Teri Lussier celebrates exuberance with these Bob Fosse choreographed dance scenes set to Sing, sing, sing! by Benny Goodman:
Technorati Tags: blogging, disintermediation, real estate, real estate marketing, technology
Category: Marketing (page 94 of 191)
Trans-Siberian Orchestra is the most successful of the many attempts to marry classical music to rock, with Christmas Eve Sarajevo 12/24 being their breakthrough hit:
It ain’t Christmas without the Barenaked Ladies. This is their Christmas medley with Sarah MacLachlan:
Dan Fogelberg died on December 16th of this year. This is Same Auld Lang Syne, the all time best Christmas Eve song ever written:
Technorati Tags: blogging, disintermediation, real estate, real estate marketing, technology
I sincerely hope this proves that I have as much time to waste on nonsense as anyone else.
Thank you, Russell, for the gold you so generously share.
Was Brian the mortgage industry’s Clarence this year?
I think the difference between frankincense and myrrh is appropriate to this metaphor: Compilation and organization of the holy oil of Real Estate Weblogging came to us by way of the prickly shrub.
Merry Christmas to all!
Technorati Tags: arizona, arizona real estate, phoenix, phoenix real estate, real estate, real estate marketing
Elaborating on You don’t own me, Aimee Mann and ‘Til Tuesday with Voices carry:
Suzanne Vega, Blood makes noise:
Concrete Blonde covering Leonard Cohen, Everybody knows:
Technorati Tags: blogging, disintermediation, real estate, real estate marketing, technology
There are 36 entries on the short list this week. That’s a ton, but, even so, it’s less than half of what we started with. Given that it’s a holiday week, there was a lot of great stuff this week. We knew that going in, because both Jeff Kempe and Kris Berg hit home runs at the top of the week. Vote for the People’s Choice Award here. You can use the voting interface to see each nominated post, so comparison is easy.
Ahem: Please don’t spam all your friends to come and vote for you. First, what we’re interested in is what is popular among people who would have been voting anyway. And second, I’ll eliminate you for cheating. Don’t say you wasn’t warned.
Voting this week will run through to 12 Noon MST Wednesday to leave time between all the Christmas stuff. I’ll announce the winners of this week’s awards soon thereafter.
Here is this week’s short-list of Odysseus Medal nominees:
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$AltEntries = array (
"Dan Green -- Consumer confidence Showing How Consumer Confidence Surveys Lead Economists Astray”,
“Jeff Brown — Market correction The Truth — ‘They’ Don’t Have A Clue When This Correction Will End“,
“Teri Lussier — Selling vacant How to sell a vacant home this winter: Make like a Boy Scout“,
“Geno Petro — Bumper stickers How do I really feel about that, I wonder?“,
“Kris Berg — Prop 91 I’ve got a proposition for you.“,
“Jeff Brown — Bernanke Bernanke Goes To The Statue of Liberty Play — Bank System Scores“,
“Dan Melson — New Fed rules New Proposed Federal Reserve Rules: Is This Supposed to Be Helpful Regulation?“,
“Chris Lengquist — Credit problems Why We As A Nation Have Credit Problems“,
“Kris Berg — Next time There’s always a next time.“,
“Chris McKeever — Your way Your way, isn’t always the best way…“,
“Mike Farmer — Zillow Zillow — Microcosm of A Bigger Problem“,
“Trevor Smith — New Fed rules The One Law to Rule them All“,
“Morgan Brown — Struggling in quicksand Struggling in Quicksand – Why the Government Continues to Exacerbate the Problem“,
“Doug Quance — Musical chairs Musical Chairs With Brokerage Signs“,
“Glenn Kelman — TV tips Eyewitness “Today” Account + Twelve Live TV Tips“,
“Brian Boero — Redfin The school of Redfin, Part II“,
“Andrew Mattie Read more
by Brian Brady
Commercial Real Estate Finance Expert
Structured Debt and Equity
Licensed Real Estate Broker in AL, CA, and FL
There is a formidable conference, next month, that entertains the marriage of technology and real estate. I’ll be sharing the stage with one of the guys who started the whole RE.net, Dustin Luther. Kris Berg, Jim Duncan, Dan Green, and Jay Thompson, all giants in this space, will be contributing to the collective conversation as featured speakers.
Technology and real estate brokerage is an extraordinary marriage that is approaching its 10th or 15th anniversary, amid a misunderstood and sometimes tumultuous relationship. If you attended one on Dustin Luther’s “Relevance on the Internet” seminars, you might remember his history of the courtship. Dustin explained that the tech guys saw the large margins in our businesses as an opportunity to profit off of market inefficiencies. Of course, when they got their heads under the hood they found that the engine runs a little differently than they thought.
Online mortgage lending seemed to be the easiest way to disintermediate my kind. My kind responded with an explosion of product offerings that made the consumers beg for a helping human hand. Today, as the popularity of the 30 year fixed conforming loan is rising, the opportunity to disintermediate, once again, seems imminent. The need to “de-commoditize” your service offering, as a mortgage adviser, is more prevalent now than ever before. The banks and government are conspiring to limit consumer choices and do away with my kind in a cartel-like affront not seen since James Fisk and Jay Gould tried to corner the gold market, in 1869.
Advise and timely execution is all an independent mortgage originator has to offer, right now. Our “wholesale access” to residential real estate capital is dwindling and the information advantage we hoarded is being liberated by the transparency of information technology. Yet the very tool that contributed to our demise, information technology, can be the most important weapon in our arsenal as we fight our way to survival.
Success in this game will be a migration towards the concept of fiduciary from the bonds of functionary. If the consumer values you as Read more
From Teri Lussier, Stevie Wonder’s Superstition:
Paul Simon with Olodum, The Obvious Child:
Dusty Springfield with a potent message to Realtors, You Don’t Own Me:
And just as a reminder, this is the theme song for BloodhoundBlog Unchained:
Technorati Tags: blogging, disintermediation, real estate, real estate marketing, technology
My eighth grade civics teacher was a big bear of a man named Russell Hazelton. He was a part-time preacher for a hard-line fundamentalist sect, and he was as dapper a dresser as a big man can get to be on two small salaries. The very first day of class he was deliberately about 90 seconds late. He wanted for everyone to be in the room and settled down so he could stalk into the classroom, turn, look us all over with the two ablative lasers he had for eyes and then bellow, “First impressions… are lasting!”
Was he wrong?
I remember every detail of my first impression of Mr. Hazelton to this very day, 35 years later. He knew exactly what he had to do to start his relationship right with our class, to put everyone on notice that he was in charge. He turned out to be a great teacher, smart, funny, engaging. But no one ever even thought about challenging him for dominance. First impressions are lasting.
Frédéric Bastiat was a French economist. One of his most popular arguments concerns the seen and the unseen. It is easy, of course, to notice what is seen, but you have to train your mind to take note of what could be seen, but isn’t.
Yesterday I stirred up a hornets nest, and I told you in advance what you should expect to see in response:
Regardless of what I say here or elsewhere, the incestuously cliquish part of the RE.net will insist that it is talking only to itself.
There were exceptions, thank goodness, but in the main the clique of big-name real estate webloggers behaved exactly as I expected them to, even though I deliberately built them a graceful exit:
If you find you’ve stepped in shit, admit it at once, clean up what you can and move on.
This is what is seen. What is unseen?
That post got 350 hard clicks yesterday, this in addition to the hundreds of people who would have seen it by RSS and email subscription. Amazingly enough, no one wrote in to say, “I like to be talked down to.” “I Read more
Click AZ Central to read the full story.
Kate Nolan
The Arizona Republic
Dec. 18, 2007 07:17 PM
A Mayo Clinic Hospital surgeon in training used a cellphone to photograph a patient’s genitals during surgery and now may face disciplinary action and a patient’s attorney.
Dr. Adam Hansen, chief resident of general surgery at the Phoenix hospital, admitted to Mayo administrators he snapped the photo during a Dec. 11 gallbladder surgery on patient Sean Dubowik, whose penis bears the tattooed slogan, “Hot Rod.”
After Hansen showed the photo to other members of the surgical staff, one phoned a Republic reporter on Monday and left an anonymous message about the incident.
……
Hansen has been placed on administrative leave and is neither seeing nor treating patients.
…..
Dubowik runs a Phoenix topless bar, Centerfolds Cabaret, and said he’d gotten the tattoo on a $1,000 bet.
“It was the most horrible thing I ever went though in my life,” Dubowik said. He said he chose Mayo Clinic for treatment because his mother had five surgeries there.
“They were supposedly the best of the best. I have no complaints about the medical care I was given,” he said.
“But now I feel violated, betrayed and disgusted. I’ve never been in a hospital and (my) first experience is the worst thing ever.”
…..
Dubowik, who had not yet spoken to an attorney Tuesday, said he planned to contact one.
“The longer I sit here the angrier I get,” he said.
___
Now back to our regularly scheduled programming.
I was on Fox Business Network yesterday bitching about all the ways the U.S. government has interfered with the residential real estate market, resulting in both our recent boom and our current bust. The topic itself is not new to me, but it’s not something I’ve addressed in a full-blown philosophical argument. Surely that would be Quixotic, but when did that ever stop me? But: I’ve been very busy, and I’m about to get a whole lot busier. So last night I set that idea and everything else aside to bake some Christmas cookies. It was fun, it made the house smell good, and it actually brought Cameron out of his cave for a while. As soon as I can clear the decks today, I think I’m going to make fudge. Here’s the thing, and I have to remind myself every year: It’s Christmas. I don’t ever not work, but there ought to be room for play in the working day — at least some working days.
Meanwhile, here’s a bunch of stuff I might-could be dealing with, but ain’t:
Kelman had a post on all the crap he was force-fed prior to going on TV. I’m not picking on the man (for a change), this is a segue: I think we’re fools to buy into that crap. First, the mainstream media, to the extent that it clings to its creepy Vaudeville past, is the enemy of truth. Second, weblogging is the best friend the truth has made so far. The conclusion that I draw from these premises is that, even when we are on their turf, we should still behave our way. I hate everything phony, but even allowing for that, I think we damage our own credibility by playing their game their way. There’s no shortage of commercials on TV, but there’s damn little authenticity.
Zillow had a software release this week. How important was it? Important enough to be released eight days before Christmas, when no one is paying attention. What it amounts to, as far as I can discern from the effusive PR-speak in the press release, is smarter routines Read more
Seth Godin has a new ebook, yours for free. What’s the catch? Getting the value out of it is going to take work.
There’s an enormous amount of superstition about what makes some pages rank high while others languish. When you look at the actual figures, though, much of that fades away.
It turns out that the new playing field enforced by the search engines is eliminating many of the shortcuts that used to be effective. In other words, the best way is the long way.
The long way is to create content that is updated, unique and useful. Again and again we see that sites that do all three manage to get more than their fair share of traffic. So, I guess the title of the ebook is a bit misleading. The clicks don’t cost money, but they do take effort. That’s good news for people who have more talent than cash.
Technorati Tags: blogging, real estate, real estate marketing, technology
Last week Marcie Geffner, a real estate reporter in Los Angeles, penned an article for Inman News titled, “Web2.0: Where’s the beef?” (unfortunately, now behind Inman’s subscriber wall).
In her article, Geffner points out that, “an overly heavy reliance on blogs, social networking and video as a business strategy is a questionable proposition since no one has demonstrated that Web 2.0 works as a marketing tactic.”
Granted, there has been no large scale study or analysis of the success (or failure) of “Web 2.0” in real estate. I can attest from my personal experience that blogging has resulted in numerous prospects and more importantly clients — ie: closed transactions that resulted in food on the table and shoes on the children. Many other agents reading this have similar experiences.
However, many would also be quick to say, “I’ve blogged my ass off and received nothing.”
Is blogging/Web 2.0 the answer to all real estate agent’s woes? ARDELL, arguably the “Godmother of Real Estate Blogging” is on the record as saying that she believes that “all agents should blog”. Normally Ardell is spot on in her thoughts, but I have to respectfully disagree with her on this. Blogging is not a panacea, nor is it the right tactic for every agent. Yes, blogging’s Web 2.0ness results in transparency, it allows agents to see things from the consumer’s perspective and it is, bar none, the best way for an agent to demonstrate their personality and expertise to the masses. But blogging is hard work. Writing is an excruciating process for many. I happen to love blogging, I’m sick that way, but many people will despise the time and effort it requires.
That doesn’t make them any less an agent than one who does blog. Just as my refusal to door knock, cold call, or “farm” in more traditional methods doesn’t make me any less an agent. We’re just different, with different approaches.
I can’t begin to estimate the number of times I’ve been asked, “how many prospects/clients/closed deals have you got from blogging?” And I can’t answer that question. Yes, I could prove quantitatively SOME of the results. Read more
I have to agree with the FTC ‘s initial action but for all the wrong reasons. And I don’t agree with them now pursuing the case further. A few days ago a Judge 
dismissed the complaint filed by the FTC against a Detroit area Multiple Listing Service. The position of the FTC was that it was “hurting consumers” for Realcomp to deny brokers using an “exclusive agency listing” the right to be on Realtor.com and other public websites. The brokers who were up against the FTC decided it would be easier to just stop doing it so the judge dismissed the complaint. The FTC officials plan to pursue the case further (making a “Federal case out of it).
From Inman on December 13th:
This policy, which was adopted following the FTC’s complaint against Realcomp and other MLSs, provides an exception that allows MLSs to ban the transmission of listing information if the listed property’s street address or a graphic display of a property’s location is publicly displayed and the seller displays a for-sale-by-owner sign on the property or another sign or notice that indicates that the seller is seeking direct contact from buyers.
Meanwhile, Albert Hepp, a flat-fee broker who serves as president of the American Real Estate Broker Alliance, a national alliance of flat-fee brokers, said he is disappointed with the judge’s decision and NAR’s stance on the issue.
“We are disappointed in the ruling and urge the FTC to appeal,” he said. “Anyone who truly understands the MLS knows that this is a clear-cut case of an MLS hiding the listings of discounters to harm consumer choice. Once again, the NAR has unfortunately chosen to fight competition while claiming to promote it.”
For example, an attachment to the judge’s decision details an agreement by Realcomp and the FTC over a contested “search function policy” adopted in 2003 that defaulted to a search of exclusive-right-to-sell listings and required MLS users to specifically search for exclusive-agency listings to view those properties. That policy was changed in April 2007, and the agreement provides that Realcomp “shall … cease and desist from adopting or enforcing any policy, rule, Read more