BloodhoundBlog

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Category: Marketing (page 101 of 191)

November 18, 2007

NAR Convention convocation: We live in a small world — for now

by

Suburban Phoenix Real Estate Broker

Author website

There are 1.3 million members of the National Association of Realtors. Of those, 30,000 descended on Las Vegas for last week’s NAR Convention.

How many of those people, either the larger group or the smaller, know about our world, the world of Web 2.0, real estate weblogging, social networking — the world we think of as being “the conversation”?

Almost none.

BloodhoundBlog is big as real estate weblogs go, and we’re arguably the biggest of the blogs focused on real estate industry issues. We get around 1,200 unique visitors a day on weekdays, a steadily rising number. Many of those “hard clicks” are not Realtors, of course, but we have a large and growing population of RSS and email subscribers. I have no numbers for RSS subscriptions, but the email server demands kicked us from a shared-server account to a quarter-server to a full dual-core server in a little over a year. It would not seem unfair to me to estimate that we are talking to at least 1,200 dues-paying Realtors a day.

It pays to do that math, doesn’t it. We are well-known, highly regarded, deemed influential — and we are talking to fewer than one in 1,000 members of the NAR on any given day. Not everyone reads everything on any given day, but, on the other hand, things get passed around. We might be seen by as many as 50,000 Realtors a month, perhaps as many as a quarter-million in a year’s time.

But even then, for all but a few hundred Realtors, we are noise in the background. The others see what they see, with Debunking Zillow.com and What’s Wrong with zipRealty? being by far the two most popular hard clicks into the weblog.

There is a over-arching message here and in other places we frequent, a message about our world, the world of Web 2.0, real estate weblogging, social networking — the world we think of as being “the conversation.” But who among the attendees of the NAR Convention — much less the NAR membership as a whole — knows anything about it?

This was one of the points Jeff Turner raised in Read more

November 16, 2007

The mother of invention: Greg’s IDX

by

Suburban Phoenix Real Estate Broker

Author website

Our IDX bill came due today. A boatload of money for the next twelve months, even though the system is going to break itself in eight months, when the new sheriff comes to town.

So: I said kill it. The leads we get from it have stunk, and the free ARMLS solution is adequate for now.

I hate every choice that’s available to us. About fifteen months ago, I wrote a spec for a map-based search system that would appeal to me. Since then, the art has improved, with Estately.com being my current favorite.

Here’s the real deal, though: I should build a decent IDX system for Phoenix. Not me personally. I don’t have the database chops. But I should put together a start-up to build an IDX system that really delivers, instead of the stultifyingly crappy options we have now.

In the Web 2.0 world, we are all pioneers, and I am accidentally wired into a community of like minds who can help me get what I want. Plus which, like my own personal Jesus, Steve Jobs, I know what I love, I know what I hate, and I know why I hate things that don’t work.

And, face it, there is money to be made selling tools to Realtors. I am parsimonious enough in my own practice to be a good steward with a customer’s money, but I know I can deliver a better product for the money. I can build something that can go anywhere FlexMLS goes, and probably anywhere RETS goes.

Who salutes? This wants funding, and that I ain’t got. If you’re interested in putting your money where my mouth is, speak up.

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November 16, 2007

BloodhoundBlog.TV an inch at a time: “To strive, to seek, to find, and not to yield”

by

Suburban Phoenix Real Estate Broker

Author website

So: I have good news, bad news and worse news.

The good news is, the video linked below, an interview with Jeff Turner of RealEstateShows.com about his experiences at the NAR Convention, is a full representation of the BloodhoundBlog.TV idea as I envision it. Video captured to the size of the image window on an Apple iPhone with a decent level of audio quality.

The bad news is, this is probably as good as things will get for a while. We have something truly cool, and truly novel, but the level of quality we can achieve with existing tools is limited. A year from now we’ll be doing much better. Two years from now the flap-jaws on the Tee Vee News will be pontificating about the dangers of unfettered TV news. In other words, this is the world of desktop publishing or weblogging brought to the world of the multi-camera remote television interview. But: For now, this is as good as it gets.

The worst news is that I hit yet another audio glitch about a third of the way into my conversation with Jeff, with the result that we lost more than we retained. This is truly tragic, because Jeff covered a lot of interesting ground.

But: We’re getting there. Sunday night we’ll do a group interview with NAR Convention survivors, and this will be an even better test of this technology.

In the meantime, we console ourselves with Tennyson:

Tho’ much is taken, much abides; and tho’
We are not now that strength which in old days
Moved earth and heaven, that which we are, we are,–
One equal temper of heroic hearts,
Made weak by time and fate, but strong in will
To strive, to seek, to find, and not to yield.

BloodhoundBlog.TV is that much closer to being a reality.

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November 16, 2007

Call it by its right name: It’s Friday-afternoon real estate gossip

by

Suburban Phoenix Real Estate Broker

Author website

Glenn Kelman wonders a little too self-revealing about the hype motivating serial entrepreneurs. Guy Kawasaki jumps to exactly the wrong conclusion, asserting that VC funds are wasted if a start-up’s founders have conquered their acne. And Marlow Harris wonders if the whole thing is simply Kelman campaigning for his next job.

Loren Nason asks an excellent question: Why the hell isn’t Apple pushing product at the NAR Convention? At a minimum, the smart folks from the Apple Store at the Fashion Show Mall could be selling iPhones by the dozens.

The New York Times notes that TV is losing viewership to on-line alternatives. Ya think? Everything that exists exists in finite quantity. The more of my leisure time I spent on the nets, the less I will have to spend on other pursuits. The more my work time and leisure time blend together, the more everything looks like a nail. If you’re not selling nails, precisely what do you think you have to sell me?

Finally, in more jobs news, Vanessa we hardly knew ye. I didn’t think this was big news on the way in, so I’m less that whelmed on the way out. Much more interesting, a little bug in my ear intimates, is this:

But Fox isn’t the only one who has departed the heavily-funded company in recent months. She said there have been a few people who have left to pursue early-stage opportunities, while one Zillow employee recently set sail for Facebook. Still, she said there is by no means a “revolving door” at the company.

However, some former Zillow engineers — Logan Bowers, Sameer Rayachoti and Greg Whelan — left to create a Seattle startup called Fridge Door. I have been tracking the stealthy startup for the past few days, but have yet to uncover a Web site or contact details. (Shoot me an e-mail if you know it or if you work at the company and are reading this.) I am told that others have left, though not sure if the churn rate is unusually high for a company of that size.

I know nothing about the world of start-up companies, Read more

November 15, 2007

Video podcast with Daniel Rothamel from the NAR Convention

by

Suburban Phoenix Real Estate Broker

Author website

I am too much chagrined. In building BloodhoundBlog.TV, I know what I want, but I keep running into technical glitches that leave me short of where I want to be. We are that close to getting a launch-quality product, but I’m not there yet.

But: The video linked below is a big step in the right direction. Daniel Rothamel of The Real Estate Zebra joined us to talk about his experiences so far at the NAR Convention, notably Seth Godin’s presentation and yesterday’s news from Zillow.com’s Rich Barton.

Jeff Turner is running a NAR Updates site that gives a peripatetic commentary on events at the show.

We will try to take another stab at BHB.TV content from the Convention before the Conventioneers are ground to a pulp by the irrepressible machine that is Las Vegas.

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November 15, 2007

Not to take anything away from the NAR Convention in Las Vegas, but this seems like the better takeaway . . .

by

Suburban Phoenix Real Estate Broker

Author website

This requires reasoning by analogy, never a welcome exercise. Even so, there’s a clue here if anyone cares to catch it:

“We used to fool ourselves. We used to think our content was perfect just exactly as it was. We expected our business would remain blissfully unaffected even as the world of interactivity, constant connection and file sharing was exploding. And of course we were wrong. How were we wrong? By standing still or moving at a glacial pace, we inadvertently went to war with consumers by denying them what they wanted and could otherwise find and as a result of course, consumers won.” — Edgar Bronfman, Warner Music

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November 14, 2007

Cribfinder and Facebook: Showcasing Listings

by

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

Author website

I’m a newbie to the world of Facebook but an old salt at social networking sites. I’ve been on LinkedIn since 2004, MySpace since 2005, and Active Rain since 2006. Facebook is my network du l’an for 2007.

It all started with my need to meet people in the San Diego area. I moved here as a mortgage sales executive in 2003 to be RIF’d after a merger in early 2005. Faced with the prospect of earning a living for my family, I turned to my first love; originating loans. In many respects, I’m only a third year originator.

My goal: to build a phat Rolodex, and fast.

I turned to the budding social networks to meet REALTORs and key referring influencers. I think Jeff Corbett got me on Facebook. I see a few of you there now. Facebook is a unique social utility because it lets independent software developers offer applications. One of those applications is a listing bot called Cribfinders. From the Cribfinders home page on Facebook:

Did you know?
* Your properties appear on your profile after adding them to CribFinder
* Updates appear on your newsfeed when you add or comment on photos (even your own!)
* You can track how many times your properties are viewed
* You can add your profile to our (searchable) realtor database
* You can add as many properties as you want
* You can get links to your “Cribs” and display them OFF of facebook

I added that application on my Facebook page and started searching around, I came upon this listing and clicked through to the REALTOR. He and I led parallel lives (both lived in Phoenix and moved to San Diego). I called him and spoke to him for 10-15 minutes and we have a connection. I have always maintained that the loan originator with the most friends wins the game so I like to make friends.
I noticed one hound using that application and wondered if others will. Comments about Cribfinders?

November 14, 2007

The Odysseus Medal: “Failure is a costly but cogent instructor”

by

Suburban Phoenix Real Estate Broker

Author website

Here are the Odysseus Medal winners, finally. My apologies for being two days late, but my little hop to Las Vegas put me way behind on everything.

I run with a fast crowd here, but I don’t cut them any slack. I am never nice for the sake of being nice, and I don’t ever hesitate to tell what I believe to be the complete truth. Even so, I don’t love it when one of our wins the Odysseus Medal, because I don’t want anyone to even suspect that I might be swayed by personal considerations. But great work is where you find it, even if you find it at home. So this week’s Odysseus Medal goes to BloodhoundBlog’s own Brian Brady for HR 3915: Open Letter to Senator Dodd from a Veteran Mortgage Originator:

Dear Chairman Dodd:

Soon, HR 3915 will be endorsed by the House of Representatives and most likely referred to the Senate. The committee you chair, will have an opportunity to read, discuss, debate, and amend this bill before recommending it to the general Senate for vote. I am a 20 year veteran of consumer financial services with the last 14 years in mortgage lending. I have helped over 700 families finance their homes and closed some 1700 loan transactions. I humbly submit my expert opinion to you for consideration.

The Libertarian in me begs you to do absolutely nothing; it’s the borrowers’ cavalier attitude towards financial planning that caused this mess. While my statement is true, it is but a component of the underlying malaise in the residential real estate industry; we adopted an even more cavalier approach to loan approvals and that irresponsibility is being felt by the investors who trusted us to perform adequate due diligence. Failure is a costly but cogent instructor; to discourage failure on both the borrower and investing lender sides of the equation might be more costly in the long run.

I oppose individual originator licensing in its proposed form. It doesn’t demonstrate true expertise and might induce a false sense of security to the consumer. Read more

November 14, 2007

Zillow.com enables listing agents to pee on the tree perpetually

by

Suburban Phoenix Real Estate Broker

Author website

There has been a ton of Zillow.com “news” lately, but mainly I’ve been ignoring it. News is news when it is something other than PR — free advertising for the company pushing the press release. In other words, what’s-in-it-for-me? — or for you or for anyone other than the owners of the company.

So:

  • Zillow announces new listings from Big Bob’s Bait and Realty
  • Zillow discovers newspapers don’t know what was planned for Hansel and Gretel
  • After months of announcements, Zillow finally takes listings feeds
  • Zillow announces even more new listings from multiple miscellaneous sources
  • Zillow rapidly approaches a one-percent listings penetration; if you’re looking for a home, almost one out of hundred are now on-line!

Okayfine. I don’t care. The feed is a happening thing, but I said a long time ago they would have to have one, at which time they demurred. If they celebrate with a cupcake for each new brokerage they sign up, they may someday have to go to Costco once a week to buy more cupcakes. Good news for them. Not very interesting otherwise.

But then there’s this:

In addition, today Zillow is announcing its revolutionary Zillow Virtual Sold Sign program (VSS), to be added to Zillow Listings Feeds in the coming months. The VSS program allows a broker’s branding and contact information to permanently become part of a sold home’s Web page on Zillow, where four million people visit every month, 70 percent of whom are buying or selling in the next two years. The VSS functionality is free to all brokerages and Web vendors with Zillow Listings Feeds.

“Imagine having a permanent ‘sold by’ sign in front of every home a brokerage has ever sold — giving buyers and sellers a critical piece of information on who is selling homes in a neighborhood — today and over time,” said Rich Barton, Zillow co-founder and CEO. “Given Zillow’s focus on all homes — more than 70 million of them — and not just those on the market today, we are in a unique position to provide this historical sales information to buyers, sellers and homeowners.”

Now that’s interesting. If you list well in Read more

November 13, 2007

Bossy Visionaries, Portland, and how to ram “Green” down the throat of an uncooperative market

by

Realtor, Associate Broker

Author website

The Bossy Visionary guide to power:

1. Sell a crisis.  It can be real, it can be almost real, it can be imaginary, but sell it apocalyptically.  Over-population/global famine has been an especially popular one, Paul Erlich having predicted it every five years since 1968 (but this time he’s serious!), following in the footsteps of Thomas Malthus, who first predicted the population would outstrip the food supply in 1798. [Now, of course, we have global warming, global cooling having proved a disappointment.]

2. Set yourself up as the one person/group/coalition/association that can solve the crisis, if only people will give you enough money and behave exactly as you instruct. 

3. Demand sacrifice, open a bank account, and wait for the marketplace to work.

4. When it doesn’t, legislate. 

The Bossy Visionary confidently knows what’s better for people than people.

Portland, Oregon is fertile breeding ground for Bossy Visionaries.

Portland doesn’t wear the progressive label; it wallows in it.  The County Commission and the City Council cattily compete with each other for the ‘most like San Francisco’ award, often to the exclusion of proposing anything actually, well, sane.  Thus the county a few years ago began unilaterally issuing gay marriage licenses, notwithstanding the fact that it wasn’t legal, wasn’t popular, and there’s nothing worse than giving someone something only to have it taken away, which the Supreme Court predictably did.  Thus the City Council is in the process of changing the name of a major thoroughfare in North Portland from ‘Interstate Ave.’ to ‘Caesar Chavez’ Ave., notwithstanding the fact the neighborhoods through which Interstate runs are an olio of Polish, Indian, African American, old, young, hip and not, but less than 8% Latino; and notwithstanding the fact that those neighborhoods, especially the businesses, are overwhelmingly opposed to the change.  [To the petulant mayor – he did the perfect ‘terrible twos’ impression and stomped out of a Council meeting when it looked like one of the key votes had changed – all that matters is the du jour grievance group, the fawning press that will be generated in the process, and one more notch in the totem erected to the politically gooey.]

So this didn’t Read more

November 13, 2007

“Don’t worry about people stealing your ideas. If your ideas are any good, you’ll have to ram them down people’s throats.” — Howard Aiken

by

Suburban Phoenix Real Estate Broker

Author website

The quote comes from WorkHappy.net this morning. Yesterday — plane-bound, casino-bound, Twitter-bound — unable to post — I reflected upon why it’s all just so much waxed fruit — for now:

Rusting in irony. I really, really want to post and I have 140 chars to work with.

That’s Jeff Turner and a newly-shorn Dustin Luther checking out Jeff’s camera at last night’s BloggerCon event at the NAR Convention in Las Vegas. The event was a lot of fun for me, much more fun than I had anticipated, but we were just so much waxed fruit to the NAR, a minor constituency to be placated.

So be it. A year ago, there was nothing of our world at the NAR Convention. This year, amidst the pageantry for MS FrontPage and MS Publisher, Dustin Luther spoke on “Understanding Your Online Competition.” Seth Godin is speaking, too, although I think he might go over like The Great Gazoo.

And: So be it. What I was ruminating on, unable to post, was Jim Duncan’s optimistic take on working within the NAR. My thoughts run in the other direction — working without the NAR — and my honest belief is that the NAR is destined to go the way of the Typographer’s Union — marching stoutly and steadfastly into an unlamented irrelevance. Sic semper tyrannosauris — thus, ever, to dinosaurs.

Organizations don’t change because they should. They don’t change because the world has changed on them. The don’t change because glib ideologues like me persuade them to embrace their better angels. Organizations change — if they do — when they have to: When a sufficient power-bloc within the group forces a change or when a force from outside the group proves irresistible. Most dinosaurs change — to a state of perpetual demise — when they get hit by a meteor.

Are we — the RE.net, the Web 2.0 world — are we that outside force for the NAR? Are we that meteor? Don’t kid yourself. We’re waxed fruit for now, up from barely negligible a year ago. But a year from now…?

I live in a very long-term world, but I live Read more

November 12, 2007

Day of the delay of The Odysseus Medal . . .

by

Suburban Phoenix Real Estate Broker

Author website

I’m getting ready for the BloggerCon event at the NAR Convention and I’ve run myself out of time. I’ll post the judging for The Odysseus Medal tomorrow morning. I’ll leave the voting open for The People’s Choice Award until I’m ready to post.

In the mean time, although I’ve shown this before, Cathy thought I should post it again. This is going on all around you, and, if, like certain hide-bound centenarians, you want to pretend you can avoid this fate — think again.


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November 12, 2007

Stifle those yawns: CyberHomes is coming out of beta

by

Suburban Phoenix Real Estate Broker

Author website

Q: Is there room in the Realty.bot business for a third major player?

A: What business?

Joel Burslem came to Phoenix last week, and I had a chance to spend a few hours with him before he flew back to Portland. Because I live and breathe real estate and because I’m casually cruel in a thoughtless kind of way, I punished him with real estate tour — major commercial developments with side trips into residential neighborhoods. Joel’s observation: “There sure are a lot of ranch houses.”

It’s one of my life’s goals to be a kinder, more thoughtful person, but dramatic differences may require a reincarnation or two. Even so, I didn’t just make Joel look at houses. We had plenty of opportunities to talk as we meandered. One of the topics I wanted to discuss was the profit potential for Realty.bots like Zillow.com and Trulia.com. Zillow has firmly embraced the Google.com business model of delivering advertising based on targeted search. Trulia had just moved to a business model pioneered by Realtor.com — milk the listers.

My question is this: Taking account that I myself am impervious to advertising, how is any of this going to play out in the long run? People will pay for clicks for a while, but sooner or later they’re going to try to account for those clicks in converted sales. If the impact of advertising is not demonstrably cost-efficient, then why do it? I’m not saying this will happen, but as media consumers become more and more like me, it seems to me to be more and more likely.

Into that steaming cow-pie steps CyberHomes, about to emerge from a year-long beta period:

That’s not auspicious, but who know what tomorrow will bring.

But, more importantly: Who cares?

For now, CyberHomes is Yet Another Map-Based Automated Valuation Model. Punch in your address and you get a wild-eyed pricing guess based on tax records and statistics and having no material connection to the actual house, which, as I have demonstrated in the past, may not actually even be there. So far: Big yawn.

CyberHomes hopes to dominate the hugely unprofitable free-AVM market by having access Read more

November 12, 2007

Dear Billion Dollar Agent,

by

Mega-Producing Realtor

Author website

Yes, that is exactly the salutation Steve Kantor used to write to me. Steve is offering a free copy of the book he is about to release to anyone who will complete BDALogoThumba short survey. Here is the link to that survey. Below is the full text of that email.

__

From: Steve Kantor [mailto:steve.kantor@gmail.com]

Sent: Monday, November 12, 2007 12:09 AM
To: Steve Kantor
Subject: Agent needs help – all of us in 2008 – share ideas for 2008 – Billion Dollar Agent

Dear Billion Dollar Agent,Time for another book – take 5 minutes to quickly reply on MONDAY – book published within a week. Highly valuable to you, all Billion Dollar Agents and hundreds of other agents already involved with this instant book project. I will be at NAR Las Vegas on Tue-Fri – if you are attending, please tell me so we can meet.

A group of 20 top agents have started an instant effort to gather hundreds of ideas from agents around the country of how to succeed in the coming 2008 market. If you reply to survey below and share ideas you will receive a free copy of the ebook PDF by Thanksgiving. This effort is being organized by Best Agent Business (www.bestagentbusiness), the publishers of Billion Dollar Agent:

Lessons Learned to help top agents.
Please take 5 minutes, complete survey below, and forward to fellow agents:
Survey link: http://www.zoomerang.com/survey.zgi?p=WEB2275H36JR5S

Thank you!
Keep in touch,
Steve
—

Steve Kantor
President
Best Agent Business
www.bestagentbusiness.comCell: 202-297-2393

Fax: 240-751-4247

November 11, 2007

BloodhoundBlog.TV — Not quite ready for prime time…

by

Suburban Phoenix Real Estate Broker

Author website

So Jim Duncan, Dan Green and I took a very informative first swing at Studio BloodhoundBlog tonight, a multi-party video discussion show about real estate. Dan talked about lending and high finance. Jim talked about green real estate and real estate opportunities in a college town. We all talked about the upcoming NAR convention.

There was only one problem. I reengineered our on-line audio solution without rethinking the means by which I was recording the audio.

The result? A fairly nice-looking 37 minute film with audio on my end only — and even that’s out of phase.

This is not tragic. We’re inventing something new, and it’s understood there will be kinks to be worked out. I understood my mistake while the film was still being written down to disk from RAM. I know what I did wrong and I know how to fix it.

But this was a very god first attempt, and I’m sorry we lost it. Moreover, I wanted for this episode to spark interest among folks going to the NAR convention. I want to talk to people all week by webcam when you get back to your rooms.

The short video attached is a salvaged portion of tonight’s failed effort making that appeal. If you’re going to the NAR convention, take your webcam — and send me an email. I’ll email instructions on how we can do video interviews — essentially video podcasts.

We’ll try Studio BHB again next week, but we can go ahead and build a whole lot of BHB.TV content this week.

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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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