Taken 3 Minutes Ago…
Month: April 2009 (page 2 of 6)
Scott Cowan classichomesnorthwest.com
Don Reedy
buyhalfahouse.com
-Drunk, Ryan Hartman
Latest Videos From Youtube.Com/BloodhoundUnchained!
[tubepress]
The Raddison In Phoenix is great so far. Everyone’s friendly. Coffee
was tasty tasty.
But hey, we’ve got like 5 hours to kill before the fun starts at
Unchained. So where’s the Bartender?
It’s noon in Phoenix, but it’s about time for happy hour for those of
us still on the (ET)!
-Ryan Hartman
(Sent From My Fancy Phone…)
Latest Videos From Youtube.Com/BloodhoundUnchained!
[tubepress]
I write this note as a quick reminder. Investors in buyers’ markets as extreme as we’re currently experiencing will sometimes fall victim to what I’ve called ‘Million Monkey Syndrome’. I suffered from it when I was young and thought nothing was impossible for me in a market full of highly motivated sellers. It was through a marketing experience of all things, that I learned to recognize the signs of MMS.
Back in the day, one of the ways I used to market was through very narrowly targeted mail. Only investment property owners were on the list. I quickly found out what generated calls and what didn’t. The problem? It was a tad difficult to always have the ‘perfect’ small income property for sale. 🙂
A solid response rate according to direct mail pros would be 1/2%. Back then my average mailing wasn’t large, maybe 1,500-3,000 letters. The average response rate was almost always at least 1/2%, and many times 1-2%.
Then I sent The Letter.
It generated just over a 4% response rate for 3,000 pieces mailed. The calls started on Tuesday, and by Thursday I’d developed a love/hate relationship with my phone. 🙂 By Friday my assistants were afraid to answer it.
What magic words caused this embarrassment of riches? Turns out I’d discovered what made the East County (EC) small income property investor get very excited. The letter told them of a La Mesa (most desired area in EC) duplex that could be purchased with 10% down. Also, the owner would carry secondary financing. And the duplex needed some TLC, because it was a ‘cosmetic fixer’.
A light fixer in the most desired area, with owner financing and only 10% down! I’ll take a dozen to go please.
There hasn’t been one of those available since the year I sent that letter — 1999.
For the record that very letter generated over $250,000 in commission income. It remains the all time best producing letter I’ve ever sent.
I’m taking the out-of-the-way scenic route in order to say this:
Stop wasting your time and therefore your money looking for the perfect property or situation. The stars don’t Read more
This image was sent directly from my phone and should post automatically to
BloodhoundBlog via flickr and a secret posting email address.
If you’re attending Unchained and would like the opportunity to post drunken
pics of your fellow attendees directly to BHB, let me know. I’ll be happy
to share the top secret address.
Thx!
(I have a feeling Greg could end up regretting consenting to this…)
-Ryan Hartman
(Sent From My Fancy Phone…)
This is a test post from 
, a fancy photo sharing thing.
by Brian Brady
Commercial Real Estate Finance Expert
Structured Debt and Equity
Licensed Real Estate Broker in AL, CA, and FL
Phoenix in late April is beautiful weather…if you like the temperature approaching triple digits (and I do). Here’s the five-day forecast for Phoenix; mid-90’s during the day and low-60’s at night.
You can bring a bathing suit because the hotel has an outdoor, heated pool and hot tub. The hotel has on-site dining and a lounge to unwind with a margarita. Most everything you’ll need is on-site.
Phoenix business casual, in the late Spring or early Summer is typically VERY casual but neat. Some folks will wear nice golf or walking shorts but most will be in khakis and a golf shirt. Many will opt for jeans. You’ll see some sneaker-clad feet, too.
Your instructors will most likely be dressed business casual. Neckties for men and stockings for ladies might be uncomfortable; leave ’em at home. Dress for comfort.
Check out this video if you want to see how folks dressed last year.
Okay, here’s are homework assignments for BloodhoundBlog Unchained in Phoenix.
First, until this week I had no idea how deprived folks in the Windows world are. Just about everything I do is built around the idea of truly robust FTP software, and it turns out that this does not even exist for Windows users. Y’all are stuck behind the Iron Curtain and you don’t even know it.
The vast suckage that is Windows FTP drastically affects my plans, but I’ll work it out.
Meanwhile:
If you don’t have one, download and install a decent FTP client. Core FTP LE isn’t awful, and it’s free.
You’ll also need a decent text editor. Komodo edit is actually quite good, and it’s also free.
I’m going to be helping Mark Green talk about CRM and automated database solutions. If you want to play along with some of those ideas, sign up for the free demo of Heap CRM.
Heap is not all the way there as a real estate CRM, but it is adequate for the ideas we’ll be discussing, and a 31-day demo is free. Note that the link above goes to my Heap affiliate account, the vast proceeds from which my wife spends on food for stray animals.
But wait. There’s more.
I upgraded engenu today with the mapping software I talked about here.
You will need to download and install engenu on your file server.
If you have previously installed engenu, you won’t need to install a new copy of engenuPageDex.bin (your password file). (Likewise, if you have a customized “skin,” don’t install engenuComponents.) Even if you don’t want the mapping software, you should install the new version of engenu. First, there have been dozens of small bug fixes since the last official release. And second, I want you to get comfortable with your FTP client.
Do you need some remedial help with engenu? Cheryl Johnson is the world’s most unlikely super-hero, but you can see her heroic efforts at making engenu more understandable here.
And: We’re ready to rock. Class schedules are up.
Students are split into two groups, Alpha and Omega, and you can discern whether you are the aboriginal specimen or the Read more
Everything I see lately of what was once so decisively “our world” just looks to me like intramural patty-cake. That’s as may be, by now. It is what it is. I am not in it. I am not of it. And I am quite a bit less interested in it than I was when this was still an avoidable fate. But I know — and in a year’s time everyone will know — that BloodhoundBlog is what’s left outside the walls of the Praesidium. We are free because we understood that chains can be forged from burnished gold and not just pig iron.
But I am a rude dude in a rude mood, tonight more than most nights. We’re four days away from BloodhoundBlog Unchained, and I am profoundly inspired by all that we are going to do. And I look around me and I realize that “our world” is what it has always been. It doesn’t matter who chose to kneel for those “glittering prizes and endless compromises.” All that matters — all that ever mattered — is who didn’t.
Here’s what our world sounds like to me tonight.
by Brian Brady
Commercial Real Estate Finance Expert
Structured Debt and Equity
Licensed Real Estate Broker in AL, CA, and FL
Ready for the big week ahead?
I’m Brian Brady, one of the co-founders of BloodhoundBlog Unchained. I’m that guy with the suspenders on Facebook, LinkedIn, ActiveRain, et al. My goal (and yours) will be to establish a ubiquitous presence on these sites so that any past or potential customer can find you.
Some homework before you come:
- Read this article about the Five Pillars of Social Media
- Set up a Facebook profile- extra credit if you watch this video
- Set up a LinkedIn profile- extra credit if you watch this video
- Set up a profile on Meetup.com
- Finally, Set up a Google profile after you read this.
This is about five hours of work but I suspect many of you already have these profiles established. If you run short on time, don’t fret. Brad Coy and I will be on hand, Tuesday and Wednesday night, to help you get the work done for my sessions.
I’m totally stoked to meet all of you and ready to help you DOMINATE social media, locally. You’re gonna feel a tad weird if you’re new to these sites because your teenagers know more than you do. Ask them to help you get ready.
See you Tuesday!
Per my earlier post regarding the evolution of technology driven real estate solutions, I believe the next generation of buyers and sellers will be more empowered to search, purchase and sell real estate themselves, without the services of a real estate professional.
At the highest level, the success of an entirely virtual solution rests in its ability to clearly and confidently shepherd a potential buyer or seller through the process of buying and or selling. Very few sites provide a path to success. The irony for me was what I found while reviewing do-it-yourself real estate sites/services. In my opinion, www.helpusell.com provides decent content regarding the “how’s and what’s” of buying and selling. I am not holding Help-U-Sell as a beacon of light, but merely a site which provides far more content regarding the “how” of buying than the “what” to buy.
The focus of technology solutions has been too highly skewed towards the data and not the content nor the process.
Clients are not looking for listings – they are looking for homes. Do not underestimate the connotation or meaning of home. Data is not the answer – it is part of the solution. The solution is achieved by execution. Execution requires clearly defined, repeating steps – a process.
There is a lot of chatter regarding how to keep potential prospects “stuck” on your site. Many believe that IDX property search is critical. Important? Maybe – but if you are relying on search capability as your differentiator, you’re wrong. I argue spending a majority of your time and effort building content around the process – mapping out the steps – one by one – specifically what needs to be done to get from beginning to close will get them stuck – FIRMLY – on your site. Everything else is secondary to the process.
So what does a completely virtual solution look like?
First and foremost, it assumes that there is no real estate professional involved with managing the process – or providing “services”. If you’re recoiling from that last statement, I merely ask, have you mapped out the process step-by-step and defined what you do at Read more
301 Time — I’ve Found A Guinea Pig! What a relief… I think I’ll take the daily updates over to HouseYourMom.Com, posting only a high quality weekly update here, and sparing everyone the daily gory detail midnight rants…It just feels a little awkward hogging up everyone’s feed readers with this stuff. Seems more appropriate to do it on my own dime I guess…
🙂
So anyway.
Here’s Walt Wensel, RE/MAX Patriots (York Pa) responding to my pitch earlier today:
I like it, with some reservations. Can we effectively create what you want without alienating my customer base? Pictures of you and the orangutan taking a dump are cute, but not who I’m going to trust to make a $400K deal. I think we need fun and edgy, but we need York edgy, not Philly edgy.
Can you believe a guy with a pic like this sent me a response like that?
I’m just busting Walt’s chops. He’s exactly right, and I have no problem with a tone down now that I’ve got what I was looking for. A tech-literate open minded team leader with an eye toward creating value that will result in organic, sustainable expansion.
So check it out: HeyCentralPa.Com now 301’s to CentralPaLiving.Com [I spent an hour or so last night in CSS heaven cloning Walt’s soon to be delivered IDX portal being provided by Terabitz. Sorry again Dwellicious. I tried…(again…)]
So thanks everyone for bearing with my nuttiness over the past week or so…If you’re actually interested in the nitty gritty day by day posts and screencast chronicling how this thing is taking shape, please feel free to use the form on my subscribe page to receive the HouseYourMom.Com daily email updates.
Really. Google “me” in your search bar or Google home page and see what happens.
I was going to post about this yesterday and I’m glad I didn’t, because as of today, searchers who enter only the word “me” in the search box will be given an opportunity to set up or edit their Google Profile.
The personal profiles are not new. I did share some of my thoughts on this in Unchained in Seattle. They’ve been around for a while now, it just seems that every time I take a look at them they add more features. First with a curious name verification process, then just last week with custom URLs. They now support a pretty good amount of info on someone depending on your settings. Numerous links to sites, an ‘about me’, contacts, and a Flickr or Picassa feed for photos.
None of this might be relevant except for the fact that Googling you is what people do. Even my wife (against my personal preference) told someone to just look me up on Google the other day. That person found me in a heart beat.
Profiles are already showing up at the bottom of page 1 search results and for those with common names there G will sport 4 profiles per page. I suppose the more you share on you profile the better your results. So far, there’s only one of “me“.
While the big G says they are not having a run at Facebook’s social network action, google profiles still would be a good place to stake your claim. Especially if you like using any of their other services, such as Maps or anywhere else your profile will be linked to…
Now if all that’s for nothing, then consider this. I reviewed my first message via my profile that simply read “Loved looking through your material. When I decide to move back to SF, I’ll give you a call.”
Update: For promotion, Google is giving away 10,000 sets of 25 business cards to go with your new profile page. Get em’ while they last.
Again, I found this:
Do not let your fire go out, spark by irreplaceable spark, in the hopeless swamps of the approximate, the not-quite, the not-yet, the not-at-all. Do not let the hero in your soul perish, in lonely frustration for the life you deserved, but have never been able to reach. Check your road and the nature of your battle. The world you desired can be won, it exists, it is real, it is possible, it’s yours. -Ayn Rand
If your reading this, chances our, the world is yours. Don’t get discouraged by the losers, mediocrities and mealy mouthed pieces of excrement that want to homogenize the best among us.
The best leads I get at PropertunityKnocks.Com are direct inquiries in response to my vids. And now on HeyCentralPa I’m going to take a stab at not measuring a real estate internet marketing campaign’s success by the daily number of “Mickey Mouse” and “Heywood Jablome” registrations.
In tomorrow’s episode, I’ll hedge my bets by begging for e-newsletter subscribers via AWEBER, but for today, I’ve grabbed a 30 day Dwellicious Pro trial and integrated it into the Hey Central Pa Property Search Page.
What’s everyone think? If our content is plentiful, dynamic, and populated with not so salesy lead capture elements, can we forgo an IDX integration? Can we get them to hang around just because they like us?
Is this Real Estate Tech Blasphemy?
I don’t know, but the Dwellicious integration could be interesting. I mean, the content better be darn good, right… because we’re telling people to go search elsewhere?
Will I be able to get agent contributors on board with this strategy?
Might I have a squabble with fee seeking local MLS boards on my hands? (Have there been any MLS v. Dwellicious run-in’s nationwide?) Or has the real estate search + social bookmarking experiment not yielded enough adopters to even be seen as any kind of threat?