BloodhoundBlog

There’s always something to howl about.

Author: Barry Cunningham (page 2 of 2)

Real Estate Broadcaster and Investor

April 10, 2008

The Anatomy Of A Realtor-Less Transaction

by

Real Estate Broadcaster and Investor

Author website

Will realtors be needed in the near future?

Over the last couple of months we have spoken to hundreds of agents who when asked, most can not easily articulate what they do in a transaction. Yet worse, justifying why they receive 6% commission on the transaction is even harder to define.

More often than not their answers have been based upon mantra-like rhetoric that centers around the ignorance of the consumer. One of my favorites, “I don’t get paid for what I do, I get paid for what I know” is representative of the kind of inanity surrounding an industry whose players for the most part are reluctant to provide great detail into what they do.

In this Web 2.0 world, many who are resistant to a culture of transparency and fear disintermediation believe they are beyond reproach and that the technologically savvy consumer could never do without a Realtor’s involvement in a transaction. The misguided belief that “there will always be a need” for a Realtor is ignorant at best.

While true, there may be quite a great number of consumers who DESIRE to have an agent involved in a transaction, much more for convenience sake then anything else, it is big mistake to think that they are NEEDED in a transaction.

The former implies that an agent’s services are thought of by some to be much like that of a “real estate concierge”,while the latter implies some form of prerequisite dependence. This article is written to dispel the rumor that an agent is needed in a transaction.

So from start to finish I will outline a recently closed transaction.

1. Property Selection: A property was found online through tax records as being owned by a bank. The bank had not as of the time of contact contacted or retained an agent. The bank was contacted and the decision maker at the bank communicated their willingness to receive an offer.

2. Due Diligence: Data was reviewed and it was concluded that this would be a great buy. All of the vital signs were reviewed online and required about 2 hours of time. It only took this long because it was located in another state that Read more

April 8, 2008

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

by

Real Estate Broadcaster and Investor

Author website

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 Read more

April 6, 2008

Isn’t This All Getting More Than A Bit Tiresome?

by

Real Estate Broadcaster and Investor

Author website

I mean blog wars, talk about disintermediation, transparency..blah..blah..blah…!

I am new to blogging, having only launched Real Estate Radio USA on January 2, 2008. Yet, in this brief period of time I can CLEARLY see the fruits of my labor, the rewards derived from the efforts of my team, the tremendous spike in daily traffic, and last but not least, the building of valuable strategic business relationships. In addition, many personal relationships have blossomed as well.

But all of this going back and forth with real estate agents who are resisting change and ignoring the writing on the wall just seems so boring. Do I really care any longer about trying to share what I have learned and to assist those in business who can not or will not seize the myriad of opportunities that abound in a Web 2.0 world? I used to. I was full of fire and energy to help a lot of Realtors see the Promised Land but now that spirit, in just 3 months, is waning.

I can only imagine how people like Mary McKnight, Greg Swann, Pat Kitano and Stefan Swanepoel must feel. These people have been going at it for much longer than I have. I salute each of these pioneers and others like them and wonder where they find the patience to persevere with such a seemingly obvious lost cause.

In order for myself to continue in such an arduous endeavor, I have to measure my efforts against the potential ROI. Wasting time with obtuse Realtors has become the bane of my existence and it seems useless to continue to engage. It’s like being on the Titanic and arguing with Thomas Andrews that the ship was unsinkable.

Real estate blogging has jumped the proverbial shark and it’s a waste of time to think things can be changed. I read a post or two this weekend on Active Rain, you know, that social network that shows 70,000+ members yet only the same 100-200 or so people ever comment? You know, that social network made up of dinosaurs and has-beens that spend more time saying what doesn’t work to even try to Read more

March 30, 2008

Are you a Marketer, Advertiser or a Salesperson?

by

Real Estate Broadcaster and Investor

Author website

When you see a commercial on television, are you being sold to or being marketed to? When you’re at a sporting event and you see the Goodyear blimp, are you being sold to or being marketed to? When you see a billboard on the highway…well you see where this is going.Successful businesses are able to definitively understand and integrate these components while being able to discern the differences in each of these valuable areas.

Marketing is typically the creative source of ideas to be implemented to feature a product or service to the consumer. Think of marketing as a large umbrella under which all demographic, psychographic and segmentation analysis takes place. It also covers market quantification, determination of who may be competition and what reaction competitors may have. It serves as a catch bin for all of the ancillary components such as promotional marketing, event marketing, integrated marketing, branding, distribution and positioning.

Realtor Marketing example: I have a house that I need to sell.

  • It is located in an upper-scale neighborhood (75% of the homeowners have a household income exceeding $100,000)
  • mainly white (82% white 12% black, 4% Hispanic, and 2% other),
  • predominantly occupied by homeowners (94% owner occupied, 6% tenant occupied
  • there is substantial product saturation and competition as there are 22 homes for sale in a half mile radius of this home
  • competitive homes all have pools and 80% are represented by Realtors and the others are FSBO’s
  • my idea is to position this home as an “executive’s dream home”
  • I want to brand this home as an “oasis from the hustle and bustle of work”.
  • I plan to implement a promotion featuring an online component, participation at a local event and utilizing the surrounding community to convey the message stated above

Marketing is the development and design of a cohesive plan to deliver a message to the consumer regarding the product or service you wish to promote and sell.

Advertising is the actual delivery and communication of your marketing message. Advertising provides you, the marketer, with an opportunity to pronounce your marketing message by the utilization of selected mediums.

That message can be delivered in a myriad of ways. You have Read more

March 26, 2008

The NAR Is A Sex Offender’s Best Friend

by

Real Estate Broadcaster and Investor

Author website

“Hello Mr. Agent, I like this house. I could see my family living here. Just one question, are there any sex offenders nearby”? A simple question that based on information from the National Association of Realtors does not have to be answered by the agent.

The answer the NAR wants agents to proffer is, “Well Mr. homebuyer you’re just going to go look that up yourself”.

Ralph Holman, associate general counsel for the NAR says “What agents should do is tell buyers about their states’ registries.”

Go look it up yourself! That’s the answer that the NAR wants agents to give. An individual who is held out in NAR advertising and lobbying as a professional on par with doctors and lawyers wants their rank and file members to dodge this question as much as possible.

This certainly bestows credibility and trust with the American consumer doesn’t it? This surely will make the public more sympathetic to the plight of Realtors shouldn’t it? You would not expect a “professional” who is being paid upwards of 6-8% to facilitate the sale of a housing purchase to actually tell the truth would you?

If not for information and said coordination of the sale what exactly is the agent being paid such a hefty commission for? Why would any agent or the NAR encourage a culture of deceit? If not deceit, then call it ignorance and unprofessional. In any event, if you are selling a product as important as where someone wants to house their wife and children, then is it not too much to expect that the consumer is relying on the agent to inform and disclose all defects, not the ones they choose to disclose?

Has the NAR declined in credibility so far as to instruct their agents to actually feign ignorance or have there agents slid so far as to actually buy into degrading their “profession” by bamboozling the consumer?

A professional should not have to question whether such information is pertinent. A professional should deliver the information willingly and should openly and freely desire to offer full disclosure.

USA Today recently ran a story wherein a spokesman for the National Association Read more

March 22, 2008

Would You Hire Yourself?

by

Real Estate Broadcaster and Investor

Author website

There is an ongoing argument as to the value of a real estate agent in today’s real estate market. It can’t be settled with rhetoric and mantras. In order for there to be an effective resolve, the Realtor industry must reach out to the American consumer and seek to validate the need for their existence in a transaction.

This should not be a hard feat. However most agents, for some unknown reason, find it to be beneath them to quantify their “value” much less dollarize it. When posed with the notion that they may be required to actually prove their worth, many ignorantly say that doctors and lawyers and professional athletes don’t have to justify their fees so why should they. Oh really?

Is that the answer you want the Consumer to walk away with? If you are not willing to justify yourself to the Consumer, how about justifying your commission and worth to yourself?

Would you hire yourself? Be honest. You know what you have done…lately. Don’t tell me, the Consumer or yourself that you USED to be great. At one point Carl Lewis was the fastest man in the world. At one time Bear Stearns was a respected fixture on Wall Street. At one time you may have been a high performing agent.

Banks only allow appraisals going back 6 months, some are only allowing data that goes back just 3 months. In doing a realistic appraisal of yourself, it’s not accurate to say what you have done. The Consumer wants to know what you have done LATELY.

So let’s assess ourselves accurately, shall we?. In order to do so we’ll need to collect actual qualified data. Not just a self-adulating pat on the back. So let’s ask ourselves some questions and come up with a dossier as to why we would even entertain hiring ourselves.

1. Experience:
a. How long have you been a real Estate Agent?
b. When were you licensed and has your license been continually active?
c. Please explain any interruptions in service since the time you were first licensed
d. What, if any, continuing education or niche specific training have you taken and completed Read more

Newer posts »

Inventing Real Estate 2.0

Welcome to BloodhoundBlog, the national real estate industry marketing and technology weblog written by, for and about real estate professionals. Better yet, welcome to the wired world of real estate. We are busily inventing Real Estate 2.0 – technology, marketing, service and salesmanship. Like all Bloodhounds, we are smart, frisky and fiercely independent. We've built a spot on the earth – beloved over all – where each one of us can be who we are, no matter who that might be. We are committed to an idea of excellence that will flush the bums, the con-men and the crybabies out of the real estate industry. If you yearn to have your failures excused, your moral lapses absolved or your boo-boos kissed, seek elsewhere. But if you are sick to death of mediocrity – welcome home. Read all about us, subscribe to our feed and steel yourself for the hunt. We work hard, we play hard, we learn everything we can – and we bow to no one.

Media Contacts