There’s always something to howl about.

Month: November 2006 (page 1 of 8)

Real estate links and how to enact a Hollywood Western . . .

Teresa Boardman guest blogs at The Real Estate Tomato with some excellent advice on honing our technology skills.

Free The Drones has more on the Google Sandbox.

Bonnie Erickson at Real Estate Snippets is raising a stink about smelly houses. This may be the perfect answer to the question, “Why preview?”

More counter-intuitive rising-home-value news from Hot Property at BusinessWeek. If there were as many different ways to count groceries, you’d never make it home with a dozen eggs.

Back home in San Diego, Kris Berg has an excellent cautionary tale on the peril of ignoring the preliminary title report.

Two words: Galen Ward. The man is a poet.

Geri Sonkin at All About Long Island has thoughts on discounting. My preliminary conclusion is still that buyers don’t care very much, but I’m still playing with the idea. Three of the houses I have closing in December I would not have had without the flat fee buyer’s agent’s commission, so that’s a counter-argument.

In a Hollywood Western, about a half-hour after the second-act gun-battle, a seeming rout for the bad guys, the respectable townsfolk start poking their heads out to see if it’s safe to come outdoors. Then they gather in the town square and cluck about how much they abhor violence. This is done as comic relief and to set up the expectation of peace, to be spectacularly defeated by the third-act gun-battle. (Can you imagine what fun it is to sit through a movie or a play with me while I pick it apart line by line?) Today some of the townspeople of the RE.net have decided my brief war with Keith at Housing Panic was unseemly. Oh well. Kris Berg brought home a nice post on Realtor bashing, and, of course, Jay Thompson was a combatant. Other remarks suggest that — alike unto the comments of the BubbleHeads — people still don’t understand the issue: When someone tries to extort away your right to say what you choose, that is when I will be eager to engage in a discussion of what is ugly or a waste of time. At the OK Corral, Wyatt Earp Read more

Coming Up For Air…

sick.jpgMy best friend said it best.

“You’d better quit burning that candle at both ends!”

His wife, a nurse, agrees. “Get some rest, Doug!”

Perhaps it’s a good recommendation for all of us, every now and then. To take the time to allow our bodies, minds, and souls to rejuvenate… to become anew.

For now, it’s more than a recommendation to me, as I have no choice. But with the rest will come wellness… and in wellness I will once again take my turn at bat.

Meanwhile, please accept my thanks for extending me the honor.

Strong coffee

Marketing is as much a way of thinking as it is doing. Thinking about your customers and their motivations. Thinking about your lawn signs and listings and your picture on your card.** Thinking about where you can find ideas and inspirations that will cause buyers to come to you instead of the other guy.

From time to time, I’ll introduce you to people from my world who have influenced my thinking so they can work their magic for you, too, in your world. This is Denny Hatch. He’s strong coffee, but sometimes exactly what’s needed to kick start the day.

__

** Kris, a little unsolicited professional marketing advice? Keep the picture. It’s working for you.

Play nice, and NO COMMENTS!

Forgive the absence of links, although I may have to throw in a couple of unreferenced quotes for effect, but my intent is not to fuel a ridiculous “debate”, for lack of a better word (although there are many better words). Anyone who cares about the catalyst for my comments will have to do their own research.

“Antagonize” was a word my children learned at a very young age, as in “Stop antagonizing your sister.” It really is time to stop all of the silliness, and quit antagonizing one another. Like any good mother, there comes a time when you have to ground the children. Greg – Go to your room for using the “M” word. (And like any good mother, I will laugh hysterically when you leave the room, because I really found your wordplay raucously funny). Keith and all of your Housing Panic friends, I am sending you home for behaving badly as well. The term RealtWhore, while considered by you and your friends to be quite clever, is clearly a derogatory remark and very childish. We will do it again when everyone can play nice.

Obviously, what we have here are some very divergent opinions on the real estate market trends. What bothers me the most at this moment, however, is what seems to be the underlying theme: The utter lack of respect many (most) people seem to hold for our profession. And in a perhaps unprecedented blogging moment, I insist that you DO NOT COMMENT ON THIS POST. It’s not that I know and fear that many will disagree with my remarks, but only that I am not looking to pick another playground fight. Consider it my therapy session.

I am truly tired of the sport of Realtor bashing. Here are the promised, unreferenced remarks, all unfortunately real and recent quotes:

(Realtors have a) lack of class, lack of education, lack of intelligence.

I find (the) ‘profession’ and business vile and disgusting in that it pretends to act as a fiduciary for home buyers and is nothing of the sort.

Why do you put your picture on your Blog comments/business cards/bill boards (if Read more

And now we are nine . . .

Most men have bound their eyes with one or another handkerchief, and attached themselves to some one of these communities of opinion. This conformity makes them not false in a few particulars, authors of a few lies, but false in all particulars. Their every truth is not quite true. Their two is not the real two, their four not the real four; so that every word they say chagrins us, and we know not where to begin to set them right. Meantime nature is not slow to equip us in the prison-uniform of the party to which we adhere. We come to wear one cut of face and figure, and acquire by degrees the gentlest asinine expression. — Ralph Waldo Emerson, Self Reliance

We’re adding another contributor this morning, Doug Quance of Broker’s First Realty in Atlanta:

Doug Quance is an Atlanta-based Realtor and Associate Broker. Backed by his team, Doug is in the vanguard of the Realtor 2.0 movement toward hi-tech, full-service real estate.

Doug managed to get good and sick over Thanksgiving, so it’s a particularly cruel injustice to do this to him today, but he insisted we proceed as planned.

Athol Kay at The Real Estate Guide calls us The Borghound Blog, which was a lot of fun. This much is true: We’re doing our best to recruit the very best real estate webloggers. But the last thing we want is that “one cut of face and figure,” “the prison-uniform” of some uniform school of thought. To the contrary. Our diversity is our strength. (Didn’t I get a badge from the NAR that says that?)

In any case, while we are not The Borg, today we are a nonet to be contended with…

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The Millionaire Real Estate Agent

If I have seen further it is by standing on the shoulders of giants.

– Isaac Newton

First things first – WOW, what a fantastic collection of writers and contributers this blog has! I came to Blodhoundblog to quickly see what had already been written before I started to write my post. I wound up spending over 90 minutes reading every single post, going to each of the links (thank you SO much, Richard for http://www.psychotactics.com/). I am so pleased with Greg’s decision to change the direction of Bloodhoundblog – and I was already happy before the changes. I may not post everyday but I sure will read it every day.

What follows in this post may seem to some like Earl Nightingale meets Buddha – and maybe it is – but I think you are going to like it.

Last week Matt wrote:

I might have missed something in the post, but to say that all listings for the discounter were $299 is probably not correct. “58 X 299 = $17,342.”I see a lot of “Discounters” using low selling price as a tool to get people in the door, or on phone. $299 is usually a no support price…and then they tack on a-la-carte items to raise that price up. True, it will never be full commission, but I doubt all 58 sold for only $299. How would he still be in business only making $17K per quarter?Russell, How hard was it to get to the level you are at today? Many realtors never get to this level, because it is very, very hard. I would bet that it is a lot easier to throw up a bunch of ads, that say you will sell a home for $299, and get a ton on people in your office. It can’t be that hard…

I don’t know how much selling up occurs at his site. But assume he only sells half of the listings he takes and gets paid on twice as many as he closes and manages to up sell every possible option he has – I still don’t like the numbers. I Read more

So what’s your problem? (Or a 10-minute makeover on how to make your listing copy more attention getting, more interesting, and most of all, more effective.)

A fundamental difference between general advertising (image, awareness, brand-building ads–the stuff Century 21 and ReMax does nationally) and direct response advertising (the targeted, measurable results-driven stuff YOU and frontliners like the Bergs–and welcome Kris! what a good get Greg–do locally) is that the former tries to change the way customers think over time and the latter works to change the way customers act right now.

Since direct response advertising can measure results,** it creates opportunities to test and account for the value and effectiveness of things. Like headlines.*** Copy. Pictures. Or even blog posts.

Which is what I am doing now.

I want to see why BloodhoundBlog Post 703 is drawing so few responses (okay, none right now). Is it because it’s just boring and uninteresting to readers? Or perhaps all it needs is a much better headline to get you to take a look and benefit from all its great advice on how to write compelling listings copy. I want to test the supposition “You can lead a real estate agent to a blog, but you can’t make him think.”****

Vote with your mouse.

Charmed, I’m sure.

or

A 10-minute makeover on how to make your listing copy more attention getting, more interesting, and most of all, more effective.

__________

** When should you use general advertising and when should you use direct response advertising? Well, first determine who’s paying for it. Then decide.

*** For those of you who care to get under the hood of your marketing, John Caples was the godfather of Tested Advertising Methods. It’s a classic text. (Okay, it’s really, really old, and “They’ll laugh when you order it at Amazon, but OH! when you begin to put his ideas to work…”)

**** Just kidding. Greg urged me, originally, to use the “makeover how-to” headline. I resisted. I even thought of titling this post “You lookin’ at me?” but I checked and the actual line is “You talking to me?” So I guess the real supposition I’m testing is “You can give a guru good advice, but you can’t account for his ego.”

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I’m Invited!

When my girls were in their diaper days, their favorite bedtime ritual involved reading Go Dog Go!. For those unfamiliar (under 40), this is an epic tale involving big dogs, little dogs, red dogs and white dogs… you get the picture. This exciting fantasy ramped up to climactic moment when the dogs arrived at The Tree (“to the tree, to the tree”) where they encountered a Big Dog Party! My daughters’ yesteryear squeals of delight could never equal my unbridled exuberance of today when I was invited to Greg’s Dog Party. Well, perhaps I exaggerate, but I am honored nonetheless.

It is no cyber-secret that I have been a huge fan of the Bloodhound Blog from the start, but I met the word of my induction into the dog pound with both enthusiasm and trepidation. I have been blogging for the better part of a year now under my own comfy security blanket. My all-too frequent typos, lapses in posting, and even the occasional absence of discernable meaningful content (too many human-interest installments) have been largely forgiven by my small audience. My tombstone will read “She used and misused too many commas, hyphens and parentheses, and don’t even get us started on those semicolons”! Greg, on the other hand, has created a superior site over a much shorter period of time. Even his trolls are better! I am the first to admit that I am lucky to truly understand half of what he writes, let alone able to allocate enough time to read it all. The man is a machine, and the need for the online dictionary link in my Favorites folder is entirely his doing. That’s the trepidation part.

On the other hand, I am thrilled to be included among his hand-picked group of real estate junkies who, like myself, have a passion for the business. One can only admire their willingness to evaluate, reevaluate and even question our industry and our industry practices in such an honest and unfiltered way. So, consider this my RSVP; I am looking forward to attending the party. Forgive me for being fashionably late with my Read more

The sight, the scent, the touch of rich, luxurious, full-bodied . . . real estate commentary . . .

Today, Jeff Brown is a thorn among roses. We’re adding a new contributor, San Diego Realtor and super-blogger Kris Berg. With Cathleen Collins below the BawldGuy and Kris above, the median quantity of hair approaches the statistical mean.

But rich, luxurious, full-bodied hair — or none at all — is no measure of the prowess of a BloodhoundBlog weblogger. And, of course, no one can be encapsulated by a capsule biography, but it falls to me to write one anyway:

Kris Berg is a San Diego Realtor and Associate Broker who is avidly building a business with her husband, Steve, while raising a family, maintaining a home and writing cleverly original real estate commentary.

If you haven’t read Kris at The San Diego Home Blog, you’re missing out on one of the great treats of the RE.net. She writes pertinent real estate commentary with a style all her own — sometimes raucously funny, always precisely on target. I can’t wait to see what she’ll write here…

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Foghorn Leghorn strikes out: What if they gave a war — and nothing happened . . . ?

Well.

That was underwhelming.

First, I make a brutally funny, completely accurate joke about that risible demagogue, Keith at Housing Panic.

Then Keith offers to sell out his weblog and his entire constituency of mouth-breathing morons to escape the ridicule that is his just desserts, his one indisputable claim on the wonders of the universe.

His “offer” is essentially extortionate. The “or else”?:

A war with the thousands of HP’ers so harsh and loud your practice and reputation in Arizona likely wouldn’t survive (beyond the damage you’re doing yourself)

Now anyone who is paying any attention here — a company that excludes Generalissimo Foghorn Leghorn — could have predicted with perfect precision what I would do in the face of something like this: Make it public, of course, in spades.

So: Keith puts on a predictable pantomime of outsized outrage, heavy on the high-moral dudgeon. And the mouth-breathing morons zoom in to BloodhoundBlog to poke around at random and issue inane comments — heavy on the profanity, light on the grammar.

This much is a big yawn. There are thoughtful, intelligent people among the BubbleHeads, but I can’t imagine that any of them is so lacking in self-respect that he would take “orders” from a detestable thug like Generalissimo Leghorn.

That’s as may be. The thuglets who do shake a leg the Leghorn way gave another perfect demonstration of why I have referred to them as Brown Shirts and Flying Monkeys. One Junior G-Man dug up and published my address (ahem — it’s on our web site) here and on Housing Panic. An amazingly drunk man in Connecticut left 23 very long incoherent voicemails on my cell phone. A cadre of relatively literate BubbleHeads tried to figure our how to censor me by means of Arizona Association of Realtors or Arizona Department of Real Estate complaints. It might occur to you to wonder if they have not heard of the First Amendment to the United States Constitution — but of course they have. Thuggery and principle are moral opposites, never doubt it.

There’s more, but it’s all nothing. I told Keith in advance that it would come to nothing. The original Read more

Ask not for whom the MLS toils . . .

…it toils for brokers.

Pittsburgh Homes Daily has news of a new IDX policy for agents: None. Mere agents will not be able to syndicate or even frame data from the West Penn Multi-List’s Internet Data Exchange (IDX). Only the main site of each brokerage will be able to feature the feed, and agents will not even be allowed to frame that on their own web sites.

In other words, if a prospective buyer wants to search the MLS, he or she will have to go to the main web site of a brokerage. As Larry Cragun points out at RealEstateUndressed, any leads captured by the broker will probably not be shared with agents for free.

Nice…

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I may soon be the weakest link at BloodhoundBlog, but I’ll always be the strongest linker . . .

Cathleen Collins, Richard Riccelli and Jeff Brown: I’m hopelessly out-classed three times in one day. And we’re adding another first-class real estate weblogger tomorrow. Nothing for it but to turn outward to the vast riches of the RE.net. Here’s some stuff that has caught my eye:

Would you like to know my secret shame? My own mother is a Luddite. Every year we talk about getting her a Macintosh with broadband for Christmas, and every year we put it off another year. All she really needs is email and the web — and she has a natural motivation in the form of a burgeoning herd of grandchildren. But she will not hear of it. Programming her VCR is as far up the technology ladder as she is willing to climb. So this little gizmo, cited on TechCrunch, is actually of interest to me. My mom has never forgiven us for ditching the film cameras — double prints! — and it’s a rare day when I think to print out and snail-mail digital photos. This might be just the thing…

Kris Berg is back, and in top form. Make time to savor her writing.

Oops! BusinessWeek says property values are up, this per Zillow.com’s Q3 Zindices and other sources. Who knows if it’s true or not, and I have no ability to weigh any but the most local evidence. But the article does highlight the essential weakness of measuring market activity by median prices.

Todd Tarson sends thoughtful notes in our general direction. In the second link he is raving about Richard Riccelli’s single-property web site for his own home in Boston, which raves I heartily endorse. This is a gorgeous expression of the single-property web site idea. Be sure to take a look at how it is put together.

Russ Cofano at Realty Objectives on a ruling an NAR motion to dismiss the DOJ anti-trust suit:

So what does this mean? As I said earlier, I believe this case will go to trial unless the parties reach compromise. NAR has been, to date, staunch in its belief that it will not settle this case if settlement means a Read more

Win-Win: A Recent Case Study

Win-Win is a concept that’s been popular for a few decades, especially in the real estate industry. Most of the time though it’s been talk and not much walk. Since it supposedly refers to the buyer and seller in the same transaction, many would argue it’s a cruel hoax, and in fact an oxymoronic phrase. How can the buyer and seller both win?

It can only happen when the buyer and seller agree that their goals can only be realized with each other’s help. Become a team. It must be understood that taking an adversarial position will end any chance of both sides winning. This usually happens when one or usually both sides realize the market hasn’t and probably won’t provide the same solution they can by working together. Team players on the other hand can share in total victory.
We Win!

This approach is almost impossible in the sales of homes in which the buyer intends to occupy their purchase. In that situation both sides by definition want obviously different outcomes. (The Real Estate Zebra begs to differ, saying most home buyers and sellers can team up for a mutual win.) Though they eventually can come to agreement, it’s nature is almost always adversarial. Captain Obvious lives. However, in the investment world, it sometimes happens that a buyer and seller can do something for each other that the market has failed miserably to provide.

Here is such a story.

Ellen and Rosa are my clients, referrals from family. Ellen had already executed the first leg of her Plan successfully. Rosa and I had just finished creating her Plan and were ready for the first leg, which was the sale of her condo. She’d acquired it several years ago and had well over $100k in net equity. She needed as much cash as possible in order to get her Plan going. She is 50ish and knows her retirement will not be more than marginally adequate if she doesn’t change her approach now.

Ellen desparately wanted a local condo in which she could opt to live at some future time. She was now living in a duplex that allowed Read more

Charmed, I’m sure

DC: A very charming Georgetown house in the very center of the east village…

CHICAGO: Very charming Gunderson style home located on great block…

SF: Sunnyvale charmer! Updated kitchen. Great neighborhood…

Let’s step past the navel-gazing** about why most real estate copy is so dreadfully banal, and step up to the question: What can you do in the next 10 minutes or so to make your listings more attention getting, more interesting, and most of all, more effective?

And let’s start by dispensing with the myth — if not mystique — that marketing and advertising is more difficult to understand than other professions.*** Doctor, lawyer, real estate agent: It’s all about problem solving.

“Doctor, I’m feeling pressure in my chest.”
“Counselor, I’ve been sued for divorce.”
“[Your name here], I want to sell my house.”

There is one key difference. Those professionals are looking for solutions to clear and present problems. You, however, start with the solution in hand — a property for sale. Your job is to find the problem. Advantage you, for therein lies the path to better copy.

You simply need to become a method writer. At your keyboard stop and think: “What problems do my listings solve? And for whom?” Write your answers in simple declarative sentences. One after another. Action verbs preferred. And go easy on the adjectives and adverbs — no matter how charming, elegant, and delightful you find them.

Here are two to get you started.

For that in-town condo:
The end of your two-hour commute — this is a country home in the city with the kind of kitchen that causes suburban envy.

Or that suburban ranch:
In the basement…your health club. In the master suite…your day spa. In the family room…day care. Out back…your florist. In this home…your new life.

While I can’t see your listings, I already know the kinds of problems for which you have solutions.

“I’m eating at the same three restaurants every weekend…”
“I never see my kids because I’m commuting hours each day…”
“I’m sick of taking my clothes to a laundromat…
“I’ll never meet a man living out here alone in the boonies…”
“Yada, yada, yada…”

The more specific the problems you describe, the better your copy Read more