Archives (page 109 of 372)

October 22, 2009

Atlas Twitched?

by Scott Cowan

Realtor, Newlywed

In effort to stem public outcry the government today announced that they were limiting the salaries of the top 175 executives for companies that have received federal bailout money.

Will this be the event that causes the best and brightest our country has to stop being exactly what we need in this time of economic strife? Will the best and brightest stay with the companies that so need their talents for a fraction of what they could earn on the free market OR will they do what capitalists have done previously? Will they leave for bigger paydays and more options to earn what the market will bear? I am betting that the majority will follow the opportunities that present themselves in the form of job offers from companies that are in better financial shape and can offer a better financial package. Perhaps one without government run healthcare too. The companies that are in trouble will be forced to struggle with 2^nd tier talent to help guide them through the upcoming months. I also predict that we might see a company fail as a direct result of this short sighted action.

This to me seems like the first step towards the very thing that Ayn Rand described in Atlas Shrugged. The thought that this might actually become something other than a work of fiction scares me. What will be next? Will I have to share my commissions with agents who are not working because I am making too much money (A guy can dream now right?) Will our countries talent be wooed by other countries that need our intellectual capital to continue to grow?

While it is disheartening to see reports that the bailout money was used on executive pay and bonuses it is even more troubling to see that our government has decided to step in and force businesses to act and think like government agencies.

Today is a very sad day for the cornerstone of America our capitalistic system.

October 22, 2009

Driveby Economics – $8,000 Price Cut?

by Tom Vanderwell

Mortgage Officer

I had coffee yesterday with a long time friend of mine who works for a local title company. We were talking about a variety of things, including some of the new stuff I’m working on on the web.

The topic came around to the $8,000 First Time Home Buyer Tax Credit. He said to me that he’s had 3 different Realtors tell him that on December 1, the value of all of their listings is going to drop by $8,000 each.

Let me say that again, on December 1, each of the houses that they have listed is going to drop in value by $8,000. Why’s that? Because the first time buyer credit is going away.

Now let’s look at a couple of things (according to this story):

It’s called a FIRST TIME HOME BUYER tax credit.
According to these Realtors, it has inflated (or kept up) the prices of homes by $8,000. So does the buyer benefit or does the seller?
Somewhere less than 50% (according to the last stats I’ve heard) of the buyers qualify for the tax credit.
But 100% of the buyers are paying paying $8,000 more.
And the government is paying $43,000 for every additional sale we’re getting.

Now, do you really think that it’s such a good idea any more?

Oh, and in reality, the prices of the homes aren’t going to wait until December 1 to drop. Realistically, if you haven’t signed a purchase agreement by Halloween, it’s going to be very difficult (but not impossible) to get the deal closed by the end of November.

All is not as simple as it seems.

Tom Vanderwell
Technorati Tags: $8, 000, First Time Home Buyer Tax Credit

October 22, 2009

Twitter Inks Deals with Microsoft and Google

by Eric Blackwell

The Real Estate Group, Virginia Beach and Chesapeake VA

For those Twitterites out there, yesterday was a very good day. Twitter announced two (count ’em) deals, one with Microsoft to have Tweets appear on Bing’s results. The second one was roughly similar with Google.

What does it all mean?

To me it means the following…

If you think tweetspam was bad before, watch out now…it’s gonna get worse. Think tweeting listings was bad before? grin

The big winner is Twitter. Seriously. It is like if the iPhone cut deals simultaneously with AT&T and Verizon instead of just At&T.

From here I am interested in your thoughts. What do you think it means. Please comment and discuss.

October 21, 2009

Selling is fun! And fundamental too!

by Damon Chetson

Raleigh Criminal Lawyer

For the real estate agents among us, well you guys are used to selling things. I think the act of selling is undervalued in our culture. When you sell something, you are convincing another person that, whether it’s your service or a house, that you have something of value, and that they should part with some of their hard earned cash to pay for it.

There’s something very honorable about the exchange. No one puts a gun to anyone’s head. No one takes by force. One human being is convinced or persuaded that, yes, that home, or that real estate agent’s services are worth the price asked. And a deal happens.

For all of my life, I’ve been a salaried employee. A guy who worked in an office and was paid for his work. And that’s fine too.

But let me tell you, that when I made my first “sale” this week – meaning, a human being hired me as a lawyer to represent him on a matter – there was something particularly exhilarating about it. Of course, it’s going to take a few more clients like this to hire me, but, with my private practice barely three weeks old, and a bunch of leads in the pipeline, it’s pretty nice to make a sale.

So let me say, to all you real estate agents who have been selling homes to live in for all these years, why didn’t you tell me earlier how fun it could be to sell something to someone, and to add value to their lives.

October 20, 2009

Transactions Vs. Having a Business

by Chris Johnson

Instigator, anthill kicker.

Getting obsessed with delivering good customer service has become more and more a focus of what I’m doing. I’d rate myself a 3 on a scale of one to ten, but before June, I was a -2. So there’s that, at least. My goal is to get to a “5” by the end of the year.

Customer service is the difference between “doing transactions” and “having a business.” Creating a process that honors the customer’s intent is our job, and figuring out a way to do it within the human constraints of bandwidth and knowledge is not easy. But doing it is rewarding, both in the “artistic” sense and in the monetary sense.

Getting honest feedback is hard, too. People don’t want to identify what you can do better, and our own egos create a situation where we justify our failures. Perception of the customer is reality, and when we wanna break the stereotype of the entitled and mediocre Realtor (in my case, consultant), we have to fix what’s broken. We have to be committed to the outcome of good service, and good perceived service.

They are both important. When my wife was at Dominion homes, the customers there were all given a survey. The managers would do whatever possible to let the customers know that “yes” was the only real answer. Dominion was deprived of feedback because of the perverse incentives of the bonus program they created. People were flat out told that they’d get $100 cash if they brought the survey back for the manager to fill out. Attaboys were really what they were after.

Not “how can we–as a company–get way better.”

They assumed that they had achieved operational perfection. They had not. I have not achieved operational perfection yet (though I’m far closer now). I want to know where I’m weak, and where I’m perceived to be weak. Where the communication is chunky and commitments are unmet.

This is the core difference between doing deals and having a business. Finding a way to get actionable information. Hearing feedback.

My customer service survey that goes out says this:

I want to be the best ever. I Read more

October 20, 2009

Real Estate Sales Transactions In Phoenix

by Ryan Hartman

Retechulous...

I don’t know if the local board in Phoenix allows agents to display recent sales transactions via idx feed, but it seems to me from talking to others around the land that most boards don’t.

Doesn’t it kinda sting that Trulia can display this info, but Realtor folk can’t?

Or can they?

How To Display Real Estate Transactions On Your WordPress Site Via Trulia’s Pretty Up To Date RSS Feed

1. Install and activate the “EXEC PHP” plugin
2. Do A General Property Search For Any Area On Trulia.
3. Click the “Recently Sold” Tab
4. Once the results are up, click on the link for more details on the first property.
5. When the info shows up, click “back.” – [This is key! 🙂 ]
6. Now there will be an RSS feed link at the very top right of the page.
7. Click On It, Then Grap The RSS Link That Pops Up Slightly Lower To The Left
7. Insert the RSS feed into the code below within a blog post, where indicated by “PUT YOUR JUICY SALES TRANSACTION FEED URL HERE”

< ?php // Get RSS Feed(s) include_once(ABSPATH . WPINC . '/rss.php'); $rss = fetch_rss('PUTYOURJUICYSALESTRANSACTIONFEEDURLHERE'); $maxitems = 30; $items = array_slice($rss->items, 0, $maxitems);
?>

< ?php foreach ( $items as $item ) : ?>

< ?php echo $item['title']; ?>

< ?php endforeach; ?>

Phoenix Real Estate Sales Transactions

What you’re seeing below is actually a screen capture of the transactions on my own site… didn’t want to mess with plugins/php over here at bhb (or cause other trouble for ma and pop.)

Which leads to the point of all this. Can you see adding pages upon pages of dynamic content to your site using this little trick? Or is this content theft? Does Trulia own the data? Does your local board?

October 20, 2009