BloodhoundBlog

There’s always something to howl about.

Month: January 2010 (page 2 of 4)

January 26, 2010

Finding versus Discovering

by

Realtor, Renaissance Man

Author website

Take me home

Do you still buy magazines and books? Or are you hell bent on reading everything on the internet? Do you love statistics? Has Google Maps got you salivating for bigger and better satellites? Do you love good graphs better than sex? Is a bigger IDX better? Do you want to be completely plugged in, connected, always on line?

Well it turns out that I guess I’m more dog than human sometimes, especially when it comes to what makes a great web presence, and how best to graft a marketing strategy. I’ve spent some time today, you see, smelling other dogs beeeeehinds, and I think I’ve picked up the scent of something y’all might want to bury for a rainy day.

The scent I’ve picked up is either the Finding or the Discovering scent. I think it may be important to think about these two concepts as you put together your marketing, for your Web presence, and maybe more importantly, your belly to belly presence.

Turns out, you see, that people are still buying magazines. Though through the internet we can get all the information on who’s doing what to whom, how they’re doing it, why it shouldn’t be done, and where we can go to get more information on everything we just digested, people are still buying and reading magazines. Wonder why?

Turns out that people simply like to discover things, not just find them. Magazines, you see, lie around waiting for just the right moment to spring into our consciousness. Sure, you want the 4 bedroom, 2 bath home in Elevado Hills, with view, pool and lots of land, but sitting in front of an agent’s IDX (even the good ones) just isn’t the same as opening “San Diego Magazine” and seeing a home just like the one you imagine living in. Or you’ve been watching the statistics from a great blog site or newsletter from Brian or Scott or Mark or Tom on rates and terms and the market in general, and you’re educated and knowledgeable because of this. Read more

January 26, 2010

Shimmers of the shadow: Is your local REO inventory going up?

by

Suburban Phoenix Real Estate Broker

Author website

Strictly anecdotal — and I would be delighted to be wrong about this.

First, the inventory of the homes I track for investors has been rising slowly but steadily since mid-October. Not an obscene increase, but sales are way up as prices have wallowed in more or less the same place since last March or April. A lot of investors are calling “bottom!” with their cold, hard-to-come-by cash — and yet available inventory is going up, not down. And prices? In December, way down.

Then consider this: I have an REO negotiation going on in a condo community where the quantity of the one floorplan my buyers are interested in jumped 50% in two weeks, from 13 to 20 units just like that, all of them priced right or within shooting-down distance.

It seems to be getting easier and easier to get just the right deal for buyers. Even in overbuilt Phoenix, last summer and early fall played like a seller’s market, but by now it feels to me as though the table is swiftly turning.

And all of that leads me to wonder if we’re finally seeing the much-hypothesized, much-denied shadow inventory.

Am I seeing my own shadow, or is there something going on?

January 23, 2010

Let’s Play the Trulia Valuation Game! Prizes to the Winner!

by

The Real Estate Group, Virginia Beach and Chesapeake VA

Author website

I was thinking this weekend about all of the rumors about Trulia and Google buying them and all of that. I was thinking as well about how both Trulia and Zillow are both seeming to be angling to be the next Realtor.com…

What does that mean…trying to be the next Realtor.com….hmmm…my mind hearkens back to a certain Russ Shaw post here in October of 2007…something about a pencil sharpener. When they say they want to replace Realtor.com, they MEAN it! It is about folks standing in line to take money from REALTORS…right? If not that, then what?

If Trulia is not lining up to give us a ..ummm…sharpening (dare I say that?) then their valuations should NOT include ANY REALTOR MONEY. So here’s the contest:

This contest is for someone to explain in the comments below HOW Trulia is going to generate enough revenue to justify a $300 Million valuation (that is an arbitrary number – just guessing here, boys!) given their current burn rate AND

The contest winner cannot allow ANY revenue to come from REALTORS. Revenue can come from current CPM rates for ads on their site, but how much of their site would need to be covered with ads to generate that revenue? Not sure but my offhanded guess is about 125% of the above the fold area. Revenue can come from other creative ideas. Just not from the REALTORS wallet. 😉

The Prize: 1 hour SEO consultation with me.

See- I don’t get it. I wouldn’t pay $150MM for Trulia let alone $300MM or (heaven forbid) $500MM …so what gives?

Please submit contest entries below!

One last thing: The only thing “stoopider” than a Trulia valuation of that size would be Realtor.com’s valuation of $1.81 per share (it was down at $0.89 when Russell Shaw proposed buying them out…)

January 23, 2010

My Tried and True Rules For Political Debate

by

Real Estate Investments Broker

Author website

I love talkin’ with people. My heroin if you will, is the first couple conversations I have with a prospect or new client. It’s a fix I need often, and greedily seek. Political discussions also interest me. I love the rational give and take of a spirited political debate. What I can’t stand though, is the emotional claptrap, the avoidance of facing tough questions head-on, and the favorite technique of empty headed smart-asses, answering a question with a question.

Obviously, liberals and conservatives are both guilty. My experience however is with libs, who sometimes seem literally incapable of addressing simple questions asked in plain, one to two syllable words. I’m to the right of Atilla the Hun, and make no bones about it. The only reason I twice voted for Reagan was cuz Goldwater didn’t run. And HE wasn’t conservative enough. 🙂

Back to political debate.

I’ve developed some hard and fast rules. If ya wanna play with me, you abide by them, or we don’t talk politics. It tends to get libs’ panties in a bind, but it works well. Those who agree to them, usually end up admitting it made for a much calmer, more honest, and certainly friendlier give and take.

The Rules

1. If I ask you a question, you must answer THAT question — nothing more. Take as long as you need, but you must limit your response to the specific question. It works both ways.

2. Without exception — NO answering a question with a question. It’s almost always the way out when you have nothing to say. Either give the other guy the point, or make your case.

3. No personal attacks. The discussion ends there, without warning. You’ve obviously shown your gun is loaded with blanks. You’ve embarrassed yourself. Quit while you’re behind.

4. Don’t dress up your opinion as fact. You look foolish, and it’s an insult to my intelligence. It’s either fact or not. The intensity of your belief doesn’t make it so.

Here’s a recent example of a talk I had with a lib in Starbucks the other day. It was a great Read more

January 23, 2010

Why Stop With the Bath Water When You Can Throw Out the Baby At No Additional Charge?

by

Database Marketing Expert

Author website

Full disclosure: I’m neither Democrat nor Republican. I’m neither Mortgage Broker nor Mortgage Banker. I am a consumer – just like you.

I haven’t been over here to play as often as I’d like because of some other projects I’ve been passionately pursuing.  My bad, because this is still the place to be for people with a take.  And I’ve got a take:

What the American public doesn’t know is what makes them the American public, alright?

– Dan Akroyd as Ray Zalinsky in the movie “Tommy Boy”

For the rest of this article to make sense, I’d ask that you take 2 minutes to read this letter authored by Sen. Jeff Merkley to Fed Chair Ben Bernanke dated Dec. 24, 2009.

Here’s the cliff’s notes version the way I read it:

  1. Mortgage brokers are crooks.
  2. The subprime debacle happened because consumers were “tricked” into loans they couldn’t afford to repay.
  3. Eliminating the Yield Spread Premium (YSP) will fix our problems.

To support his argument to kill YSP, Merkley cites a NY Times editorial piece painting the mortgage broker as unethical and the root of the subprime debacle.  Here are a few questions I’d like to pose to the pound for thought and discussion:

  1. YSP existed in its current form up until Jan 1, 2010 – when the new Good Faith Estimate and RESPA rules took effect .  By the way, is there still such a thing as a “subprime loan”?  What banks are writing “subprime loans” today?  Six months ago?  A year ago?
  2. Did it EVER make any sense that a bank would knowingly extend a loan to a borrower who had demonstrated a propensity to default and thus would be more likely than normal to default on their mortgage?  Where is the mention of the “stated income” loans in Merkley’s letter.  Certainly THAT didn’t contribute to the subprime mess, right?
  3. FACT:  today, the mortgage broker CANNOT earn YSP.  YSP belongs to the borrower and may only be rebated to the borrower.

I’m going to repeat that for effect.

  1. Senator Merkley, less than one month ago
  2. Authored a letter (co-signed by approximately 20 other Senators)
  3. In the guise of consumer protection
  4. Calling for the elimination of Read more
January 22, 2010

Barney Frank: “I believe this committee will be recommending, abolishing Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac in their current form and coming up with a whole new system of housing finance.”

by

Suburban Phoenix Real Estate Broker

Author website

To say anything at all would be way too much. From the Wall Street Journal:

“The remedy here is…as I believe this committee will be recommending, abolishing Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac in their current form and coming up with a whole new system of housing finance,” said Rep. Barney Frank (D., Mass.), the chairman of the House Financial Services Committee.

His comments initially rippled through bond markets on concerns that the government might pull away from the mortgage market. Many believe that’s unlikely and that any revamp would include continued government involvement. The government took over the companies in September 2008 as loan losses mounted.

Some Republicans have argued that the companies should ultimately be reduced in size and privatized, while at other end of the spectrum, some analysts have recommended turning the companies into government agencies. But several industry groups and academics have suggested that the government is likely to continue playing at least some role in the future of the companies.

One such report came from analysts at Standard & Poor’s this past week. “It’s hard for us to imagine” how enough capital could be attracted to replace Fannie and Freddie with stand-alone private companies that would be able to offer low-cost funding for 30-year fixed-rate mortgages, the analysts wrote.

Some analysts have argued that starting from scratch could create more problems than they would solve, in part because Fannie and Freddie own or guarantee around half of the nation’s $11 trillion in home mortgages. “Blue sky ideas are great, but they take a long time to happen,” said Mahesh Swaminathan, senior mortgage strategist at Credit Suisse, at a conference last month. “When you have $5 trillion of agency mortgages, you can’t really orphan them.”

Mr. Frank, who didn’t elaborate on forthcoming recommendations, said last month that one possible revamp could merge some functions of Fannie and Freddie that overlap with the Federal Housing Administration into the government mortgage-insurance agency.

January 22, 2010

My “Jim Casey” take on the FHA’s Policy to Address Risk and Strengthen Finances

by

Mortgage Systems Samurai

Author website

“Before I knowed it, I was sayin’ out loud, ‘The hell with it! There ain’t no sin and there ain’t no virtue. There’s just stuff people do. It’s all part of the same thing.” – (Preacher) Jim Casey / Grapes of Wrath

Here’s my take on the FHA 1/20/10 press release and the 1/21/10 Mortgagee letter as posted on my blog on January 21st, 2010:

FHA ANNOUNCES POLICY CHANGES TO ADDRESS RISK AND STRENGTHEN FINANCES

PRESS RELEASE: January 20th, 2010 – Deciphered into (highly biased and subjective) English by me on January 21st, 2010.

I basically cut out a lot of the stuff that doesn’t matter and tried to just talk about what will affect you. If you really want to torture yourself, here’s the original release.

The FHA statement in italics – My translation looks like this…easy to read. Ready? Cool, let’s get down to business then….

New Measures Will Help FHA Better Manage Risk, While Maintaining Support for the Housing Market and Access for Underserved Communities

FHA is hemorrhaging cash due to fraud, rapidly rising defaults and basically because the sleazy sub-prime guys ran around announcing that FHA was the “New Subprime” when everything collapsed in 2007 after Wall St. decided to take the stance that it wasn’t a good idea to allow brokers, lenders and loan officers to give away loans to people that couldn’t afford the payments (even though they started the whole damn thing in the first place).

Who would have though that would come back to haunt them huh? (file this under “ya think?”)

WASHINGTON – Federal Housing Administration (FHA) Commissioner David Stevens today announced a set of policy changes to strengthen the FHA’s capital reserves, while enabling the agency to continue to fulfill its mission to provide access to homeownership for underserved communities. The changes announced today are the latest in a series of changes Stevens has enacted in order to better position the FHA to manage its risk while continuing to support the nation’s housing market recovery.

Ok, blah, blah, blah…We’re making changes to FHA to make it more expensive to get an FHA loan so that less Read more

January 21, 2010

Gaining control of your schedule just got easier with TimeDriver

by

Rust Belt Realtor

Author website

So this is the year that time management is going to be crucial for me. If I cannot gain control over my time, then I’m likely to stay mired in my own particular mode of real estate mediocrity, and that would suck rocks.

But, not to worry for I have found a tool that I think will be helpful to Realtors, and while I’m just getting started with TimeDriver, the response from clients and colleagues is “Wow! I love that.” And that’s plenty reason to keep a tool around, but I’m beginning to see how I could use it for a lot of real estate applications. Bloodhound Disclaimer: I don’t get any kickbacks for sharing this. There’s no affiliation program that I’m aware of, and I’m not in contact with the company except I signed up and use it. I simply want to share a tool that I’ve found useful.

TimeDriver is called a personal scheduler. From their site:

TimeDriver is a revolutionary appointment invitation system that will compel your customers and community to schedule time with you. By embedding a “schedule now” button in email messages and on Web pages, you’ll drive more appointments with fewer hassles than ever before.

Basically, it’s an online calendar that you set up to schedule time as you want. Your clients can then access the calendar through a unique url, and they can schedule time with you themselves, bypassing the flying email and phone tag time sink. It gives the client control and that’s a good thing in a real estate transaction, right? You can also push clients to schedule their own appointments with “Schedule Now” embeddable buttons. TimeDriver will then sync the appointment with your Outlook or Google Calendar, with plans to bring SalesForce and Lotus Notes on board as well. Butwaittheresmore! TimeDriver will then send you an email, alerting you when an appointment is scheduled, and reminding both of you when the appointment is approaching.

The first time I saw TimeDriver was when I called a photographer to schedule an appointment. She sent me the link to her TimeDriver calendar. It was an empowering experience to schedule Read more

January 21, 2010

They are Smarter than you, Better than you and they Know More than you

by

Mortgage Systems Samurai

Author website

I’m a mortgage guy.  Mortgage guys (and gals) will often talk about how highly they regard and respect the professionalism and expertise of Real Estate Agents, and they paint thise adoration with a very broad brush.

Real Estate Agents have a big ‘ole brush as well as they sing the praises and glory of how efficient, communicative and quickly Mortgage folks do their job to ensure a speedy and worry free transaction.

(The sarcasm should be about waist deep by now)

And you know what? (this applies to both groups)  They are Smarter than you – at marketing to their services to thier prospects, they are Better than you – at doing their job, and they Know More than you do – about their business (most of the time!).  Here’s the kicker….we have the exact same clientele.

Here’s a question: What can you learn from someone that’s not in your line of work that will make you better, smarter and cause you to innovate?

A couple of years ago I read a book called the Medici Effect that quite effectively makes the case that true innovation is realized at the intersection of different disciplines.  There are no new ideas, only new ways of looking at things that already exist…maybe just not in your world.

If you think about it, mortgage types and agent types are different disciplines.  Some people can pull off both and make a good living at it, for the most part however, these are two different personality types.

The very best in one field of the Real Estate profession is rarely the very best in the other field as well.  We’re not talking about having competence in either discipline.

I’m talking about being cutting edge, innovative, kick-ass, gonzo marketing fools.  This isn’t vanilla agent or loan officer stuff we’re talking about.  I’m talking about raising the bar and being a thought leader in your market.

For the past few years I have belonged to Vistage, an Executive Coaching and Business Leadership group that promotes “better leaders – decisions – results”.

My group is made up of 12-15 CEOs  from different businesses and industries and we meet once a Read more

January 21, 2010

Heckuva Job Brownie

by

Realtor, Rabble-Rouser

Author website

I believe in change.

I do not believe in politics as usual.

Horse trading behind closed doors isn’t change.

Has Scott Brown’s election defied the norm that all politics are local?

Yup.

Does Scott Brown’s victory represent change?

Jury hasn’t even been seated.  However, I suspect it may actually be the first green chute to all of this change business.

I can honestly say that I was pleased with the results.  Not because I am in alignment with his Republican cohorts, but because voters sent a message – not just locally, but nationally.

Now I openly profess that I voted for Obama despite the Neo-Con rhetoric bombarding me at home.  In my short few months living back home in Texas, my father has almost convinced me that our President’s name isn’t Barack Hussein Obama, but God Damn Obama.  While he hasn’t quite branded me with the cast iron “liberal” prod on my backside, he has broadly casts his brush to paint me with the same blue color – “you and your liberal friends” … needless to say, perhaps I put a smile on my father’s face after admitting Brown’s victory was a good thing.

I think I am more in alignment with the 51% of Massachusetts voters who identify with the Independent political affiliation … they are still in Massachusetts, let’s not kid ourselves – perhaps they’re not blue – maybe light blue.

I’m happy with the results because I want change.  I buy that health care reform is a priority, but the option(s) presented by Congress today represent neither change nor reform.  Again health care reform is important.  I personally agree it’s a priority, yet under our current economic turmoil, is it job number one?

No.

In this morning’s Dallas Morning News I read an interesting article that may share a common theme with Scott Brown’s victory defying the politics is local norm – maybe all real estate is NOT local.  While it doesn’t come as any surprise to all of us – except perhaps Congress – jobs do play a fairly significant role in driving the housing market.  In fact, when people are employed, they tend to purchase homes.

Fascinating.

According to the Read more

January 20, 2010

Honored To Be Here…

by

Breathtaking Real Estate Photographer

Author website

So the problem is this:  When Greg Swann visits your blog, comments favorably and asks if you’d like to write for Bloodhound, you get excited.  In a good way.  You consider how Greg and the other contributors to this forum have helped shape your thought process as a real estate professional and you feel a sort of rush come over you.  Greg has invited you to write anything you like and assured you that it will be published and consumed by a large national audience.  You feel an obligation – to yourself, to your industry, to your mother.  You hit the reply button and type “Yes!  Count me in!”, because that is the right thing to do.  And it feels good.

A bio and a headshot later you get another email from Greg:  “You’re up.  Post at will.”  Again, excitement – but this time different.  More like anxiety, really.  More like “everyone – and I mean everyone – who writes for Bloodhound is so literate, so intellectual, so experienced…so prolific and poetic, both!”  It’s easy to wonder what you can possibly write that won’t pale in comparison to the posts being submitted by everyone else.  It’s easy to wonder what you can write about that anyone will want to read – or that hasn’t already been written more elegantly by someone else.

My name is Harry Bisel, and I am honored to have been asked to contribute occasionally to this space.  Honored and just a bit terrified.  I am a professional real estate photographer, which is the perfect mash-up of my two previous careers – commercial photography and residential real estate, where I had the pleasure of serving as an agent, a managing broker, an MLS Board member and a coach (although I was never comfortable with that title).  Real estate has been very good to me and I am grateful to those who gave me the opportunities I enjoyed so much along the way.

Having followed my passions away from the management side of real estate and back to photography, I now have two missions.  To create a profitable business, clearly.  But more Read more

January 20, 2010

10 Creative Business Card Ideas

by

Marketing Provocateur

Author website

Not all business cards are created equal. Good ones burn into the brain. Start a relationship. And build your brand. The best ones turn a simple intro and some bare info into lasting commitments and customers for life.

Some cards are better than others as this recent article from Inc. shows. Use it to ignite your marketing imagination. And make your own card an ace.
__

P.S. Already have a great business card? Or one you admire? Do share…

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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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