Bloodhounds In The Emerald City

by Brian Brady

Commercial Real Estate Finance Expert
Structured Debt and Equity
Licensed Real Estate Broker in AL, CA, and FL

Author website

RE BarCamp Seattle has a time and a date.  From Todd Carpenter:

Rich Jacobson and Brad Andersohn from Active Rain, along with Drew Meyers from Zillow have established the basics. A date and venue. February 13 at Zillow Headquarters.  This happens to follow a Bloodhound Unchained preview event held the day before, also at Zillow headquarters, and also free!

Greg and I are pretty stoked about heading to the Emerald City.   Scott Cowan signed up for Bloodhound Unchained Phoenix ‘O8 but had to decline participation to tend to familial duties.  Since then,  Scott’s been lobbying us to head up to Seattle to out on our “Mini-Unchained Event” for Coffee Bean Town.  Last month, I told him we’d gladly come if he could round up a venue and a group of eager people.  Scott called the folks at Zillow and we arranged to be a prequel to Seattle RE BarCamp.

Our event will be from 1PM until 5:30 PM, on Thursday, February 12, 2008, at the Zillow Headquarters. We’ll be talking about Direct Marketing (online and offline), Social Media Marketing, and Blogging.  David Gibbons and Rich Jacobson agreed to speak, as well.  Marlow Harris raised her hand to attend but I’m hopeful to have her to speak.

Our concluding session will be a debate between Glenn Kelman of Redfin.com and Greg Swann.  They’ll be discussing Glenn’s thoughts about whether size really matters.  Glenn outlines the case for why the little guy might get squashed:

This is a change. Marketing, which used to be the large brokers’s primary advantage, is actually getting cheaper — if Bloodhound has proved anything, it’s that the web has made marketing a question of what you have to say not how much you have to spend.

But the cost of running a real estate search site is rising fast. Large brokers throw money (if not always expertise) at the problem, while small brokers struggle to compete. The small brokers ask MLSs to provide a common set of services, like listing alerts, but the large brokers sometimes block these efforts as being beyond the MLSs’ charter.

Greg Swann thinks the little guy has the advantage:

I want to make sure I’m being clear about this. The mom in this example doesn’t have a problem that can be solved with data. It can only be solved with experience — rich, deep, visceral experience. This is what you have to deliver to take away her fears. We don’t put a coffee table book in the house because we expect it to sell the home. We put it there to get buyers to sit down in the house. If we can close on that — sitting down — the house has a chance to sell itself. A whole lot of the things we do consist, in large measure, of slowing people down. We want for them to take their time getting to know the house. If we can do that, the battle’s half won. The job we need to think about, going forward, is doing those same kinds of things with other factors that can motivate a sale.

This one ought to be a lot of fun.

Our BloodhoundBlog Unchained Seattle Agenda is still relatively loose.  I LOVE the folks who have agreed to present; I just haven’t nailed down the agenda, yet.  Any Unchained alumnus will tell you that we always put on a show and rarely lack in content that is practical advice for the practitioner.  Expect no less from the Seattle event.

Here’s the cool part; it’s free for fifty guests.  As a matter of disclosure, we’ll have money in our mouths.  We’re coming to Seattle to promote Bloodhound Blog Unchained Phoenix ’09. If you agree to attend, expect a few “two minute commercials” for the big show.

Seats will be limited and we’re still working on a registration form.  Hope to see you in Seattle!