Q: What do you do when your massive Realty.bot web site, target-marketed to equity-rich home-sellers, finds itself in a real estate market where most sellers are upside down and do not give a rat’s ass what their homes might sell for?
This is an eyeball play, up front, just pure traffic-baiting. But the genius of it is that it turns into FUD for the agents in the long run: A million necks, one noose.
These sites are just noise, by now, just more “media” — uninformed opinions from people who make their living doing something other than selling real estate. Delivering your clients to them strikes me as a poor idea.
Early yesterday evening I was truly fortunate to be in a room with a buncha smart, highly successful, incredibly skilled people. There were bazillion$ sitting there, discussing what they do for a living, the real estate industry in general, marketing, and the normal stuff. I’m not gonna talk much about the whole syndication of listings comedy of horrors (my description), except as it relates to the difference between perception and reality.
How is it guys like me can sell a home in a matter of hours, 16% over the median price in the region? No syndication, at least none for which I paid. If some happened as a result of the listing hitting the local MLS, I can’t control that. In any case, it didn’t sell the home.
My efforts did. My experience did. My expertise did. And so does yours.
Let me make it even more irritating. Earlier this year a new client in another state had a small rental home, ripe for a tax deferred exchange. First step? Get it sold. He wanted to initially sell it himself, so I coached him. He did everything I asked of him, and did it well. Took about 30 days. Got his price. It closed. Completed his exchange. All he was interested in was results. I told him he didn’t need anything but his local MLS. Guess he must’ve been an M.I.T. grad, right? Sorry, couldn’t resist.
Back to the group in the room.
There were no newbies in the room, at least none I could identify by sight. 🙂 One was a fellow Bloodhound contributor. All agreed that what I didn’t realize is how the sellers themselves insist, before listing, that the broker agree to waste much of their marketing cash on worthless syndication, Zillow, Trulia, and the Usual Suspects. One even said many sellers insist she pay for freakin’ newspaper ads, money she knows might as well be thrown into a roaring fire. I was originally licensed in the Pliocene epoch of real estate, when Truman was still alive, McDonald’s hamburgers were 15¢, and offers to purchase were one page, 8X11, fill Read more
We’ve been listening to Badlands Country, a rockin’ kind of outlaw alt.country internet radio station. You can get it through the link above, but it should be available from just about any internet radio client. I found it first on iTunes, if that helps, and I listen to in on my iPhone by way of ooTunes, which is totally worth having just by itself.
Badlands has a pretty long playlist, most of it in-your-face rebel country — with zero Nashville pop pabulum.
The station is epoch-eclectic, to say the least, but one of the things I like about it is that they play a lot of classic country, the stuff you will never hear on broadcast stations.
Like this: When Johnny Cash was most enthralled by the music of Bob Dylan, he wrote an homage to Don’t think twice, it’s alright called Understand your man. The debt to Dylan is more than obvious, but the Man in Black wrote a song that is darker, funnier and much more true to the reality of a broken marriage:
I love songwriters as much as I love their songs, and Lacy J. Dalton recorded the absolute best song about songwriting in Sixteenth Avenue:
My pappy purely loves Tom T. Hall, one of the great Nashville songwriters, and I love it that there is still room for his music in the Badlands:
Is all that too old-timey for you? That whole Texas alt.country scene is well-represented, from Chris Knight to Reckless Kelly to James McMurtry. Here’s Fred Eaglesmith with I like trains:
And if you’re lookin’ for more of a back-beat, more of an urban rhythm, the Badlands has you covered, with tunes like this cover of Snoop Dogg’s Gin and juice from The Gourds (not safe for work, kids or your mom):
There’s always room for bebop in our lives — and especially in my car. But Badlands Country is a rockin’ way to deliver the goods in the office.
The real estate business is obviously in the midst of dramatic changes, and that is certainly an understatement. I just published a new book entitled The New World of Marketing for Real Estate Agents (Early Adopters: The New Millionaires). The book will be available on Amazon for $14.95, but what I’d like to do for Bloodhound readers right now is give them a free eBook version that can be immediately downloaded and read on their computer or iPad. Some traditional brokers undoubtedly will think I am a radical, but I think my arguments for a new business model are supported by the evidence. Here is an excerpt from the book.
How is real estate marketing changing? The traditional bricks-and-mortar real estate brokerage is hemorrhaging, and all that keeps this archaic business model alive is consolidations. As offices close, some agents quit, but the survivors move their licenses to another sinking ship, a ship that looks just like the last one and often with the exact same name on the bow. The changes in real estate marketing are dramatic. According to the NAR, we’ve lost 300,000 agents nationwide since 2006, and one NAR spokesman suggested we need to drop from 1.1 million agents to 750,000. This past week two more offices closed in my small market, and the press is not writing about these closures. But this is happening all over the country–it’s just not front page news . . . for anyone who still reads the front page.
These changes in real estate marketing are killing traditional business models. Bricks-and-mortar real estate brokerages that stubbornly refuse to bridge the gap to an entirely new business model will die a slow and painful death. It’s one thing for brokers to ride their own ship down, but it is quite another thing altogether for those brokers to sell tickets to real estate agents with promises they can’t keep.
The most unfortunate thing about all of this is that the agents who think they are doing what it takes to survive are only re-arranging the deck chairs on the Titanic. Many of them truly do not know or comprehend how Read more
If you’ve seen me in real life, you that know I walk with an ugly limp. I walk fast, but I don’t walk pretty. I was in a car accident in October of 1994, and one of my injuries was the severing of the nerves that control my left foot. Looks normal, works okay, but I can’t push off with that foot, nor curl my toes toward my nose, nor elevate that foot when it’s hanging in mid-air.
I have nothing to complain about. I had truly great doctors, including eight hours under the lights with orthopedic surgeon Dr. Stuart Kozinn, a consistent favorite in Phoenix magazine’s “Best Doctors” feature.
And, since then, my legs have always been very strong. Dr. Kozinn and I were both determined that I wasn’t going to spend the rest of my life in a wheelchair, so I did everything I could to get my legs back under me. I can ride my bike for miles and miles at top speed in the desert heat, because that’s how I got my stride back.
But: I could not run. You have to be able to push off to run, because your toes can’t be dragging on the ground as you are swinging your leg forward. That would hurt — even before you tripped and fell on your face.
I loved to run before the accident. I never cared about exercise when I was young, but I never needed to: I was a high-D in a red-hot hurry. I ran everywhere. I loped everywhere, sailing through the air in nine-yard strides.
So when I couldn’t run any longer, I really missed it. I dream about running, and I love to go to the supermarket so I can run through the aisles, supporting my upper body on the shopping cart.
And all that changed today. Cathleen has been on my case for a while to buy Skechers Shape-Ups shoes. The marketing promise is better fitness, a workout while you walk, but the reality is pretty dramatic. There is so much up-thrust from the heels of those shoes that they replicate the effect of a strong Read more
How many times have we given thought to a list of outcomes we’d love to make real in our lives? It frequently seems a never-ending process, almost against our will. Once an outcome morphs itself into a goal-worthy project, we apply our energy towards its attainment. Most goals people set aren’t met. Either they didn’t have sufficient desire, or if they did, the strategy invoked was ill equipped or mis-applied, the result being equally dissatisfying.
Assuming sufficient desire, and that the strategy itself was faulty, not its application, a new approach is required.
Plan B
This isn’t about what Plan B is or isn’t. It’s about us deciding whether or not to broadcast it to the world. There are some outcomes and/or strategies almost guaranteed to work better, or more bluntly put, work at all, when kept under the radar. It could simply be that you’d rather keep the desired outcome to yourself. Or, it could be the strategy you wish to keep undercover. The reasons don’t matter. You have your own. We all do, right?
A case in point.
In the early 80’s I knew a nice woman who was dangerously over weight. It’d been that way since early childhood. One day it dawned on me I hadn’t seen or heard from her in awhile. I called, but her number had been disconnected. Almost two years later I was dumbfounded, as there she was at a Christmas gathering. She’d lost well over 100 pounds. Nobody except her grandparents had known what she was up to or where she was. (She’d moved to live with them as part of her Plan B.)
We’d been relatively close, so she confided in me. Everyone insisted on making a huge deal of her weight, whether she was gaining or losing. It’d been emotionally debilitating. She’d resolved to lose the weight, but away from pryin’ eyes. Nobody could’ve interrupted her strategic process if they were unaware of its existence.
You can’t argue with success, though some insist on trying.
There are some outcomes, some strategies, for which public knowledge is counterproductive. That judgment is for each of us to make, not Read more
The Last Waltz, of course. Insider’s tip: Listen for Levon Helm to holler, “Don’t you know that I wish that I could yodle like Yoko!” Doesn’t stream, alas, so if you don’t have the DVD, you’ll have to wait for the postman to bring it to you.
You know, I seriously don’t mind when others try to mislead me and I’m not much offended when I get force fed a whole bunch of obfuscation from the government , but when you mess with the math you insult me on a much deeper level. (Note: I may hold math a little more sacrosanct than most. I see in math the core of philosophy, music and precision; I look at math and I see poetry.) Listen, it’s not like this is differential calculus; it’s basic multiplication and division. Don’t stand there and tell me 2+2=5! As Mr. Brady is fond of saying: “I am cursed with the knowledge that two plus two does, in fact, equal four.”
I don’t know about anyone else, but I’m not buying shares in a company run by people who think they’re so smart math doesn’t apply to them. In the end, the math of the free market does apply, and it is always right.
Well, Patrice Hill from the Washington Times had a problem with the math as well. She was more conclusive than our Mr. Purcell. Ms Hill called the prestidigitation what it was; a payoff:
Thanks to a generous share of GM stock obtained in the company’s 2009 bankruptcy settlement, the United Auto Workers is well on its way to recouping the billions of dollars GM owed it — putting it far ahead of taxpayers who have recouped only about 30 percent of their investment and further still ahead of investors in the old GM who have received nothing.
The boon for the union fits the pattern established when the White House pushed GM into bankruptcy and steered it through the courts in a way that consistently put the interests of the union ahead of many suppliers, dealers and investors — stakeholders that ordinarily would have fared as well or better under the bankruptcy laws.
That’s Ayn Rand, from Atlas Shrugged. I love that quotation and I love this holiday, second only to Independence Day. I’m working today, because that’s what I do, but I’m celebrating, too, because I have worked so hard and so well.
Here’s to the dogs — to the people who write, comment and read here. Living anywhere near my world can be a disquieting thing, I know, but I hope you never doubt my gratitude.
And here’s to another year of hard work — and to the Splendor that comes from working wisely and well.
Even though we can’t be sure of what our income tax rate will be for 2011, we do have a kinda sorta idea of the high side, right? Lookin’ for more to be thankful for this Thursday? If you don’t live in California, trust me, be thankful as you anticipate tax day.
Those who’ve worked hard to produce, often employing breadwinners in the process, will be payin’ almost half of each dollar earned at the margin, if the current federal rates aren’t renewed. In my town you can add the constant irritation of a 9.5% sales tax. Is it really a mystery why so many people and businesses are puttin’ the Golden State in their rear view mirror?
The seeming paradox is that the population continues its upward trend. That trend has been more or less a net economic positive since the end of WWII. However, in my opinion, that is rapidly changing, and has been for quite awhile.
The producers are hittin’ the exits. New producers aren’t arriving in nearly large enough numbers to make up the shortfall. Smart folk don’t run into a tax chainsaw on purpose.
When whatever ya wanna call normal finally returns to the economic scene, CA will still be a tax tax tax state. And, lest we forget, history shows that those who love taxes also love spending — taxpayer’s money.
The price of a home will still be, relatively speaking, far more expensive, and much of the time older than their counterparts in other states. Lifestyle? Weather? The last few years has shown that those who have the financial option to leave, and many who simply can’t afford to remain, are hittin’ the road, Gettin’ Outa Dodge.
At some point, even great weather and lifestyle become overpriced.
I speak as a CA native. The trends of the last 20 years or so have saddened me. To each their own, but my view of CA’s real estate future, especially investments, is not positive. I think many have allowed their micro view to override the macro realities. When a state transitions from producer friendly to a taker state, the Read more
The above is not embeddable, but a demo-y version of this lovely song:
yeah, I been through a lot and you can’t scare me/go on baby, if you just dare me/i’ll break through any wall–just gimme a call/….i’m a prize fighter.
Fathertongue For the Web
I know that this shorthand isn’t totally innate. Still,we have, for the most part, been on the web regularly for a decade or more, there are some conventions that signal “what happens next” to people. It’s not true nose-to-anus father-tongue, but it’s not far off.
Anyway, some Fathertongue ideas as I understand them. Quick, symbolic shorthand ideas to communicate, in broad strokes, what happens next. After reading Greg’s post last week, I was thinking of the practical: how can I more properly communicate in my own business (and by extension that of my clients) what will happen when working with me.
That post got me thinking about websites, and quick shorthands for approval, welcome and other things. That post got me to do stuff to my own business (and I’ll report on the results at the bottom of this post).
How can I create a “scent trail” that’s big and loud?
I started with the green checkmarks in various places–to signal approval.
These are, of course familiar to all of us that have bought something. They are there to get us to buy things.
I then took my checkout page and changed the field entry order and put a lock by it “visa number”. I also threw in a lock in several places:
The lock, in both places, was stock images from somewhere, the lock by the credit card button is said to decrease abandonment. My cart is a two step cart: I send people to a page where they enter their name and phone number first, and then if they chose not to, I can now call ’em and ask why.
Now, before I did this, and added our ‘fathertongue tail wags” I had an ugly cart and 1-step checkout process. “Here’s a big-ass form, go nuts with it.” My form that sometimes (often) took a long time to load because of some of Read more
I sure did, and I think I offered a pretty solid, fundamental explanation of how the bond bubble will pop. That hiss you heard, directly after my post, was the rapid escape of helium from the bond balloon. Back then, the 4.0% FNMA bond was trading at 102.75, while today, that bond is trading at 101.50, after reaching a low of 101.25.
What’s that mean to your customers?
The very same $300,000 loan, they could have locked in with no points, on November 8, 2010, will cost that customer about $5,000 extra, in closing costs, today.
I “feel” they’ll have a shot at getting close to that no-point pricing before the month is over. Let me explain the difference between “feeling” something and “being pretty certain about” something. I’m pretty certain that the sun is setting over the yardarm of below 5% mortgage rates but I’m having a little difficulty reading the sun dial. I know it’s sometime between 3PM and 8PM for this mortgage rates rally.
The Fed is buying between $600B and $900B worth of bonds. It is resolute that this sort of monetary policy is what is needed to lower unemployment. So certain is it that it is fighting back against political criticism of QE2.
The GM public offering was received very well yesterday. Investors jumped at the chance to own the electric car company so much that GM expanded it’s offering and is trading higher, post-offering.
Traders are calming down, and trusting the power of central banks’ and governments’ bailouts again. A trader’s loyalty is about as reliable as a lap-dancer’s love but, for the near-term, bond traders think QE2 just might drive bond prices higher. They ain’t selling too much and they ain’t buying too much. Expect them to watch what happens through next week, then pile on the bond train, hoping to make a quick buck. That’s good for mortgage rates, in the short-term.
