BloodhoundBlog

There’s always something to howl about.

Category: Real Estate (page 135 of 266)

February 23, 2008

Will the last one leaving BHB please turn out the lights?

by

Realtor, Associate Broker

Author website

Wait…you’re still here?

Why?

====

I’m still a blogging outlier. I don’t pay enough attention to my own blog, let alone BHB; I read blogs and love to write, but it’s never been obsessive. I write when I’m inspired, not when I’m on deadline; when I’m short on time I scan enough to get the gist and mostly ignore links. In doing so I occasionally miss the gist entirely. One of the reasons I’m really looking forward to Unchained is to learn from those I like and respect to channel the process productively.

So not until yesterday morning, when I got the feed to Cathleen’s post, did I have any clue as to what was going on in RE.net. Not until this morning did I have a chance to read the more than four hundred comments here, here, and here. I’ve had to go back to the last week’s posts here to put them in proper context. (Russell: My apologies.)

Whew. As I said in my comment to Teri, people love to be offended; sometimes they wallow in it. (Note: I’m a people, too.) It brings the warm glow of righteousness, especially if it can be shared with fellow travelers. Objections to the contrary, ‘mob’ is a perfectly apt descriptor; “they’re a mob, but I’m thinking on my own” just doesn’t wash. Hiding behind the vitriolic din brings the false feeling of no consequence.

Since this is all new to me, some observations:

  1. I spent more time on Sellsius this morning reading comments than I’ve spent in the entire last year. Ferrara is a terrific writer, and argued his case well, though I’m not sure it’s the case he meant to argue: The genesis is his snit at being locked out of BHB. Whether or not Greg’s post was in fact offensive, that was only a vehicle to unload.
  2. Everyone else – including Dustin – followed. And Dustin – whose sites I like and read and who I’ll continue to like and read – used an approach that was particularly small. Petulance is never a winning tactic.
  3. I learned Mike Farmer is a terrific writer as well.
  4. One of the things Read more
February 23, 2008

Living up to the BloodhoundBlog mission statement: We’re everything you wish were in Realtor magazine

by

Suburban Phoenix Real Estate Broker

Author website

This is our mission statement:

BloodhoundBlog is everything you wish were in Realtor magazine — but isn’t.

Damned if it ain’t the gospel truth! Realtor Magazine does a cover story on real estate weblogging — and none of the Bloodhounds are there.

Not sour grapes. We’re the big dogs in this menagerie of minds, but, at the same time — we’re big Bloodhounds. Friendly enough, but fiercely independent and impossible to dominate. Does that sound like Realtor magazine to you?

In fact, the article is mostly a catalog of kiss-ups to potential advertisers, the usual sort of Realtor magazine mash letter.

Even so, congratulations to the real webloggers mentioned in the piece. My thought is that the waxed fruit is there to distract our attention from the rancid vendor stew that is the real purpose of the article. But, even so, the coverage should be huge for building credibility with clients.

(What would David Gibbons do? I’m thinking this is the kind of post that people find objectionable because I am not being falsely effusive about what is, in fact, not a wholly-positive development. I live in a graduated universe, and so I understand that most blessings are mixed. Realtor magazine’s objective — always — is to pimp vendors. This is why we understand, in every other context, that it is largely ridiculous and irrelevant. But — even so — this is a sweet coup for the actual real estate webloggers mentioned in the article. I offer them my heartiest congratulations. And I’m belaboring the obvious, I think.)

Tipped: The Real Estate Tomato.

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February 23, 2008

Bloodhound Blog Remains Open. What Would Beth Ask?

by

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

Author website

Bombastic blogger, Kevin Tomlinson, knows how to rile up the crowds. Most of you met Kevin through the Project Blogger competition, hosted by Activerain.com. Kevin never disappoints. He made the dramatic statement that he believed…

Bloodhound Blog would be shut down by Friday.

Kevin’s not mean, he just likes a little controversy.

I thought I’d try to practice the WWDGD principle and attempt to get meaningful input from the crowd. I expected to be baited by the irrelevant but chose to ignore them; this conversation is too important for the practitioners. Scroll through the comment thread and you’ll see where Kevin’s broker, Beth Butler, started to go into a state of curiosity rather than remain in a state of judgment.

WWBA (What would Beth Butler Ask?). Russell Shaw swears by surveys so I thought I’d try that approach. Here’s our first installment of WWBA:

For Glenn Kelmann:

1- I think I would ask how his business model changes if :

A. The offer of compensation in the MLS is substantially changed?

B. If IDX is no longer available

2- If the market turns downward, what plans does Redfin have for longevity in a down market… say where mls data shows an overall decrease in the number sales of 50-60% like it has here in the South Florida market?

For Russell Shaw:

1. How is his team organized?

2. How has he used his internet presence to improve his business? Specifically, has he changed or is he planning to change his website? Who does he rely upon for technical support and direction?

3. I understand that Phoenix is having some of the same market challenges as Florida, how has he changed his operations to adjust?

4. With regard to his marketing, what percentage of his marketing budget goes to advertising properties? himself and his brand?

5. Number of listings he expects to carry to obtain 2000 sides? What percentage of his inventory does he sell Read more

February 22, 2008

Search Engine Guide is unleashed, but only the wild dogs are unchained

by

Suburban Phoenix Real Estate Broker

Author website

Jeff Brown found this promotional film for Small Business Marketing Unleashed and passed it on to Brian Brady, who forwarded it to me. Could someone be pulling a Davison on both BloodhoundBlog Unchained and the Daniel Rothamel video?

My take: Synchronicity. As you might recall, Unleashed was one of the names we considered on the way to picking Unchained:

Here is why I like Unchained:

  • The idea of free or even feral dogs
  • Unleashed implies has-been-leashed or will-be-leashed-again, but unchained can suggest never-having-been-chained
  • Again unlike unleashed, unchained has connotations of human slavery or imprisonment, and hence manumission or liberation
  • The word looks and sounds hard and edgy, promoting a hard and edgy graphic representation

These metaphors are not new to me, nor is the metaphor of dancing. I don’t actually care about dancing, but I care a lot about metaphors.

That’s actually kind of interesting as a comprehensive glimpse into our marketing prowess. But Search Engine Guide got to a slightly different place ahead of us.

[This post was redacted to correct factual errors addressed in the comments. –GSS]

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February 22, 2008

PhotoDropper WordPress plug-in puts zillions of creative-commons-licensed Flickr photos just a click away

by

Suburban Phoenix Real Estate Broker

Author website

Tipped by ProBlogger Darren Rowse, I’m adding the PhotoDropper WordPress plug-in to four of our weblogs this morning.

What is it?

With the Photo Dropper plugin, you can now search millions of Flickr photos and add them to your WordPress posts with just 1 click, all without leaving your WordPress dashboard. Attribution links are automatically added underneath the images to comply with the Creative Commons license rules. It’s the easiest way to add photos to your blog. Period. And best of all – it’s Free!

I’m not a member of the images-incite-interest delegation. I believe mere prose is sufficient to attract attention if it is the right prose, and I’m only interested in a picture if it does that work that could be done by a thousand words.

But: I am a prototype without a production model, and many people writing here take exactly the opposite position, that pictures can make the post. That’s what makes horse races. And to be completely frank, sometimes the images our authors come up with knock me out.

These are the weblogs I’ve upgraded:

If it seems to work for people, I’ll add it everywhere.

A word of caution: A Creative Commons license does not put an image in the public domain. Russell Shaw, for example, loves to make image mash-ups in photo-editing software. People similarly inclined should make sure the photographer permits you to mess with his or her images, rather than simply displaying them.

How do you use it?

1. Once you have the plugin activated, you will see a “Photo Dropper Browse Photos” panel right under your Write Post (or Write Page) editor. Enter keyword(s) for a photo you would like for your post (Example: “sunset”, “black cat”, or “HDR bridge”) and click the Search button.

2. The search will return photos matching your keywords.

3. Once you find a photo you would like to add to your post, click on any of the sizes (”S”mall, “M”edium, “L”arge) to add that photo and attribution link to your post.

Here’s a Heard Museum photo I snagged in a split second:

Read more

February 22, 2008

Working With Virgins

by

Real Estate Broker

Author website

I like working with experienced buyers, somewhere in their fifties, savvy, know what they want, know they can get it. I like working with investors because investors don’t cry, they’re rational, straightforward, wham bam, that’s it, buy it.

I like working with experienced home buyers and investors, but I love working with first time buyers. There’s something about the mixture of fear and excitement that’s exhilarating J. The dream in their eyes rekindles mine. It’s a special joy of achieving something big, something life changing.

There are many cynics who would read this and snipe about subprime and foreclosures, anything to tarnish what the jaded and hip-ironists see as illusion. May I never become jaded.

Of course there’s a huge difference in the check at closing between a waterfront home on the island and a starter home, but the satisfaction is greater with the starter home, and whatever high-end niche I may lean towards, I don’t think I’ll ever quit working with first time buyers.

There’s a sense of satisfaction in doing a good job and most times work is work and the satisfaction comes from doing it well; however, there’s a spiritual aspect to work that makes it more than a job. “Spiritual” is a loaded word and sounds pretentious in the context of real estate.

To me, spiritual, in the context of work, means that part of experience that transcends the banal actions of accomplishing a job, or the routine, logical actions of work – it’s the combination of physical action, mental  application, emotional connection and something greater that includes the participation of others. The “something greater” is the spiritual part.

When buying a home becomes more than buying a home, as it is with many first time buyers, it creates in me a sense of participating in “something greater”. The buyers are planning their life, thinking about the future, the creation of “home”, the pride of ownership, and the excitement is contagious.

They are also open to new knowledge, asking questions, absorbing the experience, connected to the experience, alive with the idea of having something that’s their own and full of creative ideas of how Read more

February 22, 2008

Don’t Panic Over Interrogatories

by

Real Estate Broker, Investor

Author website

It starts out as a lovely, sunny, holiday weekend in Southern California. Most of your tenants at the Palm Grove apartments are enjoying a day off, and having a barbecue in the parking lot.

Missy from unit C goes back into her apartment to get a few more cold ones out of the frig, comes out her front door carrying the six pack, somehow trips on the step, falls and fractures her ankle. The other tenants call 911 and Missy is rushed to the hospital.

As a responsible property owner, you will of course immediately report this to your insurance carrier, as soon as you learn of it. Your insurance carrier investigates, and offers Missy a settlement. But Missy’s no fool. She sees the physical injury attorneys that advertise on daytime TV. She rejects the amount offered by your insurance carrier, finds a PI attorney, and files suit.

Being served can ruin your whole day. But as soon as your heart rate returns to normal, you turn the summons over to your insurance carrier. (Note to property owners: While there are lots of ways to cut costs, skimping on liability insurance is never a good place to do it). But even though your insurance carrier provides your defense, you must still participate in the process.

And one of the first events in that process will be answering interrogatories, a formal set of written questions that one party in a lawsuit asks an opposing party. If you are new to litigation, the questions asked in the interrogatories will seem bizarre, obscure and strangely repetitive. You visualise the lawyers pouring over law books and carefully, meticulously crafting each question for maximum effect.

For example: Every set of PI interrogatories I’ve ever seen has contained a question about Sweep Records. Sweep Records? The local supermarket keeps records of how often the parking lot is professionally swept. The owner of a small four-plex probably doesn’t.

Here’s what you need to know: Those questions are canned. Attorneys have been seen in online law forums posting questions about where to obtain interrogatories for their particular case. Attorneys also purchase them on CD from Read more

February 22, 2008

Like a Dog With a Bone — Vindicated By a Super Star — Hyper-Local Blogs Rock

by

Real Estate Investments Broker

Author website

No less than Seth Godin has now come out and said it’s the only way to go. Even went as far as telling agents to quit otherwise. 🙂

Seriously, take a look at what I’m talking about. Yeah, yeah — I know Greg already beat me to it. So what?

Maybe it’d be better if you read (Reread without scoffing?) something from the archives

I feel so vindicated. 🙂 What cracked me up most? He used high school sports as an example to include in your blog, or ongoing conversation. Go figure. Seems like I’ve read that somewhere before.

The folks doing this best? Our own Eric and Teri. Eric is showing agents how, while Teri is an agent doing it in real time.

Life is good.

February 21, 2008

Zillow’s Virtual Sold Signs go live: Are yours up yet?

by

Suburban Phoenix Real Estate Broker

Author website

If you’re a working Realtor, Zillow.com’s Virtual Sold Sign technology is another weapon you can deploy in your guerrilla marketing strategy.

I raved about this when it was announced, but now the feature has finally gone live.

What’s a Virtual Sold Sign? If you were the the listing agent the last time a particular home sold, Zillow will associate that home’s record with your Zillow profile, noting that the homes was “last sold by” — you.

Because Zillow has a database of almost all of the homes in the country, we have the unique opportunity to provide this feature.  Traditional listings sites just take a listing down once the transaction is complete, but we have over 4 million visitors coming to Zillow and viewing millions of recently sold homes each month.  In fact, over 35 million homes have been viewed on Zillow since we launched.  In some cities (Seattle, Boston, San Francisco, among others), over 90% of ALL homes in those cities have been viewed on Zillow.  Your sold homes are already getting viewed a lot on Zillow, with (until now) nothing to distinguish them as your sold homes.

The VSS program allows agents and brokers to continue marketing themselves on their sold properties for free, long after the home has actually sold.  Past transactions can even be submitted, to get attribution for listings that [sold] long before the Zillow Listings Feed program was even started.  It’s like leaving the “sold” sign up in the yard of each and every home you’ve ever sold.

Aside from the obvious benefit to agents and brokerages, the VSS program is beneficial to prospective sellers, and even buyers to find out who the top agents and brokerages are in their neighborhood, or the neighborhood where they want to move.

This is another piece of the marketing strategy that Brian Brady, myself and others have been working on, but which Tom Johnson has given the sizzling sobriquet “ZestiFarming.” Not to get too unhinged on the Unchained promises, but I’ll be teaching two hours of ZestiFarming techniques to enable you to completely dominate a geographic listing farm.

And this is also another demonstration of Read more

February 21, 2008

I Hope Unchained Considers My Topic Wish List

by

Real Estate Investments Broker

Author website

This is the year I’ve thrown down the gauntlet to myself. By the end of the year I’m gonna have my feet firmly planted, technologically speaking, in the 21st century. This may require leapfrogging most of the decade of the 1990’s, but I’m approaching this venture fearlessly. (Or at least without noticeably trembling.)

Numero Uno on the A-List is my database. It sucks so much Dyson wants to know my secret. Seriously, we’re organized, but we’re only slightly ahead of Willie Loman.

I’d love someone to tell me how I can get things done seamlessly, without either writing a check with a comma not appearing ’till after the second digit, or buying something at Databases R Us that promises me the moon but delivering something akin to Willie’s Roladex with a prompter.

Here’s what I need. I’m hoping against hope these needs will resonate with others out there, ‘cuz being the Lone Ranger would mean my checkbook is the only plausible remedy. So please, pretty please with a real estate recovery on top, chime in with anything you can add, or recommend. I’m officially lobbying for a database expert to get some face time at Unchained. (I hope that’s subtle enough for Greg and Brian.)

If it helps, here’s what we’re up against. We not only work with folks in San Diego, but in many states. We must deal with staffs or teams in each state, along with our clients and their property portfolios — all of which must be at our grubby little fingertips. (In my case of the Flintstone variety.) We’ll also have moderately large sub-databases in each region we really like. These are composed of investment property owners to which we’d like to market some day, or already have. Each one of these sports around 20-80,000 names/properties. These need to offer the capability to be kept separate or meshed together — at our whim, over and over again.

My new database would be perfect IF

  • I could break it up into various segments without giving up the ability to blend everything together if it suits my purpose.
  • I could email from it Read more
    • February 20, 2008

    Besides that Mrs. Davison, how did you enjoy the post?

    by

    Chicago Broker Owner Realtor | RE 2.0 Blogger

    Author website

    I think I first realized we exist in a quirky, if not passionate and divided adult society when I found myself in a lecture hall observing an assistant professor and a fellow graduate student nearly coming to blows over a Henry James excerpt from the aptly titled,  An International Episode.  I watched on as a confederacy of my peers and elders; some undergrad, some doctoral, some by proxy—chimed in from the gallery seats as the two went at each other, a coffee breath’s apart.  Before long, the entire crowd seemed to join in, taking sides on what does and does not constitute a cultural faux pas and whether James himself, a man already dead for 72 years, was a genius or an ass.  

    It was like a Pulitzer prize fight gone wild, only everyone was wearing turtlenecks and corduroy.  I was proctoring the lecture to make up some lost hangover hours from another class.  The whole Henry James dialectic was over my head to begin with,  so who was I to judge, one way or another, who had the longest literary wiener?  I fancied myself a sports writer, a true reporter of facts…(as I understood them, of course.)  That was more than 25 years ago and the memory all but faded away…

    …only to resurface this week as I got sucked into the Comment Section vacuum of  a thousand faceless internet voices.  I think we all know of what I speak so no more linkage.  It intrigues me when I witness, walking past the bar of course, the same, aforementioned ardor present in, let’s say… the wide-screen crowd watching a televised sporting event.  I’m always curious as to why these raving fans, dressed in home team regalia; scream, curse and cheer for or against a particular team or athlete (or candidate, for that matter) who doesn’t even know they exist. Like the Chazz Palminteri character, Sonny,  says to C,  in A Bronx Tale,  

    “Why you care about Mickey Mantle? He don’t care about you…” Willing suspension of disbelief can be, well…disbelievable, I guess. 

    I played sports, albeit Division III, well into adulthood and I’m here to reiterate what the majority of us should already know; most noble opponents, whether professional, amateur or literary, leave it at the field once the game has ended or the last shot has fired.  It’s Read more

    February 20, 2008

    What would you expect for the BloodhoundBlog Unchained keynote event? How about two sharp minds, two sharp wits, exploring two very different points of view — all for your benefit?

    by

    Suburban Phoenix Real Estate Broker

    Author website

    BloodhoundBlog made its reputation, from the very beginning, digging up bones to pick with vendors. And of all the vendors that I, personally, have picked on, surely the one I have picked on worst is Redfin.com and its CEO, Glenn Kelman. But of all those vendors, of all those exalted CEOs, only one has come here to beard the Bloodhounds in our own kennel. And only one has called me after hours at home to try to help me see his point of view.

    That one, solitary maverick CEO? The incomparable Glenn Kelman, of course. Call him what you will, he is sui generis, an entirely unique specimen.

    And because — take him as you find him — he is unique and smart and funny and thoroughly original, I am proud to announce that Glenn will be joining us for BloodhoundBlog Unchained, the Social Media Marketing conference we will be hosting for real estate professionals in Phoenix from May 18-20.

    Kelman will be one half of our keynote event, a presidential-style debate on New Wave versus Old School Real Estate Brokerage.

    And who will be defending the more-traditional strategies of residential real estate representation? None other than the matchless Russell Shaw, mega-producing Realtor nonpariel.

    But wait: If you’re expecting a food fight, put down those mashed potatoes! Both of these gentlemen are too bright and too self-assured to get bogged down in acrimony or name-calling.

    Here’s what you should expect instead: A moderated debate with introductory speeches, responses, and then a flow of questions and answers from a panel of real estate luminaries — and directly from the audience. The purpose of BloodhoundBlog Unchained is to explore the intersection of Social Media Marketing with personal and direct marketing, so we know going in that there is validity on both sides of the debate. We will benefit from the diverse viewpoints of two masters of the real estate marketing craft.

    Plus which, it should be a boat-load of fun. Both men are naturally funny, both possessed of a sharply poignant yet charmingly self-deprecating wit.

    Even so, their debate probably won’t be a love-fest, either. But if something in the middle Read more

    February 20, 2008

    It’s about RELATIONSHIPS….

    by

    The Real Estate Group, Virginia Beach and Chesapeake VA

    Author website

    Those who know me online KNOW that I am all about relationships.

    That’s my currency and my value to people is my word. As contests like the GREATEST REAL ESTATE AGENT IN THE WORLD unfold…sometimes all you can do is correct things as they go…

    Bob Wilson from San Diego and a couple of others did me a great service yesterday by clarifying something for me. He enquired about whether he would get a link back from my page AFTER the contest was over (with a bio and a picture for being one of the greatest real estate agents in the world). I indicated that he would.

    In doing so, it “could” be claimed that I violated the spirit of the competition…I do NOT want to do that in any way… Sometimes you have to CLARIFY positions as you go and for me it is time to make things clear.

    The true benefit that you get from joining my team is that you can work with the best of the best in building AUTHORITY online. This is NOT about trading links and has never been. We have learned more together as a team and formed some great relationships. (Wanna join us and LEARN together?) That is what it is about. If you linked to me in the hope of getting a link back:

    PLEASE take your links down. I do not need that kind of help and I humbly apologize for the misunderstanding.

    Here is what I hope:

    That you can SEE the sincerity and HEAR the honesty in what I am writing and that because I am being totally upfront about this you will still want to participate. In fact, if you really want to be part of TEAM Eric…simply start building some on line authority and pass it to us.

    And thanks Bob for pointing it out in the email to me last night. When I make mistakes I try to correct them quickly. I had to talk with existing team members to make sure that they had no misunderstandings as well.

    I will be posting this same message on several places on the web in Read more

    February 19, 2008

    Vertigo by map mash-up: How to spin your way around the globe

    by

    Suburban Phoenix Real Estate Broker

    Author website

    There’s Grant’s Tomb, looking a little scruffy in Riverside Park in Manhattan:

    And here’s your chance to take a truly dizzying tour of the Guggenheim Museum:

    These images, and many more, are brought to you by 360cities.net, a Google Maps mash-up of 360 degree panorama shots from all over the world. Probably more useful for fun than for real estate — but it’s definitely fun.

    Tipped: Google Blogoscoped.

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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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