There’s always something to howl about.

The Odysseus Medal: Always check snopes.com first?

Amended: The Odysseus Medal goes this week to… no one. The post I had picked as the winner turned out to be someone else’s work. I’ve elected not to award The Odysseus Medal this week and, instead, to gargle with Listerine to clear my palate and my mind of schmaltz.

The Black Pearl Award this week goes to Mike Farmer with Real Estate in A Brave New World:

Despite the rhetoric from politicians who claim we’re on the edge of ruin, there’s a lot of wealth in this country, and it’s congregated in metropolitan areas that have outgrown, or never had, an appeal for comfort, hominess and quality of living. Baby boomers (BB) will have second thoughts about retiring in areas where road rage and pollution are the nicest things you can say about them. These places are where the money’s at, but now a large chunk of it’s in the banking accounts of BBs and will transfer anywhere their hearts desire – North Carolina, Georgia, Utah, Colorado, Tennessee, Nevada.

Many of these BB buyers will want to live in places where they can golf and shop and exercise, walk the streets and smile rather than snarl, join clubs, start a mini second career doing something they love in communities where everyone knows their names and don’t give a fig what they’re worth on a financial sheet – the easy, slow, entertaining, friendly life. I’m talking myself into early retirement, here.

These BB buyers are already net-addicted and I receive emails each day from them asking me about the area, home prices, things to do, etc. – they’re gathering information and making plans. They aren’t in a hurry and they want good, reliable, spam-free information. This has been written about many times – but what many agents don’t realize is that it’s here, now. No one’s predicting the future anymore – they’re reporting. How many are ready?

Who better to service their needs, to be their wise guides, their comforting counsel, to make information gathering and analysis painless and useful, than the modern day, internet savvy, service-oriented, friendly and efficient local realtor?

Many agents will have to change their styles and mind-sets. The new challenge is simple yet very difficult to do. It’s difficult to do because there are no tricks involved. Today’s savvy buyers are hip to the weaknesses of the real estate industry, weary of sales pitches and hype, wary of tricks and gimmicks, unimpressed with big and showy and resistant to pressure.

Service and knowledge are not new gimmicks to trick prospects in yet another way, they are achieved, earned and ingrained. Agents will have to be real people, serious professionals who take pride in excellence and genuinely love working with real people. The Slick Ricks and Charming Carlitas will find it difficult to bluff and get by in this brave new world. The old Homers who mutter obscenities at the mention of computers will have a hard go of it. The lazy will wither, and the pompous will be a side show.

The steady, knowledgeable, connected, helpful and, yes, meek (but not too meek) will inherit this world.

This week’s People’s Choice Award goes to Dan Green for In The Business Of Personal Relationships, Database Marketing Is More Effective Than SEO Marketing:

Two years ago, NAR told us that 74% of people begin their home search online.  What they didn’t tell us, however, what percentage of those people write paper with the agent on whose site they began said search.

This omission is an important one.  Just because a person starts online doesn’t mean he finishes there.  If you’ve researched a product at multiple Web sites before making the actual purchase, you understand what I mean.

Every store except the last one was just a borrowed encyclopedia.

Click-throughs from a search engines are not “leads” and that’s why the NAR statistic is misleading.  Until a reader engages the author personally, the click-through is only that.

A Web site visitor that registers for free search, free reports, or free seminars is not your client.  He is a window-shopper taking home free samples.  He’s a client when he signs, and never before.

If you didn’t check out this week’s Short List of nominees for The Odysseus Medal, you should.

We have a brand new tool for promoting The Long List of Odysseus Medal nominees. The Long List will be shown in that little gizmo until the current week’s awards are announced — meaning now — and then I’ll update it with the new week’s nominees. This is link-love back from BloodhoundBlog, but my reason for building the tool is to promote the best ideas in real estate any way I can. To that end, read this post so that you can learn how to echo The Long List on your own site.

The Long List also has its very own weblog, a link blog of the latest Long List nominees as they are nominated. Feel free to visit, but probably the best way for you to keep abreast of the best in real estate weblogging is to subscribe to The Long List RSS feed.

And as always, if you see greatness reflected in the mirror of the mind, nominate it.

Deadline for next week’s competition is Sunday at 12 Noon MST. You can nominate your own work or any post you admire here.

Congratulations to the winners — and to everyone who participated.

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