iOS 4 can go there, no doubt. And the lame-ass “web-enabled” HD-TVs shipping now are no competition for what Apple can do. The iPad may be the actual future of video content, but there will be room in the home for big screens for a long time. An Apple TV becomes the ideal blackboard, too, and the ideal game machine. Integrated with nearby iPhones and iPads, it can become everything we ever hoped to find in a package marked “entertainment center.” Really, truly, the television — the lowly, despised television — is the computer for the rest of us. This is a reinvention that Apple could do better than anyone…
Month: September 2010 (page 3 of 3)
To some in real estate brokerage, hearing the ‘R’ word — that would be results, causes them the same stress as my son’s mom felt the first time she read his lips on the mound, and didn’t like it one little bit. She didn’t buy my explanation that he was talkin’ about the umpire’s new truck. Go figure.
When agents are talkin’ about what they’re doin’ to generate business, helpin’ more clients to achieve their goals, things get quiet when some jackass wants to know how it’s workin’ out for them. In other words, has any of their prospecting or marketing, you know, produced empirical results? Are they helping more people?
I’ve been writin’ a lot lately on the changes in marketing, and strategy I’ve been implementing this year. It generally breaks down into two broad brush categories — my local market — the rest of the country.
I’ve now been back in my local market for three weeks. Cat skins are now adorning my special wall. It’s a new wall, specifically set aside exclusively for local cats. In the few weeks in which talkin’ has turned into walkin’, my firm has put $500K into escrow. Considering I’m not even outa second gear yet, $15,000 ain’t bad for the first month.
I’ve had to adapt to what I’ve described as the new normal, (don’t like sayin’ paradigm shift) in the real estate investment world. It’s gained traction big time with thinking investors who realize, in fact, we’re not in Kansas any more, and unlike Dorothy, it’s pretty unlikely we’ll return any time soon. Some of what I’ve been sayin’ the last year or so about the general real estate investment arena might be considered tough love. Still, the folks with whom I love doing business, believe what I’ve been saying is universally true.
The takeaway here is that I’ve had to adapt — many times, on many fronts in the last seven years. Not all of my changes have been successful, but the ones that failed pretty much showed me where the right path was.
I’m already thinkin’ my new office is too Read more
I wrote this in a comment a couple of weeks ago:
Everything we’re doing on-line emerges from the points of this star:
* engenu — rapid web site development
* encartus — elaborate custom Google maps
* Scenius — dynamic blogs-within-blogs
* ScentTrail — CRMishness with transaction management
* FlexMLS and the FlexMLS API — very robust MLS search
There is now a sixth point in our star: Praxis. I had an appointment cancel today, and I wrote the whole thing in just under five hours — while juggling all my usual eggs.
Although there is less editorial control than with engenu, now anyone we might add to our staff can create very professional looking web pages on the fly, with essentially no knowledge of how a web page goes together. Supplemented with other software (e.g., ScentTrail), I have the ability to create whatever I want with virtually no effort.
We hosted BloodhoundBlog Unchained in Phoenix twice, two years in a row. For both years, my local competitors made a big point of insisting that I have nothing to teach them. Perhaps they’re right. The only regular user of engenu I know of is Teri Lussier. Scenius has one fan, Cheryl Johnson. And only Cathleen and I are using encartus.
This seems a shame to me, but I’m the real estate business, not the software business. My belief is that the software I have written makes us much, much stronger as Realtors. We have tremendous marketing leverage for just two people.
But Praxis compounds that leverage a thousand-fold. I can do anything I want. I think I can take on anyone, including the Realty.bots. I’m convinced I can take whatever turf I want in Metropolitan Phoenix.
I don’t know when or where we’re going to do Unchained the next time. But I won’t be teaching Praxis, in any case. Even so, I have an idea that my local competitors may come to regret not having studied what I have to teach when they had the chance.
I’m an addict. I’m addicted to drama. To feeling necessary, to the hustle, and to the grind. I have heard 3 bloodhounds separately say “putting out fires,” recently.
And to that I say: why? And to myself I say, why.
Here’s the thing: even though we’re living through a paperwork-fight-to the death with the Government, we still have quite predictable businesses that lend themselves to systemization. I broke out of the pack as a mortgage lender when I tried to get every single file “clear to close” on the first pass. It was more work up front, but in 2007 (after the ‘crisis’s’ first act) I had a great year. Doubled my 06 volume.
Why? Because if an underwriter ever “stipped” me, I’d add meeting that stip to my checklist and solve the problem. I required title companies to send a HUD-1 on DAY-1, and if they were picked a fight, it was easy to get them to take the 10 minutes to estimate taxes, etc.
This process was the only way I survived, and the only way the carnage from my tax stuff wasn’t worse than it was.
Which is to say this: we can become anticipatory in our businesses. We can learn how to figure out what customers need, and how to serve them.
But, we have to give up our “superman” ethos. Most house problems were caused by the Realtor/Lender/Whomever having a terrible process. Most of them were caused by someone acting clueless. “We need a termite inspection? Really, man, the underwriter pulled THAT out of nowhere.”
We have more power than we realize. We can systematize a transaction so it goes like clockwork. So it’s “artisan” quality, in lieu of “call center” quality. When we pursue operational excellence, then what happens?
Our clients notice a difference.
We notice a difference and are more proud of our work.
There are no “fires” to put out.
So, in lieu of going after the drama we manufacture, we can make more drama by throwing ourselves at Jeff Brown Challenges, or Greg Seinfeld Chains.
“What do you learn” with every file.
“What caused a delay” with every file.
“What gave the customer pause” Read more
by Brian Brady
Commercial Real Estate Finance Expert
Structured Debt and Equity
Licensed Real Estate Broker in AL, CA, and FL
HUD announces it’s “First Look” program today:
The National First Look Program is a first-ever public-private partnership agreement between HUD and the National Community Stabilization Trust (Stabilization Trust). In collaboration with national servicers, Fannie Mae, and Freddie Mac, the First Look program is intended to give communities participating in HUD’s Neighborhood Stabilization Program (NSP) a brief exclusive opportunity to purchase bank-owned properties in certain neighborhoods so these homes can either be rehabilitated, rented, resold or demolished.
On the surface, it sounds idealistic. Who would be against local stakeholders being afforded the opportunity to improve their communities? Don’t private investors do that, though? Maybe this program is targeted at those properties which even the scavengers avoid.
HUD’s NSP grantees, which include state and local governments and non-profit organizations, often find themselves competing with private investors for real estate-owned (REO) properties, which can hinder their efforts to stabilize neighborhoods with high foreclosure activity. With today’s announcement, HUD and the Stabilization Trust, working with national servicers, Fannie Mae, and Freddie Mac, will standardize the acquisition process for NSP grantees, giving them an exclusive option to purchase foreclosed upon homes in certain targeted neighborhoods.
Huh? Competition is the engine which drives a functioning market. This means that a government agency will specifically eliminate competition and deliberately sock banks with a loss. How is THAT good?
HUD’s Neighborhood Stabilization Program was created to address the housing crisis, create jobs, and grow local economies by providing communities with the resources to purchase and rehabilitate vacant homes. NSP grants are helping state and local governments, as well as non-profit developers, acquire land and property; demolish or rehabilitate abandoned properties; and/or offer downpayment and closing cost assistance to low- to middle-income homebuyers. Grantees can also stabilize neighborhoods by creating “land banks” to assemble, temporarily manage, and dispose of foreclosed homes. To date, HUD has allocated nearly $6 billion in funding to state and local governments and non-profit housing developments. In the coming weeks, HUD will allocate an additional $1 Read more
From the New York Times, economist Karl Case of Case-Shiller fame says: Buy!
This financial crisis has made us all too aware that we live in a Catch-22 world: the performance of the housing market drives the economy, and the performance of the economy drives the housing market. But housing has perhaps never been a better bargain, and sooner or later buyers will regain faith, inventories will shrink to reasonable levels, prices will rise and we’ll even start building again. The American dream is not dead — it’s just taking a well-deserved rest.