BloodhoundBlog

There’s always something to howl about.

Archives (page 128 of 372)

May 11, 2009

NAR + IDX = FUBAR Rules

by

IDX Search Entrepreneur

Author website

Thanks to Ryan’s earlier post, I have spent the morning digging into the NAR’s attempt to label the Google Search Engine a “scraper”.

Clearly, the intent is to stifle Realtor.com’s competition.

There is no other explanation for a rule that specifically targets SEO by dictating that we cannot put the content that consumers search for (addresses, MLS#s, the names of developments, etc.) in the places that Google looks for it (page titles, URLs, etc.), while Realtor.com continues to publish that same information in those same places.

How stupid is this? Let me count the ways:

  1. It’s legally stupid: The DOJ went after the NAR during the BUSH years and decided to settle last year. Do they really think the Obama DOJ is going to ignore such a blatantly anti-competitive (not to mention technologically indefensible) rule?Does the NAR really think the Obama DOJ would side with a cartel over the consumer when even the Bushies were like, “You know, we normally stick it to the little guy in favor of Republican donors but you guys are just ridiculous.”?

    The instant one of the boards we deal with tries to enforce this rule, I will be filing a compliant with both the FTC and the DOJ and mine will be one of many.

  2. The timing is stupid: Obviously, Real Estate is at the center of the economic storm that all Americans are weathering right now. Real Estate professionals are already distrusted (one study in the UK found that less than 10% of Britons trusted Real Estate agents).Such a ham-handed attempt to control information for their own economic benefit just feeds this perception, making the NAR (and, by extension, Realtors) an even more attractive target for the Obama DOJ.
  3. Trying to “protect” content is stupid: Ask the Recording Industry or newspapers how well clinging to an obsolete business model by “protecting” content works.Information wants to be free in a networked society. The Internet itself was built to re-route traffic around roadblocks, like a city that used to have phone lines getting nuked by the Russians.

    As roadblocks go, whatever the NAR throws up will be a joke. Ryan has already demonstrated that Read more

May 11, 2009

Making a virtue of necessity is usually an error…

by

Suburban Phoenix Real Estate Broker

Author website

Stuff like this is why I went public with our Notice of Trustee’s Sale:

Author : A concerned renter
E-mail : irquel@REDACTED.com
Stopped paying your mortgage?  BAHAHAHHAAHA!

Welcome to the hell you brought on others, you pathetic parasite. Good thing you’re a psychopath and can’t feel anything, or you’d be really bummed.

The point was to deny vicious trolls like this the opportunity to claim that, by not disclosing the foreclosure, I am therefore trying to hide it. The fact is I told them in my post Friday night — and many times before then — that their behavior is self-destructive, but that doesn’t stop them from carrying on like this. It’s sad and stupid, but it is what it is. I called them by their true names when first I met them:

My BubbleBoys are mostly gone for the moment, no doubt off like a cloud of gnats desperate to enshroud someone else’s head. The truth is, I do have a particular kind of fun at their expense, not the least of which are their pitch-perfect echoes of the charges I make against them. They were so aghast they I called them flying monkeys that they swooped in by the hundreds to express their outrage. Surely none dare call them Brownshirts, when most of what they did was rage, swear and threaten with all their minimal mental might. A certain few of them were brighter than I expected, but not one seems to have caught on that the Heckler’s Veto doesn’t work on the internet. And for all their complaints, none of them seems to have noticed that I also compared them to the Communists.

Even so, I ended up feeling sorry for them. It’s not the specious arguments repeated over and over, not the garbled grammar, not the atrocious spelling. Those are secondary consequences. What grabbed at my heart, despite myself, was the lack of internal resources that would lead a man — and they seem to be almost exclusively men — to join a gang of thugs. Surely this is not true of each one of them, but it is true in the main, in Read more

May 11, 2009

Free IDX from Realtor.Com!

by

Retechulous...

Author website

In response to the juicy IDX discussion going on over at Agent Genius, I figured I’d take a stab at misappropriating some property data featured over at Realtor.Com.

After 10 minutes, I had 100 of the latest Indianapolis properties listed for sale posted to my website and indexable by google.

Here’s a look at the results: Retechulous.com/Category/NAR-BLOWS

If you have a minute, check out the article over at AG and if you can find a way to get involved, please do so. I guess you could say this little scraping stunt is me contributing in my own obnoxious way. That, and I’m also now looking for a non-NAR Pa broker to hang my license with….

May 10, 2009

Greg Swann: Duty, Honor, Country

by

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

Author website

I wasn’t born when General MacArthur gave “the speech“, at West Point but I’ve read it a hundred times.  I delivered it as an exercise for a public speaking class in college.

Duty, Honor, Country: Those three hallowed words reverently dictate what you ought to be, what you can be, what you will be. They are your rallying points: to build courage when courage seems to fail; to regain faith when there seems to be little cause for faith; to create hope when hope becomes forlorn.

When I think of Greg Swann…my friend, my partner, my brother if you will, those three words, spoken by General MacArthur, come to mind:

Duty: If you have the good fortune to engage his services, you’ll find few real estate professionals who live the duty of “real estate advocate” like Greg Swann.  I once thought Greg’s definition of duty impractical; I was wrong.  Few real estate brokers or agents will choose Greg’s high standard of customer care.  That doesn’t make those brokers or agents immoral nor does it make Greg Swann impractical but it does define the relationship you, a buyer or seller of Arizona property, would receive should you choose to employ his brokerage.

Potential home buyers should read:

Dual Agency Smack-Down: Real estate in real life . . .

A consumer’s guide to the divorced real estate commission: Why buyers and sellers each paying for their own representation is the most significant reform that can be made today in residential real estate

Potential home sellers should read:

How single property websites promote your property in Google.

How custom-made yard signs stop traffic

Honor: Few real estate brokers wish for lesser competition for the sole purpose of raising the standard of customer care but Greg Swann does.  Greg organized three online real estate marketing conferences and is organizing one for this fall in San Diego.  Over 150 real estate and lending professionals have been introduced to a higher degree of customer care through his carefully organized curriculum.

The unbelievers will say they are but words, but a slogan, but a flamboyant phrase. Every pedant, every demagogue, every cynic, every hypocrite, every troublemaker, and Read more

May 10, 2009

A real estate recipe for success: Scripts and Luck: Practice makes prepared

by

Rust Belt Realtor

Author website

I got lucky. I know it. But being prepared means you increase your luck, right?

So I got a call yesterday about a property I was advertising. It’s a HUD home, and one thing I love about HUD homes is that any broker who is signed up to sell them is encouraged to advertise them. So I have been doing just that. And it generates calls.

I received a call about one of these properties and I threw the play book out the window and just started talking to the caller. Just talking about the property- how much work it might take, and by the way, do you understand the HUD buying process? No? Well it’s different and here’s how… And are you in front of your computer? Okay then, go to this site and where it says Ohio, click there, and by the way, my site is The Brick Ranch so you can see more photos there, and Oh! you just bookmarked my site? Great! Thanks! So here’s more information and….

Suddenly. After 10 minutes of walking the caller through the process, and pointing them here and there, educating and giving away all the information I could in that time period, it occurred to me that maybe they were working with a Realtor. D’oh.

“Are you working with a Realtor?”

“Well.”

Darnitall. I braced myself.

“We have a Realtor who is selling our house.”

Gah.

“But, ” her voice lowers, “we really aren’t happy with the job he’s doing, so we are looking for someone else to help us buy another home.”

Oh. Okay then. I remember this part of the script.

“Would you like me to email you a list of homes as they become available?”

“That would be great!!”

Perhaps the beauty of knowing scripts is that it enables you to do a better job of just being yourself.

May 10, 2009

Throwing a Virtual Rent Party

by

Real Estate Broker, Investor

Author website

While Greg and Brian are talking about “Battling Back”; Eric, Teri and I have been talking about “Throwing Parties”.  As in Rent Parties.

If you are not familiar with the term, Rent Parties flourished in Harlem in the 1920s and 1930s.  Musicians would make the rounds after their paying gigs, guests would pay a small admission fee to dance and party all night at someone’s apartment, and the host would end up with enough money to pay the landlord for another month.

Greg’s revealing personal post yesterday inspired the idea that we could throw a Rent Party online.  And. the party could boogie on 24/7/365.

To my surprise the domain name virtualrentparty.com was available.  By last night I had the bare bones foundation of the site up and running; and Teri had incredible visions of the good work that could be done.  You can see our work at http://www.virtualrentparty.com

Meanwhile, I am plumb tuckered out.  🙂

Anyone who would like to work with us on building out the content please tell us in the comments; we’re thinking everything from video dance contests, to straight talk around the kitchen table about putting your financial life together.  I will quickly and gratefully send any volunteer a login ID and password.

And yes, there are already a couple donations in the hat.  I certainly respect that you didn’t intend to induce charity, Mr. Swann, but there it is, your friends won’t leave you to face trouble alone.  If you won’t accept the funds, I bet Cathleen’s foster pet project would happily accept them, or Teri has some ideas in her community too.

May 10, 2009

Maybe the book we need is not the BloodhoundBlog book…

by

Suburban Phoenix Real Estate Broker

Author website

…but the BattleBack book…

I’m delighted by the discussions I incited today, both public and private. I can’t remember a time in my life when I’ve worked alongside so many people who inspire my undiluted admiration.

(Someday I should write a post about admiration. I see it as being the most important mental state in the future production of human values.)

But I didn’t intend to incite any conversations, and I internally debated turning off the comments in my foreclosure post. Certainly, I did not want to do anything to induce concern or pity or, god help me, charity. The first quarter paid for itself, and the second quarter is rockin’. I’m doing two and three appointments a day, plus lots of work in the office and on the phone. Refilling a pipeline takes time, and every transaction is a delicate dance right now. But lately I’ve been thinking about my first days in real estate, when I had my day divided in 90-minute segments to maximize my belly-to-belly time during the business day.

Here’s the thing: Despite the financial hole we’ve dug ourselves into, I’ve been feeling massively competent as a Realtor for the first time in my career. That might sound funny, since I’m such an arrogant prick all the time. But in our own battling back to a real estate market with a reliable supply of achievable transactions, I quietly feel myself the master — or the someday master — of all these tools I’ve been juggling these past few years.

I make the analogy of learning to drive, or learning to drive stick-shift, but lately I feel myself in that state of splendor, that flow, that I’ve always known in my work — for my whole life. I don’t mean that I felt less than adept before, because I’ve always been a very thoughtful Realtor — a Realtor very full of thought. But now it all seems kinesthetic, perfectly integrated into my bones. Not doing real estate. Being real estate.

It’s just there for me now, and I’m free enough in my mind that I can watch myself work, live inside the process Read more

May 9, 2009

The goal of the BloodhoundBlog Unchained training conference is to push the bums out of the real estate business

by

Suburban Phoenix Real Estate Broker

Author website

This from my Arizona Republic real estate column (permanent link):

We publish a national real estate industry weblog called BloodhoundBlog.com. There are 42 contributors from all over the country, each one an expert in his or her own right. Together we talk about real estate marketing and technology, lending and investment. If you want to know what Realtors and lenders really think, BloodhoundBlog is your keyhole into the industry.

The blog is all about the wired world of real estate, how the participatory internet is changing age-old paradigms of real property and mortgage marketing. When we started three years ago, the Web 2.0 idea of online interaction was still very new. By now, it’s hard to remember a time when these technologies were not ubiquitous.

BloodhoundBlog’s mission is to help Realtors and lenders keep pace with internet tools. In service of that objective, we produce an annual conference called BloodhoundBlog Unchained. Real estate professionals come from all over the country to learn how to market their services in what amounts to a post-marketing marketplace.

This year’s conference ran last week from Tuesday to Friday. We encamped in a hotel near Skyharbor Airport and worked all but continuously for 72 hours. Our world is changing so fast that we felt we had to work that hard, just to learn everything we need to know.

What’s all this to you? BloodhoundBlog is all about promoting excellence in every conceivable way. We do everything we can think of to train Realtors and lenders to provide a better-quality experience by every means attainable.

My objective, expressed baldly, is to chase the bums out of our business. Licensing purports to do this, but it has not. Trade organizations like the National Association of Realtors should do this, but they don’t. But if we can educate consumers to demand better service, better information, better representation, then the bums and the crooks will go get jobs. That’s the way free markets work, when they’re working properly.

Meanwhile, real estate professionals are just catching on to the idea that consumers can see everything we do. Drop in on BloodhoundBlog and keep an eye on us.

May 9, 2009

My own first-hand foreclosure story

by

Suburban Phoenix Real Estate Broker

Author website

On April 27th, ironically the day before BloodhoundBlog Unchained commenced, IndyMac Bank posted a Notice of Trustee’s Sale against our home. I didn’t know about this until this week, although I had known it was a possibility.

This is really nobody’s business. But as a matter of steadfast policy, I have never let anyone make a truthful statement about me that I have not first made myself. I know I tend to excite the most evil sentiments in people with evil minds, so they may want to take this opportunity to further their self-destruction. This matters to me not at all. I live my life well to the right of the zero on the number line, and the only people I deal with or care about do the same. People who pursue disvalues are of no value to themselves, nor to anyone.

But so as not to introduce this topic and then leave it unexplained, here’s what happened: For the past three years, our outflow has exceeded our inflow. This is not an unusual story in the real estate business, and we have been lucky to have enough high-paying work to at least keep us within reach of profitability. During this same time, as you have seen here, we have completely reengineered everything we think about marketing, with the ultimate test of those ideas beginning only now.

But our debt load became severe enough last year that we had to make some hard choices. I elected to take a chance on our mortgage payments, since there was a plausible threat that we might lose the house anyway. Our choice was to keep the doors open at the risk of those doors themselves. I could see an upswing in our business activity, to the extent that I expected to catch up on the mortgage by the second quarter of 2009, and to catch up on everything by the fourth quarter.

I still expect this to be the case. My one mistake was that I didn’t think IndyMac would pull the trigger this soon. I played chicken and I lost, so now, in addition to buying back Read more

May 8, 2009

Query: Should the Bloodhounds write a book?

by

Suburban Phoenix Real Estate Broker

Author website

I can’t believe I’m writing this, at this hour. My weariness from this week hasn’t had a chance to overcome my leftover weariness from last week. Sooner or later I’ll make enough money to check into a rest home!

But: Brian Brady, Richard Riccelli and I have been talking about this all week, and I thought I’d run it up the flagpole and see who salutes.

So:

Should the Bloodhounds write a book?

If so, what book should it be?

I’m the worst anti-dead-tree snob there is, but the Gary Keller books have proved that print still has legs. We want a way to get through to the 99% of agents and Realtors who have but barely dipped a toe into the Web 2.0 waters. It seems clear that we have to carry the word to them in a format they can (literally) grasp.

So how would you advise us? I know what I want, and I know what Brian wants and what Richard wants. What do you want? What would you want if you were a punter on the sidelines wondering if the topics we take up here are worth worrying about? What might you want if you were a consumer, not someone in the real estate business?

I’m interested to hear where your thoughts run.

May 8, 2009

Multiple blog hosting and your files. A Project Bloodhound inquiry for DIY WordPress publishing.

by

Realtor, Urban Jedi

Author website

I’m in need of clarity. Being mostly clueless to the concept of file management and hosting in general has led me here by way of looking to publish more then one blog.  That, and after spending far too much time with “online and phone help” with what should be a simple domain name transfer for Yahoo to Godaddy, I’m at my wits end.   Word to the wise.  If someone offers you a domain name for $1.99, don’t bite.

Here’s the deal. I have a “deluxe hosting account” with Godaddy which runs me, I think, around $6.50 a month and gives me what I need. ( I know your bluehost mediatemple whatever is better and that’s not the fix here ).  Focus.

When I started another blog, I created a new database via my SQL database and now this blog lives in a folder under the main account as well (see below).

hosting-control-center-file-manager-1

So from what I gather, with 25 databases I can run 25 different sites under this one account, right?   The databases (sites) just become sub-files of the main account.  If I’m off, just let me know.

One other thing that puzzles me (utter ignorance) is the file placement in my directory.  I was going by the intructions given to me by the help desk at Godaddy, and what you see is what I ended up with.   Could you all give me a little insight to whether this looks OK or not?

Assuming that everything is set up right so far, my next question would be, what is the advantage of opening up a separate account for a new site?  With each and every domain I purchase, I am offered a free “Economy hosting account”, which of course will not allow you to host WordPress.   To do this, I would need to open another “Deluxe hosting account”.

Any insight here would be appreciated.  I plan on helping my wife with her own site and hosting and I’m not sure if it’s a good idea to get her set up separately or just run hers with mine.

Many thanks. If I get somewhere with this, Read more

May 7, 2009

I received the Nobel Prize in Real Estate Today!

by

Realtor, Tech Connoisseur

Author website

Sorry if I’ve been a bit punchy – I think there’s a 9 hour time difference between Stockholm and Berkeley.. and those guys call on their schedule, so they woke me up in the middle of the night.  This is a picture of my neighbor Albert, and he plays a role in the story … keep reading on.

Albert Ghiorso who discovered more elements than any humanoid in the galaxy

The phone call came early this morning!

I’d heard the rumors, but was thrilled to find out that I received the 2009 Nobel Prize for Real Estate!

It was awarded for two different discoveries:

The Quantum Theory Of Home Buying and
The Heisenberg Uncertainty Principle of Real Estate

Quantum Theory
After a buyer writes an offer on a home, they either get the house… or they don’t get the house – there is no other state

Heisenberg Uncertainty Principle
The act of writing an offer on a home changes the home’s final sales price… even if you’re uncertain as to what the other offers are.

If there are multiple offers on a home, and you write a low priced offer, your probability of getting the home is very low. You affect the outcome, because someone who really wants the home will raise their bid and the home sells for a higher price!

And how does Albert Ghiorso fit into the quest for my Unified Real Estate Database Field Theory of Data Integration? He’s my inspiration.

Albert, one of our 90-something year spry neighbors, was co-discoverer of more elements than any other person in the galaxy! Albert’s Wikipedia entry lists the following elements:

* Americium ca. 1945 (element 95)
* Curium in 1944 (element 96)
* Berkelium in 1949 (element 97)
* Californium in 1950 (element 98)
* Einsteinium in 1952 (element 99)
* Fermium in 1953 (element 100)
* Mendelevium in 1955 (element 101)
* Nobelium in 1958-59 (element 102)
* Lawrencium in 1961 (element 103)
* Rutherfordium in 1969 (element 104)
* Dubnium in 1970 (element 105)
* Seaborgium in 1974 (element 106)

Cogito Ergo Blogo in Berkelium Californium Americium

Degrees Of Separation
I looked at the San Francisco Chronicle’s list of Bay Area Nobel Prize winners, and realized I was one or two degrees of separation from several…. one neighbor works with someone who won the award in Read more

May 7, 2009

The Funnel: the Leak in my Marketing Efforts!

by

Realtor, Media Mogul

Author website

Leaks and Managing the Marketing FunnelI’m not cursed with having to get things perfect.  I don’t know if the 70% solution describes me either.  My goal is the 90% or better solution with 20% or less of the effort it may take others to get there.  Tools like engenu warm me to the core!

The Unchained crowd sets a complete new standard for real estate folks I’ve been around.  I have work to do on everything after Unchained.  But, at least I know a bunch of things to do, and who to talk with if I get stuck.  I can’t think of anything more powerful than that.

So, my list includes most everything.  In no particular order, webinars, SEO, engenu sites, focused CPC advertising, social media and what is for me the most fun, the Gonzo, unforgettable marketing.

But that sales funnel management still has me flummoxed.  I don’t give much due to the “automated” touch from a system.  I’m so good at filtering that type of thing, and give it so little credit, that I know that my incredibly smart friends and clients won’t like it either.  The experience from these systems just seems so lacking.  But I won’t argue that they can work successfully for a business.  Maybe I just don’t have the discipline to sustain them properly.

For me, a funnel that integrated with something like facebook might be better.  All I might really need is a periodic reminder to say something to those I’ve forgotten to contact in awhile.  If it automatically tracked who I had been in touch with, it becomes easy to use.  Frankly, that would be a great way to make sure I’m keeping in touch with my friends as well.  Which brings me to the crux of the issue; my clients and associates are a great many of my friends.  I need a reliable approach that treats them that way.

Do I feel like I need to “touch” my clients a dozen times a year?  Maybe not if the times I do engage with them are actually meaningful, memorable or gonzo enough.

Once I get some of the other things done, I won’t be Read more

« Older posts Newer posts »

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.

Media Contacts