The link below will bring up a video we made in September of 2005. There’s much to apologize for: I do, beyond doubt, look like Fred Flintstone, no one went to the MTV school of interesting videography and my presentation is punctuated by too many um’s and random interrogatories (“right?”). Worst of all, this was near the apogee of the real estate boom in Phoenix, and my near-term and mid-term predictions have proved to be way off.
This was delivered to a college-level class of real estate pre-licensing students, so there is quite a bit of inside baseball. The file is huge, too, around 150MB, so you might want to give it a miss on that basis alone.
This video is called Real Estate in Real Life, Part I. Part II dealt with a four-sided, entirely-brokered transactions (that is, I introduced and represented all four sides). This was very intricate, and it’s a nice illustration of the Realtor’s art. I thought about posting that, instead, but good Realtors already know how to put complicated transactions together, and, of course, our BubbleHeaded friends have nothing to learn from anyone.
But: What I’m really doing is installing and testing the technology necessary for us to deliver audio and video podcasting content in the coming year. In the short run, I want to archive interviews with some of the amazing people we get to talk to. In the longer run, we may put together something more formal, like a podcasted real estate radio or television show.
For now: Watch it if you like. It’s informative and at least mildly inspiring. There will be more audio and video content to come in 2007.
Doug Quance says:
I’m not sure that you have a streaming video there, Greg.
It took a loooooong time to load (which a streamer should NOT do)… then, because I had so many windows open on my computer, I lost audio after it had been playing a little while.
Aparently, it takes up quite a bit of memory.
December 31, 2006 — 1:19 pm
Greg Swann says:
> I’m not sure that you have a streaming video there, Greg.
I think you’re right about this. It took time on this end, too, and I have really fast pipe. I’ll work it out…
December 31, 2006 — 1:24 pm
Jim Gatos says:
Use something else. This was way too slow..
December 31, 2006 — 2:30 pm
mike says:
How did those clients – the 2 investors who bought 7 and 5 homes in Arizona – make out?
The others are right, it’s not streaming, it’s a 150MB .mp4 link. Download it and then play it.
I found it refreshing that you come right out and admit that you entire motivation is $.
January 1, 2007 — 7:21 am
Greg Swann says:
As a matter of policy, I am not replying to comments from people who hide their identities. I’ve replied to you in the past, so you had no way of knowing that I have changed my mind on this score. I will not reply to any comment you or any other anonymous commenter should make in the future. You’re hardly the most vile of the bunch — a worm among snakes at your worst — but I improve my own mind in no way by the discourse, and, clearly, you seek nothing but to reinforce your irrational prejudices, so we have nothing at all to gain from each other. You said as much the other week, but, apparently, you lack the wits to draw the obvious conclusion, to whisk yourself away to where your needs are better served.
> How did those clients – the 2 investors who bought 7 and 5 homes in Arizona – make out?
They’re both up very substantially, in the mid six-figures. This is not the way to measure an investment, though. In cash-on-cash terms, their results are phenomenal. I have clients who are up over 1000% in cash-on-cash terms. We’re up around 400% on our own home, cash-on-cash, factoring in everything. If we reckon mortgage payments as rents, then it’s more like 2500%. We owned and have since sold another house that also did amazingly well. The neighborhood I live in has continued to appreciate well all through the downturn in the Greater Phoenix market. I realize that facts mean nothing to you when they collide with your preconceptions, but facts are how I make my living.
> I found it refreshing that you come right out and admit that you entire motivation is $.
This is what I find revolting in you. You look for the worst in people, so, huge surprise, you find it. What was I doing? Talking to pre-licensing students. What was my compensation? Nothing. Why was I doing it? To try to do what little I could to spare them from the incredible failure rate in this business. Why talk about money? To get and hold their attention so that they take the time to learn to do this job properly. What would be my net gain from that? Marginally greater competition. In other words, you wasted 70 minutes of your life to fail to get me in one of your stupid “gotcha” games.
Of all the posts on BloodhoundBlog, 694 of them were written by me. Many of those posts address what I consider to be defects in real estate praxis, offering ideas on how to correct those defects. If my entire motivation were money, the very last thing I would do would be to help other Realtors learn how to do this job better.
From the outside, I cannot tell if you are dim-witted, habitually thoughtless or simply malicious, but I have caught you in so many simple, obvious errors that I know you are not trying to improve your understanding of the world outside your mind. Your business. I could not care less. BloodhoundBlog is a nexus of reform in the real estate industry. Not the only one, but perhaps the one that hammers away most persistently and consistently. That you cannot or do not or steadfastly choose not to see this simply illustrates why talking with you and your even less savory anonymous companions is a complete waste of my time.
I will not reply to any comment you make, in this or any other post. If you tread even closer to flame-baiting, I will revoke your commenting privileges.
January 1, 2007 — 12:04 pm
mike says:
As a matter of policy, I am not replying to comments from people who hide their identities.
I beg to differ. I’m not hiding my identity.
You know my e-mail, my first name, my city and my state.
If you want to banish or ignore me, obviously that’s your prerogative, but please don’t make up fictitious reasons.
By the way, I’m interested in debating the tremendous risk – especially now, in a down market – inherent in your favorite wealth strategy: the heavily leveraged, cash-on-cash plan.
Why not create a thread for discussing that?
January 1, 2007 — 3:33 pm
Cathleen Collins says:
I sure wish all the Mikes, Joes, Johns, et al would identify themselves with more than a first name. I have the feeling not every post from “mike” is from the same person. But I don’t know that for sure. If you have your own weblog, a link to it would give the rest of us readers a better idea of your background, your biases, of what you do to earn a living and why you believe yourself to be more virtuous than those of us who earn livings helping people with their real estate transactions. If you don’t have your own weblog, then a last name would help everyone else identify you as being a different person than other commenters who share your first name. It would also give you more credibility were you to honestly identify yourself in association to your comments.
January 2, 2007 — 12:12 pm
Joe says:
Greg: As a matter of policy, I am not replying to comments from people who hide their identities.
Cathleen: It would also give you more credibility were you to honestly identify yourself in association to your comments.
Look, I’m sorry, but in my opinion that’s a cop-out. Why not just let people’s posts speak for themselves, and then decide who it is you choose to engage in dialogue with? And the simple fact is that you shouldn’t just expect people to openly give you their email addresses – email spam abuse is pretty rampant these days, and I’m frugal with my personal information. Don’t take it personally — not even Amazon gets my real email address. Once I’ve decided that Bloodhound can be trusted with my email address, then I’ll update my profile.
Besides, even if someone were to give you their address, how exactly does that make them more credible? Anybody can get a free email address in about 20 seconds from a number of providers, including Yahoo, Microsoft, and Google, and making up a first and last name is easily done in 10 seconds. So in less than a minute, with little effort, I can fabricate an identity that you’re willing to respond to, but not to someone who posts honestly but anonymously?
We’re all adults here, and we can all choose which posts are worthy of responses. Then your readers can decide for themselves who deserves credibility. I would have thought that my posts by now show that I’m not interested in baiting anyone or engaging in pointless name calling.
January 2, 2007 — 1:55 pm
NVmike says:
I sure wish all the Mikes, Joes, Johns, et al would identify themselves with more than a first name.
Is this satisfactory?
(The poster formerly known as “mike.”)
January 2, 2007 — 4:04 pm
Cathleen Collins says:
Not a cop-out, Joe ___. In fact, I have no reason to believe that you are or aren’t the same Joe who recently responded to one of Russell’s posts
If that was you, then you have your answer in my comment to Mike ___, above. How is anyone to discern a personality, a point of view from scattered anonymous comments, when we the readers have no way to thread together different comments from the same author?
If anything, I think your comment above is a “cop-out.” You say you cannot trust those of us who publicly announce who we are enough to return the courtesy, but you expect us to trust you enough to honor your single-shot comments?
Ah, and I see that now one of the Mikes at least has agreed to differentiate himself, so that going forward I will know who is “talking.” Thank you, NVmike.
January 2, 2007 — 5:47 pm
NYCJoe says:
Cathleen – yes, that was me, and yes, Russ clearly thought I was someone else, based on the content of his reply. But I digress.
You say you cannot trust those of us who publicly announce who we are enough to return the courtesy, but you expect us to trust you enough to honor your single-shot comments?
I didn’t mean to imply that I explicitly distrust Bloodhound with my information. But your comparison is faulty anyway. You guys are the ones in the driver’s seat, not me. You guys are the ones who have chosen to have your identities published for the purposes of business, and you are in control of how those identities are published here. I don’t have that benefit. I don’t get to decide how my personal information is handled by your site.
But anyway, it sounds to me like we’re talking about two different issues:
Issue 1 is discerning between posters by using a name that is more uniquely identifying. OK, point taken – I’ve done that with this particular post. I’m NYCJoe now.
Issue 2 is deciding not to respond to people who use anonymous posting. I just don’t understand that logic, and I notice that you didn’t answer my question above – why would giving out an email address make me more credible? Credibility comes from the content of a poster’s words, not from their email address. Suppose I supplied an email address starting tomorrow. Why does that make me more credible? For all you know, it’s completely fabricated.
I still don’t see why you can’t just decide to respond to posters based on the quality of their comments and not based on some blanket policy of “well, you’re anonymous, so you don’t count”.
January 2, 2007 — 6:38 pm
Mike M says:
I didn’t see a link
July 13, 2007 — 7:10 pm
Greg Swann says:
> I didn’t see a link
“Play in Popup” at the bottom of the post.
July 13, 2007 — 7:20 pm