There’s always something to howl about.

Month: August 2010 (page 3 of 3)

TMI …and it’s application to Real Estate Photos

My latest couple of projects have involved a pretty intense look at the state of real estate listing photos. I have been working on some hyperlocal stuff in my brokerage where the listing photos have been a PRIMARY component of the site. I have also been working on a fun site with some friends that celebrates the best and worst of real estate listing photos. (Note to Athol Kay – not sure where your blog went, buddy…but I enjoyed it so much back in the day that I had to get some friends together and do something similar)

Ahh…back to TMI. Have you ever noticed that REALTORS often find that the most difficult picture to take is the bathroom? If you have a listing with a KILLER commode (and a professional photographer) like Christi Dennison (a REALTOR in our brokerage..) you can get results like this:

But for most of us, a) the “John” is nowhere NEAR that nice and b) the camera we use merely captures the top of the toilet tank and a sliver of the side of the shower. 😉

So WHY take the photo? Our listing photos are what attracts folks to see our listings, not unlike Match.com, Chemistry.com and eHarmony.com. Would you get a picture of your LEAST appealling ass-et and put it up there? Did not think so. 😉

I am seeing so many folks take listing photos like they are more of a disclosure of property condition than the “come hither” invite that they should be.

The bottom line?

So I have come to the conclusion that it takes a REALLY GOOD bathroom shot to beat NO bathroom shot at all. It is simply TMI.

Thoughts?

The Basic Laws of Stupidity – No Explanation Needed

Greg often talks about self determination and splendor.  There is a raw courage that comes with saying that a bandit can put a gun in your face and demand what they want, but ultimately that bandit cannot take from you what you will not give him.

But what about stupidity?

Here’s an interesting read from an article published by Carlo Cipolla, and summarized briefly in this post.

THE BASIC LAWS OF HUMAN STUPIDITY

by Carlo M. Cipolla

1. The first basic law of human stupidity
2. The second basic law
3. The third (and golden) basic law
4. Frequency distribution
5. The power of stupidity
6. The fourth basic law
7. The fifth basic law

The first basic law of human stupidity

The first basic law of human stupidity asserts without ambiguity that:

Always and inevitably everyone underestimates the number of stupid individuals in circulation.

The second basic law

The probability that a certain person be stupid is independent of any other characteristic of that person.

The third (and golden) basic law

The Third Basic Law assumes, although it does not state it explicitly, that human beings fall into four basic categories: the helpless, the intelligent, the bandit and the stupid.

A stupid person is a person who causes losses to another person or to a group of persons while himself deriving no gain and even possibly incurring losses.

The fourth basic law

Non-stupid people always underestimate the damaging power of stupid individuals. In particular non-stupid people constantly forget that at all times and places and under any circumstances to deal and/or associate with stupid people always turns out to be a costly mistake.

The Fifth Basic Law states that

A stupid person is the most dangerous type of person.

The corollary of the Law is that:

A stupid person is more dangerous than a bandit.

My premise? What I see as a pandemic is the unfettered law of stupidity threatening us in every arena of our lives. Professionally it’s NAR and financial reform. Sociologically it’s the “let’s all get along” mantra. Politically it’s the apparent dismembering and misinterpretation of our Constitution. Financially it’s our socialistic tendencies. Personally it’s the lack of decorum and respect.

Are there basic laws of stupidity? Read more

If You Were This Guy, What Would You Do?

Had a nice conversation with an agent on the east coast recently who’s a world class buyer’s agent. He has his own site that sending roughly 7-8,000 leads his way each year. From those he picks the cherriest of the cherry, giving the rest to his assistant. He sells anything from a $100k place to cool houses whose price tags require a couple commas. I got the impression most of his stuff is $400k and above, though not much above, at least as an average.

Anyway, the guy’s wicked smart, knows what he’s doin’ backwards and forwards, and does very, very well. He expected to be at roughly 70 closed sides by the end of the year. Again, his website spits out leads like Grandma used to make muffins.

Talking with agents like him is a treat, mainly cuz they’re not only good, and work hard, but they get it. Big time smart.

I asked him why he’d never pursued being a dominant lister.

I asked cuz he’s such a natural, he’d kill. Agents like him can leverage the combination of their superior online skills and agent experience into a tremendous pay raise while keeping the hours level or even reducing them if preferred. For instance, my guess is Russell Shaw, who’ll probably do (my estimate, not his) 5-700 sides this year, works 30-50 hours weekly. Not sure how those sales fall into listing/buyer sides, but I’d wager more than a six pack of Dr. Pepper that 70% of ’em or more are listing sides. I’m sure he’ll correct me if I’m mistaken. 🙂

Back to the east coast guy.

He’s been at this for a decade or so with stellar results. That’s a lotta sales. A buncha homeowners who’re in their homes due to his efforts. They like him, and view him as an experienced, knowledgeable pro. Geez, I dunno, given a built-in database of roughly 500-700 satisfied homeowners, one might wonder if marketing your equally cool listing prowess might have some traction.

Just sayin’.

Let’s say it’s just 500 or so. He already ‘touches’ them with emails once or twice yearly, though Read more

Sometimes ya just gotta say, “WTF-nutsville?”

The Obama Adminstration’s henchmen are whining about the proliferation of new media , in a Vanity Fair article and I just couldn’t resist poking some fun at the irony of their complaints and the foreshadowing of the “perfect business” in an economy they “design”

First, they bitch about the stamina required to work in the West Wing:

“There’s a relentlessness to this that’s unlike anything else, especially when you come into office in a time of crisis,” says Obama senior adviser David Axelrod. “We did not exactly ease into the tub. The world is so much smaller, and events reverberate much more quickly, and one person can create an event so quickly from one computer terminal.”

The State hates the internet; we all know that.  Rather than ignore the brays of  pajama-wearing boys, blogging in their parents’ basements, they long for a more genial, controlled speech:

Emanuel calls it “F****nutsville,” and Valerie Jarrett says she looks back wistfully to a time when credible people could put a stamp of reliability on information and opinion: “Walter Cronkite would get on and say the truth, and people believed the media,” she says.

Maybe,  just maybe, these people in The West Wing are…old.

Not old  in chronological age but definitely in hipness.  Despite the hip-hoppity nature of the campaign and his addiction to Blackberry, the President thinks young people need to turn off their iPhones.   The President doesn’t sound so hip anymore.  He sounds like a humbug father of two tween daughters.

Maybe it’s just a philosophical desire to be in control of everything, including the choices consumers make.  Forget the health insurance hijack or the nationalization of the residential real estate finance industry, the West Wing Big Dawgs dream of a business suitable for any Soviet Republic:

It got so bad last December that President Obama and Emanuel would joke that, when it was all over, they were going to open a T-shirt stand on a beach in Hawaii. It would face the ocean and sell only one color and one size. “We didn’t want to make another decision, or choice, Read more

What Do We Know? Be Like a Monkey On a Cupcake

Know: Be absolutely certain or sure of something.

Certain: Established without doubt. Complete conviction about something.

Sure: Having no doubt that one is right.

How much do each of us know about what we do? How much do we know about increasing the number of people we’re able to talk with about what we do? How certain are we of the results we’ll get when we set out to execute a particular marketing/prospecting strategy? Are you sure what you’re doin’ and the money you’re spendin’ are gonna produce the expected results?

Kinda puts a different spin on things, doesn’t it?

BloodhoundBlog is all about results. Whether it’s about technology, marketing, some sorta prospecting, software apps — we’re about what gets our clients exactly where they wanna be. As I’m fond of saying, the rest is happy talk.

From the bottom of my heart, no offense intended, but if you’re a recipient of leads fallin’ from some RainMaker into your computer — this post ain’t for you. This is for those who create somethin’ outa nothin’ — the RainMakers themselves. You create the business where before you did whatever you did, there was none. You’re a full time real estate agent or broker. You’re in the trenches every day by choice.

Who knows that whatever they’re gonna do tomorrow, next week, next month, to generate new business, is gonna work?

Who knows?

The other day I was asked very politely by a young real estate agent if I’d be willing to have a cuppa coffee with her at StarBucks — her dime — to talk about why she’s not coming within shouting distance of hittin’ her 2010 goals. Sensing the advantage, I negotiated for a couple oatmeal raisin cookies. Deal.

We’ve met, had the conversation, identified problems, and fortunately also singled out a solution or two. She admitted to having little if any confidence in what her office manager has told her to do. Fair enough. We figured out what she knew would work. She’s pretty excited.

If you’re not doing as well achieving those lofty goals you set between Christmas and New Year’s, what’s the Read more

That Giant Slurping Sound is the Mortgage Market Drying Up

Ken Montville asked the nagging question about the future of the mortgage market:

Unfortunately, even Congress — that bastion of liberalism and home of the bailout — is tiring of pouring good money after bad into the two mortgage giants that have been sucking up all the mortgages — good and bad — that private industry is willing to create. To paraphrase one-time third party Presidential candidate, Ross Perot: That giant sucking sound you hear is taxpayer money subsidizing home mortgages.

Now, the big questions remains: What will happen next? If there is no Fannie and Freddie to buy up all the mortgages, who will do it? Will the lenders who originate the mortgages be forced to keep them on their books and won’t this further inhibit an already tight credit market?

I outlined, a year ago, how the government is retarding a private mortgage banking recovery but I said it again for Ken’s benefit:

“If there is no Fannie and Freddie to buy up all the mortgages, who will do it?”

Nobody will…or everyone will. I’m a “lowly retail mortgage originator” with some formal education (and lots of informal education) in economics so consider my opinion with that qualification.

To use a BawldGuy axiom, lenders lend. Unfortunately, the government, through TARP and artificially subsidized mortgage rates, is creating a situation where lenders prefer arbitrage to lending. It doesn’t take a rocket scientist to borrow guaranteed money at 1% and lend it (with a guaranty) at 4.5%. This is the systemic problem that is distorting the market and arresting any chance of a recovery in lending.

If the GSEs were allowed to fail, and FHA disappeared, lending would halt…for about 3-4 months. The recovery would be robust, sustainable, and at rates somewhere in the high 5s or lower 6s. Wall Street is taking chances on 5.75%-6% non-guaranteed, mortgage yields right now; there is interest in betting on the American homeowner. Low down payment loans would most likely be gone for about a year. Read more

Reasons to be cheerful, Part 3.1.4: “Get me rewrite!” How to revise the script of your life — writing yourself a happy ending.

A friend said this on the phone: “I’m sorry this is taking me so long. I’m really bad at computers.”

My reply: “Why would you say it that way?”

“Huh?”

“I understand that you’re reporting on what you see as being a matter of fact. But why not say it this way: ‘Computers have been a challenge for me, but I find I’m getting better with experience.’ You’re telling the exact same truth, not misrepresenting anything. But by focusing on what you’re doing right, you’ll improve your future performance just by changing your attitude.”

I’m not talking about canned affirmations. I’m talking about the words you choose when you’re telling the unshaded truth about your life, your mind, your talents, your work, your relationships.

You can say: “I’m a lousy writer.” But you can be just as truthful by saying this instead: “It hasn’t been easy for me to improve my writing skills, but I’m finding that hard work is paying off for me.”

You can say: “I always get lost when I go someplace for the first time.” But it would be equally factual to say, “I find it beneficial to prepare carefully before I travel to an unfamiliar neighborhood.”

You can say: “I’ll probably lose.” But you would be no less honest to say, “I just might win.”

The statements you make about yourself might seem to you to be statements of fact at the time you are making them. But whatever truth there might be in those expressions right now, you are also writing the script for your future. Saying “I’ll probably lose” is functionally equivalent to saying “I’ll never win.” If you don’t mean to say that you can never, ever get anything right, then stop telling these brutal lies about yourself.

If you invert those expressions instead — concentrating on everything you get right, not everything you get wrong — by that one simple change of habit you will rewrite the script of your future. There’s no telling how high you can rise, once you stop putting yourself down, but, at a minimum, you will write yourself a much happier ending.

Here’s what I say: I’m Read more

Radical Chic – Oh Baby How I’ve Missed Ya

Radical chic is a term coined by journalist Tom Wolfe[citation needed] to describe the pretentious and fashionable adoption of radical political causes by celebrities, socialites, and high society. The concept has been described as “an exercise in double-tracking one’s public image: on the one hand, defining oneself through committed allegiance to a radical cause, but on the other, vitally, demonstrating this allegiance because it is the fashionable, au courant way to be seen in moneyed, name-conscious Society.”[1] Unlike dedicated activists, revolutionaries, or dissenters, those who engage in radical chic remain frivolous political agitators. They are ideologically invested in their cause of choice only so far as it advances their social standing. – From Wikipedia

On January 20, 2009, Barack Obama was inaugurated with much pomp and circumstance, and today, some year and a half later, remains (IMO) a polarizing figure in American politics. So, when I, as a member of the real estate community, read about the overt actions of the Federal Government under the leadership of Mr. Obama, and contemplate both the merits and missteps of his administration, I cannot but yearn for some few hours with the elite of American society who swept him into office with their own brand of ideological one-upsmanship.

Yesterday Brian Brady commented that he had not been invited to attend the reported meeting on August 17th of the Obama’s administration’s attempt to overhaul or repair Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac.

That got me thinking about an old essay by Tom Wolfe.

The essay, Radical Chic: That Party at Lenny’s “. . . It’s a tricky business, integrating new politics with tried and true social motifs . . .” from New York Magazine on June 8, 1970, got me wishing for a few hours of time with just about any of the elite of American society that ushered in and oversaw the coronation of their very own so chic, so hip, so nimble and enlightened leader. But the radical chic, those who helped elect this President, and with it the seemingly endless policy shifts away from accountability toward mediocrity and the continued Read more

The line for food stamps is over there. This is the line for deficit-funded mortgage bailouts.

James Pethokoukis at Reuters:

Main Street may be about to get its own gigantic bailout. Rumors are running wild from Washington to Wall Street that the Obama administration is about to order government-controlled lenders Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac to forgive a portion of the mortgage debt of millions of Americans who owe more than what their homes are worth. An estimated 15 million U.S. mortgages – one in five – are underwater with negative equity of some $800 billion. Recall that on Christmas Eve 2009, the Treasury Department waived a $400 billion limit on financial assistance to Fannie and Freddie, pledging unlimited help. The actual vehicle for the bailout could be the Bush-era Home Affordable Refinance Program, or HARP, a sister program to Obama’s loan modification effort. HARP was just extended through June 30, 2011.

The move, if it happens, would be a stunning political and economic bombshell less than 100 days before a midterm election in which Democrats are currently expected to suffer massive, if not historic losses. The key date to watch is August 17 when the Treasury Department holds a much-hyped meeting on the future of Fannie and Freddie.

What would be the motive for doing something this dumb? To buy your vote, of course:

Keep in mind the political and economic context. The nascent recovery is already running out of steam. Wall Street economists just downgraded the government’s second-quarter GDP estimate of 2.4 percent to around 1.7 percent. And as even Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner is warning, the unemployment rate may well begin to rise back toward the politically toxic 10 percent level given such sluggish growth. Many in the White House thought the unemployment rate would be dropping sharply by this point in the recovery.

But that is not happening. What is happening is that the president’s approval ratings are continuing to erode, as are Democratic election polls. Democrats are in real danger of losing the House and almost losing the Senate. The mortgage Hail Mary would be a last-gasp effort to prevent this from happening and to save the Obama agenda. The political calculation is that the number of Read more

Joe Ferrara, Real Estate Attorney & Founder of Sellsius Real Estate Passes

Joe Ferrara, Manhattan real estate attorney and founder of Sellsius Real Estate, passed away from an aggressive brain tumor yesterday.  Joe, often credited as one of the pioneers of the online real estate community, explained and lampooned our industry from his home site.  A ubiquitous presence, Joe offered advice to real estate agents, about online marketing, for Home Gain and Inman News.

Joe had a vision of an online marketplace; a Craig’s List of sorts for the real estate industry.  While the RE.bots expended their energy and capital to aggregate listings, Joe thought his site might provide transparency for the NYC rental market, mostly dominated by the two, closed-system real estate boards.  Ultimately, Joe thought Sellsius might encompass products and services for the dwelling and all that was in it.

Joe was an accomplished real estate attorney, practicing in Manhattan.  He had a creative eye towards marketing and was a fountain of new ideas.  His presentation of the inane, zany, and funny, real estate-related topics were addicting and his coverage of the technology sector, and how it might aid the real estate professional, was comprehensive.  Joe had the gift of detachment and could present ideas to the layman with the knowledge only an industry insider might have.

Joe had a sense of justice.  He willingly acted when he believed that the equilibrium of fair play had been imbalanced, regardless of the personal consequences.

Joe Ferrara had a paradoxical understanding that, amidst the rush to introduce technology to real estate solicitation, personal relationships would play an increased role in the industry.   Consumer introductions however, would be atypical with our past marketing efforts.  Joe believed that the broad reach and deep content, a real estate blog might have, would attract more quality customers to the best and brightest in the real estate industry.  He felt, like I feel, that real estate agents should develop a worldwide, professional referral network..  Joe acted on that belief with then partner, Rudy Bachraty (now of Trulia.com), to organize Blog Tour USA.  The “Sellsius Boys” set out to personally meet as many industry professionals as they could, in the summer of 2007.

The Read more

Are you using QR codes on your flyers or signs?

Vide:

That says: “Text HOUND9 to 88000.” If you snap a picture of it with a QR-code-reading client on your smart-phone, it should, in three steps or fewer, take you to a DriveBuy Technologies page for one of Cathleen’s short sale listings.

If you like good design, QR codes are plug ugly. But we’re going to start using them on our signs, commencing with the next listing. We often put the DriveBuy copy on a rider, so we’ll add the QR code there — on the order fo five inches square to make for an easy target.

Is anyone else playing with this technology?

The Holy Grail of Real Estate Marketing: What Actually Works?

The only thing this marketing ignoramus can say with unshakeable confidence, is that marketing ain’t sales. The rest I’m not all that sure about. Though to be fair, the more I read, the more I’m confused. So many of those who put bread on the table giving marketing advice, disagree vehemently with each other on so many aspects of their trade. But that’s true in most disciplines, right?

Anywho, the more I read, observe, and try to understand about real estate marketing, the more I wanna ask the one question I think is almost never asked.

Is your marketing, whether in-house or from outside, producing bottom line, as in ‘your banker is happy to see you’ kinda results?

Since I generally couldn’t market my way out of a wet paper bag, I tend to use what works, discarding the rest. I suspect some of what I have discarded, failed due to my poor execution rather than bad marketing advice. Though Lord knows, I’ve paid for some pretty worthless counsel. Here’s what’s on my new menu.

  • Direct mail
  • Warm calls following direct mail
  • Blogging
  • IDX on company website
  • Seminars directed at ‘house’ agents — i.e. Rainmaker concept
  • What’s the Holy Grail of real estate marketing?

    For my sake, let’s not make it too complicated. It’s marketing that predictably delivers wicked good bottom line results.

    Did I say results? I meant results measurable in terms of increased bank deposits, not mountains of ‘leads’. Man, if there’s a marketing term that’s pretty much lost any real meaning these days, it’s ‘lead’. I’m surprised there isn’t a statue somewhere in homage to the lead. If there was any justice, it’d be the statue sportin’ the most pigeons.

    Let’s really trash what seems to be the prevailing concept of leads while we’re at it.

    Have you noticed how most marketing people want you to base the success of any real estate marketing system they tout, upon the quantity of leads, instead of increasing sales? Don’t get me wrong, they tell us sales will go up, but for the most part they’re sellin’ ways to generate leads. To be fair, their logical retort is that Read more