BloodhoundBlog

There’s always something to howl about.

Month: June 2011 (page 1 of 2)

June 30, 2011

Talking Dog Syndrome

by

Instigator, anthill kicker.

Author website

Robert Worthington’s car story reminds me of this.

In 2003, I had an epic run.  A 6 figure 60 day period.

I was happy as hell.  In 2004, I became…

Arrogant.  Thought this was my new life.  Thought I was now a 7 figure agent. Made a 60 thousand month an 80 thousand month (and forgot the famine that sandwiched the months).

We’ve talked about this before.

Anyway, enter a man, Harry.  Harry was a mid 40’s (I was late 20’s) agent.  Looked like Peter Falk with a crew cut.  Harry was a nice guy, a little slow, and kind of a bumpkin.  Harry’s mom used to be in Real Estate as an old time agent.  Harry’s mom could now move to Florida.

People thought Harry was a moron.

People derided Harry for having his momma’s business.

Harry drove a 1993 Geo Prizm everywhere.  He got to the office around 7am and left around 10am.  He got back to the office around 7pm and stayed for a half hour or so.  We didn’t see much of him.  I was in the office to sober up for an hour after being a little too boozy.  We passed as he was coming back.

I can’t resist the urge to brag, and this time was no different.

“4 closings this week.”  I said, counting my $129,000 4% double ender as 2 closings.

“Great.” he said, “You only get about 2 great runs a year, so work hard.”

Whatever, bumpkin.

Slow talking Harry was always enthusiastic, didn’t miss a meeting, and kept to himself.

Later, he referred a client he didn’t have time for to me.  I didn’t close him.  The client was a jerk.  (Note: I probably could have closed him had I not wanted to be right, but that’s a lesson for another time).   Another client, and nothing.  Harry asked to see me, I was too busy, but would welcome his referrals.

I got one more, another closable person that my arrogance kept away (after all, I was driving an Acura RL, what the hell could Harry know.  He drove a Hundai to get here. I never met with Harry  and didn’t hear much from him.

But after our brokerage Read more

June 30, 2011

Unchained melodies: Melanie’s Babe Rainbow

by

Suburban Phoenix Real Estate Broker

Author website

Art is the stuff that sticks with you. Art is the thing that makes a permanent change in who you are. This song has been with me since I was a teenager. It’s never been of me, but it’s something I’ve always understood — even more since I started selling real estate for a living. It might-could have that impact on you, too.

It’s a waltz, 6/8, cdfc. Couldn’t be simpler. And yet I have this song in my head — in my soul — all the time. This is Melanie exposing the universe through the lens of her own life, and by making her life so real, so raw, so painful and yet in the end still so palpably redeemed — this really works for me. This is what art is for…

June 29, 2011

The old luxury creme puff goes bye bye, frustration, and a sedan

by

Realtor, Guerilla Technologist

Author website

It’s been a nearly 3 weeks since I sold my 99′ Cadillac V8 Luxury problematic SeVille!  The car looked great but like a blonde haired, blue eyed beauty looks can be deceiving.  I got a fair price for the Caddy and I was happy, until I went to the bank after I sold it to find out what slightly used car interest rates are going for.  My credit is good and I was getting quoted 17% +/-.  My problem was, I only wanted to borrow, $5,000 max for a used car, the rest I was going to pay for in cash.

I searched endlessly for a clean used car in South Florida, boy was the joke on me.  I would arrive at dealers who wanted between $600 to $1,000 dealer fees on top of the price of a car.  I then went looking at private sale cars to get away from the dealer fees.  I found one liar after another, I’m referring to the private party seller.  I had literally given up my car search in complete frustration of FEES, LIES, and INTEREST RATES.

My wife was going nuts explaining that we need two cars, so I begun my search again.  I found a nice little cream puff (the car).  It’s a 2005 Honda Civic which looks great, and my mechanic gave me the two thumbs to go ahead and buy the car.

So you might be thinking, how in the world, can I go from Leather seats and spacious to a typical compact car?  The answer is, I frankly don’t care what clients think of me pulling up in a Honda Civic versus a Cadillac.  I wasn’t about to pay outrageous dealer fees, I found  a half way decent and partially lying seller, and I paid cash for the car instead of off the chart interest rates; so that is exactly how I arrived at a 2005 Honda Civic.

You know what I also learned from this experience since it’s nearly been over 4 years since I bought a car.  Don’t charge hidden fees, Tell the truth, and charge a fair fee or commission. Read more

June 29, 2011

Lay down with dogs and you wake up with fleas? Worse. If you decide to rape the taxpayers via NAR’s RAPAC scam you get… plague!

by

Suburban Phoenix Real Estate Broker

Author website

From the Phoenix Realtor Forum, the monthly newsletter of the Phoenix Association of Realtors:

Alas, the plague is a swarm of vampire-like locust Realtors. These are RAPAC’s objectives, according to the article, with interstitial commentary by me in bold text.

  • Mortgage Interest Deduction: NAR opposes any changes that would limit or undermine current law.

    That is, people who don’t buy homes on credit, including people who own their homes outright, people who rent and working poor people living in mom’s basement or in their cars, should subsidize the incomes of very wealthy people. If this doesn’t make you sick, you’re much too sick already.
     

  • Capital Gains Exemption: NAR opposes any changes to the capital gains exemption on the sale of a home.

    How much does the NAR hate real property? Why isn’t its position to eliminate all taxes, or at least all taxes on real estate?
     

  • Depreciation/Tenant Improvements: NAR supports efforts to establish a permanent rule that more accurately reflects the depreciable lives of buildings and to conform amortization periods for tenant improvements more closely to the term of the lease.

    More tax subsidies for the rich, rather than getting rid of taxes altogether.
     

  • Government-Sponsored Enterprises: NAR is recommending that Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac be converted into government-chartered, non-shareholder owned authorities.

    Because it’s harder to hide the corruption if the SEC is pretending to pay attention to FannieMae and FreddieMac.
     

  • Mortgage Loan Limits: NAR supports making the current higher loan limits and formula permanent.

    Rich people need more subsidies!
     

  • FHA/Federal Housing Administration Programs: NAR is a strong supporter of FHA’s single- and multi-family programs.

    Poor people need subsidies, too!
     

  • NAR Credit Policy: NAR is calling on the credit and lending industries and regulators to reassess the entire mortgage lending policy structure and look for ways to increase the availability of credit.

    Because not enough unqualified buyers were rooked into buying homes they couldn’t pay for the last time we pulled these stunts.
     

  • Short Sales: NAR continues to push the lending industry to expedite short sales.

    Criminal penalties if they don’t? Don’t laugh. Government is nothing but force. If we are doing anything other than negotiating by means of the persuasions of the free market, one party is Read more

June 28, 2011

My life as a dog: Five years of BloodhoundBlog.

by

Suburban Phoenix Real Estate Broker

Author website

Tomorrow is the fifth anniversary of BloodhoundBlog. Here is where we started, with a question that haunts me to this very day:

If almost-as-good is free or nearly free, what is the market value of slightly-better?

At the time that we launched, Zillow, Trulia and Redfin were new kids on the block, and traditional Realtors were casting a wary eye over their shoulders. It was an interesting time to write about real estate, even though some of what I wrote in those days seems comically stoopid to me by now.

(Caveat lector: Our archives always repay effort. I could wish that someone would comb through them and pull out the true gems — the category Enduring Interest is crying out for such a treatment. But even without that helpful handiwork, if you haven’t learned everything we have taught here, you could do worse than giving our posts over the past five years your regular attention.)

I love this place, and I love the work we have done here, but I can’t revisit the history of BloodhoundBlog without some sadness — and sadness is an emotion I’ve wanted for my whole life to know nothing about. But it remains that my most important goal for this weblog — unchained Realtors — remains unfulfilled.

Too much the contrary. Most of the people who were writing in the RE.net when BloodhoundBlog was young are on the slave-master side of the table by now, either as vendorsluts, Judas goats — or both. It’s not hard for me to deplore this outcome, but none of it would be possible without the active participation of the slaves, who line up to be yoked with an ox-like complacency. Despite all the opportunities technology affords us to break free of the brokers, the NAR, the Inmannequins, et infinitely cetera, there is something about most Realtors that seems to crave dependency, subordination and the attendant exploitation.

In response to this outcome, I must admonish myself with the words I have deployed on so many other people over the years: Cultivate indifference. For five years and more, we have been just that close to smashing all the Read more

June 17, 2011

Nice going, unnamed Idaho agent

by

IDX Search Entrepreneur

Author website

“Sessions said they trusted their real estate agent, who, she claimed, told them the snake problem was “made up” by the previous owners so that they could leave their mortgage behind. He assured them that every precaution was made to keep the snakes away, she said.

The Sessions’ signed paperwork acknowledging the stories about snakes when they bought the house, based upon the assurances the stories were false, The Associated Press reported.”

http://abcnews.go.com/US/snake-house-family-home-idaho-turns-satans-lair/story?id=13851600&fb_ref=abc-fb-recs

 

June 16, 2011

Book To Buy: The War of Art

by

Instigator, anthill kicker.

Author website

Today, you will need to buy this book.

Because it has been the one thing that’s been key to the run I’ve been on.  To understanding who I am.

To go pro.

Every idea I’ve implimented has come from this book – or from the Meditations (hays translation).

Anyway, even if you’re broke and mad at the world, go get this book.  I’ve read it 5 times, I think.  I could stand to read it 50 more.

June 14, 2011

What We’ve Been Doing.

by

Instigator, anthill kicker.

Author website

Howdy Bloodhounds. Not a lot to say in the real estate world because I’be been working on the After Effects Demo Shop, Simplifilm.Com.

The Foundation for a Free Society commissioned us to make a video. So, obviously, we did. This one owes an homage to the clear thinking of Greg Swann (along, of course with Bastiat)

We make demo videos and we’re priced in the lower five figures per finished, written, voiced and rendered minute. This piece isn’t really representative of what we’re doing, but it fits the conversations that we’ve had here. It’s probably the last political thing we’ll do for a great long while. We’re immensely proud of it.

I can say for certain if Greg hadn’t provided some of the vocabulary it wouldn’t have been as good as it it is. Help the Foundation for a Free Society and give them some money. They are locked in and loaded, competent and winning. (Disclosure: some of their money might come back to us in the form of a video, but we assure you: we charged them less per minute – by 1/3 -than anyone else will ever pay).

June 11, 2011

MSNBC calling, and a new website design

by

Raleigh Criminal Lawyer

Author website

MSNBC is planning to run a story next week on me, as part of a story about how lawyers are coping with a bad economy.

And I’ve been able to grow: I added my wife in January, who has been able to expand the firm’s business. We hired a new lawyer, a former prosecutor, who started in early May and is adding to our ability to expand into neighboring counties, as well as traffic law and bankruptcy law.

I’ve also started a redesign of my website. I’d appreciate your feedback. I recognize your time is valuable. In exchange for your feedback, I will randomly select someone to receive a $100 gift certificate to Amazon.com.

It’s entirely anonymous – you’ll have to trust me that someone got the gift certificate – and confidential. No one but me will know you sent me feedback. And no one will know if you win the gift certificate.

My new front page is at www.chetson.com/home. Please only review that page. Don’t worry about clicking through to the rest of the site which has not yet been redesigned.

Because the prettiest designs don’t always work on every browser, or are confusing, I’d like your frank feedback:

  1. Does the page display properly
  2. What is your impression based on the page?
  3. Are you able to see the various slides, functions, etc?
  4. Do you understand what kind of law we practice and what kind of things we do?
  5. Would you pick up the phone and call?

Feel free to email me your feedback to dchetson@gmail.com. Anyone who emails me by Wednesday, June 15, is eligible for the $100 gift certificate.

Thanks for your help!

June 7, 2011

The Difference Maker

by

Real Estate Investments Broker

Author website

I’ve been having periodic, kinda sorta regular conversations with a young real estate agent in the southwest. It’s been goin’ on for maybe a year or more. He thinks he has a very bright future, but from where I sit, he hasn’t yet grasped just how really good he’s destined to be.

He’s a goal setter, yet he’s not hit his goals the last few years. Don’t get me wrong, he’s done very well. But missin’ his goals consistently isn’t from poor work ethic, he’s like a Nebraskan corn farmer at harvest time. The guy’s relatively tech savvy as he maintains his own websites, which are designed to be lead generators. He has an IDX etc. Still, goals not met.

He works his ass off, gets referrals up the ying-yang, follows up, crosses his T’s, dots his I’s, loves his mom, and eats his veggies. So what’s the hold up for Heaven’s sake? What’s been missing?

95% (Pulled out of the clean, breezy San Diego blue sky.) of real estate agents who don’t make it, fail for this reason.

Promise you won’t roll your eyes.

Bottom line? He stopped spending so much time with websites, and other various marketing tasks, and began spending most of his time either prospecting or, you know, being belly to belly with folks who could tell him to go to hell. Turns out a buncha folks attached to said bellies haven’t been giving him directions to Satan’s abode.

Go figure.

His income this year will most likely eclipse last year’s goal by about 30% or more — a goal he failed to reach. Puttin’ it another way, If he reaches this year’s goal, and he’s ‘this close’ to being on target, he’ll have exceeded last year’s actual income by approximately 55-70%. All this by simply parkin’ his belly in front of more stranger’s bellies than ever before.

Who’d a thunk?

Oh, and for the record, so far this year his ‘high tech’ lead generators have produced a tad less than 20% of his income. The dominating majority of what he’s accomplished has been using methods available when Truman was in Read more

June 5, 2011

Peering into Apple’s new iCloud service, to be rolled out tomorrow, to see how much closer we might get to virtuoso virtuality.

by

Suburban Phoenix Real Estate Broker

Author website

Steve Jobs is going to do the keynote presentation at the Apple Worldwide Developer Conference tomorrow. Surely part of his motivation is to show Apple’s shareholders that he is still in charge. But Jobs wouldn’t be doing this if Apple didn’t have some cool new toys to show off.

Systems designer Kevin Fix speculates about what might be on the agenda:

I get the feeling that the announcements at next week’s Apple WWDC are going to represent the same kind of fundamental shift in Apple’s offering that the iPod did in 2001.

I don’t have any inside info, and I make a point of not trying to pry secrets from my friends who work at Apple, but the rumblings are huge. ‘iCloud’ could mean anything, but given the complete failure of MobileMe over the last decade there’s no way Apple would introduce it on such a pedestal unless it’s incredible. My guess is that iCloud is to MobileMe as iPhone was to Newton: a complete, deep, polished solution after an underwhelming market failure.

Apple took a long time to get the Internet. Geeks were still installing FTP clients and web browsers for years after Apple belatedly included TCP/IP and PPP to their OS and, when Apple finally did integrate the Internet into Mac OS, it was in a very tacked on kind of way. A browser, an app for making web pages, eventually a few vertical online stores. I think that’s all about to change.

The scene has been building for a long time: The iPhone blurred the line between using a local device and being online. Chromebooks propose to eliminate the line completely by using an OS that expects to be online all the time (though still has limited functionality when the wireless cord is cut). Dropbox is a huge hit because it provides the most seamless way to use native apps while still writing to the cloud. Google and Amazon are tripping over each other (and the music labels) trying to roll out virtual music lockers.

My guess though is that these vertical solutions will seem pretty thin by the end of next week.

What, specifically, Read more

June 3, 2011

Washington Scott and the Temple of Jobs

by

Realtor, Newlywed

Author website

Initial observations about the iPad

Admittedly, I am a fan of electronic gadgets that promise to either make my life easier or make my life more fun. That being said I was very skeptical about the iPad when it was announced. I had made up my mind that the Microsoft Courier was going to be the device that was going to rock my world. Well Apple shipped and Microsoft slipped and I was left clutching at the vapor.

Flash forward to May 2011 since I live in the shadow of Redmond I had to make sure that the Great Eye of Gates did not see me enter the Temple of Jobs. I put on my disguise and I slipped into the Apple Store in the Tacoma Mall. I was greeted by a freshly scrubbed face wearing white tennis shoes. I was so surprised by the neat, clean and very well stocked store that almost dropped the Dixie Cup of Kool Aid that was offered to me.

I was allowed to quietly browse the products offered and was quite impressed with the offerings. I was looking for a 16 gig Wi-Fi iPad and I was politely told that they were out of that model. The salesperson offered to take my name and contact information and would notify me when they received one in stock. Terrified that my contact information would somehow slip into the wrong hands I quickly made my exit from the store. Two days later the draw was too strong. I slipped back into the store and quickly exited with a 16-gig 3g model. That moment might just be the transcendent moment in my real estate career.

Taking the iPad home closing the blinds and turning off all computers running any Microsoft products so that my actions could not be traced to the mother ship in Redmond I opened the box and removed the glowing (ok the screen glows not the actual device) iPad. We have been inseparable since.

Currently I am using my iPad for the following real estate activities:

• Email: my Exchange email account was quickly and efficiently configured and setup 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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