There’s always something to howl about.

80,000 Members And Only 300 Have Anything To Sell?

In addition to questioning certain real estate agents as to just what they do that justifies the commission that they charge, we also have wondered aloud if the real estate market is in the state that it is because there are “no buyers”or is the real estate market in the state that it’s in because most real estate agents don’t know how to work in this market.

How many Realtors are properly trained to respond to the challenges that are readily found in today’s real estate climate? How many Realtors simply have thrown in the proverbial towel and are merely hanging out in the barber shop telling war stories of the good old days?

This market requires specialized training and even more…it requires a lot of enthusiastic ambition. If you are content to self-prophecize about there being no buyers, then there will be no buyers. What are you truly doing to generate revenue on a daily basis? If the fish aren’t buying then you have basically one or two problems, and only one of two problems.

First, you may be using the wrong bait, second you are not fishing where the hungry fish are. That’s it. Really simple, now you’re problems are solved.

Active Rain, with it’s 80,000+ members seems to be more the barbershop than the bastion of capitalism that it could be. We assumed, that with such a high contingent of Realtors hanging out in one locale that it would be simple to get in touch with some Realtors who have property to sell.

One would think that by reading some of the posts that most of the agents there actually had listings and that the purpose of those listings was to actually seek buyers for them. Shame on me for assuming.

We made a post on Active Rain declaring in the fashion of Billy Ray Valentine and Louis Winthorpe that we are actually buying.

In addition to that, we have a growing network of buyers across the USA that are aggressively looking to buy. You would have thought that the bell would be sounded on the trading floor and it would have been a veritable selling frenzy.

Alas, it was business as usual on Active Rain. “Great Post”, “good job”, “spot on”, “you tell it like it is”, “I will flag this for feature”…and on and on and on throughout the comment jungle upon post after post about nothing having to do with actually making any money or selling any real estate.

I’m sorry, I did not realize the market has gotten that bad. I did not realize that not only are most agents not selling, it appears most agents ignore buyers. Great business model!

Okay, I understand, our post was one probably just one among the thousands(?) of posts that must be uploaded daily to Active Rain, so it is highly possible that many, many, many of it’s members did not see it. However isn’t that a problem in and of itself?

Should there not be a way to cut through the clutter of stories about knitting mittens and cake baking to actually deliver news to the members that there are buyers looking to purchase property.

Seriously, even in donut shops the cops carry a radio. I subscribe to various blogs and when there is something to say there is an RSS feed that one can subscribe to on a categorical basis.

Wouldn’t you think there would be some kind of “Bat-Signal” that gets beamed out when there is an open call to buy properties?

Like a membership press release? How about a membership-wide form that Buyers can fill out to alert the Realtors who actually want to do something that there is a Buyer looking for a property.What could possibly be easier than finding property for cash buyers who tell you what you are looking for? Is there an easier way to make 3-6%? Is order taking too hard? It must be.

Fortunately there are Realtors out there that want to do more than try out the Flip Video Camera or the Mixpo editing program and be lemmings for a veiled product placement marketing campaign…oh, you didn’t even realize you were being marketed to did you?

Thankfully, there are agents who actually respond to a call to action. They just aren’t on Active Rain. They must be too busy actually selling!

Take Denny Grimes in Cape Coral, here’s an agent who has not gotten the memo that it’s a down market and there aren’t any buyers. He missed it because he was out there selling 100 houses last week.

You won’t find Kurt Kinsey, a real estate agent in Oceanside, California making inane comments about the market being down, he listed a home and priced it right and received 31 offers on that one listing. he’s got buyers galore.

Greg Swann from Bloodhound Realty sold a house in under a week from listing to close. and had responses from readers who had done the same, some in less time.

With 80,000 plus members, where are the agents who actually have something to sell and want to actively and aggressively want to put deals together?

Fortunes are made in real estate markets such as that which we are in. However you have to hustle. You have to differentiate yourself from the pack. Why is it that so many agents resist the challenge of working with investors?

We’re buying, we have a growing network of cash buyers and I am sure that there are many like us in your own respective communities.It does not make any sense that real estate agents are not courting buyers.

I read posts from agents on Active Rain about their listings that won’t move. Their listings that expire. I even read about a tactic to withdraw before expiration so it does not show as an expired listing on the agent’s history.

Why all the games? Why not just hit the pavement and start selling! After all that’s why you got into the business isn’t it? Are you a blogger or a real estate agent?

I would think that your seller clients think you are actually selling don’t they? I doubt they care that you received 50 comments on your post on Active Rain or that your point total is increasing. They expect you to be “SELLING“!.

Do they know that as far as you are concerned once you had the listing you were done?

Here’s a hint, a real simple hint. A three step process any agent can do to make money in today’s real estate market right away, if not immediately. Ready?

1. Find a buyer
2. Give them what they want
3. Close
4. EARN your commission
5. Repeat as often as necessary

Whew..that’s tough. Must be, otherwise more would be actually doing it. This is not brain surgery folks. Consumer products have been using this as the staple for doing business for what seems like forever. I know it’s a novel concept in real estate but actually giving the customer what they want actually does work. If you’re selling something nobody wants why not simply begin selling things (houses) that people do want?

Otherwise why don’t we see if they can change the name of the website to “Inactive Rain”.

(the opinions expressed in this post do not necessarily represent that of Blood Hound Realty, The Bloodhound Blog or any of it’s contributors and the parody of the Active Rain logo was indeed just that…a parody)