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Category: Real Estate (page 186 of 266)

June 7, 2007

The question: How do you write so much? The answer: I don’t . . .

by

Suburban Phoenix Real Estate Broker

Author website

Lani Anglin asked me in email about my “blogging regimen.” That would almost seem to imply a plan or a schedule, and I don’t do things that way. So I ignored that idea and responded to her second remark: “I’m curious to know how you crank out so many freakin’ blogs.”

Here’s my short answer: I don’t write very much here. I could write quite a bit more. I don’t think the quality would suffer, but I think your patience might. This is what I wrote back to Lani:

I can write 2,000 words an hour if I need to. I can dictate good-enough text at 150 words a minute for as long as necessary. It’s not any sign of genius, it’s more like running: Do it enough and you get good at it. When I was a younger man, I used to write at least 8,000 words every day, seven days a week. The Grand Opera stuff takes more time, but not as much as you’d think.

If you watch the fifth to the tenth minute in Video Verité, you’ll see me deliver a lecture, ex tempore, on the aesthetics of discursive prose. It’s not perfectly-drafted text, but I could whip a transcript into shape in no time. But it would be a lot better — more informative, more memorable, and probably longer — if it were written as an essay rather than spoken.

As it happens, I wrote about writing, among other things, when BloodhoundBlog was just short of a month old. We were just starting to get some attention, and I wanted to memorialize the blog’s beginnings:

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

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 Read more

June 7, 2007

The pup growls

by

Rust Belt Realtor

Author website

The first thing Greg did as my coach was to throw me at the wall of Bloodhound contributors to see if I stick. His request was for me to write about the Project Blogger experience. Gulp. Deep breath. Here’s an update.

My inexperience coupled with my polite Midwestern upbringing, have caused me to hold my tongue about Project Blogger. However, the last few weeks much has been written both in public and privately to me, about blogging styles and what makes for great real estate blogs. So I figure what-the-hell, now is the time for a pup to speak up.

Two months ago I didn’t know what an RSS feed was. I read two blogs on a regular basis. Now I have about twenty blogs in my reader, half have been added in the last few weeks, and only 3 are real estate related; yes, one is BHB. The blogs that move me and fascinate me and don’t bore me to tears are for the most part, not RE and the reason is, move in closely- I’ll whisper it to you: Real estate blogs suck (that’s four words, 5 syllables). But hey, I’m just an apprentice here, what do I know?

This pup thinks it’s a big world out there, that outside-of-real-estate world, and in her inexperienced opinion the world out there is much more fascinating blog-wise than the world of RE blogs. I read blogs to grow- to see new thoughts and ideas and new ways of expressing those. Following some bland blogging formula is uninspiring. If it’s a formula, then what’s the point? Leads? Somewhere Peggy Lee is singing… Is that all there is?

Jim Duncan’s realcrozetva blog, Greg’s post about weblogging and dancing on bridges, Brian’s post about selling lifestyles, and Daytonian David Esrati’s thoughts about creating community– that is blogging that inspires, moves, and fascinates me. So when I sit down to post, that’s the advice I work with and I don’t see any formulas there. But hey, I’m just an apprentice, what do I know?

Here’s where I’m at blogging-wise: If blogging and Project Blogger are only about following Read more

June 7, 2007

Where Did Your $40,000 Go? , or Why Your Buyer’s Prequalification Needs A Refresher

by

Mortgage Planner

Author website

Just a quick note to the real estate agents that read Bloodhound Blog: now would be a terrific time to have all of your buyers re-prequalified for a home.

Mortgage markets are suffering through an old-fashioned beatdown and some rates for some products are now sitting 0.750% higher than they were just 10 weeks ago.

The last 48 hours account for 0.250% of that increase.

Your buyer’s prequal from even two weeks ago is likely worthless.

As a real-life example, consider a client that can afford a $2,100 monthly mortgage payment and wants an amortizing loan.

  • April 7: $350,000 loan size = $2,100 payment
  • June 7: $310,000 loan size = $2,100 payment

That’s a $40,000 difference — poof!

(Image courtesy: American Museum of Natural History)

June 6, 2007

Redfin discovers Earth: “It was wetter than we were expecting…”

by

Suburban Phoenix Real Estate Broker

Author website

You just can’t make this stuff up. Redfin’s Glenn Kelman:

At lunch with Cynthia and a local real estate baron, we heard about a new tactic for getting a deal on a property. Rather than offering a lower price, ask the seller to handle closing costs, which can run up to $10,000 or more.

How long have they been doing real estate? And today they discovered that they can negotiate the closing costs?

Recall that Kelman claims that Redfin agents are better negotiators. I mentioned closing costs when discussing why that claim might not be true:

A complicated negotiation might result in a higher reported sales price but a better overall deal for the buyers — for example, repairs or even remodeling, seller concessions, no out-of-pocket costs, etc. These are the types of arrangements more likely to be made by more-experienced agents.

A question their clients — and their clients’ attorneys — might ask: What else don’t they know?

In a word: Yikes!

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June 6, 2007

Jay Thompson and Greg Swann to speak at First Southwest Real Estate Blogging Conference on June 21st

by

Suburban Phoenix Real Estate Broker

Author website

Jay Thompson, the Phoenix Real Estate Guy, and I will be speaking the Phoenix Area Active Rain Gathering and First Southwest Real Estate Blogging Conference, to be held on Thursday, June 21st, at 3pm.

If you’re going to see Russell Shaw speak at Arizona Real Estate Commissioner Sam Wercinski’s event, you’ll probably still have time to make the Blogging Conference. The Commissioner is providing lunch and we’ll be having drinks after the Conference, so you can make a day of it.

The event is being put together by Shailesh Ghimire of CTX Mortgage. Visit Arizona Mortgage Guru for more details.

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June 6, 2007

Third thoughts on real estate video production: Marketing Mind-to-Mind

by

Suburban Phoenix Real Estate Broker

Author website

Another clip from the discussions Cathy and I had Sunday at open house. This film explores ideas for the focused marketing of specific types of real estate products — for example, how we might take different approaches with historic versus ultra-modern versus mid-century homes. Amazingly enough, there is some actual visual interest in the movie — all of it added in post-production.

June 6, 2007

Why Lindsay Lohan Doesn’t Like Redfin

by

Realtor, Associate Broker

Author website

I’ve been BADD. Again. But I’m trainable.

Sometimes I write in stream-of-consciousness fashion, and sometimes it just takes more than a couple of sentences to develop an argument or idea. This style of communicating, I now know, is deplorable execrable lamentable just plain WRONG.

So, this morning, I will develop my new skills as I share my opinion on why limited-service business models might not be in every consumer’s best interest.

Tomorrow, I will be sharing my thoughts on the legal fiasco involving Natural Hazard Disclosure Statements in California, Property ID, and ostensible purported so-called RESPA violations. I am making a diorama.

(Total Word Count: 97 not counting strike-out boo-boos, Graphic Images Intended to Capture the Attention of and Entertain the Reader: 1, Lindsay Lohan References to Ensure that Post Content Doesn’t Get Overlooked in Feed Reader: 1)

June 6, 2007

The style of your soul: The fundamental virtue of conscientious real estate weblogging

by

Suburban Phoenix Real Estate Broker

Author website

“If a writer wrote merely for his time, I would have to break my pen and throw it away.” –Victor Hugo

The Russell Shaw entry What’s wrong with Zip Realty?, written in February, was the most clicked-upon post on BloodhoundBlog on Tuesday. Debunking Zillow.com, which was written last July and which often comes in first, took second place.

I’m making note of this because there is a celebration of mental indolence going on just now, reflexively offered up as the rationale and justification for mental indolence. This by itself is meaningless: Erg for erg, laziness is the hardest job there is.

But it occurred to me that the RE.net has undertaken efforts, formal and informal, to instruct novices in the art of real estate weblogging — and laziness is very bad weblogging advice.

The job is what it is. It takes what it takes. If you don’t feel up to taking on the world, that’s fine. But don’t affect to pretend to believe that goofy pictures and bold subheads can take the place of rational discourse. It is actually possible to destroy a specious pose with one onomatopoeical word, but, most often, the work of the mind requires a greater effort.

This matters because you are not writing solely for the day and the visitors thereof. If there is any importance at all to the work that you do, it will be linked and searched. The post that gets only nine hard clicks today may someday get ninety clicks every day — if it deserves them.

What you do is your business, and most of weblogging is ephemeral — of moment for substantially less than a moment. We work the way we do here because we don’t affect to admire the half-assed. If you choose instead to indulge your worst appetites, arguing that that this is the path to popularity among people seeking to indulge their own worst appetites — rave on. It means less than nothing. The work of the mind in real estate will go on — in links, in searches, in perpetuity — without you.

But: If you actually care about improving your own mind Read more

June 5, 2007

Katy Couric, Redfin, and the Predictability of Markets.

by

Realtor, Associate Broker

Author website

There was a delightfully obtuse article in yesterday’s Oregonian lamenting the abysmal ratings of Katy Couric and CBS Evening News. The writer’s reasoning was that it’s our fault for not watching, that we’re a country of misogynists not ready for a serious female anchor. Damn us.

The fact is that, like most markets, the ratings were entirely predictable. Not that prediction is easy — obviously some people can’t even predict in hindsight — but those who are best able to infer behavior from given cause are those most likely to succeed in whatever they do.

Some suggestions:

1. Trust your first impression.

It’s the first advice I give to buyers: You’ll know it when you see it; if you have to be talked into it it’s probably not right. Same with ideas: if it sounds nutty on first hearing, chances are it is.

When a network news division with serious credibility problems hires as an anchor someone famous for her teeth and entertainment value — and with credibility problems of her own — it’s nutty.

When a company — Redfin — launches on the supposition that buyers will rush to be represented by someone they’ll never meet in their most important purchase of their lives, it’s nutty.


2. The corollary to (1): Don’t project your own bias.

Manifested in the notion that “If I think it, so must everyone.”

The Oregonian is obsessed with global warming (full disclosure: I am not obsessed with global warming). When our local MLS decided to add a ‘green’ search mechanism, apparently intended to pick up those properties with Energy Star or other ratings, The Oregonian devoted sixty column inches to the news. (See here). I still haven’t ever had a buyer ask me to find a green property, a seller who’s asked how to get a ‘green’ rating, nor have I ever talked to anyone else who has, and I live in the greenest state in the US. As of right now, there are 304 green listings in the MLS; out of 12,741.

Redfin’s (and Sixty Minutes’) bias is “Stick it to the Man!” CBS’s bias is: gender trumps merit.

Caveat: It’s Read more

June 5, 2007

Second thoughts on real estate video production: Video Verite — what video can and cannot do

by

Suburban Phoenix Real Estate Broker

Author website

This is a piece of the video we shot on Sunday. There’s another segment, on marketing, that I may post, also.

This film is a discussion of the nature of discursive prose as an art form, and why video, for all its strengths, cannot supplant prose in weblogging.

This could easily be the most hirsute real estate video you will ever watch. We trip lightly between art and philosophy, taking a moment to reflect upon the Swan of Avon along the way. I started out thinking that the exercise was a complete waste, but, in the end, I think you’ll find that the content, static thought it may be, repays your time.

June 5, 2007

Cruise Ships, Battleships, and Dinghies – Did you miss the boat with your Real Estate Company?

by

Realtor, Associate Broker

Author website

Signs of the times.

When the going gets tough, the tough jump ship. I am starting to see the telltale signs of a challenging market for many agents as manifested in the game of Musical Brokers that is typically played when agents sense business could be better.

I, too, have been guilty of going agent-overboard in the past, several times actually. Two of the moves were pure genius, yet another was impetuous and, in hindsight, downright stupid. In each case, Steve and I were inspired to make a change because of vision: Our vision of the future of our industry and our perception that our Broker lacked it. I have come to the conclusion that real estate companies generally fall into one of three categories: Cruise Ships, Battleships, and Dinghies. (Tiresome methaphor ensues).

Cruise Ships

These are the big boys who captain the party boat. They are large, they enjoy huge name-recognition, and they barrel blindly ahead with a full boat. Everyone is having such a good time that no one is looking to the iceberg on the horizon. Alternative business models? An evolving client base? Shifting technological and economic tides? Everyone is too engrossed with the all-you-can-eat buffet to see it coming, at which point it is too late to change course. At the first sign of rough waters, bookings decline, profitability tanks and excursions are canceled. They are used to these dry-dock periods, and they will be back the next time people are ready for a good time.

Battleships

Battleships are also huge and unwieldy, and corporate. They are in charge of the troops, they have rules (too many), and they thrive on control. They are most concerned with image, image of the company, and individual rights and privileges are routinely subordinated for the greater “good” (read “bottom line”). They have a long-range plan, yet the Joint Chiefs are too bogged down in red tape to read or react swiftly to the undercurrents of a changing industry. Battleships, like the Cruise Ships, are unable to turn on a dime, but correct course they will – eventually. In the meantime, too many sailors have gone AWOL.

Dinghies

Dinghies Read more

June 4, 2007

Coming Soon — How Ignorance Can Yield Golden Opportunities

by

Real Estate Investments Broker

Author website

I’m back in the saddle, but will have the promised post on qualified plans vs. investment grade insurance tomorrow or Wednesday, as my energy level didn’t return as quickly as I’d hoped. Ignorance can produce golden opportunities, as long as it runs into real knowledge. Again, the plan is for that to happen in a day or two. Thanks for your patience. 🙂

Meanwhile, you can take a look at what might happen if you look through the wrong end of the telescope.

June 4, 2007

First thoughts on real estate video production: Stuff that works

by

Suburban Phoenix Real Estate Broker

Author website

I took the Bert and Ernie movie to YouTube to see how it would translate. I had read that much of the YouTube quality issue, that awful blocky MPEGulation, was caused by the quality of the source video, and I wanted to put it that notion to the test. Whatever B&EbtUSA lacks in cinematic art, it is decent-quality NTSC video. In other words, if you drove it into your television, it would look like TV-quality video. Bottom line: Not great, not awful. YouTube clearly is imposing its own compression on the source video, resulting in a significant loss of quality. Even so, the results are not nearly as bad as we resign ourselves to accepting from YouTube. My guess is that worst YouTube videos are being scaled up from iPod-sized source videos.

I think it’s funny to make a video about weblogging, so Cathy and I had our revenge yesterday at open house: We made a two-shot talking had video about video. It’s actually deeply philosophical, which is what poor Cathy has to live through when she lets me talk. But I haven’t cut it together yet, so that will have to wait.

Another project is to recut the Almeria video to try to make it a little less visually disquieting.

Recall that the original idea behind that film was to come up with an alternative to the “this… is… the… master… bed… room…” style of real estate video. In the film Cathy and I shot yesterday, we spend some time talking about the Greek idea of historia — the notion that history is not just a chronicle of events but, rather, an interpretive context — a story. I believe that real estate video works when it works as a story and not just as a visual summary of the MLS listing.

As a separate expression of that same kind of idea, BloodhoundBlog contributor Doug Quance brings forth A Study In Staging A Home In Atlanta. The home is shown to full advantage, but, by making the film about the story of the staging of the house, we don’t feel 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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