BloodhoundBlog

There’s always something to howl about.

Month: September 2009 (page 2 of 4)

September 25, 2009

Three new dogs for the Bloodhound pack — Damon Chetson, Robert Worthington and Greg Dallaire — and a reminder about transparency

by

Suburban Phoenix Real Estate Broker

Author website

Yesterday I had mail from a Realtor who had proposed the idea of custom yard signs to a listing prospect. The client’s eyes lit up, and he saw not only the immediate possibilities but the future portents. Here’s what the Realtor had to say about it all:

One thing I found so interesting is that any time you mention custom signs, all the agents who don’t use them make comments about how worthless they are, but this guy, the client, the seller, got it immediately. Got the reason for it, could see how it would stop traffic, understood it all — without me selling him on it.

Funny how you have to sell agents on stuff that would make perfect sense to their own clients.

We’re adding three new contributors today. Two of them are envelope-pushing Realtors, but one is a certified, bonafied real estate client, an educated consumer who can tell a hawk from a handsaw — and who isn’t shy about speaking his mind about the utility of either one.

That consumer is Damon Chetson, a BloodhoundRealty.com client from way back and a long-time contributor to our comments threads. Damon is a newly-minted criminal defense attorney in Cary, NC, but he will be talking to us here about how he perceives the real estate industry as an informed outsider.

Robert Worthington is another frequent BloodhoundBlog commenter. He’s a hard-charging Realtor in Manitowoc, WI, and he spends all of his spare time looking for technobabble bubbles to burst.

Greg Dallaire is another Wisconsin Realtor, working out of Green Bay. Not only does he have a first name that rings sweetly to my ears, he sings a song very dear to my own heart: “I’m passionate about implementing technology into my business to increase productivity, improve efficiency, and increase profitability.”

As you might have inferred from my absences, punctuated by brief bursts of brevity — the wit of soul — I’m a busy boy. I’m about to become a busier boy, because I want to undertake a task for the ages. In the mean time, this was my response to the email cited above:

The actual message of Read more

September 24, 2009

If you’ve ever found yourself fuming by the side of the road, muttering to yourself that cops are assholes…

by

Suburban Phoenix Real Estate Broker

Author website

…prepare yourself for the asshole cops…

Just think: If you just keep voting for more and more government, eventually the nanny-state might find a way to stuff you back up into your mammy’s womb. Or, failing that, they’ll exterminate you and everyone you know and love. Either way, the world will finally be rid of the pestilence of pesky humanity.

Black humor? No shit. But at least you don’t have to wonder who’s the asswipe now…

September 24, 2009

Yes, there are Good and Honest Loan Officers in Florida!

by

Mortgage Technologist

Author website

Two weeks ago, I attended the Miami REBar Camp to witness for myself what I had been hearing and reading about. While I found the event educational and interesting, what I enjoyed foremost was getting to meet and know Chris Brown better.

Being on the Mortgage Revolution Education Committee, I had spoken to Chris, however had not had an opportunity to get to know him well. Being the information gathering Ninja loan officer I learned Chris is, he conducted marketing intelligence and reviewed the attendee list and who he would like to meet. Upon seeing I was attending, he called and told me he “would love to meet me and talk shop.” When he discovered I was planning on driving from Atlanta to Miami, he asked if he could catch a ride with me as I drove through Orlando. Being that we had several mutual friends and they assured me Chris was stand-up guy, I agreed to meet and pick him up at one of the Orlando I-75 exits.

For the trip, my Mother also decided to tag along for ride, as she had never been to Miami. Needless to say, Chris and my Mom hit it off immediately and for the first hour of the trip, they discussed and shared their favorite Bible passages. As for me, if my Mom likes someone, that is normally a good sign. For the last three hours of our journey, Chris and I engaged in a Socratic learning experience that truly impressed me. Quite frankly, Chris loves learning and implementing strategies that put his clients in the best overall financial position, even if that means he makes a lesser commission or recommends NOT getting a home loan (no commission). Having been in the mortgage business for twenty-three years, believe me; I can spot and smell a bull shitter a mile away…Chris’ sincerity and concern for his clients and referral partners is genuine.

In addition, Chris was aware of my background and the success I had experienced as a mortgage originator, sales manager and mega-bank executive. In a nutshell, he maximized his time with me asking questions on Read more

September 22, 2009

Making the Numbers in Real Estate Marketing Add Up

by

Real Estate Renaissance Man

Author website

In a recent Bloodhound post about Twitter (only Brian Brady could write the third post in just over a week on the same subject and generate so many comments!) there was a comment on marketing numbers that so intrigued me I felt compelled to respond in a post rather than a comment.  It’s been my experience that many of us do not accurately calculate the numbers when it comes to our marketing.  This should really come as no surprise – numbers and especially statistics can be beguiling and even misleading.  But if we’re not tracking and calculating our marketing efforts correctly, we’re just shooting into a dark room hoping we’ll hit the target.

The numbers quoted (or maybe it was just the idea) are credited to Larry Kendall, but they provide an interesting opportunity to work a real world example of marketing in general and Twitter specifically.  For this exercise I am pulling some examples from the actual comment, but just about every one of us has made this type of calculation before.  I follow each with a slightly different view.

I want 50 local people that I can really connect with (on Twitter).  If I have 50 people and they each know 50 people, I have a pool of 2,500 people.  Not quite.  It means you have the potential to reach 2500 people, but it’s unlikely.  For the purpose of calculating marketing numbers… you’re reaching 50.  This is akin to speaking at a seminar filled with 50 people from the neighborhood and assuming you’ve reached all 2500 people in the neighborhood – you haven’t.  If, on the other hand, you send a direct mail piece to all 2500 people in the neighborhood, then we say you’re working from a pool of 2500 potential clients.  Is it realistic to think all 2500 read that mailing?  Of course not.  But our expected conversion numbers take that into account.   The expected conversion numbers are simply based on a pool of 2500.  A pool of 50 will generate no usable statistical model from which to base a marketing campaign.

If the *normal* turnover rate in my local Read more

September 21, 2009

List of People Real Estate Agents MUST Follow on Twitter

by

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

Author website

1-

2-

3-

4-

5-

Sorry to go all Mike Ferry on you but at the end of the day, your time is better spent following would be home buyers, driving from open house to open house, with a carefully designed plan to  “run into them” at the 7-11, every Sunday.

PS:  Been there, done that, got the twee-shirt

September 21, 2009

Whats the Downside to Investing Today?

by

Real Estate Investor

Author website

My previous article suggesting today was the right time to start getting back to real estate investing was met with expected cynicism. Investors make money by going against the crowd, not with it, right? By the time everyone agrees that you should be getting back into real estate, you really should have been back six months earlier.

But it is important to address the very legitimate concerns of those still urging caution. The major concern was what if the market gets worse. I would answer this concern by first looking at what would need to happen for things to get worse. Inventory is already running pretty high and building has been stalled for almost a year. In order for things to get worse, even more inventory would have to hit the market, but would that really make things worse? In places like Florida and California with hundreds of thousands and homes and condos already on the market, ranging from vacant, bank owned, distressed sellers, non-distressed sellers, etc. what would a few thousand more do? In my opinion, not very much.

The economy could also get worse. Investors are demanding a stiff return on capital today under Draconian underwriting, so fire sale prices are in effect in most parts of the country. Sure, it’s currently tough to get financing and it’s expected to remain so over the next couple of years, but investors are pricing that in to their offer price. Rents are low and expected to remain so for the next year. Great, price that thinking into your offer price, every other investor has been doing that for the last six months.

Ok, so the final argument is no one would sell at those prices. The great thing about millions of homes being for sale is that someone will sell at that price; you just have to find the right property. Smart sellers are wising up to the fact that a low offer is better than foreclosure. Banks are wising up to the fact that a low Read more

September 20, 2009

When the weather finally breaks in Phoenix — it breaks for ten solid months of pure paradise…

by

Suburban Phoenix Real Estate Broker

Author website

This from my Arizona Republic real estate column (permanent link):

If you live in New York or Boston or Chicago, there will come a day in the Spring when the cold will seem to be in full retreat. The sun will be shining. The icicles on the trees will be melting, and the tickle of the cold drops of water on your hair and neck will make you want to throw your arms out wide and rejoice in your release from the awful prison of Winter.

That happens in Phoenix, too, but it happens six months earlier, on September 15th. Mid-March has its own charms, when the citrus trees open their blossoms and the air is thick with the nectar of heaven perfected. But it’s when the Summer breaks in Phoenix that people come outdoors, knowing that the next ten months will be simply perfect.

Consider: On August 15th, the late-afternoon temperature could be 115 blistering degrees. The sun will be relentless, seeming to hang for hours above the horizon, seeming never to set. The relative humidity will be 40% or more — which doesn’t sound too bad until you remember the temperature. Late in the day, huge storms could come thundering into the Valley of the Sun, flooding the low-lands and even tearing the roofs off of older houses.

That season — we call it “the Monsoon” — lasts from July 15th to September 15th. But when September 15th rolls around… paradise ensues. Daytime high temperatures drop to below 100 and the relative humidity tops off at below 10% — so dry you can smell the dry leaves and pine needles baking in the sunlight.

That might still sound too hot to you, but it’s not. It’s just perfect, an ideal time to be outdoors — all day and all night. There is simply no place like Phoenix, no place on Earth. We suffer, slightly, during the Monsoon, but we are repaid with ten months of the kind of weather that other cities are lucky to see for ten days in any given year.

And Winter — which you are just now beginning to dread — Read more

September 19, 2009

Real Estate Investors: Its Time to Come Out of Hibernation

by

Real Estate Investor

Author website

Is it time to start investing in real estate again?

 

First positive sign, I am writing again.  While I write that half-jokingly, there really has not been a lot to write about for the past six months.  My previous advice was to take shelter and start researching the markets.  Well, I have done that and I hope you have too.  It’s just about time to put that great research to work.

 

Second positive sign, mortgage rates are still historically low and the media has begun to talk about a real estate recovery.  Since the news outlets are always about six months behind the real estate market, I would assume we are probably at least six months into a modest real estate recovery.  Low real estate prices and low mortgage rates create an excellent investing climate.

 

Third, mortgage rates are beginning to rise and there is substantial talk of a market recovery.  As the economy recovers, expect mortgage rates to rise.  Depending on the inflation indicators, we could see mortgage rates rise rapidly or we could see a gradual increase interest rates if it remains tame.  Regardless, no one expects rates to get substantially lower, so if you can qualify for a mortgage (and that could be a big IF), it might be time to buy.

 

Expect more from me as I see a general market recovery.  As one of the few real estate investors on this blog, I like to consider myself a slightly more objective analyst of the real estate market, as oppose to the perma-bull Jeff Brown.  Agents should start contacting their investor clients now and investors should start contacting their mortgage brokers.

September 19, 2009

Eliminate the Government Option For a Healthy Mortgage Industry

by

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

Author website

Most loan originators are grateful for the “government option” in the mortgage markets because of the liquidity crunch. I submit that the reason for the mortgage liquidity crunch was TOO much government involvement in housing and its increased involvement has ruined mortgage banking. That’s going to be a hard concept to grasp because all of us have relied on the government, at one time or another, to insure the mortgage loans we make. Lend me your mind for a few minutes and consider what might have been had we weaned ourselves off of the milky government teat for a free market approach to residential real estate loans.

Government lending didn’t really start until the 1920s with farm and home loans. FDR’s New Deal supercharged the idea of US government-backed home loans as a “band-aid” to the Depression-era liquidity crisis. Poorly-trained, high school social studies teachers taught us that the New Deal policies are what saved the American economy. In fact, evidence suggests Federal intervention ultimately prolonged the Depression, curbed creativity and innovation in lending, and turned the residential lending industry into a ward of the Government.

Twice, in recent history, did residential lending attempt to divorce itself from this dependent relationship…twice, we failed. Current legislators use these failures as evidence for why free market capitalism is “dangerous” when left unchecked. In reality, the de-regulatory efforts towards banking in the 1980s, and securitized real estate lending in the earlier part of this decade, were constrained by a government-provided safety net (FSLIC insurance and expansion of the GSE mortgage conduits) akin to bad parenting.

Consider the teenager. Adolescence is the awkward period between a child’s dependence on his parents and the independence from those parents that comes with adulthood. Responsible parenting dictates that greater responsibilities be given, as the adolescent ages. Responsible parenting rewards the adolescent for good choices and levies punitive restrictions as consequences for poor choices. It is when parents indulge the adolescent in freedom without responsibility that adolescence continues to the child’s middle-age years.    In short, if Biff kills his girlfriend in a Read more

September 14, 2009

Video: Howling with Brian Brady in Phoenix in the dog days of summer

by

Suburban Phoenix Real Estate Broker

Author website

Brian and I gave a three-hour presentation last Friday to a small group of top-producers at the Phoenix Association of Realtors. We asked Bloodhound Terry Melcher to help us set it up, and she packed the room with some of the most successful Realtors in Metropolitan Phoenix.

Brian was in town to help me shoot promotional videos for BloodhoundRealty.com, and we made a video of the speaking event as well. Don’t pester Ryan for a BHB.TV channel: It’s our usual garage-band quality production.

We cover a lot of ground in the 2.5 hours of video linked below, but there’s not a lot of cutting-edge stuff in there. If you’re new to our schtick, though, this might be a good short introduction to the BloodhoundBlog Unchained way of thinking.

September 14, 2009

Client Lunchbox – BloodhoundBlog.TV CRM Channel Premier

by

Retechulous...

Author website

Ok, here’s the first episode for the CRM Channel. It’s a quick peek under the hood at ClientLunchbox.Com that I made tonight using the cool twitter integrated, web based screen capture tool, Screenr.Com.

[Just a quick disclosure, because I’m scared poopless of ever plugging stuff here: Dane Maxwell, the guy who created ClientLunchbox asked me if I would write a blog post about his product months ago. I told him I would, so here it is. At the time, I was thinking HouseYourMom.Com but sorta forgot, so I’m overcompensating by talking about Lunchbox on the big stage. For the record, Dane builds stuff for Realtors, but he didn’t even know what BloodhoundBlog was. Blasphemy, I know. I only mention because of the vendor sensitivity around here…. and… I guess I’d like to add — I’m hoping it’ll be cool to do a lot more (honest, nonpaid) vendor reviews in the coming months because at the risk of appearing to be hawking something, I think this kinda stuff is interesting to a lot of folks? ]

Anyway…here’s the video. It’s been set up with the “secret tag” for the CRM channel in Youtube and should flow onto the CRM page within a few hours…

And for a more in – depth view use my affiliate link, or if you prefer, this clean link to some more info about Client Lunchbox.

[So what’d you think? Anyone else want to do a similar screencast review for BloodhoundBlog.Tv? ]

September 14, 2009

BoodhoundBlog.TV – Channeling a Video Model For Large Brokers

by

Retechulous...

Author website

Using the Tubepress plugin’s shortcode paremeters it’s easy to create a bunch of different video galleries within one wordpress install. I’ve been calling these different pages “galleries” because it sounds fancy, but maybe for BloodhoundBlog.TV we can call them Channels?

In order to have any of your videos show up on a channel, all you’ll need to do is use a “secret tag” when you upload the video to youtube.

I’ve tweaked up a special sidebar so that all channels will flow into the sidebar as links when created using some wordpress list_pages fun. I’ll spare everyone the nitty gritty technical details here and maybe save some of the code snippets for a later post, but I want to mention that this is all being set up within one wordpress install for a reason — Because I think following a similar configuration could be useful to any broker who’d like to create a TV station within his/her blog.

For example, a Mega Monster Multi Contributor Broker Blog could included the following channels, all with videos created and emailed from phones by agents.

  • Weekly Market Updates
  • New Listings
  • Neighborhood Driving Tours
  • Area Restaurants
  • Area Parks
  • Agent Interviews
  • Scenes From Settlement

You get the idea? Consider how sticky your broker site be if all visitors were confronted with a series of 2-5 minute videos created by your team of agents. How likely would these visitors be to “subscribe to receive all new videos? Combine this with open registration on a solid idx integration, and I think any broker with the stones to encourage (pay for) agent generated video content could quickly increase market share in any market.

But oops… sorry for the digress into how this stuff might actually be applied to make some coin. 🙂

Back To BloodhoundBlog.Tv

Obviously even though the technology behind the thing is the same, we’re going to need a different set of channels for BloodhoundBlog.TV.

So, I’ve gone ahead and created a “CRM” channel which I’m hoping will soon include various under the hood peeks at CRM systems geared toward Realtors. CRM’s a dirty little geeky Read more

September 14, 2009

I’m Drinking More Tea

by

Realtor, Rabble-Rouser

Author website

Late this Spring, I came to the realization that my life wasn’t in enough upheaval, so I decided to give up everything and move back home to Texas to be closer to my family and aging parents.  My trip to visit my parents while my dad recovered from surgery in April made a much larger impact on me than I realized.

Family matters.  Life is short.  Carpe Diem.

… and let’s face it, my business was in the toilet and I’ve been toying with starting my own Web 2.0 endeavor so what the hell.  Texas here I come.

It’s been more than 2 months and I am working on my business plan.   I have a  lot more free time, so I am reading a lot.  I am enjoying seeing my folks, my brothers and sisters-in-law, nieces and nephews, but surprisingly, I’m having difficulty reconnecting to my home town.

I finally started reading The Fountainhead and I am looking forward to reading Dan Brown’s new book, but one book in particular that I just finished has really made me think about the process of really starting over – starting over is tough.

The book Three Cups of Tea has profoundly impacted my process of starting over and reconnecting.  It’s about the power of relationships – deep, meaningful relationships.  Relationships that truly transcend our differences and forge  bonds because of our shared experiences and common purpose.  If you haven’t read the book, needless to say, I highly recommend it because I believe it has remarkable relevance to how we value and maintain relationships in our business and personal lives.

In the book, the significance of sharing tea with a person is a deeply routed cultural experience with profound meaning.  The more one shares tea, the stronger the bond.  Connecting and reconnecting with people is all about building, nurturing and maintaining relationships.   Building a relationships begins with a common purpose or shared experience, but to maintain it and for it to become valuable, it requires nurturing.  How much time do we really, truly devote to the nuturing of our own relationships?  Not just our business relationships, but our Read more

September 12, 2009

Why We Should Rename It SMP (Social Media Prospecting)

by

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

Author website

I asked if SMM were dead as a precursor to our session with the Phoenix Association of REALTORs.   A few of y’all mentioned that social media was helpful as a lead generation tool.  I suggested this yesterday and  I want to be perfectly clear about the utility of social sites as lead generation pools.

Serially creating overly commercial, spammy messages on your Facebook status bar is never going to be effective.  Kelley Koelher once said in my Unchained session that you’re supposed to be SOCIAL on social media.

I don’t disagree.  I often liken your behavior on social media like a party, wedding, or community event.  If you showed up to cousin Fred’s wedding and handed out your business card, you should be tossed out on your ear.  If  bride Wilma’s sister asks you “What’s the market doing ?”, it makes sense for you to get her number and reconnect with her a week later.

Now, more than ever, prospecting is paramount to success as a REALTOR.  Consider this video of Gary Keller and Jay Papasan, discussing the shift from marketing to prospecting.

Here are my takeaways:

  1. the 8 X 8 is about cementing a relationship.  These can be phone calls, interactive comments on social media sites, e-mails, and postcards.  I think 3-4 different forms of media touches hardens the relationship cement quickly
  2. the 33 touch is about saturation.  I can’t stress enough that you must have permission to continue this saturation strategy on a prospective client
  3. The monthly newsletter is a non-threatening way to buy brain cells.  My yellow postcard might only be read for the 8 seconds it takes to go from the mailbox to the wastepaper basket but it does get read.  I get calls from it.
  4. The principles of direct marketing are more important now than ever. This means that you should ask people questions…directly (eg- do you know any teachers looking to buy their first home?)

How do social media play into this strategy? Here’s a Facebook tactic:

  1. Call everyone on your “friends list”
  2. Ask them who their REALTOR is in (your town)
  3. If they have one, politely move on.  If they don’t, ask if you Read more
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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.

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