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Archives (page 53 of 372)

October 4, 2011

I want someone to give me a conference room in rounds so I can launch a Scenius in Sacramento Anaheim.

by

Suburban Phoenix Real Estate Broker

Author website

I want someone to send me to NAR in Sacramento Anaheim next month. I don’t want to do anything even remotely NARish, I just want to commune with the grunts on the ground. I have lots of interesting ideas about innovation in real estate, and I am lucky enough to know a lot of very clever people. Put us all in a room together, and we can make magic. We’ve done it before.

This would be cool: A double- or triple-sized break-out room in rounds of eight, each table its own little Scenius. Some formal presentations from the front of the room, with web and slide support, all that stuff. But also a lot of time for real work at the table level. I plan on throwing off a lot of product ideas, and I would love to have a leavening of people from the development side of the on-line real estate table. I want to sell some very serious ideas, but I want people to go home with new product plans, new marketing plans, too.

Here’s a true fact: This is the most propitious time for revolutionary change in the residential real estate business. Why? Because things could not possibly be any more screwed up than they are now. There is no sane argument to be made against any attempt to right this flailing beached whale we scheme to call a profession. I have ideas. You do, too. I want to talk about how we can be the drivers of real change in our business.

Am I too vain to think that someone would put together a show for me? I know how to do all this myself, after all. But: I don’t have the time or the money to put anything together. I loved doing the BloodhoundBlog Unchained events with Brian Brady, and with all the hard-working dogs who graced us with their presence. But all that is way more than I can do now. It comes down to this: I’ll do this if someone will take on the logistics and costs, and not if not.

But what I’m promising is a Scenius, Read more

September 27, 2011

The Reason for Boundless Optimism

by

Real Estate Renaissance Man

Author website

This, from a wonderful op/ed piece in the Wall Street Journal over the weekend entitled: From Phoenicia to Hayek to the ‘Cloud’ by Matt Ridley.

The crowd-sourced, wikinomic cloud is the new, new thing that all management consultants are now telling their clients to embrace.  Yet the cloud is not a new thing at all.  It has been the source of human invention all along.  Human technological advancement depends not on individual intelligence, but on collective idea sharing, and it has done so for tens of thousands of years…

Knowledge is dispersed and shared. Friedrich Hayek was the first to point out, in his famous 1945 essay “The Uses of Knowledge in Society,” that central planning cannot work because it is trying to substitute an individual all-knowing intelligence for a distributed and fragmented system of localized but connected knowledge.

So dispersed is knowledge, that, as Leonard Reed famously observed in his 1958 essay “I, Pencil,” nobody on the planet knows how to make a pencil. The knowledge is dispersed among many thousands of graphite miners, lumberjacks, assembly line workers, ferrule designers, salesmen and so on. This is true of everything that I use in my everyday life, from my laptop to my shirt to my city. Nobody knows how to make it or to run it. Only the cloud knows…

…good ideas can spread through trade. New weapons, new foods, new crafts, new ornaments, new tools. Suddenly you are no longer relying on the inventiveness of your own tribe or the capacity of your own territory. You are drawing upon ideas that occurred to anybody anywhere anytime within your trading network….

That is what trade does. It creates a collective innovating brain as big as the trade network itself.

So far this is already inspiring. We are advanced by the collective brain power of everyone we trade with… need there be any further discussion of free markets and open trade?  Why, other than in pursuit of enslavement, would anyone suggest limiting the “collective innovating brain?”  But there’s more; there’s reason for unbridled optimism.  Not just a positive outlook, not just a subtle feeling that the world will Read more

September 25, 2011

Video’s are in my arsenal – Lead conversation – It’s battle time

by

Realtor, Guerilla Technologist

Author website

If you were me, you wouldn’t love my annual paychecks. As a matter of fact, I’ve started out far worst that Russell Shaw was for the first nine years of his career, before he got into radio advertising. I’ve been searching for a way to build credibility online. If you’ve ever seen my face, you’d think I’m 21, not 30.  Of course you might be thinking, who cares 30 is the new 21.

Getting a great real estate deal from 365 Palm Beach on Vimeo.

I plan on having video testimonials of former customer so new customers can see that I am in fact a credible Realtor to do business with.  Let me know your thoughts on this video.  Does it need work?  Of course it needs work.  As a matter of fact, my entire business model needs work, otherwise I wouldn’t be writing what I am writing this very moment.  I would maybe writing about how my in house seo team is the best in south Florida.

My hunch is through video’s, I can increase my lead conversation through credibility.  I am playing with the idea of “Forcing Video Registration” as well.  Basically, a customer could watch a 30 second clip, register their info, and then watch the remaining 1.5 minutes of video.  Either way; in the name of getting out of the rat race and taking 1 full day off a week without real estate is the goal I am shooting for.  I know it can be done.

Also bloodhounders if you have any good SYSTEMS for getting repeat business please let me know.  From muggy South Florida down in the real estate trenches I’m Robert Worthington!!!

September 24, 2011

Was That Your Kid On 2nd Base Lookin’ For You?

by

Real Estate Investments Broker

Author website

It’s a lazy Saturday here in Paradise, um, San Diego. The last week or so I’ve been running into more than my share of people from my local baseball past, bringing a flood of fond memories in each instance. In Vons last week I ran into a kid I both coached (for and against) and umpired countless times. Yesterday in another local store there was a parent ahead of me at the cash register. “Jeff!! It’s Cheryl, how ya doin’?” “Super, Cheryl — How’s little Stevie?” “He’s a CPA now, living at the beach.”

Wow — Little Stevie’s a CPA? How the hell old am I anyway? Over the years I’ve had so much fun on the field, enjoying the heat of battle, both in the dugout and as an umpire. From the time my own son was eight, till he was a sophomore in high school, I was in the dugout. That includes post season tournaments, and all-stars at every age group.

Guess how many many millions of dollars I’d trade for those years.

The on-the-field stories I have, interesting, funny, and sometimes deeply poignant, go from 1988 through 2000, my last year umpiring NCAA ball. I saw my son’s first homer. Was in the dugout for his no-hitter. Same for the day he stood on the mound so triumphantly, having won the local city-wide major league championship in front of his old buds and their parents. Who, for the record, were cheering wildly for him, while lookin’ up at the announcer’s booth at the black hat who’d chased us out the year before to another league.

How sweet was that? In that moment, how much was the look on his face worth? Or seeing another league’s folks standing up and cheering for their involuntary prodigal son? Or, having the memory of that look and those cheers till I die?

I’ve umpired college kids I’d seen play since they were fifth graders for Heaven’s sake. Some of the stories are fall down funny. Some are pure baseball, and most are made up of success, failure, and the value of endless hard work Read more

September 23, 2011

South Park on Sixty Minutes: Is CBS chasing relevance, or are we about to find out how to monetize new-media content?

by

Suburban Phoenix Real Estate Broker

Author website

When I saw the bags of Cheesy Poofs at WalMart, I knew everything was about to change for South Park. After all, the boys told us that they were looking for ways to make new-media content pay. First the movies, then the South Park Studios web site, then the Broadway musical lampooning Mormons, known the world over for smiling benignly through the rudest of derision.

Now CBS is hopping on the South Park bandwagon, with a segment on this season’s premier of Sixty Minutes:

Frankly, I like the idea of a South Park that Sunday-school teachers and TV reporters deplore. There is nothing courageous about mocking Mormons, and if CBS thinks it’s cool, you know for sure it isn’t. I like to see the boys getting a day in the sun, but, as we are seeing with Glee, popularity and raucously rude jokes are rarely found together.

Just to keep the right balance, in discussions of South Park, here’s an NSFW clip that CBS won’t be running:

September 19, 2011

Connecticut State Supreme Court Justice: “I would have decided the Kelo case differently, but I had my head up my ass.”

by

Suburban Phoenix Real Estate Broker

Author website

Alas, the judge wasn’t that honest. But he actually apologized for being instrumental in stealing the homestead of an innocent family under the color of law. The next time you look at your paycheck stub, just think: Sooner or later, some well-heeled gonoph in a Brooks Brothers just might apologize to you for ripping you off week after week. Won’t that be nice?

September 19, 2011

Warren Buffett’s Secretary – An Open Letter

by

Real Estate Renaissance Man

Author website

Dear Ms. Warren Buffett’s Secretary,

First, and on behalf of everyone who feels as I do, please accept our heartfelt condolence that you have been thrust onto the stage of national demagoguery and class-warfare.  I can’t imagine being constantly referred to as: “Warren Buffett’s Secretary” on the national news and in speeches by the President of the United States of America.  Having your personal income tax rate not only held up for scrutiny, but co-opted as the basis for raising taxes on someone else (someone who’s done you no harm that you are aware of), must also be an uncomfortable position indeed, made all the more so by the fact that your own boss put you there.  Having said that… I feel compelled to answer the question that has thrust you into the hot spotlight of public scrutiny and in so doing, I hope to stop this before you become, like Farrah Fawcett before you, the poster child of prurient interest.

The question: Why do you, Warren Buffett’s Secretary, pay a greater tax rate than your boss Warren Buffett?

This was less than ably restated by the President of the United States of America today in his speech on raising taxes… I mean taming the deficit: “Warren Buffett’s secretary should not pay more in taxes than Warren Buffet.” You see, this is how demagoguery can get out of hand and the next thing you know, you are thumbtacked on bedroom walls all over the nation.  So, before we can explain why you pay a higher rate than your boss, we must first help POTUS understand the different between a tax rate, and taxes paid.  Mr. President, Warren Buffett’s Secretary pays a higher rate (a higher percentage) of her income in income taxes.  This in no way suggests she pays more… as a matter of fact, Warren Buffett pays a great deal more taxes than his Secretary does; he just pays a lower combined rate.

To answer the specific question then: You, Warren Buffett’s Secretary, pay a higher rate of tax on your income because you, even being the hard working and integral part of Warren Buffett’s operation that you most assuredly must be, are trading time for money… That is to say, you show up Read more

September 19, 2011

Boston Globe story on Social Media and Real Estate

by

IDX Search Entrepreneur

Author website

With Jeff’s post below still fresh in my mind, I read a story in the  Boston Globe Real Estate section over the weekend that attempted to sort of let buyers and sellers know that brokers and agents are adapting to social media:

Although it’s hard for Bourgeois to quantify just how many sales have come through social media, he believes that anecdotally it’s working.

If you can’t measure it, you can’t manage it. Anecdotal ROI is worth about as much as having Mickey Mouse and Bugs Bunny create an account to use your IDX search.

“If everyone is hanging out at the donut shop, that’s where you would go to get business. That’s where people would meet in the old days,’’ said Haley Brooks.

This would be a typical real estate section non-article if it weren’t for Brook’s observation about the donut shop. She is right: Facebook, or a blog via Google, is where people who already know you or about you go to find you these days as opposed to the Lion’s Club,  a little league game or, yes, the donut shop.

This is born out by  NAR’s 2010 Survey of Buyers and Sellers (click on the image to make it big enough to read):

48% of the people who bought in 2010 found their agent via a personal referral. “Internet Web sites” (as opposed to what other kind? Print Web sites?) is a distant 2nd with 10%, and I’m guessing that refers to traditional listing syndication and broker sites, not blogs or Facebook.

Still, 10% is 10%. Clearly, you want to make sure that whatever you are doing on the Web to cement 50% of the leads from referrals works for the 10% who find you by accident or design. The bigger the operation, the more important picking off that 10% becomes, so the broker or the franchise should focus on what it takes to compete for people who are shopping without an agent in mind, and agents should be working to make sure they are the agent that people have in mind no matter what site they happen to use.

As is often the case with these Read more

September 16, 2011

3 Things You Need To Know and 1 Thing You Need To Be To Blog Successfully

by

Real Estate Investments Broker

Author website

Having begun blogging in the summer of ’06, I found that many considered me one of the so-called pioneers in ‘online’ real estate. Frankly, I think that’s both true, and completely false. True, cuz inside the tightly defined real estate community I was a pioneer. Even now some of my local agent buds are taken aback when learning I’ve been blogging over five years now. On the other hand, the real pioneers in real estate blogging were doin’ their thing online back when I thought it was cool that I knew how to send email — and no doubt before.

What’s funny is when my friends ask me why? When I tell ’em how much my blog has produced in terms of closed business — skinned cats — they’re almost always a bit incredulous. Then they try to be Columbo with questions designed to appear innocent, but based upon obvious disbelief. Sometimes it’s been comical.

Why some blogs work and the vast majority don’t

Before beginning, it’s important for readers who don’t know me or of me, to realize that I’m President for Life of TechTards Anonymous. I know virtually nothing about SEO. If you were to find ‘key words’ in any post I write anywhere, it’s an accident every time. … _ _ _ … is the only code I know.

Content is King! is the battle cry for blogging, though recent history shows many who’ve valiantly tried to discount that principle. I’m here to tell ya, with whatever respect is due blogging detractors, content is King of the blogging universe — at least of the one in which I live. And please, pretty please with sugar on top, don’t come up with the whole, “Yeah, Jeff, but you’re in investments — it’s different for you.” crappola. It’s not. There are literally hundreds of real estate investment sites lookin’ to create business, most, at least in part through blogging. I’m not the Lone Ranger, the exception that proves the point.

House agents who blog, and write solid gold content consistently are succeeding wildly. Ask Greg if he thinks his company’s Read more

September 15, 2011

SEVRAR puts the brakes on ARMLS über alles, at least for now: Arizona-wide MLS hits a roadblock.

by

Suburban Phoenix Real Estate Broker

Author website

I wrote about this in July: The Arizona Association of Realtors wants to buy ARMLS, the Phoenix-area MLS system, in order to create a statewide MLS. This looked like the kind of sleazy insider self-dealing we have come to expect from Associations of Realtors, so I had assumed it was a done deal, all over but the staged performance of voting.

Not so. For some reason, the Southeast Valley Association of Realtors (SEVRAR) voted to decline AAR’s offer — which was at least five cents on the dollar what ARMLS is actually worth, given the notion that Zillow.com is worth a billion dollars.

But: I assume nothing. I have no idea why SEVRAR voted against what was obviously the party line. The cynic in me suspects a shake-down, but I really, really want to believe that some of that Mesa Tea Party spirit has found its way into the NAR.

I left a comment on AAR’s weblog, but so far it has not been moderated. Those folks aren’t interested in hearing from me, anyway. Realtors and brokers from all over the country talk to me about real estate marketing, technology and law, but the local practitioners, to all appearances, have nothing to learn from me. Their loss. Here’s my comment, in any case:

If you were at the SEVRAR meeting on September 9th, I’d love to hear why the sweetheart deal of the century was voted down.

September 14, 2011

The Next Big (Tech) Step in Real Estate?

by

Real Estate Renaissance Man

Author website

I watched the following video earlier this week and was blown away.  The basics of what’s described (kind of a mobile computer/projector/app device) are not that complicated; as a matter of fact, the mock up is made from off the shelf components.  Imagine when these are combined into one sleek pendant hanging on a stylish chain…

The video shows some of the more fun uses (draw a temporary watch on your wrist with your fingertip, take a picture by holding up your hands to frame an image, “see” social media key words associated with anyone you meet… in real time, the list is amazing), but I was struck by how powerful this can be for real estate agents.  I listed a few ideas below – watch the video first though.

Imagine walking your clients through a home with this device.  Want to look at the neighborhood comps again? Why crowd around my Pad when we can just sit down in the dining room and see everything laid out on the table itself.  Curious how a room would look if it weren’t painted Jimi Hendrix purple? Go ahead and stand back while I bathe the room in light close to the color you prefer. (Foam green?  Really?)  Don’t know if your entertainment center will fit on that wall?  No problem, I’ll project a 3D image and we’ll check it out while we’re here.  Prefer a guided tour of everything that’s right with this home (and maybe some of what’s wrong)?  Great, the owners themselves are here virtually and will discuss each room as we walk into it.  Want to write an offer?  Great, let’s just step over to the living room wall here and sign your name using your finger.

Those are just a few ideas from a non-tech guy.  What would you do with this device?

September 12, 2011

Mine, Mine, Mine! Are Defaulting Homeowners Criminals When They Take the Stove?

by

Realtor, Internet Marketing Expert

Author website

How many of you have seen foreclosed homes damaged or stripped of wall lighting, appliances, even kitchen cabinets, countertops, and toilets? I’ve even seen homes stripped of their copper wiring (I mean, really?!)  Indeed, we’ve probably all at least heard stories of homes being damaged as the occupants depart after default.  With the ongoing recession, I think this will continue to be a problem – especially in the most depressed markets like Las Vegas and Phoenix.

Seems like the powers that be in my state (Nevada, one of the nation’s foreclosure meccas) agree, and they’ve decided they’re not going to take it.  Under AB373, which takes effect October 1, homeowners who purposefully remove or destroy real property while the home is in default may be charged with a misdemeanor crime and subject to arrest and prosecution.

To be clear: If a defaulting Nevada homeowner wants to remove the bathroom medicine cabinet or dismount the marble mantel and take them, the homeowner may be arrested. In property law, the cabinets, countertops, mantles, fixed appliances, etc. are “affixed” to the real property because they are installed – they are either screwed, nailed, cemented or bolted to the real property and thus are a part of that property. Whoever owns the property, owns the fixtures. When a home is foreclosed, that home – and all of its fixtures – become property of the bank.

For whatever reasons defaulting homeowners feel “entitled” to damage their homes, they do more than just bring bad karma. Neighbors are negatively affected by that kind of bad behavior too. Homes that are damaged make neighborhoods look bad. Property values already decline because of the foreclosure, and a damaged home just adds insult to injury for the neighbors.

Plus, banks are not typically inclined to repair REOs, and a badly damaged foreclosed home is often much more difficult to sell than an intact one, which even further stretches out the time it will take for surplus inventory to clear and the real estate markets to find their legs again.  What’s more, fair or not, homeowners insurance premiums often increase as criminal activity in 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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