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Category: Real Estate (page 207 of 266)

March 6, 2007

Weblogging as if it really mattered: How to write with integrity and passion

by

Suburban Phoenix Real Estate Broker

Author website

Do you know what stinks? The world is acrawl with canned-spam, cookie-cutter, rinse-and-repeat weblogging advice — and people follow it slavishly instead of keeping their own counsel, living their own ideal, following their own star.

That is: If I read another weblog post on how to write weblog posts, I think I’ll scream. To absolve myself of charges of hypocrisy, in advance, this not a post about how to write posts, it’s a post about how to write.

Do you want to know how to write? Here’s the tiniest taste of a first lesson: Start in the middle.

Not: “This is my report on…”

Not: “Webster’s defines…”

Not: “How can I begin to tell you…?”

Start in the middle, the way you’d start a phone conversation with someone you knew would be calling.

Like this: “Do you know what stinks?”

Oh, yes, comforting rules abound, but they are the very same rules you rebel against in every other aspect of your life. You say, “I don’t want the cookie-cutter taupe-on-taupe one-size-fits-all same-damn-thing.” And yet you scour the web, looking for sage advice about how to produce weblog posts that will not challenge, will not inspire, will not aspire, will not invoke, convoke or provoke, will not do anything except testify to your perfect ability to master perfectly bad advice.

If you are not interested in what you’re writing, how could you expect anyone else to be interested?

If you are convinced (by your own conviction or by having imbibed from too many fonts of false wisdom) that you cannot hope to connect with other people except by resort to EZ-reading tricks — dumbing the entire universe down to the drooling imbecility of the dumbest conceivable specimen — why would you expect anyone to respect and reflect upon your brilliance?

Good grief!

If you are writing to manipulate, follow the rules. They work.

If you’re writing to sell a product, follow the rules. They work.

If you’re writing to hide, writing to dissemble, writing to occlude, writing to obfuscate, writing to pull the wool over as many eyes as you can capture — follow the rules. They work.

But: If you are writing to communicate — make Read more

March 5, 2007

A Rare Breed — An Intelligent, Highly Educated Young Man — And He Doesn’t Know It All

by

Real Estate Investments Broker

Author website

It’s a shame, but I suspect most Bloodhound contributors, couldn’t pick half of us out of a lineup. Don’t get me wrong, we’ve emailed or phoned, but for the most part we’ve never met. I’m maybe the worst off. I’ve met Greg Swann, Russell Shaw, and Brian Brady. 3 out of 13. To be fair, we’re spread all over the country. We’re in San Diego, Phoenix, Chicago, New York, Seattle, Tampa Bay, Atlanta, and Santa Clarita (CA).

I bring this up because we know each other through our posts. I’m a real estate investment broker who gets people to a superior retirement faster than they thought possible. Many of them are world class agents in residential markets. One is magnificent in marketing, and two or three thrive in the mortgage business. We also have a couple guys who are very successful real estate investors. What an eclectic group Greg has put together.

Yesterday I thought it was about time I had a normal conversation with these folks. I’ve spoken on the phone with Kris Berg and Doug Quance. I’ve referred to Kris, and been interviewed by Dough. As I mentioned earlier I’ve met Greg, Russ, and Brian. So I called Michael Cook. Our subjects covered college, investing, where to invest, developing solid business relationships, kids, and his career plans.

Here’s what I think I learned about Mike. He’s genuine. At 26 he doesn’t think he knows everything. How many of us can say that with a straight face? Not me, that’s for sure. 🙂 At that age I couldn’t carry his jock, and couldn’t understand why the world wasn’t beating a path to my door. He’s looking to learn at every opportunity. When he’s faced adversity he’s taken a lesson or two from it.

Read his stuff and try to imagine yourself at that level when you were 26. Are people staring because you’re laughing out loud? At that age I could dress myself nine times outa 10. 🙂 The only guy his age I know whom I’d dare compare him to is my son Josh. But that’s another story entirely for another day.

Don’t take Read more

March 5, 2007

The Carnival of Real Estate . . .

by

Suburban Phoenix Real Estate Broker

Author website

…is up at Salt Lake Real Estate Blog. Host Nigel Swaby invokes a March Madness format. We entered Brian Brady’s interview with Lenn Harley. Brian made it to the Elite Eight, but not to the Final Four. Next week’s Carnival: The Phoenix Real Estate Guy.

The Carnival of Real Estate Investing is also up at The Landlord Blog. We entered Jeff Brown’s article on accelerated depreciation. This is the best investment article I have ever read anywhere, by the only standard that matters: Money. When it appeared here, I immediately sent it to every one of my investor clients. If you didn’t do the same, amend that omission immediately. In any case, it didn’t win. Go figure…

We had a lot of great stuff last week, but The Carnival of BloodhoundBlog award goes to Jeff’s essay. When a sweet and thoughtful man shows us how to make thousands more per year from our investments, a tip of the hat doesn’t even begin to pay the debt we owe him…

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March 5, 2007

True reform in the real estate industry will not result from undermining buyer representation

by

Suburban Phoenix Real Estate Broker

Author website

I’ve been sitting on a post from Jeff Corbett, The X-Broker, for a few days. Jeff Argues that Realty.bots will eliminate buyer’s agents. This actually ties in with recent announcements that major brokerages will be feeding listings to Realty.bots like Trulia.com and Google base. I get the idea Jeff thinks these are good things. I think he’s mistaken.

Start here: Jessica Swesey at InmanBlog asked:

If the DOJ wins and NAR is forced to retract policies, what is the likely chain of events to follow? Who wins and who loses?

My reply:

If the DOJ tries to play pirate with the current system, the big brokerages may go all in-house, which they could easily do already. Then there will be no small brokerages.

Jeff objects to this, but it’s not an unreasonable proposition.

Note, for example, the the overwhelming majority of listings in Tucson are held by one brokerage — Long Realty. Who gains more from the cooperative system imposed by the TARMLS system — Long or all the little brokerages competing against it? If Long pulled out of TARMLS, what would happen happen to those smaller players?

In Phoenix, the market is dominated by Realty Executives and by RE/Max, Keller Williams, Coldwell-Banker and Century 21 Franchises. If they pulled out of ARMLS, either in isolation or by forming a new big-boys-only MLS system, brokerages like mine would be wiped out overnight.

Too much of this debate is beside the point. Pundits simultaneously attribute too much and too little importance to the MLS. From a professional’s point of view, Realty.bots are not comparable to MLS systems, and they probably never will be. They are good for window-shopping by consumers, not for searching by professionals. But wresting control of the MLS away from brokers, somehow forcing them to produce content against their own interests, will not change anything that matters in the practice of residential real estate representation. The reason for this is simple: What is wrong in residential real estate representation has nothing to do with the MLS itself.

We’ll come back to that. First: Buyers buy from the selection that is available to them. This is true of everything Read more

March 4, 2007

The RE.net waist-loss challenge

by

Suburban Phoenix Real Estate Broker

Author website

When I met The Leggy Blonde, I had a 34-inch waist. I was working out for at least 45 minutes every day, and I was maybe a can-and-a-half short of six-pack abs. I had been through a pretty bad car accident, and being in good shape was a secondary consequence of re-mastering the art of ambulation. (I can’t run at all, if you want to challenge me to a contest you know I’ll lose.)

Things change. Being enthralled by a woman takes time, and among the blocks of time I devoted to being enthralled — then being involved, then being a couple, then being a team, then being espoused — was the time I had spent working out. I have worked from home since 1993, and in all that time the refrigerator has never once forgotten my name.

By now I have a 45-inch waist, which doesn’t even count this great bulbous thing that hangs over my waist. I’m 47 years old, but I have always felt like I was 19. I weigh about 250 pounds, where I have always felt like I weigh about 160. I never, ever cease to be surprised when I see this old fat guy staring back at me from the mirror.

At the New Year, I resolved to do something different. Until the last ten years or so, I had always made time to read for pleasure. And, obviously, I haven’t been making time to work out. Now and then, catch as catch can — not enough. So I resolved to put in at least a half-hour a day on the stationary bike, this so I could also read at the same time.

The reading part is working out fine. I know the exercise is also working out, because I can feel the strength in my thighs, calves and glutes. My wind is better, and my overall stamina is improved. But I’m not seeing any visible weight loss. I’m not worried about losing pounds, so far, because muscle mass is more dense than fat. But I would like to see some evidence of evaporating fat.

Take it to the next Read more

March 3, 2007

INTERVIEW: Lenn Harley of Homefinders.com

by

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

Author website

lennI interviewed Lenn Harley of Homefinders.com, a buyer’s brokerage in Maryland and Virginia (DC suburbs). Lenn is one of the true pioneers in online real estate brokerage. She figured out the power of internet marketing for real estate services while redfin.com’s Glenn Kelman was marketing data servers and zillow.com’s Lloyd Frink was convincing Bill Gates to get into the travel business.

I bring this up not to discredit Messrs. Kelman and Frink but rather to highlight the gutsy business model Lenn pioneered. If Time Magazine dubbed 2006 as the year of “YOU”, then Lenn Harley has been one of “YOUR” facilitators for the past thirteen years.

Lenn, why don’t we start off with a recap of your career. You mentioned that you built your business on “in-house relocations” at a big brokerage then struck it on your own when you discovered the power of the internet.

I was an analyst with the government specializing in FOIA review. Following that, I operated a title company in conjunction with a local law office. When I started real estate practice, I found that I preferred working with buyers, contrary to the 1980’s mantra of list, list, list.

In 1994, I left the mega-broker to practice buyer’s agency. I generated sufficient business for a comfortable income but I was missing the relocation buyers because I didn’t have a “relo” connection. Then, one day with the TV in the background, I heard an interview with an attorney who had a “website”. It was like an epiphany. I thought, “THAT is the way to appeal to relocating home buyers.”

I started to “study” the Internet in mid-1994. In early 1995, I took a few “Introduction to the Internet” courses and by March of 1995, I was ready. I interviewed web design companies and hired one to design a web site for me. I had my first Internet settlement, a civilian army employee relocating from Germany to Andrews AFB in Maryland by the end of the year.

So, it worked?

Brian, I just “love it when a plan comes together”

Were there fears or trepidations or were you confident in your strategy?

There was Read more

March 3, 2007

First Russell Shaw Sales Success symposium scheduled for Tuesday, March 13

by

Suburban Phoenix Real Estate Broker

Author website

Mega-producing Realtor and BloodhoundBlog contributor Russell Shaw is hosting a series of Sales Success symposia for striving Realtors. The purpose of the events is to establish the most vitally-important points to be covered in a sales training curriculum, to be produced in the coming months in audio and video podcasts. Russell will address larger meta-topics and then entertain questions from the audience to unearth smaller but still important sub-topics to be addressed in the podcasts.

The first of these events will be held on Tuesday March 13, 2007, at the offices of North American Title, 3200 East Camelback Road, Suite #150, Phoenix, AZ 85018. The event will run from 6:30 PM to approximately 9:30 PM, and refreshements will be served. There is no charge to attend. Russell will handle two meta-topics, followed by question and answer sessions, with a short break between. North American Title and Worldwide Credit Corporation are sponsoring the event and will make short presentations.

Who should come? A striving Realtor is one who has learned how to stay afloat in this business but wants to learn how to build a bigger, more profitable business. In other words, if you’re a brand new agent or if you’re happy with your current level of production or if you’re already a top-producer, these symposia are not for you. Because Russell is building the curriculum for a full-blown Sales Success training course, his goal is to hear from the Realtors who want most to learn the lessons he has mastered in his career.

If you would like to attend this event, fill out our RSVP form. The space available to us is limited, so don’t fill out the form unless you know for sure you can attend. This is an opportunity to learn a whole lot even as you help other Realtors learn a whole lot — for years to come. Plus which, it should be a lot of fun…

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March 2, 2007

What’s The Biggest Myth When It Comes To Investing For Your Retirement?

by

Real Estate Investments Broker

Author website

Though I’ve written posts on this subject before, sometimes my zeal to spread the word is renewed by contrary opinions. Of course, when it comes to how folks feel about this subject, you find that very little real analysis was used. I think the problem at times is exactly what analysis is done. Most folks will say putting their money into the bank for a 2-3% return is inferior to paying down their loan because if the interest rate is say, 6%, then that’s what their money is earning. True enough. But that’s the wrong analysis to say the least.

Since it will take literally hundreds of thousands of dollars to pay off that very loan, why not take all that money and grow it at 3-10 times that rate? How you look at this question could very well determine whether you have a great retirement or live out a self-imposed life sentence.

Love CanyonSmall Love Canyon

My own grandpa passed away 15 years ago. He was a well known artist, one of those rare breeds who made a decent living while still alive to enjoy it. His paintings still sell for $5-30K apiece. He painted until his health went down hill. He was in his 80’s. It’s a good thing because he and Grandma had their monthly Social Security check plus money from sold paintings. They worked hard to pay off their home loan, which was under $20K upon his death. Yet they would have been behind the 8-ball if he hadn’t been able to continue painting as long as he did. They were inches from having their Depression-based dream of a free and clear home.

Grandma couldn’t afford to live there when Grandpa died. (Though she still would have moved due to her age & heath.) She had to rent out the house to supplement her income, while moving into one side of a duplex next to one of her kids. She was now renting, while owning her home which was just about debt free.

And she and Grandpa did this on purpose.

They lived a frugal life. Their only travel was to destinations Grandpa painted, or Read more

March 2, 2007

The numbers are clearly bogus, Mr. Kelman. Show us the files . . .

by

Suburban Phoenix Real Estate Broker

Author website

Kevin Boer thought he found an error in Redfin’s accounting of its MLS results. What he found turned out to be trivial, which led to another round of war-hooping from the Redfin tribe.

Meanwhile, our new contributor James Hsu has demonstrated that Redfin’s horse runs behind the middle of the pack among big-name Seattle brokerages. In other words, as predicted, experienced traditional agents do out-perform Redfin’s salaried agents.

I finally took a look at Redfin’s spreadsheet today, which they were kind enough to share with me. There are two formulae for calculating the Sales Price to List Price ratio, but I’m not sure that matters. Ten houses sold for less that 65% of list, which I find amazing. More amazing still, nine sold for more than 150% of list. One of them sold for 1,068.526% of list.

One condominium sold for 10% of list price. At that price, I think I might have taken more than one. Condo buyers are smarter, though. Only four of them were willing to pay more than 144%, although a whole bunch sold for more than 110% of list. In Phoenix, they’d be investigating for loan fraud.

Here’s the cute part: Redfin sold 45 condominiums, of which 20 sold for more than its vaunted average performance of 99.340%. Okayfine, fewer than half. For residential listings, however, Redfin kindasorta sucked: Out of 125 sales, 70 homes sold for more than their average.

I named all kinds of reasons for holding Redfin’s claims in doubt. The overarching question — tough agents or tough clients? — is the one Redfin seeks to avoid. Its claims all week have been a textbook example of the Fallacy of Affirming the Consequent: If P then Q, Q therefore P. If Redfin’s agents are tougher than average, then its ratios should beat the market. Redfin’s ratios beat the market (a specious if not actually false claim in any case), therefore Redfin’s agents are tougher than average. The conclusion does not follow, and the raw numbers seem to argue eloquently that the results achieved by Redfin’s clients were caused by Redfin’s clients, not by its agents. The skinflints did Read more

March 2, 2007

Retire? Retire early? Retire wealthy? Unthinkable!

by

Suburban Phoenix Real Estate Broker

Author website

Who wants to think about retirement? I really love to work, and it seems probable that I will continue to churn away until the hardware fails. But I know that at some point I want to stop having to worry about money. I want to write books and explore ruins and compose sappy love poetry in Latin. These are jobs that don’t pay much.

The funny thing is, although I haven’t done much to prepare for my own retirement, I’ve helped a lot of other people prepare for theirs. How? With real estate, of course. Several of my investors are on course to reap over $1,000,000 in profits from their real estate investments alone.

So, not to sound too much like an infomercial testimonial, I know how much wealth can be accrued through judicious real estate investing.

BloodhoundBlog contributor Jeff Brown has just published a White Paper on the power of real estate investing for building your retirement portfolio:

For many Americans, the thought of comfortably retiring before the age of 60 is simply out of the question. The notion of calling it quits and relaxing is appealing, but reality always seems to ruin the party.

Many folks are resolved to working forever—just to squeeze by.

Are you financially prepared to retire on schedule?

Are your investment decisions securing your retirement OR are you simply playing “not to lose?”

It’s not too late to alter your course.

Real estate investing is a proven way to secure retirement and grow your net worth. With careful planning and the proper guidance, you can retire ahead of schedule.

Working with Stelzner Consulting, Jeff outlines the basics of real estate investing for retirement planning purposes. For many readers here, the material may seem basic — or maybe not — but it will be eye-opening to your clients — or to your parents.

Nobody wants to get old, but only happy consequences will result from thinking about your retirement “too early.” Either you’ll be able to retire sooner, or you’ll be much wealthier when you do retire.

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March 2, 2007

Market today should dictate price of home

by

Suburban Phoenix Real Estate Broker

Author website

This is me in today’s Arizona Republic (permanent link):

 
Market today should dictate price of home

How much effort should you put into listing your home for sale?

After the past 15 months, that’s almost a silly question. There are more than 40,000 homes for sale in Maricopa County, with an average time on market of almost four months.

How much effort should you expend to sell your home? Whatever it takes.

We tend to be very careful about the listings we’ll take, because we want our homes sold in four days or four weeks, not four months.

But that leads us to the most important thing you can do to make sure your home sells while others languish: Price it to the market.

Home values in the West Valley are down 12 to 15 percent from the peak. If you’re pricing to the peak market and not this one, your house will not sell.

I want to talk about some innovative marketing ideas, but no amount of marketing can overcome a too-high price. If you are unwilling to price your home to the market, you might as well spare yourself the agony of listing it.

Now let’s go through the home and repair everything. You don’t need to remodel — unless you really do — but everything should work as advertised.

Have your Realtor walk through your home. Anything that you feel the impulse to call attention to, or to divert attention from, should be repaired or replaced. Your most sales-worthy competition is in turnkey condition. So should you be.

Your Realtor should either be a home stager or have a relationship with one. Either way, an expert needs to go through your home with a critical eye, giving you room-by-room instructions on what to get rid of, what to pack away, what to move, what to emphasize.

Your stager might add furniture or decor items, or it may be sufficient to redeploy the things you already own. The point is to enable buyers to move themselves in psychologically, without your own lives getting in the way.

Next week, we’ll talk about some passive marketing tools that can swing the balance your way.

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March 1, 2007

Money-Geek Contest

by

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

Author website

As an would be Money-Geek, I hosted a little competition. The hounds represented.
Michael Cook wrote an analysis of the pricing of real estate “options” dismissing a parallel to the Black-Sholes options pricing model in favor of the binomial pricing model (probablity analysis). VERY econo-geeky! I loved it!

Greg Swann walked us through the trickle-down of a commission dollar as it withered away but built a mountain. QUITE econo-geeky and pleasing to my calculator.

The judges opted for a “twist” on the agent-broker compensation agreement; one blatantly worthy of victory.

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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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