There’s always something to howl about.
I heard from a young military couple in Augusta, GA, looking to buy their first home. They have very good, very detailed questions, and they’re looking for straight answers. Obviously, a familiarity with the GI way of owning real estate is going to help. No fee on my end. Let me know by email if you can run down the game.
Technorati Tags: real estate, real estate marketing
The Unofficial Apple Weblog. It’s for posting only, but you should be able to handle most admin tasks from Safari. There are alt.themes out there that will reformat your weblog for the iPhone/iTouch screen. I’ll have more to say about these if we ever actually lay hands on a 3G iPhone. More at WordPress.org.
Technorati Tags: blogging, real estate, real estate marketing, technology
I had one of those REALLY UGLY commutes to work today. You know the ones…when your mind won’t stop ruminating on the scary thoughts of the hours before you left. I mean…you are trying to focus on the business of the day, but it just won’t happen…
After Hunter’s post about vendors…and Greg’s… It was time for me to do some serious soul searching about what I thought was right. I mean…I hate all these vendors pestering the heck out of me…and lying to me…and doing ANYTHING to get business…And then it hit me.
Gulp… I AM a VENDOR!
My blog over at EricOnSearch is my business. While I limit (severely) the number of clients that I take on to only those that TRULY fit with me, and while the real estate side is limited to SEO. ( I refer out website development to those I trust -see site) I AM indeed a vendor to the real estate market.
I spent my entire 35 minute drive to the office thinking….”I have NEVER solicited business from anyone on BHB. Ever.”
“I have always TRIED to be helpful and spent time and offered FREE advice to many who have asked.”
“I have never paid for an ad or paid a (insert chokepoint Charlie here) for exposure.”
“It has all been Earned Media.”
And yet I AM indeed a VENDOR. I feel dirty. Tainted by the company of people who CALL themselves vendors but who in reality are confidence men (and women). The problem is that con men and women and shysters seem to make up a vast majority of the RE vendor market.
Russell Shaw made a great point in a recent post about the Enemy Line. Maybe this is one of the items on my list that I need to get over.
So I started thinking about distinctions that I believe separate the ME’s from many of the rest. I actually made a pretty good sized list of things that I do differently as a vendor to make SURE that I am firmly putting distance between myself and THEM. But once I looked at the list it all boiled down Read more
I’m young. I am new to real estate, even newer to the RE.net. Inexperienced, blind, deaf, dumb, starving, full, big headed, blah blah blah. These are all adjectives that described me in my first months on the job. Heck, they probably still describe me.
As Greg recently talked about, I was one of those people lead vendors looked at as a buzzard looks at a dead possum on the interstate. (Do y’all have possums where you are? If not, substitute road kill of choice.) I bought some. I attended seminars. I admit, I learned and at least mad my money back from the seminars I went to, however, the services, advertisements, etc I bought, I didn’t make any money, just spent time with unqualified people wanting to rent a house I had for sale.
I was the most beautiful, graceful, largest uddered cow you’ve ever seen. I put out good milk as well. They called, I answered. Now I am afraid to answer a single out of area phone call. All day long, they call.
I am at a point where I am kissing dating goodbye. Forget flirting and foreplay with these companies. I want a commitment. I want a marriage. To death do us part. And if you are worth it, I will wear the ring.
However, I am monogamous. I don’t want to marry each and every ‘good’, ‘solid’, ‘worth it’, vendor that comes my way. Very few people will drink my milk, however those that do will be worth every pint.
I believe that there are vendors out there that are worth it. If you make my life easier, help me enjoy more of my valuable time, help me put more bread on the table, I invite you to have a sip.
However, if you are a worthless, trashy, mange infested buzzard remember this: I have kissed dating goodbye.
It’s humbling to blog. You want to share your thoughts and ideas, so you do, but what sometimes happens, in my case anyway, is that eventually either experience or someone with more experience comes along, shows you the error of your ways, and suddenly you are faced with a public record of a half-baked idea. So it is with my Bloodhound Twitter posts, which now read like a high school romance.
Oh! I had such a mad crush on Twitter. It was so much fun to be around, but when Twitter experienced sudden ginormous growth, my Twitter gated community lost power, literally, and then it got looted, literally, and I had to lock the gates on my darkened community to keep out the riff-raff.
With the huge growth of Twitter came a lot of “followers”, and perhaps it’s semantics, but I don’t want to follow people. I wanted to converse, discuss, have that big family table experience, but without the family dynamics. I was looking at a Twitter stream full of a lot of followers, a few leaders I didn’t want to follow, and damn, that’s when it hit me: Twitter- I’m just not that into you.
Twitter, I still want to be friends. You rock for the fastest way to get news, but I’m finding that here in Dayton Ohio, I don’t need news that quickly, it doesn’t add to my life in any meaningful way. I still adore my local Twitterpals, and I’m becoming their go-to real estate pro. We tweet-up when we can, so I do check into Twitter for that reason.
Twitter, I like you, but not in that way, ya know? I just don’t feel the excitement any more. We’ve settled into a routine- an understanding- if you will. I don’t need to tweet, and you don’t miss me when I’m gone.
Via email, Greg Swann recently declared Twitter a cesspit of groupthink. Hey! That’s not nice, and that’s not true. Well, okay, it’s half true- the groupthink part is on point. In fact, one of the ways you can use Twitter is to gauge groupthink. You can follow Twitter discussion Read more
I’m way behind on introductions, but time marches on. Today we’re adding Thomas Hall to the roster. He is the creator of a weblog called It ain’t all Big Hair and Cadillacs, and that little bit of insolence by itself is more than enough to qualify him for membership in the pack.
Here’s Thomas speaking in his own behalf:
I am truly a frustrated management consultant who sells real estate. I am at a certain point in my “career” in that I want to be more involved in the mindshare of real estate technology while continuing to be a practitioner. I have clear ideas about the role of technology in real estate — I believe the basic model needs a rework, but I am firmly entrenched in finding better ways for realtors to work with consumers. I don’t think technology replaces the role of an agent — it should enhance it.
Smart guy. Good writer. A Bloodhound kind of attitude. Let’s see how he howls.
Technorati Tags: blogging, real estate, real estate marketing
Q: What’s the difference between cows and Realtors?
A: When they get the urge to be milked, cows don’t fly to trade shows at their own expense, wandering from booth to booth with their udders out.
Well. I certainly feel vindicated. The RSSPieces clusterfrolic is further proof of the advice I gave about dealing with vendors a year ago:
1. Avoid hosted software systems
2. Avoid proprietary technology
3. Pursue commodity solutions — and prices
BloodhoundBlog has been vindicated much more than I expected this year. On issue after issue, we’re the only national real estate voice to be heard on the topic:
In March, I noted that much of the RE.net had gotten in bed with Brad Inman. Minions of the NAR — I called them the “nice niche” and Teri Lussier is turning it into a meme — have made their incursions as well. The result is that, at the national level, we are the only consistent voice left for consumers and for the grunts on the ground, the people who actually do real estate — rather than strive to find new ways of milking Realtors and lenders of their income.
We are what we are, and I wouldn’t be anywhere else. I just didn’t expect to have the entire battlefield abandoned to us. Obviously we can more than bear the load. I worried for a while about Vlad’s Legal Defense fund, but we’ve more than covered what we’ve needed so far. For a time I was mildly dismayed that too much of the wired world of real estate seems, per Emerson, “to wear one cut of face and figure, and acquire by degrees the gentlest asinine expression” — but that certainly doesn’t describe anything that happens here.
Real estate is a vendorslut industry, Read more
This Idea Is Submitted With Tongue Buried Deep In Cheek
Sometimes I can only shake my head as I look at some of the listings in the MLS. Most good agents won’t take a listing that is overpriced… and if so, it’s usually not overpriced by much.
When studying recent sales, I notice that the trend for a home to sell within a few percentage points of its current list price continues. Ultimately, it all comes down to supply and demand. If we can’t increase the demand – maybe we should restrict the supply… especially of overpriced listings.
Well I came up with an idea. What would happen if a property tax reassessment could be made when a seller put their property on the market?
As my good friend Jeff Brown would say, ‘Now don’t jump the gun, locomotive breath.’ This knife would cut both ways. For those who are paying low property taxes – they would see a tax hike. But for foreclosures and other distressed properties – they would see a tax reduction.
The benefit of using this system is that sellers would be much more reluctant to put their property on the market for some ridiculous price. The tax assessor would be able to say – Hey, you’re the one who said your property was worth that much – quitcherbitchin.
On the other hand, buyers like some of my current clients would get a break on the purchase of their next homes. For example, on one property we are considering, the current taxes are nearly $7000 a year – but those taxes will be reduced by at least 40% after the purchase and subsequent reassessment. Having that reassessment right now would reduce the upfront costs of the purchase – not to mention that more buyers could qualify to purchase a property like this.
There you go. I’ve tossed a grenade out there for you. Anyone feelin’ froggy?
I mentioned the Saturday Afternoon Marketing Circle yesterday. Richard Riccelli, Jeff Brown, Teri Lussier and I have been talking about an ugly marketing problem and how to get around it. I left off last night with this:
You can’t market into indifference or into firmly-established error. You can only persuade people who are listening to you.
I could go further than that to say that people only change their behavior in significant ways when the pain of their errors exceeds their inertia in emending them. In that respect, this real estate market is a good friend to Realtors like us, who intend to do a whole lot more to earn the business. In a normal market, no one is listening. Right now, a lot of people are tuned into the idea of better and worse results.
That notwithstanding, Teri offers up this observation to the idea that “you can’t market into indifference or into firmly-established error”:
Why not? I’m not being a snot, I really don’t understand why you’d say this. Can’t great (legendary) marketing overcome a wide variety of objections?
We want to teach salesmanship at Unchained in Orlando, and this question illustrates why we want to cover this stuff. To wit:
An objection is a buying sign.
If someone raises an objection to something you’ve said, they’re not only already listening to you, they’re listening hard. If you can pull out every objection and address them satisfactorily, you’ll make a sale. In many ways objections are better than placid acceptance, since the placidity may be masking unstated objections.
But that’s not what Teri and I are talking about. The issue is this: How do you get the attention of people who are already consciously or subconsciously convinced that they don’t want to hear what you have to say?
Teri put it this way in our discussion:
So your weakness is not marketing listed homes, but marketing to convince the seller to do things your way from the beginning.
But exactly. Our efforts are remarkable. Our results, even in this market, have been very strong compared to the agents we compete against. But as I discussed with Jeff the other day, Read more
I made the decision a few months ago, that even though I could afford to maintain my current office space through this winter, that I really didn’t want to spend a fortune doing so! I’m paying a pretty pricey rent for about twice as much space as we really need.
After a little discussion with my top agents, my search began for smaller office space. I thought I had found the perfect space, only to find out that the telephone service that I wanted (that reduced my office phones cost from $350 a month to $150 a month) wasn’t available and would not be for quite a while! So, I started really looking at my/our options:
I put out a feeler to another franchise broker in town and he jumped all over it: “Come on over, bring your folks, and be part of our team”. Oh h*ll what have I done now races around my mind. After being a managing broker for 7 years of a large franchised company and an owner/broker of a small independent office for 4 years, this feels really weird! Sure enough, in a few days I’m being recruited – I forgot what that feels like – not by 1 but by 2 of the companies in town! I had a gut feeling, but decided to “google” my potential new brokers – one of them is at least on Facebook! Whoo Hoo – I think I’m going to choose my new broker to affiliate with based on his being on Facebook.. some research and my gut. Some of you know how I feel about Facebook, and other social networks, so it may be no surprise that I would never go to work for/with someone who had least didn’t somewhat embrace the Read more
My family’s heritage is German/Austrian on one side and Irish on the other, and I like to romantize that mix by thinking it’s a perfect blend that makes us both strong and passionate. Some of my favorite memories are of family get togethers over dinner. We talk through the dinner, we clear the dishes and spend an hour or more talking, sharing, discussing, arguing, laughing, loving, enjoying each other for the different views and voices we bring to the table. Everyone is welcomed and encouraged to take up a position and defend it strongly; the devil’s advocate is a frequent guest- fence sitters garner no respect. It all makes sense now, doesn’t it? Yes, in that respect Bloodhound Blog is like family to me.
I wrote a snarky little post on ActiveRain about point whoring- leaving insipid comments for the points. I wrote a more thoughtful companion post as well, but the snarky post got some link love from Maureen McCabe and her post sparked more discussion (both Maureen’s post and the snarky post are member’s only). The nature of AR is that members get points for leaving comments on other posts. Okay. Fine. Whatever. While this encourages comments, it doesn’t encourage actually reading a post, and does nothing to encourage thoughtful comments.
I love comments, but I don’t love all comments. I love the give-and-take of conversation that is created in a good comment thread. I love discourse and discussion and yes, even disagreements. I’m not fond of the “Great post, thanks for sharing” comments that are so ubiquitous on ActiveRain, and I’ve since created an abbreviation, GPTFS, that I think point whores and lazy commenters should use. If you use GPTFS, then I’ll know that you are commenting for points or because you want to leave a link, but not because you really give a damn about my post.
Apparently I’m in the minority about this on ActiveRain and the question came up “Would you rather have no comments…?” and my answer is yes. Yes I would rather you didn’t use my time, my blog, my thoughtfulness, as a place to deposit your big signature, your spam, your point whoring… But forget Read more
NAR has just been set up for failure. I hope I’m wrong, but history is on failures side. As I reported in the past, NAR is developing a database of every possible piece of information on every property in the United State. Jim Duncan, who served on the task force that came up with the idea, first reported on this in December 07. This project has gone through several names. It started as the Gateway, then changed to the Real Estate Channel, then to the Library/Archive and now to the final and official name, the Realtor Property Resource (RPR).
I’m only half kidding about this – you get to decide which half – but I gave my input along the way as to what name we should use. I said call it whatever you want, but make sure it does not end up with a 3-letter acronym. You see NAR has a remarkable failure rate with things that have a 3-letter acronym. For instance, oldies like PRC and RIN and more recently IDX and VOW. Now, my definition of failure is debatable, but basically anything that involved a major lawsuit or loss of significant money, I consider a failure.
There have been no NAR initiatives with 3-letter acronyms that have succeeded since MLS and even that has faced many lawsuits. I still consider MLS a success because it is the number 1 member service NAR has ever come up with. Essentially, MLS was a killer application that brought order to the marketplace. Like it or not, MLS has been a success. I do not know the date MLS was coined, but it was a long time ago in relative terms to this post.
So, now the latest challenger to the 3-letter theory jinx is RPR. This concept is so BIG in concept that it may be a killer app in its own right. Time will tell, but I am optimistic that it can become a major resource for members.
Dan Green is a great believer in the power of the media to promote a business, where I am quite a bit more skeptical. He asked me once about the commercial value of my column in the Arizona Republic. Quoting former Vice President John Nance Garner on the value of that elective office, I said, “It’s not worth a bucket of warm spit.” Dan loves the mot juste — and I will promise you that, in reality, Garner was more redolent in his retort. But: We just did the math lately and it turns out I’m wrong. The Republic column is worth $1,800 an hour — while I’m writing it.
The essence of good writing — the gist of the mot juste — is to sweep the reader along with you as you go. The corpus of writing is enshrouded in rules, but the rules don’t mean anything if the reader doesn’t care enough to participate. It’s a tragedy to be ignored entirely, but it seems to me still worse to be missed — to be skimmed and scanned and dismissed without ever having been read. I play the way I do, when I write — not as prose, not even as poetry, but as a kind of scat music where the sounds and the meanings of the words play off of each other like kittens and a butterfly on opposite sides of a window — I play this way both to reward attention and to penalize inattention. If you don’t read me with your whole mind, you won’t get it — and that’s the idea.
This is writing about writing, the most perfectly human action there is, and this is the one place you can turn to in the RE.net where the minds are serious enough to write about writing. Teri Lussier was talking about our archives, and I wish we had some organization to them. I wish I could send you off just to all of the many posts we have written about writing — some our own work, some extended quotations from giants of English literature.
There’s this, at least, Read more
