

One of the things we were going to do last year and didn’t get to was implementing Daylite, CRM software for Macintosh networks. The big hurdle is taking all of our existing contact management “solutions” and merging them into one database, cleaning that for duplicates and errors, and then systematically adding to it. The task is even more daunting by now, but many of Bonnie’s resolutions show why it is worthwhile.

Easy for me to say. It’s a chore for Cathy and her pack of teenage hound-puppies. But touch-management, even if it runs on a database as faulty as memory, is worth money…

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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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