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November 10, 2008

Links to the Unchained: How people attending BloodhoundBlog Unchained in Orlando saw the event

by

Suburban Phoenix Real Estate Broker

Author website

We lucked into WiFi in Orlando. I was convinced until my shoes hit the dirt on Thursday that we weren’t going to have it. But because people could connect, they did, working on social media sites in real time. A number of people also took exhaustive notes on their laptops, and here are some posts people have put up documenting their Unchained experience:

Eric Blackwell weighs in with My Top 10 Take Homes from BHB Unchained Orlando.

Greg Staker provides a nice summary of each of the presentations with How can my attending BloodhoundBlog Unchained in Orlando help you buy or sell Florida real estate?

(I could be wrong, but I think Eric Blackwell may have had an influence on that headline. 😉 )

By far the most comprehensive note-taker was John Sabia, a frequent commenter on BloodhoundBlog. His contribution to he discussion is called Unchained in Orlando.

If you have written up your Unchained experience hit me with the link and I will amend this post.

 
Further notice: Brian Brady at Active Rain: NAR Orlando: All Work and No Play Makes Brian A…, Daniel Rothamel at The Real Estate Zebra: I am not the audience, and what I plan to do about it.

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November 10, 2008

Unchained Notes: An Outsider’s View From Inside the Hound Pound

by

Real Estate Renaissance Man

Author website

Random Thoughts
A day and a half since I left Unchained Orlando, but my head is still spinning.  Maybe it was Orlando – the home of Disneyworld – that added to the surreal nature of the experience.  If you haven’t been there, Orlando is beautiful in a Disney kind of way: everything is clean and bright and just a little plasticized.  Maybe the buildings all use the same 7/8 scale that Disney uses, or maybe Unchained was just oversized… hard to say.

Over the next few days I am going to share a few of the gold nuggets I panned from the rapid flood of information that was one long, intense, ecstatic day at Unchained.  But not today.  Today I am still sifting and understanding.  Today I have only themes and simple data – points of interest that do not connect into a greater whole.  For new information to infiltrate and impact our daily activities it must be processed and that is where I find myself: clarifying the headers, organizing the outline and slowly expanding the void with pages and pages of ideas handed to me while I was there.  Bloodhound Unchained in 36 hours.  A blur of activity, a multitude of speakers – each sharing freely and every last one of them speaking much too quickly for my longhand chicken scratch – and laughing.  Laughing so much at times my sides hurt.

Dark Theme Emerges
The one theme I find over and over again is most assuredly not on Greg or Brian’s agenda, but the results speak for themselves.  Allow me a few words on most of the speakers and tell me if you see a thematic element:

  • we opened with Greg discussing the Greeks and the disciplined violence that was the Spartans
  • you had Brian sharing the dark secrets of being a Ninja in social media marketing
  • Teri warned of a fatal addiction to the Tweet drug
  • there was Kelly exhibiting the cool, detached efficiency of a hit man targeting Google
  • Mitch covered 100mph and proved that speed does kill the competition
  • we were exposed to John’s killer app
  • and finally, Eric explained how to make the organically grown poison Read more
November 10, 2008

How the new president is going to prolong the housing bust

by

Suburban Phoenix Real Estate Broker

Author website

This is my column for this week from the Arizona Republic (permanent link).

 
How the new president is going to prolong the housing bust

I’m writing this before the election, so I don’t know who will have won by the time you read this. But here’s something I do know: The forty-fourth president of the United States, whomever is chosen, will prolong the housing bust.

How do I know this? Because both candidates have promised to implement programs that will artificially buttress home prices above their market value. John McCain wants to refinance failing mortgages. Barack Obama wants a freeze on foreclosures. Congress and the fifty state legislatures have ideas of their own.

To make matters worse, lenders are putting a friendlier spin on the foreclosure process with elaborate workout schemes. If you qualify for a loan workout, instead of liquidating the home as a non-performing asset, some lenders will roll your existing loans into a new interest-only loan. You would make small payments for the next two or three years, and only then resume your full obligation.

What’s wrong with all these ideas? They’re simply delaying the inevitable. If you’re not making your payment now, you probably won’t make it after a refinance, after a foreclosure moratorium or after a three-year workout. Some people may find their salvation in these programs, but most of the affected homes are going to end up in the lender-owned inventory — later rather than sooner.

And that’s the problem. Our only way out of this mess is to clear the resale homes pipeline of foreclosure inventory. By delaying eventual foreclosures, we are preventing the real estate market from finding its bottom-dollar price. But we will see renewed appreciation only after the market has absorbed this glut of foreclosed homes.

The good news — for buyers: Homes are going to be selling very near their bottom-dollar price for the next few years. The bad news — for sellers: Homes are going to be selling very near their bottom-dollar price for the next few years.

The alternative is to let markets operate freely — a short, sharp pain followed by a robust recovery. But Read more

November 10, 2008

51 Days till 2009: What Are You Doing About it?

by

Instigator, anthill kicker.

Author website

This year is racing to a close.   But we are still needing to eat, and we’re trying to survive what (in many ways, statistically) is the worst year in a while.   But, let’s figure out this year and suck every drop of marrow out of it:

There are 51 days left, as of this post.  Let’s say we have 30 of them as ‘Business’ days, to account for the holidays…

What are you doing to maximize what we still have this year, and have momentum for ’09?  What if ’09’s the comeback year?  Are you ready mentally?

Can you grind out 3-4 extra transactions to make sure that your Christmas is the best ever?

How?   We need then to get deals in the hopper by what day?  I’ll say that with a decent lender, we’d need to have everything in shape by December 10th to the 12th.  Probably the 5th would be a better bet (but if you’re using  Brian, Tom or Dan, you’ve likely got till the 12th).

How many extra people can you contact between now and then?   Betcha if you contacted 10-12 extra people a day you’d get some deals in the hopper.   How many people are now hopeful that the Country will be going in a new, different and better direction?  Why not use that Hope?

How many sellable listings can you get?  (Someone is going to list a house in your market that closes between now and the end of the year.  Why not have it be you?   Someone’s going to take an ap or sign up a client that pays…why not have it be you)?

How much money do you need to cover all of your personal and business expenses?  Do you even know what your burn rate is?  Break it down into a daily number, include savings & taxes, and know that number is what you have to earn, each day.  (Being from the Midwest, mine is $218)

What are the days that you’re going to be working between now and the holidays?  Are you going to work, or are you going to sit in the Read more

November 9, 2008

The scenius on Swallow Hill Road: A brief gloss on BloodhoundBlog Unchained in Orlando, November 7th, 2008

by

Suburban Phoenix Real Estate Broker

Author website

When we put together BloodhoundBlog Unchained In Phoenix, last Spring, we were gifted with the magnificent beneficence of Zillow.com. In consequence, we spent money like a college freshman with a Visa card. We knew Unchained in Orlando was going to have to be a leaner affair — and after this fall’s market collapse, it got quite a bit leaner than we had expected.

We knew were were going to have five or six Bloodhounds presenting, so I resolved to rent a house to save us all money on hotel rooms. We got a five-bedroom seasonal rental, in a community I choose to call West Disney, for $621 — a smokin’ deal for what turned out to be 5 dawgs plus Teri Lussier’s husband, Jamie.


Brian Brady with Teri and Jamie Lussier.

Emphasis: My objective in renting the home was to save money. That’s all.

Unintended consequence: The scenius on Swallow Hill Road.

Say what?

I’ve talked about the idea of a scenius before. A scenius is a kind of communal genius. When deeply-passionate, passionately-informed people get together to share what they know, the synergy of their interaction can throw off vast quantities of new ideas. This is what happened with us at our house on Swallow Hill Road.

The Unchained event was a rockin’ success. It was better than Unchained in Phoenix had been — which surprised no one more than me and Brian Brady. It’s unfair to say we topped ourselves, though. It was the speakers who made Orlando a killer event.

Here’s an example, a brief clip from the keynote address by Better Homes and Gardens Real Estate CEO Sherry Chris:

Brian has other videos, so we’ll see if we can get those posted in the next couple of days.

Sherry was great, but all of the speakers were at the top of their game. I don’t want to take anything away from anyone by saying that Kelley Koehler and Mitch Ribak were off the charts excellent — rich presentations full of practical, ready-to-implement techniques. John Sabia took voluminous notes that I’ll be linking to tomorrow, so you’ll be able to reap the essence of the day’s presentations.

Plus which, Read more

November 9, 2008

It’s my video.. you can have the audio!!

by

Commercial Real Estate Broker

Author website

Having spent the better part of a year on a project (which is done), I’ve been a faithful reader but apathetic contributor.. partly because I haven’t had anything catch my attention (other than $1.5T evaporating from the market – something for another post) long enough to spur those creative urges.. but honestly I’ve been fairly lazy.. 

With that.. UMG, Universal Music Group, is taking my “views” off of YouTube! They’re not asking, they’re telling (email below from yesterday)..

 

YouTube - Broadcast Yourself help center | e-mail options | report spam

Dear Sean, 

Your video “The Tree is Gone” has been identified by YouTube’s Content Identification program as containing copyrighted content which UMG claims is theirs.

Your video “The Tree is Gone” is still available because UMG does not object to this content appearing on YouTube at this time. As long as UMG has a claim on your video, they will receive public statistics about your video, such as number of views. Viewers may also see advertising on your video’s page.

Claim Details:

Copyright owner: UMG
Content claimed: Some or all of the audio content
Policy: Allow this content to remain on YouTube.       

  • Place advertisements on this video’s watch page.

Applies to these locations:
United States

UMG claimed this content as a part of the YouTube Content Identification program. YouTube allows partners to review YouTube videos for content to which they own the rights. Partners may use our automated video / audio matching system to identify their content, or they may manually review videos.

If you believe that this claim was made in error, or that you are otherwise authorized to use the content at issue, you can dispute this claim with UMG and view other options in the Video ID Matches section of your YouTube account. Please note that YouTube does not mediate copyright disputes between content owners. Learn more about video identification disputes.

Sincerely,

The YouTube Content Identification Team

Some time ago, I put together some family videos with background music for the “rents” in Florida, and one in particular was about a 100-yr old oak tree that died in the backyard of the in-laws and had to be cut down.. So I filmed the “execution” with my background Read more

November 9, 2008

From an undisclosed location in Georgia…notes from BHB Unchained

by

The Real Estate Group, Virginia Beach and Chesapeake VA

Author website

Dateline: Motel room in Georgia on my way home

While many of the rest of the BHB gang are still in Orlando after BHB Unchained, I started my journey home yesterday. Since I stopped in Georgia to get some rest before driving the rest of the way to Louisville, thought it would be only appropriate for me to offer some thoughts and observations for those who might not have been able to come.

First off, I would be an ungrateful soul if I did not thank Greg Swann for letting me crash the party and stay at the house they rented. That was fun! It was a pleasure to finally meet you in person. I found you to be everything that I had hoped and more…and I had high expectations. Bless you, sir.

Secondly, Brian, Sean and Teri. You guys have been friends of mine for quite a while. It was so nice to finally meet and hang out with you. I learned so much from you guys and had a great time talking with you until 3am…hehe. For those who may wonder if the hounds that contribute here are real, honest, genuine, good people and that they care about others…just spend some time with them. They are purely authentic. Brian – pleased to hear about your success on Facebook.snort.

The 12 hours of Unchained was fun. If you were not able to be there to hear Mitch Riback, Kelly Kohler, John Rowles and the others that were speaking (I know that’s not a complete list, but hey, I am in a hotel in Georgia someplace-grin), you missed out.

I know the economic conditions crimped a lot of peoples’ travel plans and in many cases you’d have been there but for that. Not your fault. I think a lot of us felt that the travel and expense was a tough choice these days and we all have to make those decisions. It is part of being in business.

Well, maybe you didn’t miss out…they must have clipped the microphone to us for a reason…grin. I am sure they will let us know Read more

November 7, 2008

Why I think the Jobs report won’t be helpful for mortgage rates….

by

Mortgage Officer

Author website

Okay, let’s face the fact that the jobs reports and the reports from Ford and General Motors that came out today were ugly.   Not just ugly, downright nasty.

In normal economic times, that sort of bad economic news would send people fleeing stocks and going into the bond market.   That would in turn send bonds and Treasuries up and the rates down.

But that didn’t happen.   Just looking at one indicator – the 10 year Treasuries, the yield went up by .09% today.   What’s up with that?

A couple of things are keeping mortgage rates higher than what the economic fundamentals would justify:

  1. The amount of money the government is spending on bailouts.  The Federal deficit is truly skyrocketing because of all of the bailouts, buyins, rescues, TARPS, etc. that are happening.  That money needs to be financed somewhere because we don’t have the money sitting in the “bank.   When the markets get flooded with additional loan demand, the “buyers” of the debt can demand a higher rate on their money.   That pushes rates up.
  2. The concern that foreigners are not going to be able to continue to buy our debt.   This is not an economic downturn that is only happening in the United States, it’s truly an international downturn.  If, due to concerns about the amount of US debt or due to economic downturns in other areas, foreigners either stop or slow down the amount of US debt that they buy, that will reduce demand and push rates higher.
  3. The Bank of England cut rates by 1.5% this week (in their version of the Fed Funds rate).   We can’t do that.   Why?   Because we’re already at 1.0%.   So the options that the Fed has going forward are more limited than we’d like to see them.

I truly believe that if this was a “normal” economic downturn, we’d see mortgage rates at least .75% lower than we have them.   I also believe that short of a major Federal “buyout” of mortgage backed securities (a topic for another post), we aren’t going to see rates substantially lower than we have them now.   I also believe that it’s going to Read more

November 7, 2008

Appendix A: Linking to Author’s Profile in Multi-Author WordPress Blog

by

Real Estate Broker, Investor

Author website

After setting up the author image code, I decided my next step in creating our new multi-author company blog would be linking the author name to the author’s profile page.  I decided on a  profile page rather than an email link to a). initially keep the reader drilling deeper into the blogsite for more information, and b). the profile page can then present offsite links to the author’s other blogs or website as well as an email link.

As Greg describes here, the code is simple enough

Posted by      <a href=”<?PHP the_author_url(); ?>”>
<?php the_author() ?></a> <br>

But then I started scratching my head.  Where the devil does the author URL come from?  How does the system know what it is? Am I going to need to construct a database of author URLs?  (People who know the answer are probably laughing out loud right now.)

I Googled frantically, and finally after reading and rereading this page in the WordPress Codex, the moment of epiphany came.

The author URL is the website address from the user profile page.

Click on Users in the upper right corner of the WordPress Dashboard.  Click on the username, scroll down to the Contact Info section, and at Website, paste in the URL of the author’s about/profile page.

November 6, 2008

Offering more service to buyers for a bigger slice of the buyer’s agent’s commission, Redfin moves closer to traditional real estate

by

Suburban Phoenix Real Estate Broker

Author website

When I represent buyers, I see my biggest responsibility as taking the fear away. Yes, I need to find and show houses. Yes, I need to write contracts and supervise inspections. Yes, I need to husband everything through the lender and the title company. But the job of jobs is to serve as a security blanket for the buyers, to make them feel safe and comfortable throughout the process.

Whatever Redfin.com’s buyer pool might think they want from a buyer’s agent, in general they’re not that different from other buyers. They might like the idea of a very robust search tool for identifying homes. They might like the idea of a streamlined purchase process, Amazon-does-residential-real-estate. But when the dollars hit the dirt, they want to know that they are being marshalled through the home buying process by an experienced professional — someone who can do all the chores that need to be attended to, but also someone who can inspire the quiet confidence that permits buyers to sleep through the night in what might otherwise be a nightmarish experience.

Today Redfin.com moves that much closer to traditional real estate. Redfin buyers will be able to choose the agent they work with, and they will be able to look at an unlimited number of homes at no out-of-pocket cost. But the rebate to buyers will be 50% instead of 67%. The website has been retooled to reflect the higher degree of personal service.

Also today, Redfin will offer new search features on its web site, including tools to make it easier for buyers to investigate the history of distressed and foreclosure properties across multiple MLS listings.

By email, Redfin.com CEO Glenn Kelman offered this explanation:

A lot of this is the culmination of a long process of figuring out we’re a customer-service company, not just a web company or a real estate company, which means we’ve gotten a lot more practical about how we blend online and personal service; we’re trying to do more of both.

Redfin’s on-line search tool is so much more robust than anything else available to consumers, I think the company might be a Read more

November 5, 2008

Tin Foil Hats Optional

by

Real Estate Renaissance Man

Author website

In an earlier post I laid out how my distrust of conspiracy theories is being severely challenged by our government and what appears to be a naked power grab.  I am loath to continue in this vein for fear of being labeled the nut job who writes about Area 51 and Men in Black.  But my tin foil hat fits well and the strange shenanigans continue unabated at the government level.

WASHINGTON – The former chief risk officer at investment bank Bear Stearns Cos., which nearly collapsed in March, is now a senior official of the Federal Reserve division that supervises U.S. banks.

Michael Alix, who worked at Bear Stearns for 12 years and was its senior risk manager since 2006, was named a senior vice president in the bank supervision group of the Federal Reserve Bank of New York, the Fed announced. (emphasis mine)

Read full story here.

So, just to make sure I am getting this straight: the senior man in charge of assessing risk for a company that… failed miserably in its risk assessments (costing billions) will now “help oversee the financial safety and soundness of banks.”

What?

We (the taxpayers) pledged $29 billion to backstop the sale of Bear Stearns to JP Morgan and the government hires the individual originally tasked with preventing such meltdowns and puts him in charge of evaluating bank risks?

Each time I find myself with tin foil hat in hand, I think it only prudent to end the post the same way I did that first one: I am no longer confused…  I am scared.  Are you?  Are you paying attention?

November 5, 2008

BloodhoundBlog Unchained in Orlando — Schedule of events

by

Suburban Phoenix Real Estate Broker

Author website

Okay, so now you have to be careful to make no more than $249,900. 😉

If you’re not already there, come see us Friday in Orlando. Here’s the class schedule:

08:00 Opening
08:15 Greg Swann – The Unchained Epiphany
09:00 Brian Brady – Ninja Social Media Marketing
10:00 Sherry Chris – Keynote Address
10:45 Teri Lussier – Building a Community Through Blogging
11:30 Lunch Break
12:15 Point/Counter-Point On Social Media Marketing
01:00 Kelley Koehler – What To Do When Google Doesn’t Love You
02:15 Mitch Ribak – Internet Marketing Conversion
04:30 Dinner Break
05:15 John Rowles on IDX
05:45 Sean Purcell – The Bloodhound Way
06:30 Eric Blackwell – Leveraged Search Engine Marketing
08:00 Closing

Click on the PayPal button shown below to get your $99 ticket for BloodhoundBlog Unchained in Orlando on Friday, November 7th, 2008


















When: Friday, November 7th, 2008, 8 am to 8 pm

Where: Crowne Plaza Hotel and Conference Center, Orlando Airport, 5555 Hazeltine National Dr, Orlando, FL 32812

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November 4, 2008

Landing in Orlando on Thursday? Come and howl with the Hounds!

by

Rust Belt Realtor

Author website

In Orlando on Thursday evening with nothing to do? The Bloodhound Unchained pack will be hanging out at Uno’s Pizza from 5-7ish, and nothing, and I mean nothing, would make us happier than for you to join us. It’s a casual, come-as-you-are shindig that won’t break yer wallet, or have you reaching for the Bromo Seltzer in the morning, but will offer an opportunity to engage in the same lively conversation you know and love. No barking and no biting, but howling is encouraged- join us, won’t you?

Google Map can be found here.

November 4, 2008

I’ll show you my electoral-college map if you’ll show me yours…

by

Suburban Phoenix Real Estate Broker

Author website

I made this map last week, and I might change it a little if I were redoing it tonight. I’m not for McCain (although I am decidedly against Obama), but here I am simply illustrating in red those states I would be very surprised to see McCain lose tomorrow. If I were to redo the map tonight, I might throw Missouri, Iowa, Minnesota and Wisconsin to McCain, along with New Hampshire and half of Maine. Anyway, here is my thinking as of last week:

I could be wildly, wildly wrong, and you’re free to express the belief that I am — without flames, please — provided you’re willing to eat crow should it turn out, in the end, that I am wildly, wildly right. Bear in mind that all I had to do was keep this map secret to avoid the possibility of eating crow myself.

But: You can play this game, too. If you go to RealClearPolitics.com, you can create your own electoral-college map so you can show the rest of us how you think the election is going to play out. Email your map to yourself and then paste the link to your map in a comment to this post.

Why, you may ask, am I representing such a strong win for McCain when you have been told for weeks and months that Obama will win in a landslide? It’s because I don’t believe what I’ve been told. It may turn out that everything you’re hearing is true. For now, at least, I’m inclined to think otherwise.

If you’re interested, here is a stunning contrarian analysis of this election from Sean Malstrom:

The Undecideds *have* decided: they have decided not to declare their choice to pollsters.

The polls are way, way off this election cycle. Pollsters have admitted that this election has the highest ‘refusal to respond’ number. The ‘undecideds’ are people who don’t want to declare their choice. Why would they do that? If you belong to a Union, and they tell you to vote for Obama or ‘else’, you will not answer a pollster for it could be a union boss checking up Read more

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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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