There’s always something to howl about.

Category: Dirty Laundry (page 1 of 9)

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My client went shopping for houses on Trulia.com, and only 75% of those she found were bogus listings…

My note to her: “Trulia and Zillow both present inactive listings as though they were active to fool the public into thinking that they have more inventory than the agents they exploit for advertising money, even though their listings come straight from the MLS systems. Mere real estate brokers would be fined out of business for pulling these stunts.”

Despair you nothing, though, hard-working dogs. Every time Trulia or Zillow are caught pulling these bait-and-switch stunts, one more active real estate shopper is turned off of their sites forever. Nice going, suits…

I Hate Bill Maher

I hate Bill Maher…mostly. Hate most of the stances he takes, and over the years the manner in which he has taken them. “Never make a point when you can take a shot…Maher.” But in this short video he has me laughing, at myself and even with him. Good on ya….as Greg would say.

 

Am I getting soft, going kookoo, or simply exposing that mostly I like to laugh rather than look at gestalt or grouse? Ah well, Maher will do himself in with me in a week or month, but for today I’m leaving work with a smile on my face. Be happy my fellow hounds….

It’s the REALTOR Party, you can cry if you want to…

…But when push comes to shove, I’m a Midwesterner- practical, down-to-earth, not prone to crying over spilled milk. If something is wrong, let’s fix it. If there is a problem, let’s find the solution and move along. So when push recently came to shove and the NAR rolled out their latest membership shakedown benefit, my Midwestern mind mulled over what was really happening and whether or not there was a fix.

There is a video that’s been making the rounds in Ohio as public union options are being reconsidered. In 2007, Bob Chanin, General Counsel to the NEA for over 40 years, gave a farewell speech to the NEA. This is a fascinating look inside the history of one of the biggest, most powerful unions in the country, but at 25 minutes it’s a bit long. Let me break it down for you: Chanin describes in loving detail how the NEA was once-upon-a-time, a quiet little organization of long suffering do-gooders. Then they got politically organized. He says:

“It is not because of creative ideas, it is not because of the merit of our position, it is not because we care about children, it is not because we have a vision of a great public school for every child. NEA and its affiliates are effective advocates because we have power and we have power because there are more than 3.2 million people who are willing to pay us hundreds of millions of dollars in dues each year because they believe we are the unions that can most effectively represent them, the unions that can protect their rights and advance their interests as education employees.”

But wait, there’s more:

“When all is said and done, the NEA and its affiliates must never lose sight of the fact that they are unions and what unions do first and foremost is represent their members.”

If this doesn’t disturb you, fine. I’m not here to change your mind. And just so I’m clear about this: I’m a REALTOR because I’m forced to be, for access to the MLS, and not necessarily because I want to be (and just for the record, Dear NAR- I’m not anti-NAR per se, but I am anti-coercion. Force is coercion and coercion Read more

Shouldn’t Sellers Invoice Listing Agents?

I suppose it’s pretty rare that a seller actually hands their listing agent an invoice during the course of a listing, but it shouldn’t be. Based on what I see, the vast majority of listing agents should be billed by the seller, same as they would be by any other third party vendor. The fact that it doesn’t happen simply means most sellers don’t understand what is really going on during the course of a listing and, I’d wager, neither do most agents – or if they do they certainly haven’t informed their client.

Here’s a question every seller should ask their listing agent: “Why are you going to put up a For Sale sign in my front yard?” Standard answer: “A sign is just one part of my ‘Handy-Dandy, Super-Duper, 24 Point, 7 Step, Maximum Sales Price Marketing Plan’ or HDSD-24/7-MSM Plan… which I offer to all my clients completely free of charge.” (The standard answer is impressive, wouldn’t you agree? We agents are very creative indeed.). Of course, given the use of internet these days, I suggest to you, dear reader, that most For Sale signs are more directional than informational, but let’s not split hairs. Okay, so the sign is a part of the marketing plan. Next question by an informed home seller: “If that sign is part of your plan to market my house, why doesn’t it mention anything about my actual, you know… house?”

This is old Greg Swann stuff, but I’m rehashing because it needs to be taken further. There are actually two correct reasons for placing a sign in someone’s front yard:

  1. Sell the actual home. (The primary objective from a fiduciary standpoint.)
  2. Attract future home sellers from the neighborhood. (Secondary objective, but a legitimate expectation of work well done.)

So why is it then, that the vast majority of signs fail both of these objectives? Because they are designed with a different purpose altogether; they are designed to advertise the brokerage (hence the uniform colors, logos, big brokerage name and phone number). To a smaller degree, they are also designed to advertise a brokerage’s presence in a neighborhood Read more

The Lones Group in Bellingham Washington Commits Hari Kari

Warning : This post is purely REALTOR inside baseball

Around here, we live, eat and breathe marketing. Online reputation management and online publicity is what we do to get our clients houses sold and  to find buyers who trust us enough to allow us  to assist them in their home search.  As a student of this stuff, I am flabbergasted by the news that a self anointed expert who in her own words, “started the Real Estate marketing revolution… and we are darn proud of it!” would attempt to extract money from a practicing REALTOR over 2,000 miles away who happens to use the same mascot, a Zebra. Now I understand that hard earned and promoted brands must be protected, but I really cannot see how Daniel Rothamel’s zebra mascot in Virginia, promoting Daniel’s real estate brokerage activity could in anyway damage The Lones Group in Bellingham Washington which uses a rainbow zebra on their website.

The Lones Group in Bellingham, WA and it’s owner, Denise Lones do not even perform real estate brokerage-they sell advice to those who do perform real estate brokerage.  I am not sure I see how Daniel Rothamel, the Real Estate Zebra is damaging The Lones Group and their photoshopped rainbow zebra.  I took a peak at the Lones Group website to see if perhaps they did business in Virginia and that was why they were picking on Daniel Rothamel, The Real Estate Zebra.  Upon glancing at their testimonial page of happy customers, I only found clients in the Pacific Time zone, most of their clients were Washington REALTORS.  I did note something peculiar about the Lones Group’s happy customers, as listed on their testimonials page. There are 28 testimonials displayed. Six of their happy clients had no website link.  Six more happy customers of the Lones Group had links to… wait for it…dead websites.   Now we find that the company that started the Real Estate marketing revolution has 25% of their happy clients who love the Lones Group’s work are not even linked to this powerhouse marketing firm and are hidden from potential clients.  I may be Read more

A new year and the looting of the American people continues unabated.

BofA Settles GSE Buyback Requests for Pennies on the Dollar

According to this MND article, Obama appointee, FHFA acting director Edward DeMarco just handed Ally bank, formerly GMAC Bank and Bank of America potentially a total $300 billion windfall. Freddie Mac and Fannie Mae, wholly owned subsidiaries of the US Treasury Dept. are foregoing the opportunity to put hundreds of billions worth of  mortgage backed securities  back to these banks in return for $3 billion cash which, no doubt came from the TARP and shadow earnings as a result of regulatory forbearance. The mortgage backed securities have a refund clause by which the originator is obligated to repurchase the securities if there were specific deficiencies in the origination of the underlying mortgages. As we saw in “foreclosuregate”, even the chain of title for some of these securities is defective. I think we can safely assume that there is probably more than $3 billion of refunds to be had with aggressive defense of the taxpayers’ interests.  Why does this matter?  Bonuses, baby.  Every dime coughed up by Ally or Bank of America reduces profits which shrinks the bankster bonus pool.  Apparently the Administration cannot stand the idea of those nice banksters riding in last year’s Maybach.  Especially after they made all those generous campaign  donations.

Maybach Laundalet

Wells Fargo, CitiBank and Chase have yet to cut their pennies on the dollar deals with Mr. DeMarco.  As the article points out, there are many purchasers of these same mortgage backed securities such as public and private pension funds and insurance companies who will probably go to the mat for a lot more than a couple pennies on the dollar.  The pension trustees and the insurance companies have a fiduciary duty to recover as much as possible for their beneficiaries.  It is a trillion dollar shame  that the administration doesn’t take its obligation to the taxpayer as seriously.  It will be interesting to see if there will be any Congressional oversight forthcoming in the new Congress regarding the Obama Administration’s magnanimous gift to the banksters.

Is THIS The Year You Grow A Pair And Finally Walk Your Talk?

If that title harshed your mellow in any way, you’re the target audience. Does it sound unfair? Make you feel like you’re being picked on? Poor baby. Compared to much of what’s published on these pages, I’m a relative Mr. Rogers. But the dark cloud messin’ up the mostly silver lining that was my 2010, was the talk/walk ratio with which I constantly was forced to deal. Isn’t shame possible any longer? Does nobody know how to blush? Has there been some sorta immunity from embarrassment pill on which I missed out?

I speak from painful experience. Many of the early years in the business my talk/walk ratio was maybe 8:2 or so. Talkin’ big time while walkin’ in clown shoes is something with which I’m no stranger. I know, cuz I’ve watched me do it.

Hey! I has an idear.

Do most of your talkin’ to yourself. Do most of your walkin’ makin’ things happen — quietly. Most of my mentors were lifetime members of Brutal Mentors Я Us. There were countless times I was ‘gang mentored’ in the truest modern sense of the phrase. They weren’t interested in why things couldn’t or didn’t get done. If you can’t walk your talk, maybe Von’s is hiring they’d say. Actually, they said a lotta stuff a whole lot different than that, but those gems won’t be repeated here. 🙂

Ever get tired of hearing your own empty words?

We all have more or less talent than the next agent. Same with experience and knowledge. Experience doesn’t happen a day at a time. It happens a transaction at a time. Every time you sit down and prospect. Each time you follow up. Every belly-to-belly with a potential client. Etc., etc. Knowledge increases cuz we seek it out, not cuz it gives a damn about us.

Whether or not you have more or less talent than the guy a desk over is literally not worth talkin’ about. Who’s working harder? Who’s learnin’ how to work smarter? Who’s grindin’ it out day after day after day? If the title pissed you off, you haven’t done that yet Read more

Why Don’t Most New Or Struggling Real Estate Agents Want To Be Mentored?

From time to time many of the contributors here have written about the concept of mentoring from one viewpoint or another. You may be a mentor, or have been well mentored, or both. Maybe neither. In fact, probably neither. My experience has been somewhat anomalous in that I was blessed, early on, with an abundance of first-rate, exceptionally successful mentors, who literally didn’t give a damn about my feelings. Tough? One of ’em was a Marine, a survivor of the Battle of Guadalcanal. When he talked, you listened, then said, “Yes sir, thank you sir, may I please have another?” The guy was funny, but brutal. And boy, was he ‘colorful’. Many years later, after Jim had passed away, Dad told me that Jim bet him he could make me cry.

This year has been an eyeopener for me as it relates to mentoring. You’d think agents, especially the younger ones, would be eager to learn which way’s north on the map from someone who’s been there, done that, been knocked down, yet survived to thrive. As each year as gone by, fewer and fewer agents last longer than a week or so under a bona fide mentor. Most say they want to learn, but when push comes to shove, talk must be converted to walk, and they trip on their own BS. In the last month or so I’ve asked several experienced agents who, as policy, give of their time to mentor, if they’ve seen the same trend. Yes — it was unanimous.

Every single one of my mentors, and there were many, extracted a sacred promise from me to pay it forward. I’ll not live to be old enough to get free and clear of that obligation, though I try.

In the last decade or so, I’ve had several agents ask me to mentor them, as in, “Will you please mentor me?” Three of ’em walked their talk to the end. All three currently thrive. Just a guess, but in the last three years or so, there’ve been at least 15-20 come to me, initiating contact, wanting to be mentored. Read more

All Things Being Equal… You’re Not Even Close

I was working with a group of agents this week on their 2011 business plan.  We were going through various forms of marketing and the expected returns when one spoke up and said: “The problem is, I hate calling people.  I can send letters and even emails, but I don’t want to call anyone.”  She is a very good agent as far as real estate agent activities go: she works well with clients, she shows homes well, she negotiates well and so forth.  She just doesn’t want to call people.  At all.  

“Okay,” I told her, “that’s not the end of the world.  If you’re not willing to call clients you can still be an agent, you just need to join a team that provides the clients or partner up with someone who has more clients than they can handle.”  That’s where the conversation got interesting.

Turns out this agent has tried my suggestion in the past and is looking for the right relationship right now.  “But,” she says, “the agents I’ve found so far are all so greedy.  They want a big piece of the commission.  All they do is hand me the name and then I do all the work.  I’m trying to meet an agent that understands our roles are different, but we both equally are growing the business.”

This is the problem with many self-employed people and real estate agents in particular.  They seem to think their value is tied to their time.  “All you did was give me the client’s name.  I did all the work so I think we should split 30/70 my way.”  This couldn’t be further from the truth and the faster you understand “value” in an open market economy, the smoother your business life will become.  Your value is not tied to the time you contribute.  It’s tied to the value you bring.  Hmmm, your value is tied to your value.  Can I get a big “Duh” from the Jeff Brown camp?

Apparently this comes as a surprise to some agents, but you are not all equal.  As a matter of fact, I’d estimate that 5% to 20% of you (and I’m Read more

I’m a time-waster. How about you?

Here’s the point: My name is Greg Swann, and I am a time-waster. My next closing is Wednesday, November 17th, 2010.

It’s news that is my special poison, a quick check of major news and opinion sites several times a day. Stir that in with email, some of it work, some of it work-ish, some of it just more time-wasting. And blend all of that with lots of tiny little brief chores done for clients at various stages of “the process.”

That’s a half-productive day. I start at six, finish at six or nine or one — the next day. And if I spin in place like that all day, I can get half as much done as I should have.

It’s not that I’m working from home. I’ve worked from home for almost twenty years, and I’ve always been able to get a lot done when I need to.

And it’s not the internet as such — duh! I’ve worked on the internet for most of my life.

And I’m not even really a bad, bad boy. It’s just checking this for a minute and that other thing for a couple more, all while taking care of business, yes-sir-ee-boss. By the end of the hour, I’ve rarely wasted more than 20 minutes, so what’s the beef?

The beef would be the stuff that’s missing between these two slices of bread, as it turns out.

I don’t care for the example being set by prominent members of the RE.net on social media sites, but I also don’t care if their seemingly-constant TwitBooking helps or hurts them.

This is what I care about: Hundreds and thousands of ordinary working stiffs are mimicking those poor examples, in the mistaken belief that scrupulously documenting every burp and bowel movement will make them successful.

But, from my own corpus: “Egovangelist, motivate thyself!” It’s all one thing, and the way to help other people get good at getting things right is to get good at getting things right. I love to think of myself as a hugely productive being, and the job that matters most to me is not scolding other people for being Read more

Swallow Hard — Make It Happen — Or Get Out

For the most part, it’s human nature to have a love/hate relationship with the results that have our name attached to them. I’ve failed far more often than I’ve succeeded. It’s not even close. Name a category in which I’ve endured the ignominy of defeat, and my hand is more likely than not be in the air.

Baseball is useful here, as it’s a game based on failure. Hall of Famers are players who failed somewhat less than their peers. Major leaguer hitters as a group, fail at a rate of roughly 75%. Those who fail a ‘mere’ 65-70% of the time often end up earning $1 Mil a month or so. Think that’s a thin margin separating average from excellent? Try this — The difference between a .250 and a .300 hitter? One measly hit a week. Really.

Ponder this.

In San Diego’s market, one extra skinned cat monthly at the median price, about $375,000 or so, would create additional GCI of — wait for it — $135,000. Median price in your market is $150,000? That’s an additional $54,000 or so. One more deal a month. Would that make the difference for your family? Would those results keep you in the business? Would you then stop making pathetic excuses for your failure to do what produces spendable results?

If you can honestly say that’s within your reach by quietly tweakin’ your effort a bit, super. Do it now. I’ll expect a Christmas card next year.

However, if you’re already killin’ yourself 25 hours a day, eight days a week, you may wanna consider doin’ something different so as to generate better results. How’s that for an original thought? Explaining an anemic bank account to those counting on you at home is not a Kodak moment, a truth to which I can effectively testify.

It was one of those moments when the phrase, ‘Winners don’t make excuses, they make it happen’ became real to me.

Adapting is really code tellin’ us to stop doin’ what ain’t workin’ and start doin’ things that do. Again — there are those who tell us Read more