Archives (page 187 of 372)

June 26, 2008

Project Bloodhound: How to write a question post that gets answers

by Greg Swann

Suburban Phoenix Real Estate Broker

Our new contributors are true Bloodhounds, equal to all the others. We don’t have rules, we don’t play status games and we don’t want for anyone to feel less than perfectly welcome here.

But: We do recognize that the new Bloodhounds are going to have questions. We want for them to have questions, since their questions will kick off great discussions of how to manage the world of Social Media Marketing.

However: The question post can be the death of weblogging. You set something up and then you say, “Does that makes sense?” or “What say you?” or “Am I wrong?” Sounds harmless enough, but, for some reason, posts like that tend to die a commentless death. It’s plausible to me that you see them so often on weblogs where the host is desperate for comments that that trailing question comes to seem like desperation in the flesh — like a blind date who turns out to be a sweaty Trekkie with Asperger’s Syndrome.

Here’s a way to put together a question post that will spark a conversation rather than languish in perpetuity, unremarked on and unloved.

First, instead of ending with the question, start with it: Just exactly how do you establish a following on Twitter without looking like another pushy Realtor?

Second, take some responsibility for yourself: Here’s what I was thinking. I thought I might just go in and start talking about the things that fascinate me in the neighborhoods I work in.

Third, give your readers the respect they deserve: I know there are a lot of people out there who have been successfully tweeting real estate for quite a while, so I was hoping someone could give me some direction.

Fourth, get right back to the questions: Am I all messed up in my thinking? Is there something I’m missing? Is there a better way of going at things?

Fifth, go one down, graciously: I know you guys know so much more about this than I do. Thanks for taking the time to hold my hand.

Like this:

Just exactly how do you establish a following on Twitter without looking like another pushy Realtor?

Here’s what I Read more

June 26, 2008

Elections Really DO Have Consequences

by Doug Quance

Associate Broker

When All Else Fails – Pay Attention To The High Court

In a 5-4 decision handed down by the U.S. Supreme Court today, the court has struck down the 32 year-old ban on handguns in Washington D. C. – and elsewhere, for that matter.

I find it less interesting that the court ruled against the gun ban. After all, the ban was an obvious encroachment on a citizen’s constitutional rights. What is interesting to me is that four of the Justices Supreme reasoned that the ban was constitutional.

How is it that these four dissenting Justices fail to understand the Founding Fathers? Were the Founders unclear about their belief that the citizens should not only have the right to bear arms – they should take up arms against a tyrannical government?

Bill of Rights – First Amendment – free speech – check.

Second Amendment – right to bear arms – check.

I’m no legal scholar, but it seems that gun rights were high on their list of priorities.

A 5-4 decision is no slam dunk. Yes, it’s a ruling… but without the kind of consensus I would like to see. Look at some of the recent rulings, like bestowing habeus corpus rights upon enemy combatants captured on the battlefield. Wow… so now the terrorists can make a mockery of our legal system.

A recent decision (Kelo vs City of New London) regarding eminent domain – another 5-4 decision – further eroded property rights by allowing governments to seize property to be conveyed to a developer for private redevelopment.

You might be coming to the conclusion that – once again – we have been given another election cycle of less-than-perfect choices. Seriously flawed candidates on all sides. Yep – suck it up. We’re hosed.

May I ask that you consider the high court in your decision this year?

Our rights and freedoms are constantly under attack, and since the Supreme Court is the ultimate ‘check and balance’ in our system of governance – it is increasingly important that you consider the kind of jurists that a President will nominate.

June 26, 2008

Project Bloodhound: And they called it puppy love

by Teri Lussier

Rust Belt Realtor

The Bloodhound Blog has puppies!

This is a frisky and fearless litter of pure-bred Bloodhounds, each with their own unique goals, skills, voice, and talents. They are being added to the contributor’s panel to blend their own howling to the symphony that makes Bloodhound the remarkable place it is. I prefer to let them tell you their own stories in their own words, but I’ll give you a little glimpse into the breadth and wisdom of this amazing group that we’ve assembled.

What I think you will find so intriguing about this group is that the focus of their blogs varies quite a bit. During Project Blogger, we were all real estate bloggers with a local focus. That is so-o-o 2007. This is 2008, and this is Project Bloodhound. This is a lender, and a true hyperlocal blog, and a green multi-user blog, and this a few city-wide real estate blogs of different price points and markets.

Project Blogger was mentors and newbies. Not Project Bloodhound. We have a true pup, just starting to cut her teeth in the Web 2.0 world; we have experienced bloggers who are hunting for a more engaging writing style; a long time blogger who is on the scent of the SEO secrets for dominating his market. There are a few pups who are gnawing on the dashboard of their WordPress platforms, and bloggers who are happily chewing Blogger and RSSpieces blogs, thank you very much.

Who are these pups?

Christine Beaur-Mortezaie: VoilaLongBeach

Brad Coy: SanFranciscoRealEstateServices

Michelle DeRepentingy: AllAboutAthensGA

Stephanie Edwards-Musa: TurningHoustonGreen

Hunter Jackson: ColumbiaSCRealEstateHomes

Tom Vanderwell: StraightTalkAboutMortgages

How is Project Bloodhound going to work? Briefly, the pups are going to post here, and we- we being anyone- are going to take those posts as a starting point and continue the conversation in comment threads, on our own blogs, and here on BHB posts. This is your opportunity to share your knowledge, but also your chance to ask your own questions and pick the brains of the best bloggers out there.

One short year later, it is a real joy to pay my own experience forward and I hope you will welcome this new litter of Bloodhounds with Read more

June 26, 2008

Unchained melodies: You don’t own me

by Greg Swann

Suburban Phoenix Real Estate Broker

Teri suggested this, but it’s one I’ve always loved, too. Leslie Gore looking all of 19 years old, taking down You don’t own me in less than two minutes:

Here’s a Don Dilego cover of The Kinks’ I’m not like everybody else. This was the B side to Sunny Afternoon and I wore the grooves right off that 45.

June 26, 2008

Estately.com in San Diego: Map-based search in a land without rain

by Greg Swann

Suburban Phoenix Real Estate Broker

Estately.com starts operations in San Diego today, the third city to be served by the Seattle-based map-based real estate search start-up. Considering that the company has so-far only raked in a modest six-figures in venture capital, this would seem to argue that Estately’s software scales easily. No news on finances, but, seriously, there must be some boot-strapping money to permit this rapid growth.

This is from an email from Estately.com co-founder and BloodhoundBlog contributor Galen Ward:

Estately.com is expanding into a new market. Beginning on Thursday, June 26th, over 19,000 San Diego homes and condos will be added to Estately.com’s 105,000+ properties for sale. Given the rapid changes in San Diego’s market, we are especially excited to give consumers the ability to track price changes on individual homes and across searches and areas.
Here are some example searches Estately makes into a snap:

Homes in La Jolla priced between $500,000 and $1,000,000 and sorted from cheapest to most expensive

Homes between $350,000 and $450,000 in Chula Vista

Homes including the words “motivated” (as in “motivated seller”) in the San Diego area

Additionally, we have revamped our “nearby information” information, plotted local schools and school scores, parks and transit stops on a map, and integrated it into the listing page.

I tried to run a search on “smug, slow-talking beachbums bragging about all the money they scam off of Arizona tourists with trained fish acts” — but that turns out to be everybody in San Diego.

Next stop: I’m betting on Oakland, but that’s only because I peeked. What’s not next: Phoenix — more’s the pity.

Technorati Tags: disintermediation, real estate, real estate marketing, technology

June 25, 2008

Custom Signs and Brake Lights

by Sean Purcell

Real Estate Renaissance Man

Recently experimented with one of the countless ideas that pour out of BHB like water from a hydrant. Created a single site blog page and a custom sign for a listing. The idea, of course, is stolen from Greg Swann and some of the other brilliant minds that visit here. The purpose is this: be so much better as an agent (which is to say: so much better at marketing), others will have to increase their value proposition markedly… or get out of the game. Here are a couple pictures of the sign:

The first one is an overview and the second one is a close-up. I think they turned out nice and I was VERY happy with the process.

But that is not why I am posting.

Here’s the really interesting part. After hanging the sign I started to pull away and had to stop and get my camera out again. Three cars in a row stopped to look at the sign and one actually sent their child out to get the flyer.

So… within minutes of hanging the sign I had eyeballs from three cars and conversion on one; you have got to love that kind of impact! BTW, the first thing my clients said was they loved the sign. I remarked how standard signs only tell people a house is for sale while marketing for the brokerage. One of the ideas behind a custom sign is to encourage people to stop the car and get out to read the sign (thus increasing the possibility of interest). They replied: “This should do it. You know… every agent in the area is going to stop and read it!” Just love that.

June 25, 2008

Listing real estate the Bloodhound way: Apprehending all of the marketing objectives of single-property web sites

by Greg Swann

Suburban Phoenix Real Estate Broker

Trace Richardson wrote just lately on the technology of building single-property web sites, and, while he got almost everything wrong, from my point of view, I’m willing to cut him some slack. First, he’s a very thoroughgoing weblogger, and that buys a lot of credit in my bank. And second, he went after the topic as a technology problem, rather than as a marketing problem.

That’s a mistake, but hardly an uncommon one. It’s natural for us, when we think about doing something, to think about the doing, rather than about what it is we hope at the end of the process to have done. Build a web site? That’s easy: Step 1. Step 2. Step 3. Build a web site that sells a house? That’s a harder job. Build a web site that thrills the sellers, slays the neighbors, sells the house and promotes you as a Realtor forever? That’s a Bloodhound job.

Here’s the thing: A single-property web site is not just another bullet point in your listing presentation. If it is, you might as well just buy yourself a Showing Beacon and be done with it. If you’re just shining your sellers on, just promising them yet another gimmick to get the listing, you might as well pick an easier gimmick.

There’s more: There is no way a third-party vendor is going to produce a single-property web site that will achieve what I consider to be the essential marketing objectives of the endeavor — not, at least, at a price you can afford to pay. You have to learn to do this in house, either yourself or with staffers you control directly.

And still more: Of all of the marketing objectives we can attain with a single-property web site, SEO is pretty low on the list. Even so, there are long-term SEO benefits to be reaped from doing a single-property web site properly.

This is our way of thinking about this issue. Your mileage may vary, and I entreat you to remember that a single-property web site is just one piece of an overall strategy that we use to market a listing.

Start here: Read more

June 25, 2008

With Yahoo in Google’s posse, can Coldwell-Banker be next?

by Greg Swann

Suburban Phoenix Real Estate Broker

H/T: The unrepeatable Dave Dugdale.

June 25, 2008

Down Payment Gift Programs: Yea or Nay?

by Sean Purcell

Real Estate Renaissance Man

On June 9th, in a speech to the National Press Club, FHA Commissioner Brian D. Montgomery announced that his agency plans to create new regulations banning the use of down payment gift programs. The most popular of these programs is The Nehemiah Program and you can go to their site for more details, but the gist is this: seller contributes 3.5% to this charitable organization, which then contributes 3% to the buyers purchase, serving as their FHA downpayment. Appears to be a win-win: the seller gets their home sold, the buyer gets into a home with no money down and a charity gets .5% for helping. The problem, according to Montgomery, is that loans using this type of problem are defaulting at two and three times the rate of their traditional down payment loans.

There is no question that this type of program gets more people into homes than would otherwise be possible. But… what of the ethics? Although legal and within the bounds of FHA’s current guidelines, is there any question that this type of program also eviscerates the very spirit of the guidelines? FHA allows charitable gifts with the understanding that there is an implied vouching for the client. Whether it be family, employers or a city program, the idea is that the donor has some knowledge, purpose or interest in seeing the buyer succeed. But with the down payment gift programs, the donor is the seller and their only interest is in selling their home. (In fact, at times the home’s value is inflated to cover the 3.5% donation creating a circular interest of the buyer for the buyer.)

A down payment gives the buyer some “skin in the game” and creates within lenders a sense that the buyer won’t walk away at the first sign of trouble (which sense was confirmed as we watched homeowner after homeowner walk away from their mortgage recently when there was no equity to protect – not an ethical consideration, purely business). Without downpayments, rates would climb to cover the inherent risk. Maybe that type of loan will come back once the risk can be assessed, Read more

June 25, 2008

As a personal favor…

by Eric Blackwell

The Real Estate Group, Virginia Beach and Chesapeake VA

When I was putting together TEAM ERIC for the Greatest Real Estate Agent in the World Contest, I was pretty specific in how I built the team. There was a reason that Greg Swann was on the team. There was a reason for EACH member. Many of the team members did not talk to each other much in the emails that went flying everywhere, but individually they all talked with me. Everyone who was on that team was VITAL to its success. One of the things that united our whole team was that they are all “givers” and “doers”. There were (and are) no “show dogs”. The team was comprised of dogs who know how to hunt or pull a sled.

One of the members of our team is Charles Richey and his wife Jacqui. Charles does the webmastering and marketing support while his wife does the selling in Las Vegas. Charles is a giving, caring soul who is now faced with battling Guillaume Barre Disease and has been in the ICU for the past few days. The good news is that the outlook is positive. Many make a full recovery (after an extended stay in the hospital and physical therapy). This will be a long battle. One that ANY of us here could find ourselves in. But, like many REALTORS, Charles and Jacqui are battling without health insurance.

I am capitalist through and through, but that comes also with the fact that I am a loyal friend to a teammate and believe in helping fellow travelers and paying it forward. One does not truly work without the other. And as REALTORS we are all teammates to a large extent.

A fund has been set up here. If you can spare some, it is greatly needed and would be appreciated big time. Many REALTORS and more than a couple of vendors have offered support. I will chronicle their efforts down the road a bit.

Thanks a bunch for whatever you can do. I know times are tough right now and purse strings are tight. Even a small donation from a large number of folks would Read more

June 24, 2008

Housing Rescue Plan Passes Senate Smell Test

by Brian Brady

Commercial Real Estate Finance Expert
Structured Debt and Equity
Licensed Real Estate Broker in AL, CA, and FL

Ever see what you thought was a pragmatic idea bastardized? I’m no politician but I love throwing mock legislation up to the Bloodhound Congress. If you’ve ever watched C-SPAN, The Bloodhound Congress resembles The British Parliament much more than our domestic legislative body. Boos, hisses, and cheers abound in the rough and tumble world we live in.

I wouldn’t have it any other way. Madames Porter and Schlicke and Messrs. Kerr, Purcell, Ashby, and Johnson keep me honest and get the old grey matter working. As Bloodhound Blog approaches its second birthday, I salute the folks who really make it such a special place for me; The Bloodhound Congress.

Y’all remember this plea to Senator Dodd to leave well enough alone?

I oppose individual originator licensing in its proposed form. It doesn’t demonstrate true expertise and might induce a false sense of security to the consumer. This very act may very well damage the consumer by perpetuating the adolescent approach to financial planning the average American exhibits. It transfers the responsibility of prudent money management from the consumer to the license issuing body; sadly, those bodies are not up to the task.

I made the mistake of giving The Distinguished Chairman an inch:

I am recommending a NASD-type licensing model, with comprehensive education and testing standards. Originators should have education in financial planning, loan programs, and consumer suitability- that license will look a lot like a Series 7, General Securities Representative. Loan Processors should be proficient in loan programs and suitability, like the Series 6 license for mutual funds and variable annuities. Finally, managers and underwriters should have supervisory jurisdiction like the Series 24, General Securities Principal license. These licenses should be required for any and all participants, regardless of their employing company, and include federally-chartered banks. The effect will be higher costs to the consumer but expertise has its price.

Be careful what you ask; you might get exactly what you want. Good Grief! I didn’t really MEAN it!

This one riled everyone up. I reversed course and recommended yet another bailout. I actually thought this was a pretty cool idea, exposing the Social Security system as Read more

June 24, 2008

Listing real estate the Bloodhound way: A marketing quiz to shed light on the full value of the Coffee Table Books we make for our listings

by Greg Swann

Suburban Phoenix Real Estate Broker

I’ve written about the Coffee Table Books we make for some of our listings, and I talked about them briefly at BloodhoundBlog Unchained. I wanted to go into the idea in greater detail, because I think this is a case where, if you don’t understand all of our thinking, you could easily miss the big picture by focusing on the pixels.

Cathleen Collins invented the idea of doing Coffee Table Books for listings. She knew what we wanted, and then she searched the internet to find a way to do it. (We use Apple’s iPhoto, but you get get similar products from Shutterfly. H/T Cheryl Johnson.) We’re not always this lucky. We knew what we wanted in custom yard signs years before we were able to find a vendor who could do it.

To understand our marketing objectives, we need to start at the top. A Coffee Table Book is an objet d’art. It is only secondarily a book. It is primarily a statement about the subject of that book. By its nature, a Coffee Table Book says, “This is important. This is no mere casual, ordinary thing. This is an object or event that deserves to be heralded, celebrated, honored.” That’s why these books can only work for certain homes, and, why, incidentally, I think it’s a mistake to violate the format. If you turn your Coffee Table Book into a hard-cover version of the kind of comb-bound listing books produced by title companies, you cheapen your impact — possibly to the point of anti-marketing — and frustrate your objectives.

So the sine qua non of a BloodhoundRealty.com Coffee Table Book is an exceptional home. The book says, “This home is extraordinary,” so the home has to be extraordinary enough to justify the existence of the book.

And this comes back to the knock-their-socks-off idea of marketing a listing. The Coffee Table Book expresses your total commitment to your sellers, and it makes the same kind of impression on potential buyers. A Coffee Table Book will not paper over the defects in an ugly, dirty, decrepit home, but it will make your listing stand Read more

June 23, 2008

If you commit yourself to delivering a premium listing, trying to cheap it out will instruct you in the previously-unknown 23rd Immutable Law of Marketing: Anti-marketing is worse than no marketing

by Greg Swann

Suburban Phoenix Real Estate Broker

Idea-by-idea, house-by-house, we are writing the book on the art of listing premium-priced homes for sale. The things we do are often beyond useless at lower price points, and we’re not a part of the canapes and cocktails circuit where high-end homes are sold. But for executive homes, luxury homes, historic and architecturally-distinctive homes, the kinds of marketing tools we are perfecting are very effective.

Effective at what? At selling the house, of course. Everything we do is about selling the house. If we happen to make a strong impression on the neighbors or on other people who see the work we are doing, so much the better. Even so, that’s not the point. People should be impressed by the commitment we make to selling our listings, but our purpose in making that commitment is to get the house sold.

Here’s a true fact, apparently known to everyone except real estate agents: Consumers — the people we hope to make our clients — see us as being lazy and cheap. They think we’re overpaid, but it’s probably less that they think our paychecks are too big and more that they don’t see any effort on our part to justify those paychecks.

A typical listing is a lockbox and a sign. Is there a flyer? Or is there just an empty flyer box? Has the flyer been edited with a ballpoint pen to reflect price reductions? How many photos are there in the MLS listing — and are they any damned good?

The marginal cost of everything I’ve talked about so far is essentially nothing, amortized over a few dozen listings. The one exigent out-of-pocket cost might be the post for the sign, and I have seen real estate signs nailed to trees. I wish I were joking.

If consumers see us as being lazy and cheap, it’s only because far too many of us are lazy and cheap when it comes to servicing our clients. It’s comical, actually. The Realtor who pisses away $5,000 acquiring a client worth $10,000 in gross commission income can’t bring himself to spend fifty bucks out-of-pocket on that client.

There’s a Read more

June 23, 2008

Inmanically Incorrect: Vendors Are Tools

by Brian Brady

Commercial Real Estate Finance Expert
Structured Debt and Equity
Licensed Real Estate Broker in AL, CA, and FL

I think a little bit differently about marketing than Greg Swann does. Not much, but we’re of slightly different mindsets. I’m not scared to call a name a lead, a voice on the phone a prospect, a loan applicant a borrower, and a funded loan recipient a client. I KNOW they’re people because I’ve always treated them as people. I don’t need a rip off of a Nike ad to tell me that. Ain’t nuttin’ original about treating people who inquire about your services with respect; Sister Brigid taught me that back in 1972.

Greg and I think a bit differently about vendors, also. While Greg envisions a world without vendors, I see them as a necessary evil. My goal is to maximize the necessary (efficacy) while reducing the evil (money paid). The problem with the whole vendor/practitioner relationship is that practitioners are looking for the little purple pill; the shortcut. That’s what the charlatans prey upon.

We talked about this at Unchained. Mary McKnight taught us how the fish can find your bait, Louis Cammarosano gave us a demonstration about how to cast our nets, Steve Hundley taught us how to hook them, and Ron Cates taught us how to prepare them so that they’re edible. Moreover, David Gibbons taught us where the schools of fish are swimming so that you’re better prepared for the next big expedition.

All of them…”vendors”. Vendors inasmuch as they insert themselves in between the practitioner and the customer and get paid for it. They get paid for it because they deliver hungry people to your restaurant for less money than it would cost to do yourself.

Should Greg’s utopian prayer of zero acquisition cost be a virtue? Of course. We should all strive for utopia. His message, if I’m not mistaken, is that the brave new world is building pressure behind the dammed chokepoints so that the chokepoints have to evaluate their efficacy. The smart ones are evolving their models to increase their efficacy while the irrelevant proclaim that we practitioners are all idiots.

Wanna know how I know this? I watched them call you “glorified delivery people, gatherers Read more

June 23, 2008

The just-exactly-how-dumb-are-you Realtor-spam of the day: Showing Beacon not only cures that nasty excess income problem, it makes you look even dumber than your clients had feared

by Greg Swann

Suburban Phoenix Real Estate Broker

This is magazine spam, but it came from an RIS magazine called — wait for it — Real Estate that is nothing but spam. Every ad turns into two ads, the ad itself plus the puff-piece editorial copy of the just-exactly-how-dumb-are-you products being pimped in the ads. This kind of thing might be offensive to real estate professionals if we had not been putting up for it for years from Realtor magazine and the Inman “News”.

Anyway, this dumb product, called Showing Beacon, is a strong contender for Dumb Product of the Year:

I can’t figure out how much this stupid thing costs, but it doesn’t matter: Nothing would be too much. But don’t get the idea that you’ve milked this joke of all its yucks until you stop in at the Showing Beacon web site. Scroll down the page and click on the celebrity photos. What should you do when you come to fear that your product might be too cheesy? Add more cheese…

Technorati Tags: real estate, real estate marketing

BloodhoundBlog

Archives (page 187 of 372)

Project Bloodhound: How to write a question post that gets answers

by Greg Swann

Elections Really DO Have Consequences

by Doug Quance

Project Bloodhound: And they called it puppy love

by Teri Lussier

Unchained melodies: You don’t own me

by Greg Swann

Estately.com in San Diego: Map-based search in a land without rain

by Greg Swann

Custom Signs and Brake Lights

by Sean Purcell

Listing real estate the Bloodhound way: Apprehending all of the marketing objectives of single-property web sites

by Greg Swann

With Yahoo in Google’s posse, can Coldwell-Banker be next?

by Greg Swann

Down Payment Gift Programs: Yea or Nay?

by Sean Purcell

As a personal favor…

by Eric Blackwell

Housing Rescue Plan Passes Senate Smell Test

by Brian Brady

Listing real estate the Bloodhound way: A marketing quiz to shed light on the full value of the Coffee Table Books we make for our listings

by Greg Swann

If you commit yourself to delivering a premium listing, trying to cheap it out will instruct you in the previously-unknown 23rd Immutable Law of Marketing: Anti-marketing is worse than no marketing

by Greg Swann

Inmanically Incorrect: Vendors Are Tools

by Brian Brady

The just-exactly-how-dumb-are-you Realtor-spam of the day: Showing Beacon not only cures that nasty excess income problem, it makes you look even dumber than your clients had feared

by Greg Swann

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