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Category: Realty Reality (page 15 of 16)

April 8, 2007

I Want To Be a Lister – The Listing Presentation

by

Mega-Producing Realtor

Author website

A couple of important questions:

Chris writes;

Here is a question, I have never been on a listing presentation, I have not yet taken a listing, and I’m a brand new agent. But I want to be an excellent lister, and I don’t care what amount of effort that takes.Where is a good place to start with a listing presentation? I have Tom Hopkins book, but is there a good up to date one online somewhere? IE “this is an ideal listing presentation from start to finish, these are all the points you need to hit”. I think if I get the bones, I can probably expand on it, change it a bit for me and make it work.The top agent in my city sold 150 houses last year. Figure an average house is $400k around here. She is the top dog, so that’s who I am aiming for lol!

__
and Scott Cowan writes;

Thank you for the reply. I am looking forward to seeing the videos if you are able to post them online.

I do have a request for a bit more detail about a topic. Currently on BloodhoundBlog you have posted that it is vital to have a really good listing presentation. Currently my listing presentation is nothing more than the research I have completed on the house and the area. I have some local and national statistics that I share. Much to my disappointment (although now that I have been doing much more reading not to my surprise) my success rate is perfect. A perfect 0 for……… Would you be willing to point me in the direction of resources for putting together the really good listing presentation that you have been talking about? I have been reading online and everyone says that theirs is the best etc. I am overwhelmed with the amount of fluff and hype that I am seeing.

Your advice that I have listened to and read has been the most practical of the information available online. I am curious what your thoughts are on a rock solid listing presentation.

Thanks again for being such a valuable resource to the Read more

April 7, 2007

Are Glenn Kelman & Dave Barry Soulmates?

by

Mega-Producing Realtor

Author website

Dave Barry sues Realtor associations. He has been suing Realtor associations for years. I don’t know that anyone could say that he sues Realtor associations for a living because he almost always loses. And it is hard to imagine that any lawyer who had a pot to piss in would keep doing the same stupid thing year after year after year – even though it was obvious to any rational person that it could not succeed. If Dave would like to send me a threatening letter or sue me for what I am writing here, this is my contact information. Dave Barry is behind Trust MLS. This is his “Open MLS” program that he tried (and failed) to get on the ballot in California in 2005. Now he is trying it in Maine. A much smaller state where it would require a LOT less money to try and shove this down everyone’s throat. I believe (Dave, please notice I said I BELIEVE, not “IS“‘) Dave to be a charter member of the “What’s Yours Is Mine Club”. This is also sometimes referred to as “something for nothing” or simply “criminal”. I don’t know if it would actually be libel to characterize him as a litigious lunatic, so we won’t do that here. Certainly, the NAR lawyers and the various state association lawyers aren’t going to come out and physically say that. Almost all lawyers (at least in the U.S.) have a “lawyer to lawyer respect” rule that they follow. It just isn’t right to say something unkind or inflammatory about someone who finished law school and was admitted to the bar – not if you finished law school and were admitted to the bar.

The following was reported yesterday on Inman News:

He is also a part of Trust MLS, a group that is supporting the Maine ballot initiative and encourages supporters in other states to pursue similar measures. This group, along with real estate companies Redfin, Catalist Homes and Voyager 360, among others, had offered financial support to the institute, and Trust MLS plans to submit a bid to operate the proposed Read more

April 2, 2007

I want a LOT of money – would you tell me how to get it?

by

Mega-Producing Realtor

Author website

Late last night I received THIS from a form filled out on my website:

I read about Russell starting Realtor Training, I would like to know if he can set up an automated program for me to follow and use here in Victoria Bc. I sold 11 million dollars worth of real Estate in 2006, I would like to double that over the next 12 months or more. Cheers, hope to hear from you soon!

And tonight see this post from Greg, where the question is:

I would like to know if anyone has a great listing generation system that works, day in and day out. My goal is to gross $600,000 over the next 12 months. I know this is a big topic. I am keen to to see what you respond with.

Both questions are basically the same – how can I easily NET about 500k a year. Please send me the answer. Thanks!

Free MoneyThere are a number of things you can do to generate leads. The effective things require either your time or your money. For example, I use radio and TV advertising to generate lots of “come list me” calls. It is very expensive. Last year I paid over 600k just for my media ads. You can start with less – when I started, the first year on radio I paid about 20k. The next year about 40k. Geographic farms are a common way to generate leads. Some agents buy them from companies. Working one’s sphere of influence is another common lead generation method – contacting a “known database”. One way or the other you will spend time, money or both to generate leads.

To go big one must do one of these two things: prospect effectively or market yourself effectively. Pick one.

Do I plan to ever attempt to put together some sort of package of “steps” – kind of a one-size-fits-all to provide to other agents? No. You can get one here if you are interested in such useless crap. Is there a way to become really successful in real estate with a small amount of effort? It can look that way Read more

March 27, 2007

What Do I Want In a Loan Officer?

by

Mega-Producing Realtor

Author website

Todd Carpenter wrote:

Hey Greg,

Now that REMBEX is working the way I want it to, I’m resurrecting my other pet project. It’s an all free training web site for new loan officers. Details are here. http://blog.mariah.com/2007/03/open-source-mortgage-training-manual.html

I would really like to get a real estate agent’s perspective on what they think a new LO needs to know in reviewing the contract and purchase process. I know you are busy moving your web site and training your protege, but maybe you know of someone else who can write an article for the project if you don’t have time. Even a word about it on your blog would be appreciated. I’m accepting volunteers for the other sections as well.

BTW, I know you are a Mac guy. I just upgraded to a 24″ iMac and am self-learning to use Keynote & Garage Band to make training videos for some of the key topics. The finished product should be pretty cool (I hope)!


Thank You!


Todd Carpenter
mariah.com

First, a disclosure; I am not an expert in loans, lenders or what they “ought to know”. But I am very comfortable in answering the question I used for the title of this post: What Do I Want In a Loan Officer? I’m not looking for one just now, because I have one who perfectly fits the description I’m about to write. How did I get her? Almost by accident, one of my Buyer Agents, Therese – who was making the transition into being one of my Listing Agents – said she had several good experiences with Kathy Rhubottom with O’Dowd Mortgage. Several “good experiences” consisted of the loans closing when they were supposed to and here is the “big one”: she was only told things that happened to be true. In the almost three years we have done business with Kathy, every deal – with two exceptions – closed on time. Both of those exceptions were title company errors, not the lenders. When Kathy said a deal was a makable deal, guess what? It actually closed.

Do I think Kathy is remarkable in her knowledge? No. I didn’t even meet her Read more

March 23, 2007

Are You Hungry?

by

Mega-Producing Realtor

Author website

Lisa Nolan writes:

I have acquired a RE license, and am contemplating entering the industry as an agent, and wondering if there is published data
anywhere on what production levels/market shares each Real Estate company holds…. I know there are many, many other factors more
important than this to take into consideration, but am curious.Thanks for any help,Lisa

There are many local companies around the country (you don’t indicate what part of the country you live in) that enjoy a huge market share – but just in that area their office is located. There are also some regional companies that are quite dominant in their part of the United States. For example, Weichert and Crye-Leike are not well known across the country, but are very well known in the areas they
do business.

HungryA relatively small company in Ft. Collins, Colorado, The Group, has the highest average sales per agent, year after year, of any company in the industry. Last I knew, their average number of sales PER AGENT was about 55 deals per year. They have a waiting list to get in and charge a $10,000 (non-refundable) deposit just to join. Their 55 sales per year, per agent, is very high. Coldwell Banker, for example has about 11.5 average sales per year, per agent.

Some companies, Help-U-Sell, for example, don’t promote their individual agent’s stats, working to create a uniform experience for the consumer, regardless of which agent or which office they select.

The number one national company for sales per agent is Re/Max. I remember when they were proud of that number being 23 transactions per year. It got as high as 32 sales per year per agent. I don’t know what it is just now – but would guess it is in the high 20’s. Re/Max has the very best agent to agent referral network in the industry. At one time agents were joining Re/Max by the tens of thousands thinking that being with that company would guarantee them success. When Keller-Williams really started to take off in the agent growth department – they managed to recruit thousands and thousands of agents away from Re/Max – Read more

March 22, 2007

Zip gets 20 Million LESS than “zip” and they are happy about it

by

Mega-Producing Realtor

Author website

Happiness Is A Warm Gun

I swear I am not trying to pick on Zip Realty but I just couldn’t pass this one up. I saw this on Inman News. From a press release – and I quote:Money Gun

Real estate brokerage company ZipRealty Inc. today announced a net loss of $20.2 million in fourth-quarter 2006, or 96 cents per share, compared with net income of $17.9 million, or 73 cents per diluted share, in fourth-quarter 2005.

For the year ended Dec. 31, 2006, ZipRealty reported a net loss of $20.6 million, compared with net income of $20.5 million for the full year in 2005.

“We are pleased with our fourth-quarter results, which exceeded expectations in terms of revenue and profitability,” ZipRealty CEO Richard Sommer said in a statement.

They LOST 20 MILLION DOLLARS in last three months of the year and they are pleased with the results. Well, if they’re happy about it, then I’m happy for them.

March 22, 2007

How are you gonna bind ’em down to a listing contract when Iggy’s doing your deal for free?

by

Suburban Phoenix Real Estate Broker

Author website

Should we say goodbye to the half-assed listing? Mike Price:

Today Buyside has announced an ABA, (affiliated business arrangement) whereby any homeowner can list a home in the MLS free of charge. It’s called IggysHouse.Com. Interesting branding, I couldn’t find anything on their site that explained the moniker. Could be they just got tired of searching for decent real estate domains, there aren’t too many left out there.

I went and looked for myself. Here is the Iggy coverage area:

Dark green states: Now. Light green states: Soon.

The site sells yard signs, lock boxes and forms, but not at huge premiums. I’m not going to fill out a listing to find out what happens, but my guess is that the end-user is doing every bit of the work for the MLS entry and the supplemental Do-It-Yourself web page with additional photos.

The Iggy people are promising listings on Realtor.com as well. As we have learned, Realtor.com listings do a lot better when they have virtual tours, so Mike might offer to make a video podcast at an extra cost, using PBS-style pan and scan video from the user-supplied photos.

Does this matter? In the age of the $99 listing, probably not so much. I truly don’t understand why there are any FSBOs left in the marketplace. If this doesn’t eat up the few holdouts, I’ll be amazed.

Interestingly, IggysHouse is evidently owned by BuySideRealty.com, which, apparently, hopes that, by giving away 100% of the listing commission it can cling to a whopping 25% of the buyer’s agent’s commission.

Are they daft?! No — they’re lenders. BuySideRealty is a lead-generation scheme that uses the real estate side of the transaction to rope in mortgage borrowers. And how much do lenders make? Just as much as they want to…

This is really quite a bit smarter than Redfin.com. They exploit the de facto “commons” in the traditional commission split, taking the buyer’s agent’s fee without doing the buyer’s agent’s job. BuySide is operating real estate brokerages as a loss-leader, to generate mortgage business.

Of the two, BuySide’s is the business model more likely to make a profit, if only because it has Read more

March 20, 2007

Another Sad Tale Of Another Unrepresented Buyer

by

Associate Broker

Author website

Bad things happen to good people

I received a call this weekend from a past client – on behalf of a friend who bought a home last summer, but who can no longer afford it.

The only thing you can be certain of in life – is uncertainty

This lady – we’ll call her Julie – was renting a home with a married couple as room-mates. They all got along well, so when the landlord decided to sell the property – Julie stepped up to be the buyer. With her room-mates kicking in each month, the payment was no problem.

Although I had never met Julie, she knew of me. My client always brags to his friends about what a great deal I got him on his house – and how he is eternally grateful to me. But when she told her landlord that she wanted to use a Realtor – he told her that if she brought a Realtor into this, he would not sell her the house.

Well, she liked the house… and didn’t want to move… so she proceeded without the assistance or representation of a buyer’s agent.

The sale closed last August for $175,000 and Julie was officially a homeowner for the first time. I am sure she was very proud and pleased with herself and her accomplishment.

But there’s always calm before the storm

The room-mates developed marital problems that were quickly resolved by the wife moving out – followed by a speedy divorce.

Then the remaining room-mate was diagnosed with an inoperable brain tumor and, at this point in time, is not expected to survive his current stay in the hospital.

Julie had been out of work for a while – and was looking forward to working in the restaurant that her room-mate was planning to open… prior to the divorce and brain tumor. Now she had no money left – behind on mortgage payments – and getting ready to start a new job that won’t come close to earning her enough money to keep the house. She needed out – and quick.

Most of us Realtors take on charity cases. We don’t advertise that we Read more

March 20, 2007

Days On Market? It is a stupid question and a stupid answer

by

Mega-Producing Realtor

Author website

The obsession to keep the Days On Market (DOM) “accurate” is just one example of a misevaluation of relative importances. Our local MLS, Arizona Regional Multiple Listing Service (ARMLS) fixed up the system so it would show the “true days on market”. If a property had been listed before then the Cumulative Days On Market would show up on a one-line printing of listings and on a full print-out. The agent days on market is also shown, but each and every listing shows the “cumulative” DOM and one can even do a search of the MLS based on the DOM. Any days on market with another company or another agents in the past 90 days shows up in the cumulative number (CDOM). This fabulous benefit to “tranparancy” is now common in many Realtor multiple listing systems around the country. There are articles in the press about how agents have “tricked” the buying public by canceling and listing the same house again, giving it a new MLS number – and thus resetting the DOM number to zero.

Setting aside that I am a listing agent and the fact that the seller ultimately pays the commission that the buyer agent collects (in Arizona, the listing agent pays it, with money he or she has collected from the seller) – why do I think CDOM is retarded?

First, I have never seen an MLS data base that shows all the price reductions and when they occurred. If the price reduction was substantial isn’t it really a “different listing”? Before you answer that it is the same house but at a lower price (which is true), isn’t it then a different listing? If an agent with no backbone takes a listing at 500k that should have been listed at 400k (quite common in our current market) how is it “fair” to penalize the seller for having his house on the market for 90 days at 500k? When I later take that same house and list it for 400k the first day I have it on the market the CDOM would show 91 days. It would look to Read more

March 15, 2007

Business Models — Business Plans — Facing Transitional Challenges

by

Real Estate Investments Broker

Author website

Way over here in San Diego our business model has been simple: We always keep in mind we’re the professionals our clients are looking to for solid, winning, advice. We leave nothing for our clients to do for themselves if we or our associates can do it better. Our clients are family — for life. If they prefer, they can execute a tax deferred exchange involving two states and never leave their own living room.
Our business plan on the other hand has been battered in the last few years by outside forces totally out of our control. Although Purposeful Planning is still the V-12 engine driving the plan, the marketing arm has taken a severe hit in the last few years.

What’s driven the growth of the company has been the ability to market directly to potential clients through highly targeted mailings. Our letters are rich in content, having more detail and humor than our competitors. When we’ve surveyed clients and prospects alike they’ve all agreed they responded to our letters because they seemed more real to them.

So what’s the problem?

All the cold calling in all the industries combined resulted in the no-call legislation. This led to many of them turning to, you guessed it, sending letters. This meant our letters were getting lost in the pile of dung they were receiving daily. We simply got lost in the shuffle. How bad was it? Before the new law, it wasn’t uncommon to generate more than 30 phone calls from a 3,000 piece mailing. Twice as much as marketing folks will tell you is better than average. About two years ago we sent out a 16,000 piece mailing and received not one phone call.

By the way, deep breathing really does help keep you calm. 🙂

We employed our own concept of Purposeful Planning as we searched for a solution. So for the last 28 months or so, we’ve been focused like a laser beam, searching for a new marketing approach. Can’t cold call, mailing is pretty much dead, and postcards are the only thing we’ve seen that can generate less than a 0% response. Read more

March 8, 2007

What Keeps Some Of Us Going — Making A Difference

by

Real Estate Investments Broker

Author website

Yesterday afternoon I had a meeting with a client for the purpose of updating her Plan. ‘Stella’ was referred to me by her sister, and they’re both among my favorites. Since we both lived in the East County, and so she could avoid rush hour traffic, we met at a Starbucks in La Mesa.

Turns out she had some pretty cool news of her own.

She’d become engaged. She was practically vibrating with anticipatory excitement. “I won’t be needing that San Diego duplex for the future any more! When the school year is over, (she’s a teacher) I’m headed to Alaska until his job there is completed, then we’re going to Hawaii to live.” She was euphoric.
Talk about a slight change in plans.

This was a great development because now she could take all the money generated by the first round of her Plan and get it growing. Her capital, around $150K after taking out $50K for a Sominex account, will make her at least $50K in the first year alone. As I was telling her what she needed to do in preparation for this new round, she was jazzed. It was contagious.

I began to have one of those moments I live for. It’s when you are reminded that what we do for a living changes lives in such an efficacious way. How that makes me feel can only be described as a tremendous high. It’s the biggest paycheck I ever receive. The excited look on Stella’s face is priceless.

She’s no longer acting as a client but as a friend with great news. It’s a shared moment of unfettered giddiess for both of us. Everything is coming together in such a rewarding way for her. She realizes and appreciates her life is at an undeniably positive pivot point.

Meetings like that are why I still get charged up after almost four decades. That natural high never gets old. It comes from being allowed to make a difference, and it’s a consistently humbling experience.

February 26, 2007

Why The Traditional Real Estate Model Is Fading Away

by

Real Estate Investments Broker

Author website

Kris Berg and Brian Brady inspired me to add my eye witness experience to the subject of the traditional real estate company business model. Their recent posts on the subject were excellent as usual.

I’ve seen real estate from the inside since 1967. I was able to follow the owner of the most successful agency in San Diego at will. He answered any question I ever asked as fully and candidly as he could. It was an amazing learning experience for a teenager. Four straight years this guy closed more than 1,000 sides a year. And he did it with a maximum of 28 full timers and usually less than a dozen part timers.

If he did that now, he’d be making over $15Mil a year in gross commissions before paying his team. Oh yeah, his team. This broker never made less than 40% on any transaction. If you as one of his agents listed a home exclusively you were paid 20% of the listing side of the deal. If you sold the property you made 40% of the selling side. Back in those days a large minority of the listings weren’t exclusive right. Many were either open listings or what we called ‘agency’ listings back then. Opens only received 10% of the listing side, exclusive agency listings got 15%.

This meant that much of the time this broker made 45-50% of the gross commission. Today an average agent at a ‘commission split’ office makes 70-80% of the office’s commission. And the so called top producers are paid 90%. Is it a mystery that the desk rental model came into being? At least if they could hire enough bodies the broker/owners could, by sheer numbers, turn a profit. In some cities I’ve seen operations using this ‘desk rental’ model that employed literally hundreds of agents.

Just how the large firms clinging to the traditional model stay in business is a mystery to me. They’re operating with even higher expenses per square foot than brokers did 30 years ago, and getting a much smaller slice of the pie to boot. For awhile they stalled Read more

January 16, 2007

NAR & DOJ – Russ & Russell Part 2

by

Mega-Producing Realtor

Author website

Russ Cofano responded:

Russell,

I appreciate the opportunity to chat with you on this subject.

First, my comments should not be taken to mean that I support the DOJ’s position and hope that they win. Nor do I necessarily support the NAR position with its rulemaking. As I have said before, I do support innovation and think that brokers need to spend more time finding new ways to deliver value to consumers.

Second, let’s define a couple of terms.

“Broker” means any person or firm that has been licensed as a real estate broker under applicable state law.

“Traditional Broker” means a Broker who either directly or through agents, actually assists buyers and seller with buying or selling a home.

Third, this is a VERY long post and I apologize in advance as I usually don’t like posts of this length. Proceed with caution and a good cup of coffee…. )

Regarding the definition of MLS Participant, you said:

“And that is the most logical definition possible under the circumstances. It is important to keep in mind what the MLS actually IS – a communication system set up by brokers for offering and accepting offers of compensation…..to fail to define a real estate broker (the only people ever originally intended to have access to the MLS) any other way than someone who is actively working with buyers and sellers makes no sense.”

Here is the problem from the DOJ’s perspective. Before this rule change, a licensed Broker could join the MLS and open up a store front with no intent of helping a seller sell or a buyer buy. They could call it “Referral Realty” and have full access to the MLS database for purposes of cultivating potential buyers to refer on to “traditional” brokers in exchange for a referral fee. This is allowed by most state license laws. In fact, this type of situation occurs today in some areas where retiring licensee hang their licenses with a Broker in hopes of leveraging their referral base despite having no intent to actually assist a buyer or seller. The problem with this business model is that the referral business Read more

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