BloodhoundBlog

There’s always something to howl about.

Category: Marketing (page 48 of 191)

May 2, 2009

Are you looking for a flinty-eyed steward to protect the value of real estate? Whatever you do, don’t turn to a banker!

by

Suburban Phoenix Real Estate Broker

Author website

This from my Arizona Republic real estate column (permanent link):

If there’s one thing we can say we’ve learned from the housing bust, it’s this: The worst conceivable stewards of financial assets are bankers.

At every step of the real estate market’s retrenchment, the bankers have been right there, on the spot, ready to make precisely the wrong decision — days, weeks or even months late.

Can’t make your payments? Put the home up for sale. Will the bank honor an offer short of the amount owed? Maybe. Maybe in six weeks, maybe in six months. Will the buyer still be there when the bank finally responds? With prices declining by thousands of dollars a month?

So the bank has to foreclose on the home — at an imputed value far lower than it could have had from the short sale. And then it must list that home for sale at a still lower price.

But don’t waste your time looking for evidence of prudence or even simple greed in a lender-owned listing. The home will be filthy, with fixtures and smoke alarms missing. The kitchen range will have been stolen, thus to assure that the home is not accidentally sold to an FHA or VA buyer.

If the bank inadvertently approves a purchase contract for the home, it will do everything it can to avoid recouping even a tiny fraction of its losses. First the bank will attempt to savage the deal by completely rewriting the contract. And everyone involved in the process will be insanely overworked, so that even the simplest question will occasion a two- to five-day delay.

Absolutely nothing will be done to address even deal-killing defects. But because the decision chain is so convoluted, negotiations over problems will drag on for weeks or even months. That way, when the deal falls apart, as many do, the bank will be able to relist the house at an even lower price.

I wish I were making this up. I want to deride bankers as being clowns, but that’s unfair to the clowns. They produce wealth, rather than destroying it — and they dress better for work, Read more

May 1, 2009

BloodhoundBlog Unchained in Phoenix 2009: A quick wrap-up…

by

Suburban Phoenix Real Estate Broker

Author website

I don’t know how I’m still awake — and from moment to moment I’m not. But we wrapped up Unchained in Phoenix tonight, and I wanted to take a quick minute to salute everyone who was part of an amazing experience. Two fingers of Bushmills — more would be a waste. To all the dogs and to everyone who learned to howl like a Bloodhound this week, we are in your debt. This was by far the best Unchained event so far, and we are but begun. Per ardua, ad astra!

April 26, 2009

What Should I Wear To BloodhoundBlog Unchained?

by

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

Author website

Phoenix in late April is beautiful weather…if you like the temperature approaching triple digits (and I do).  Here’s the five-day forecast for Phoenix; mid-90’s during the day and low-60’s at night.

You can bring a bathing suit because the hotel has an outdoor, heated pool and hot tub.  The hotel has on-site dining and a lounge to unwind with a margarita. Most everything you’ll need is on-site.

Phoenix business casual, in the late Spring or early Summer is typically VERY casual but neat.  Some folks will wear nice golf or walking shorts but most will be in khakis and a golf shirt.  Many will opt for jeans.  You’ll see some sneaker-clad feet, too.

Your instructors will most likely be dressed business casual.  Neckties for men and stockings for ladies might be uncomfortable;  leave ’em at home.   Dress for comfort.

Check out this video if you want to see how folks dressed last year.

April 25, 2009

Greg Swann’s BloodhoundBlog Unchained homework

by

Suburban Phoenix Real Estate Broker

Author website

Okay, here’s are homework assignments for BloodhoundBlog Unchained in Phoenix.

First, until this week I had no idea how deprived folks in the Windows world are. Just about everything I do is built around the idea of truly robust FTP software, and it turns out that this does not even exist for Windows users. Y’all are stuck behind the Iron Curtain and you don’t even know it.

The vast suckage that is Windows FTP drastically affects my plans, but I’ll work it out.

Meanwhile:

If you don’t have one, download and install a decent FTP client. Core FTP LE isn’t awful, and it’s free.

You’ll also need a decent text editor. Komodo edit is actually quite good, and it’s also free.

I’m going to be helping Mark Green talk about CRM and automated database solutions. If you want to play along with some of those ideas, sign up for the free demo of Heap CRM.

Heap is not all the way there as a real estate CRM, but it is adequate for the ideas we’ll be discussing, and a 31-day demo is free. Note that the link above goes to my Heap affiliate account, the vast proceeds from which my wife spends on food for stray animals.

But wait. There’s more.

I upgraded engenu today with the mapping software I talked about here.

You will need to download and install engenu on your file server.

If you have previously installed engenu, you won’t need to install a new copy of engenuPageDex.bin (your password file). (Likewise, if you have a customized “skin,” don’t install engenuComponents.) Even if you don’t want the mapping software, you should install the new version of engenu. First, there have been dozens of small bug fixes since the last official release. And second, I want you to get comfortable with your FTP client.

Do you need some remedial help with engenu? Cheryl Johnson is the world’s most unlikely super-hero, but you can see her heroic efforts at making engenu more understandable here.

And: We’re ready to rock. Class schedules are up.

Students are split into two groups, Alpha and Omega, and you can discern whether you are the aboriginal specimen or the Read more

April 24, 2009

Social Media Marketing Homework for BloodhoundBlog Unchained

by

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

Author website

Ready for the big week ahead?

I’m Brian Brady, one of the co-founders of BloodhoundBlog Unchained.  I’m that guy with the suspenders on Facebook, LinkedIn, ActiveRain, et al.  My goal (and yours) will be to establish a ubiquitous presence on these sites so that any past or potential customer can find you.

Some homework before you come:

This is about five hours of work but I suspect many of you already have these profiles established.  If you run short on time, don’t fret.  Brad Coy and I will be on hand, Tuesday and Wednesday night, to help you get the work done for my sessions.

I’m totally stoked to meet all of you and ready to help you DOMINATE social media, locally.  You’re gonna feel a tad weird if you’re new to these sites because your teenagers know more than you do.  Ask them to help you get ready.

See you Tuesday!

April 20, 2009

“No Matter How Good You Get, You Can Always Get Better…

by

Database Marketing Expert

Author website

… and that’s the exciting part.”  End Quote.

That’s a peek into the mind of the man who arguably will go down as the most dominant athlete of all time – Tiger Woods.

For those of you who aren’t golf fans, let me rewind a few years.  Tiger Woods was firmly entrenched as the #1 player in golf.  And by firmly entrenched, let’s just say that the #2 player in the world couldn’t even carry Tiger’s bag.

Yet, at the height of his dominance, Woods shockingly fired his “swing coach” and re-engineered his entire mechanical approach to the game.  Virtually everyone in golf thought he was nuts.  And the results were far from immediate.  In fact, some players on the PGA Tour even began referring to Tiger as “beatable”.

We all know what happened next… he won last year’s US Open with what basically amounted to a broken leg.  Woods refers to this victory as his greatest ever.

Here’s the thing:  Tiger Woods doesn’t share his secrets of success with his peers.  Any golfer looking to supplant Tiger as the world’s greatest player is going to have to figure it out for himself.

But for some reason, the sharpest minds in the real estate industry are willing to share what makes them successful with the rest of us.  Here are some of the questions I asked myself before committing the time and money to attend Unchained:

  • Can you create your own website without any help from anyone?
  • If so, how long does it take you to publish something worth seeing?
  • Are you ranking for the keywords your prospects are Googling?
  • Are your systems outdated and archaic?
  • Is there someone in your market who’s about to catch and pass you because they know more than you do?

Here’s another Tiger Woods quote from early in his career:

“Second sucks.”

If you live within 500 miles of Phoenix and you’re not committed to attending Unchained, chances are good there’s someone down the street who will be nosing up alongside you very soon.

I’ll be honest with you – I get the feeling my competitors are crawling up in the fetal position right now… cutting costs and wondering where Read more

April 20, 2009

How to sell every house in the neighborhood — except your own…

by

Suburban Phoenix Real Estate Broker

Author website

Even with as much grief as I lay on practitioners, I feel myself obliged to confess: I do not believe that any so-called professional real estate salesperson could come with with a marketing strategy quite as repellent as this:

Tipped by Barry Bevis: “Drove by this yesterday while showing clients homes in the same neighborhood. Average house in this neighborhood is $175,000. Nothing the age of the FSBO home selling for $200K. My clients laughed. We just put their house on the market ‘Bloodhound Style” and had it under contract in four days. I wonder how long the FSBO will be for sale!”

(PS: Our friendly visitors from the cute little yellow school bus have taught me that one cannot possibly be too obvious, so it is incumbent upon me to point out that the phone number and email address are not obscured on the original sign.)

April 17, 2009

Handling a deal with a foreign buyer or seller

by

International Tax Lawyer

Author website

I am an international tax lawyer. I handle lots of real estate transactions with foreign sellers and buyers. I don’t have a real estate license, and I don’t ask for a piece of the commission. Got that out of the way for ya, didn’t I? Here are a few things to keep you sane when you handle a deal like that

Two mothers

“When Mama’s happy, everybody’s happy.” And in a real estate deal with foreign players, you have two mothers. Keep them both happy and you’re likely to close your deal on time.

Mama number one is your title officer. Ask a simple question. Demand a yes/no answer. “Have you handled a real estate transaction with a foreign seller/foreign buyer in it before?”

Don’t say “Can you handle one of these transactions?” Because of course they CAN. Right? And they will.

Right up until 5 days before closing and they figure out that the seller is a Bahamas corporation and they start insisting that you register the corporation with the Secretary of State and get a certificate of good standing from Sacramento and the Bahamas and oh, who are these people who claim to be the officers?

Mama number two is escrow. Especially for a foreign seller. Call up your escrow officer and ask the same question: have you done one of these transactions before?

Loyalty matters. But business is business. You don’t want your deal to be the crash test dummy. Let them learn on someone else.

War story: two summers ago, I handled two very similar deals in Southern California at the same time. Different title companies. One inexperienced title officer, one experienced. The novice title officer cost the buyer an extra $5,000 in legal fees to get the deal done.

Foreign seller

If your seller is a foreigner, here’s your checklist:

Tax ID number

The seller needs a U.S. tax identification number. More often than not they don’t have one. Go to the IRS website and pull down Form W-7 for a human seller. Get in Read more

April 17, 2009

The two dirtiest words in English are “tax” and “attorney” — but new contributor Phil Hodgen is both…

by

Suburban Phoenix Real Estate Broker

Author website

Phil Hodgen has been a friend of BloodhoundBlog for a long time. He’s an international tax attorney working out of Pasadena, so why would he be reading the dawgs? Marketing and iconoclasm, the only two things we actually understand.

At Chris Johnson’s suggestion, he joins us today. Here’s his bio:

Phil is an international tax lawyer. Home is in Pasadena, CA. Clients are all over the world. Yes, he’s of those people you read about, setting up foreign trusts and other weird stuff in small palm-fronded countries. His clients like U.S. real estate, although at the moment they are just kicking tires. Phil makes complex tax stuff easy to understand.

Sounds like a giant killer to me. Let’s give him a big axe and see what he can do with it.

April 17, 2009

10 reasons big box brokers suck

by

Realtor, Indie Broker

Author website

Did I really just say that? Sorry but it’s high time to call a spade a spade.

I recently decided to cut the apron strings so-to-speak with my old broker and go “indie”. After paying in about $200K in exchange for about $12K worth of business over a five year period, I had to evaluate whether the relationship with my broker was anything other than terribly one-sided. Since about Year 1.5 when I began working full-time from home, I’d managed to become pretty independent in terms of how I operated and procured business. I finally saw I wasn’t getting much of anything in return for those hefty commission splits and transactions (not counting the occasional pep talk, although at times it was much appreciated.) So I left at the start of the New Year. Since making the split official, I’ve had a chance to evaluate the cost of every aspect of my business compared to what it used to be. Not surprisingly, I’ve found that my overall costs are much lower. More surprisingly, however, I also discovered:

1. business cards were a profit center for the broker
2. sign installations were a profit center
3. color copies were a profit center
4. template sites (complete with crappy framed in MLS data) were a profit center that did not even generate leads
5. advertising was a profit center
6. leasing back office space to agents was a profit center
7. accounting services were a profit center (in the form of huge transaction fees)
8. sending closings through the broker’s joint venture with a local title company was a profit center
9. home warranty applications were a profit center (by skimming off the top of agents’ referral checks)
10. 100% tax deductible sales meetings were a profit center – vendors paid the broker to have their mediocre template sites etc shamelessly endorsed & pushed on agents

But wait, you may be thinking. Surely there were other ways your broker was adding value? Sadly, not really. Training beyond the basics was almost non-existent. Occasionally something would be offered gratis, eg a bank talking about changing lending standards, thus hoping to get some loan business. Or “training” Read more

April 14, 2009

If you want to learn what we know — and to learn what we are learning — you’re coming to BloodhoundBlog Unchained in Phoenix

by

Suburban Phoenix Real Estate Broker

Author website

Okay, this is my last pitch for BloodhoundBlog Unchained in Phoenix. If you can’t figure out which side of the bread has the butter on it, you’re just going to have to wear a bib.

Here’s the deal: What we’re going to teach you, nobody teaches. We’re going to go hands-ons, step-by-step through the things you need to be doing to create a state-of-the-art marketing profile. By the time you leave Phoenix, punch-drunk and exhausted, you will have built yourself a brand new marketing profile — just in time for the real estate market to make its rebound.

We’re going to be together for 72 hours, and out of that you might sleep 15 hours. The rest of the time we’re going to be working — in eight three-hour hands-on labs and in between-class and after-class sessions where we can learn, think and grow together.

The goal is to build a scenius, a shared genius among the bunch of us, so that we all come away smarter and better-equipped to take on the wired world of real estate.

What are you going to get for your money?

State-of-the-art weblogging techniques, photography and graphic arts expertise, social media marketing acumen and the salesmanship skills necessary to make belly-to-belly conversions. (Excuse me: To Skin cats.)

On my side of the quad, you’ll learn search engine optimization and search-engine marketing, lead generation and management techniques, landing pages and a whole lot more.

Taken together, we’ll be covering every step of the real estate marketing process from the customer’s first tenuous investigations through first contact, incubation, the sales cycle and conversion.

And these classes will be taught by actual working real estate professionals who are actually doing this work in their own practices.

Like who? Mister Ubiquitous, Brian Brady, is the Dean of Marketing. He’ll be leading Linda Davis, Kristal Kraft and Sean Purcell on the content side of the campus. I’ll be serving as the Dean of Geeks, working with Eric Blackwell, Kelly Kohler and the inmimicable Ryan Hartman.

There will be other people speaking, including Mark Green giving a presentation on CRM marketing. And there will be a support staff of experts to Read more

April 12, 2009

Tony Hawk Rocks Twitter With Easter Egg Hunt

by

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

Author website

If you don’t know who Tony Hawk is,  you either:

  1. aren’t a “skater”
  2. don’t have teenage boys
  3. don’t have kids that watch Zach and Cody

I hadn’t been on Twitter in a couple of months so I checked out my Tweet stream the other day.  I don’t know how I found him but I saw @tonyhawk and decided to follow him (he’s local).   I logged into Twitter again tonight to follow back people following me.

In my Tweet Stream was a message from @tonyhawk.  As I scrolled down, I noticed that he was having an “Easter Board Deck Hunt“.  Tony autographed skateboards, hid them around the country, and was “tweeting” clues for people to hunt them down.  Tweetpics of lucky kids in NYC, LA, NorCal,  and TX were popping up.  Then, I saw this Tweet, from @tonyhawk:

  1. http://twitpic.com/38w0b – NOBODY knows where Del Mar Skate Ranch was!!?? I’m sad. Well here is another picture clue.

I started thinking that I recognized that picture; it was near Pelly’s Mini Golf. I googled “Del Mar Skate Ranch” and found out that it was less than a mile from my house.  Immediately, I clicked through to the twitpic clues, grabbed my wife and daughter, and hopped in the car to find the elusive Tony Hawk board deck.  When we arrived at the site of the old skate park, a dozen fathers and their kids were running out of their cars and hunting through the vacant lot.

I didn’t find the last Easter board deck; a cute kid around my daughter Maggie’s age did.  It was a fun and frenzied hour.

What can we learn from this? Tony Hawk has some 300,000 followers on Twitter.  Can you imagine using his celebrity in your promotional efforts?  How about someone else?  I once suggested that Shawna Ebersole recruit Peyton Manning to promote her new site.  What if he “tweeted” links to it, once a month? (he’d have to sign up first)

Shaq tweets.  Perhaps Greg Swann could have  arrange for Shaq to sit an open house with him to sign autographs.  If Shaq tweeted the address to his 600,000 followers, the place would be swamped.  Okay… 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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