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There’s always something to howl about.

Category: Marketing (page 191 of 191)

July 25, 2006

Debunking Zillow.com . . .

by

Suburban Phoenix Real Estate Broker

Author website

Zillow.com got itself a ton of new venture capital yesterday, so today seems like a fine time to deconstruct its praxis.

When Zillow was brand new, Catherine Reagor, the dippy local real estate reporter for the Arizona Republic wrote:

Want a reality check? Go to zillow.com, a new Web site with a program that calculates a home’s value for free. It values several Valley homes for tens of thousands less than the price listed on them.

At the time, I said this in response:

If you want to know what your house is worth, do not go to Zillow.com, which delivers completely useless estimates of value for free. Even Net Value Central, a tool used by professionals, lags the market by a month or more. The only way to price a house is to work as rigorously as possible from current and recently-sold listings for extremely similar properties. If you price your house to sell from sources like zillow.com, you will give thousands of dollars away. If you rely on zillow.com to tell you how much to offer on a home, you will see it sold to someone else.

(You can prove all this to your own satisfaction, if you like. Most of Ms. Reagor’s mistakes seem to come from falling in love with ideas she doesn’t check out. Here she tells us that she ran Zillow.com on live listings and found it came in much lower than the listed prices. How did it do against sold listings? She didn’t check, but you can. Run Zillow.com on the sold homes documented in your local section of the Republic. You’ll see that, time after time, Zillow.com is substantially under real-life market results. It’s a useless toy, which Ms. Reagor might have discovered on her own had she bothered to test it properly.)

Just lately, I needled the Zillowites a little more:

All right, here’s the deal with Zillow.com:

I decide I’m going to buy you a pair of designer jeans, nothing but the best for you. I know that fit is important, so I go to three of your best friends to get their sizes. Not yours, theirs. I strike Read more

July 25, 2006

Word-slinging in the Rain — or: How I learned to stop worrying and love the blog . . .

by

Suburban Phoenix Real Estate Broker

Author website

None of this is new to me — except for the parts that are.

I’ve been writing on the nets since before there were nets. Since BBS systems — I ran two of them at different times of my life. Since CompuServe was a time-share system called MicroNet that charged $3.00 an hour for half-duplex transmission at 300 baud.

(Think about that! “Baud” is Bits of Audio Data. My first modem had an acoustic coupler that attached to a phone receiver and transmitted data with actual, annoyingly audible sound. It raced along at 300 bits per second, which sounds slow but is actually about half-again faster than a really fast typist. The connection through which I am by now continuously enthralled is only about 10,000 times faster than that.)

I’ve been writing on the nets since the time when you would log on, suck down everything you wanted to look at as fast as you could, read and respond off-line, then log back on to blast back your own contributions without wasting a second. I’ve been writing on the nets since waiting up for the “off-peak” hours represented a substantial savings.

The funny things is, when the technology was that grossly inadequate, that obscenely expensive, I was writing maybe 8,000 words a day, seven days a week. And as lousy as everything was, it was a whole lot better than working on a 900 pound IBM Selectric typewriter.

I can barely believe the things I did in those days. With my trusty soldering gun, I built myself a little NULL modem that I could configure on the fly, so I could liberate access wherever I found a temporarily mute dumb terminal. I was young and possessed at the time of a multi-faceted morality, and I tended to think of electrical power and underutilized bandwidth as mine to appropriate.

I wrote through generation after generation of computer hardware and network topography, avidly connecting machines that were never meant to be connected and connecting my own computers to a topology that was still called Arpanet when I first started playing with it.

I worked in Usenet for years, and I Read more

July 24, 2006

Bees have tails?

by

Suburban Phoenix Real Estate Broker

Author website

Seth Godin on Long Tail search term analytics. Identifying strong Long Tail keywords much minimizes your competition per prospect. I think buying the Pay Per Click terms on the keywords you identify would increase your click rate: The organic hit says that you have valid content, while the Pay Per Click hit says that you are really in business, two mutually-reinforcing marketing messages.

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July 24, 2006

Carnival of Real Estate: If you love your clients, set them free…

by

Suburban Phoenix Real Estate Broker

Author website

Searchlight Crusade is hosting this week’s Carnival of Real Estate. BloodhoundBlog is featured, insisting that there is always room at the top, and we are lucky to be among such an august company. Everything is worth reading, but two posts stand out for me: Spotlight Realty’s practical example of the risk of letting an unscrupulous agent “buy” your listing by promising you a higher price than the market warrants. And The Reality of Real Estate weighs in on a weighty topic: How exclusive employment agreements can be a disservice to the client.

On the latter point, here is language we routinely use on our Buyer Broker Agreements:

This agreement will be terminated without recourse upon written notice by either party.

“Either party” means I get to fire them if I want to, too (and I have done this). “Without recourse” means clients don’t get to fire me and then sue me. I don’t know that that clause will hold up in court, but it’s worth a shot. We use slightly different language on listing contracts, to make it plain that you don’t get to fire us when we’re already under contract (and, of course, practically speaking, as a matter of agency I cannot fire any client when doing so would be to the client’s detriment; a ship’s captain cannot resign under weigh). But, recalling that everything we do is marketing, granting clients the power to jump ship, if they feel they must, is a very effective way of winning their hearts and minds. If you love your clients, set them free…

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July 24, 2006

Is all video good video?

by

Suburban Phoenix Real Estate Broker

Author website

The Real Estate Bloggers have a post on using YouTube video to sell homes:

As more people are using high speed bandwidth, the smart real estate agents are using tools such as YouTube to put listings on the internet. This McKinney, Texas real estate agent put together a 40 second teaser video that gives potential buyers a view of this golf course home.

I don’t hate the idea, in general, but I have specific caveats. First, the cited video isn’t really a video, it’s Ken Burns-style panning and zooming on still photos. Second, the house doesn’t seem to me to warrant a big send-up. An Ugly Step Sister with her own Fairy Godmother is still an Ugly Step Sister. Third, and much worse, YouTube.com‘s video quality is… much worse. For now, at least, a first-quality virtual tour — or better-quality video — seems like a better choice.

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July 23, 2006

MarketPulse…

by

Suburban Phoenix Real Estate Broker

Author website

I had a pretty good turn-out for my open houses today. Cathy normally does these two, may god bless her aching feet, but she had to work a third open house. The homes I worked were in the F.Q. Story Historic District of Phoenix. When the real estate market is normal, the streets down there are aswarm with huge, expensive vehicles, all cruising at about seven miles an hour. It’s been a lousy summer for cruisers — a lousy summer for real estate — but the cruisers were out in force today. I have three theories why this might be so:

  1. People eventually want to look at houses more than they want to say, “It’s too dang hot to look at houses!”
  2. The itch to buy houses, epidemic in Phoenix, can be treated but never completely cured.
  3. The Arizona Republic has failed to say something poisonous about the residential real estate market for seven days in a row, so buyers think it’s safe to come out and shop.

Whatever the reason, it was fun to work at an open house for a change.

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July 22, 2006

Show us your house!

by

Suburban Phoenix Real Estate Broker

Author website

We have another web site in the works, DistinctivePhoenix.com. It’s hugely alpha right now, partly because of philosophy issues and partly because we haven’t been able to make the time to do the things that need to be done to get it ready to go live.

But: I am putting together a post for BloodhoundBlog about technologies Realtors will need to have mastered to prosper in the 21st Century, and there is a nice little demonstration at that site.

It’s called Show Us Your House! It’s a form that takes your input and then builds a custom web page from the information you give it. In the long run, those web pages will be organized by other software so that people can look at them sorted in various ways. We’ll add ratings, too, for the look and feel of real Web 2.0.

But for now, this is something you can play with, if you like. If you’ll Show Us Your House!, we’ll show it off here.

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July 22, 2006

You buy something, you pay, m’kay?

by

Suburban Phoenix Real Estate Broker

Author website

Friday can be my dread day. I write a small real estate column for the West Valley sections of the Arizona Republic. That is not nearly as sexy as it sounds. They give me 350 words — might you have guessed that I can go on at greater length? — and then they frequently cut it down to 275 words or so. I like to make it very practical, first because I’m really not the potpourri and feng shui type of Realtor, and second because so much real estate coverage in the media is do daft, so wide of the mark.

But Friday can be a rough day if I’ve said anything even remotely controversial. I’ll get angry — but anonymous — phone calls from testy Realtors and brokers all day. Their being angry is fine. I just wish they wouldn’t waste my time venting their ire on the phone to me. Coming in anonymously — no name, no disclosure of license status, no brokerage affiliation, Caller ID blocked — is cowardly.

How much time do you think I should spend worrying about the opinions of people — supposed professionals! — who won’t stand behind their views publicly?

Yesterday’s column unearthed the mother-lode, of course. One caller, who sounded just like Mr. Mackey in South Park, told me that she had 22 years’ experience in real estate, m’kay? And she had never read anything as stupid as my column, m’kay? She hopes, sincerely, that I can amend my ignorant ways, m’kaaay?

For the record, I am an Accredited Buyer’s Representative, a Certified Buyer’s Representative, a Certified Residential Specialist, an E-Pro Internet Certified Realtor and a Graduate of the Realtor Institute. I hold a broker’s license, for goodness sakes! If I don’t know what I’m talking about by now, I never will.

Another caller spent two very obscene minutes in voicemail telling me what an idiot I am. The gist of it was that buyers should be down-on-their-knees grateful that the seller is giving them the opportunity to build equity. Then he said, “Of course the [frolicking] buyer pays for everything! You buy something, you pay!”

Oh. Yeah.

I Read more

July 21, 2006

Fast is the new slow…

by

Suburban Phoenix Real Estate Broker

Author website

Last Friday Seth Godin offered galley copies of his new book, Small Is the New Bigto the first 30 people to send an email to his publisher. I was lucky enough to have the opportunity to be fast enough to respond — an apposite metaphor for internet marketing generally.

The book got here today, but it ain’t your father’s galley proofs. It’s a print-on-demand trade paperback, perfect bound with its own custom shell. It’s a book without a bar code. What it is is a superb marketing piece. Witness me writing about it without having read it!

I have two Open Houses Sunday, in the sleepy, sleepy summertime. Sadly, I should have plenty of time to read. I’ll let you know what I think of the book.

I’ve added a link in the Reading List in the sidebar to pre-order the book.

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July 20, 2006

Drop a dime on a relo, win $50

by

Realtor, Staging Consultant

Author website

I have a listing that’s been on the market since June 15. I know, that’s only a bit over a month… not too long in today’s market. But, this is a gorgeous, well appointed house in a great community, with really smart sellers. They keep the home immaculate, it shows beautifully and it’s priced well, comping to or even less than what the same model in the same subdivision sold for last autumn, after last summer’s rabid housing boom in Phoenix had ended. We didn’t try to edge the price up, like so many sellers are still trying to do. And the house has been marketed well. I’m proud of the differentiating factors we bring to our marketing. I’m not talking about the typical post-in-the-ground, ad-in-the-paper and flyer-in-the-box, but the kind of marketing that I believe Seth Godin might give a nod to if we were on his radar.

When I met with the sellers last night, I couldn’t give a good explanation as to why the house hadn’t even shown since the end of June. Sure, the market has slowed. But there are still folks out there buying houses. Perhaps conventional wisdom would have them lower their asking price, but I don’t believe price is the factor. I explained that theirs is a move up house and until someone lower on the food chain is able to sell his house, he won’t have any freedom of movement. My idea all along has been that this is a great house for a relocation. Yesterday Greg posted this from the Business Journal of Phoenix:

A new report by a research group called Federal Funds Information for States ranks Arizona first among states in terms of economic momentum.

And the day before, this came from from the same publication:

Quick, what do Mesa and Milwaukee have in common?

The two tied as the least vulnerable to natural disaster among the nation’s 50 largest cities. But Mesa wasn’t the only Arizona city to land near the top of the list created by SustainLane.com. Phoenix and Tucson tied for the No. 3 spot along with Cleveland and El Paso, Texas.

So Read more

July 20, 2006

Is pet rescue good for business, or are we just chasing our Long Tail…?

by

Realtor, Staging Consultant

Author website

This past week, Noah’s Ark Pet Adoptions, a no-kill animal “shelter” and adoption organization, was featured in the Northwest Valley Republic. The picture to the right is from the article. If you click on it, the full article will display.

I’m always looking for ways to support this fine organization, by fostering unwanted pets who need permanent homes, by adopting pets (current family includes four dogs and nine cats), by donating money and by promoting them in any way I can.

On the “Refer a friend” page of our website, we make this offer:

And because charity begins at home, if someone you refer buys or sells a home with us, we’ll donate 10% of our net commission to the charity of your choice (within limits — we won’t give money to people who kill people). You get to share BloodhoudRealty.com with people you love, and you get to share the proceeds with the people who need your love. Everybody wins!

And, if the referrer has no ‘pet project’ of her own, we’ll suggest Noah’s Ark. From our “About us” page, in the section about me, Cathleen Collins, we say

She devotes most of her spare time and all of her spare money to rescuing unwanted animals — including our Spokesmodel, Odysseus.

Now the interesting thing about this page is we ran stats yesterday on the key phrase people had typed into the search engine they used to click through to our site. We opened up the survey to every search engine and every phrase. Eighth on the list of unique search terms that brought people to our site was “no kill animal shelters in Phoenix”!

Now how to turn that Long Tail into gold!

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July 20, 2006

When is the best time to buy? When everyone else is selling…

by

Suburban Phoenix Real Estate Broker

Author website

I think this is exceptionally good advice from Craig King at RealBlogging.com:

No matter what you’re selling, conventional wisdom is that the FUD Factor (fear, uncertainty and doubt) tends to freeze buyers in their tracks. Purchases get delayed. Decisions take longer. Buyers follow the maxim, “When in doubt, don’t.”

At the moment, you’d think the “FUD Factor” would be a big cloud over the real estate market. Israel and Hezbollah have broken out into open warfare, and the conflict could broaden throughout the Middle East. Oil prices are skyrocketing, and supply is all but certain. Iran and North Korea are rattling nuclear sabers. And back home, we’re enduring a drought and bracing for a new hurricane season.

In short, I think it’s a great time to be buying — and selling — real estate. Real property has always been an investment haven in troubled times, and I believe it will play that role in the months ahead. Interest rates are still extremely low by any sane historical standard, and the Fed appears to be through with its tightening for a while. Volatility of stock prices has a lot of investors worn down and impatient with mediocre or negative returns. It may not happen overnight, but in times like this, people “return to the land.”

If we do a good job of telling our story, I think prospects will realize it’s a time to buy, not a time to stall.

There’s more to this, though. I spent 16 months racing around with investors while they bought everything that didn’t move, all the while wondering why they couldn’t find any bargains. Duh! Everyone else was buying at the same time, and no one was selling. Now the situation is reversed, a lot of sellers but buyers are thin on the ground. It’s counter-contrarianism, a carefully thought-out strategy of running with the herd.

Take a look at the cost break-downs on our investments page for Phoenix-area rental homes. Those are rigorous numbers, no blue-sky fantasies, but they still hold. It’s easy to get a 1,200sf home that will perform that well, and — for now at least — Read more

July 18, 2006

Are traditional Realtors being undercut? There’s always room at the top . . .

by

Suburban Phoenix Real Estate Broker

Author website

Let’s see… Our customers are leaving us in a steady march. They’ve found an alternative that is easier to use, more convenient, overall just a better fit to their lives — and to top it all off, it’s much cheaper than our product.

What should we do?

Here’s an idea. Our customers are telling us in no uncertain terms what they want: More! Newer! Better! Faster! Cheaper! So let’s do the same things we’ve been doing all along, only less!

From Reuters.com:

The New York Times Co. plans to narrow the size of its flagship newspaper and close a printing plant, resulting in the loss of 250 jobs, the company said in a story posted on its Web site late on Monday.

The changes, set to take place in April 2008, include the closure of a printing plant in Edison, New Jersey. The company will sublet the plant and consolidate its regional printing facilities at a plant in Queens, the paper said.

The newspaper will be narrower by 1 1/2 inches. The redesign will result in the loss of 250 production jobs, the company said.

The New York Times said it expected the changes to result in savings of $42 million.

The narrower format, offset by some additional pages, will reduce the space the paper has for news by 5 percent, Executive Editor Bill Keller said in the article.

The Times will join a list of several other papers from The Washington Post to the Los Angeles Times that have reduced their size as they cut newsprint and other production costs and try to stem a loss of readers and advertising to the Internet and other media.

It might be fun to chortle about someone else’s troubles — and who doesn’t love seeing the New York Times get it good and hard?

But what they are doing is what the real estate industry, in general, is doing. In both cases, the consequences are likely to be unhappy. The Times would argue that theirs is strictly a financial decision, but it’s one that is likely to be repeated over time, a persistent policy of retrenchment. And even if its customers are not consciously Read more

July 18, 2006

On the trail of The Long Tail in real estate…

by

Suburban Phoenix Real Estate Broker

Author website

The soul of wit, Seth Godin cites The Long Tailtoday. We’ve mentioned this book a time or two, and, of course, it’s featured (along with Seth’s latest)in our reading list. I have plans to say more about it, but I haven’t gotten to it yet. Suffice it to say, this is a book that everyone in sales and marketing should read, mark, learn and inwardly digest — and then put into practice.

Extra credit: Write to me or post a comment on how The Long Tail applies to real estate marketing.

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July 17, 2006

Kicking and screaming?: The revision cycle that will lead to Realtor 2.0…

by

Suburban Phoenix Real Estate Broker

Author website

The Council of Residential Specialists is running a Promotional Materials Contest for CRS designees:

Great promotional materials and a solid marketing plan lead to better name recognition, more clients and a better bottom line for your business. They can also lead to great cash prizes and peer recognition when you sign up for the CRS 2006 Promotional Contest.

We are a marketing practice. We believe in marketing like fish believe in water. It would be an error to say that marketing is a part of everything we do. Instead, everything we do is a facet of our marketing vision.

Anyway, I entered two of our efforts in the contest. Unfortunately, if you’re not a member of the Council, you can’t get to the web page where the contest entries are on exhibit. From our own site, here are our two entries:

If, perchance, you are a Council member, please feel free to go here and here to vote for our entries. I would never, ever think to spam the voting for an on-line contest. That would reflect too great an understanding of the inter– oh, wait…

The true fact is that, until now, I have been careful not to share ideas with other Realtors. We sit back and look at absolutely everything. If we see something we think shows promise, we deconstruct it down to the original idea, then rebuild it our way, keeping what we think it good, jettisoning the rest and adding everything that is uniquely our own. But for the most part, other Realtors just act bored when we even presume to talk about marketing, so we just sit down, shut up and take it all in. Better for us, anyway: If our competitors don’t understand what we’re doing, they Read more

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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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