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April 7, 2009

Please Get Out of My Face(book)

by

Database Marketing Expert

Author website

Part of my core schtick at Top of Mind is to ask my prospects two critical questions about email marketing:

1)  Why are so many companies leveraging email as their primary vehicle for communicating with clients and prospects?

Two reasons – email is cheap and email is easy.

2)  Why are you getting 200+ emails in your inbox every day?

Exactly.  Cheap and easy creates a low barrier to entry… and a low barrier to entry creates clutter.  Clutter is a marketer’s worst enemy.  Bad news folks – Facebook is cheap and easy too.

I’m very fortunate to have some groovy friends in the mortgage industry – and after my Facebook Webinar with Brian Brady, I made even more of them.  Now I’m getting my new friends’ updates and:

75% of the time they’re telling me it’s time to refinance, locking loans or boring me with industry vernacular I don’t understand.

20% of the time they’re giving me a play by play on what they’re eating, what color tie they’re wearing or something else I really don’t care about

Okay, so now we’ve identified the problem.  Next step is fixing it.  Here are some best practices I’ve seen and a few I haven’t.

1)  Keep an eye on your frequency. Here’s a general rule of thumb: the more compelling and fresh your status updates are, the more frequency you can get away with.  I think the sweet spot is 3 updates a week so long as they can pass the next test…

2)  Before updating your status, ask yourself if anyone really cares. How many of your 250 friends care that you’re getting ready for bed?  For me, that’s the equivalent of tuning into MIX 96 FM and hearing “I’ll Tumble For Ya” by Culture Club.  I’m flailing like a maniac for the next station even if it causes a 57-car pile up.  If I hear enough Culture Club on MIX 96, they’re off my speed dial FOREVER.  Same goes for my Facebook pals.  Sorry, just keepin’ it real.

3)  Have a strong take on something topical – politics, current events, sports, etc. You don’t have to tell your friends that you’re Read more

April 6, 2009

Hello, Wisconsin! Introducing Jolenta Averill

by

Suburban Phoenix Real Estate Broker

Author website

I went questing last week for a Realtor in Madison. I heard from precisely two people. One was a paranoid dinosaur who was convinced a free referral must be a scam. The other is a star in the making, I think.

I don’t know yet if she’s a good fit for my budding real estate investor friend, but I was so knocked out by the seriousness of her commitment to real estate that I asked her to join us here.

So: Permit me to introduce Jolenta Averill, an independent real estate broker from Madison, Wisconsin:

Jolenta Averill is a Realtor and independent broker servicing South Central WI. With a background in trading floor technology and customer service, she’s building a boutique cyber brokerage in Madison WI to help free agents from the chains of big box brokers.

Jolenta is convinced we’re smart and amazingly great writers, so I hope y’all can let her down slowly. Meanwhile, make her feel welcome and we can all watch he star ascend into the heavens.

April 6, 2009

Don’t vook now, but Brad Inman has invented The Undead Pool

by

Suburban Phoenix Real Estate Broker

Author website

The New York Times:

Plenty of authors dream of writing the great American novel.

Bradley Inman wants to create great fiction, dramatic online video and compelling Twitter stream — and then roll them all into a multimedia hybrid that is tailored to the rapidly growing number of digital reading devices.

Mr. Inman, a successful Silicon Valley entrepreneur, calls this digital amalgam a “Vook,” (vook.tv) and the fledgling company he has created with that name just might represent a possible future for the beleaguered book industry.

There is so much wrong with this idea — and I realize that the Times never gets anything right — that I can only think of two words in response:

Market research.

Print is dead. The book as a transmission medium, with or without print, is dead. Marrying books to video makes great sense — for comic books: DC, Marvel and the entire graphic novel business have never had things better. Adding video to actual books is just dumb. And blending “social media” into the batter is just twitter-brained echo-chamber cargo-cultism.

Here’s the real deal, and the talisman that reveals that Brad Inman is anything but a successful Silicon Valley entrepreneur:

The chokepoint is dead.

Every dinosaur in the land is thrashing about, looking for a way to create a mass-media product that can be locked behind a paywall, thus to force the punters to cough up the dough like they always have in the past.

Welcome to our world, Brad, which you quite clearly have never understood.

I do want to give Inman credit for a new invention, though. The “vook” (yikes!) is not dead on arrival. It’s dead before arrival. It stalks the night, a zombie of the mind, with its only reality, perhaps, being an unfinished web site and a gushing article in the notoriously useless New York Times. But this is not for naught. The “vook” will never live, but Brad Inman has inadvertently created a new category of hi-tech start-ups: The Undead Pool.

April 5, 2009

End of Daze

by

Chicago Broker Owner Realtor | RE 2.0 Blogger

Author website

2542_54709363669_669028669_1333750_5640720_s2 As winters go, the current capricious season has been as tolerable as any I’ve experienced sober since being administratively abandoned here 14 years ago against my will.  So what if I left a smarmy sales vice president waiting (with 45 life insurance presentation kits and a slide projector) in Baggage Claim 7 at O’ Hare International for an ‘inexcusable amount of hours’ on a cold March morning  back in 1990-whatever.  Big whoop. I figure the suited puppet is corporate milk toast by now anyway so I have  no regrets in that regard. A year and a half later I had my real estate license and thirty days after that, I sold my first multi-unit building for condo conversion. ‘God forbid’  the ass clown would ever think to spring for a cab. Thinking back on it now, that’s what he  most likely had to do.  I just don’t recall it being mentioned in my Fed Exed severance package that so quickly followed.

And what I’ve concluded since that liberating (if not sentimental) six-figure parting of  the ways is this: If ever there was a super-imposed bordered, semi-landlocked example of urban, bi-polar personality disorder just waiting to spit in the face of cabin fever, it exists in  my fair city, Chicago, between the months of November and April, pick a year.  And, as is the case of  so many frost-bound salesmen who have come and gone before me, my own personal demons continue to appear in a variety of veneers (with mere weather and  spirited drink being the least seductive of my temptresses anymore).

My final hours in corporate America began to un-tick in the following way one blustery weekend a millennium or so ago. I had been sitting on the same Viagra Triangle bar stool since Saturday morning when Last Call was finally announced.  I allegedly paid another unwilling patron to help me locate my car and drive me home. When I hit the pillow and cold crashed on the bed hours later it was the break of daylight the following Sunday. I needed to be out the door in exactly 24 hours Read more

April 3, 2009

SEO Homework for BHB Unchained

by

The Real Estate Group, Virginia Beach and Chesapeake VA

Author website

OK, so I bet you were wondering what you needed to bring and what homework you needed to do before coming to the SEO portion of Bloodhound Blog Unchained.

Well, whether you are coming for the basics of SEO, or the more advanced stuff, the requirements are pretty similar:

PREREQUISITE: Please download the google basic search engine optimization guide. Read it. Study it. Be prepared to ask me questions about it. It is VERY basic and there is much to add, but Google did a GREAT job of explaining the barebones. (They were more tired than I was, if that’s possible, of the misinformation that is out there). I will assume at the start of our lecture and lab that you have already completed this.

1. Have Firefox loaded on your computer. No Internet Explorer. No Safari. No if’s, and’s or but’s, candy or nuts. (You can certainly have those browsers on your computer as well…but you won’t be using them with me.)

2. Have access to your analytics of your site. I don’t really care what kind of analytics you have, we just need to be able to look at them to help you improve. (Advanced class…we are gonna hit these HARD).

3. As well, please have the following numbers ready. #1) the # of deals that came DIRECTLY from your website / blog #2) The # of leads (define that how you will-don’t get hung up on it.) that you received from your site in the past year #3) The number of hours you spent this last year doing online marketing, blogging, social media, etc. (Yes, Virginia! I want you to put a NUMBER to it 😉 ). (HINT: We are going to take ROI into account the Bawld Guy way..counting the skins.)

4. Please write down every question that you have ever had about Search Engine Marketing. Seriously. Write them all down over the next month as you think of them.

I am REALLY looking forward to learning and sharing in Phoenix. I have been waiting for months to get back into the same room with Brian Brady, Greg, Sean, Teri Read more

April 2, 2009

The Eight Hour Day

by

Real Estate Investments Broker

Author website

Some on these pages, me included, offer various methods, systems if you prefer, to produce a larger and more reliable income in the real estate business. I have my way, others have theirs. The smart ones literally couldn’t care less how the other guy does it as long as the cat skins keep showin’ up on the wall. Oh, they may care enough to adopt others’ techniques, making it their own, but in the end, they care about puttin’ smiles on the faces of their wives and bankers. A lesson I learned from Grandma long ago — one of the most reliable gages of how well you’re doing at any given time is if both your banker and your wife are consistently happy to see you coming.

Let’s skip the M.O. today, and talk more on how your work week is really playing out. There it is, the room is now so quiet, you can’t hear yourself think above the din of the crickets. I’ve given, heard, made fun of, been shamed by, and shaken my head at the explanations given for so called ‘work weeks’ a myriad times.

It’s Thursday as I publish this, so it might be Friday or the weekend as you read it. Look back over your week, and honestly assess how many hours you spent ‘working’ for which you wouldn’t be embarrassed to charge more than $10. It’s my contention most full time real estate agents haven’t worked eight hours in one day doing what Dad used to call ‘actual productive, billable work’. One night at dinner he bluntly declared that the next time I work 40 billable hours in one work week would be the first. Ouch.

What agents do to avoid real nuts and bolts work need not be listed in detail here. I know what you do, because I did it. Constantly getting ready, getting ready to get ready, preparing, waiting for information, setting this or that new project up, blah blah blah. I’m convinced most never fully realize how much their words come out sounding like, ‘My dog ate my Read more

April 2, 2009

I need software advice for BloodhoundBlog Unchained

by

Suburban Phoenix Real Estate Broker

Author website

We’re getting ready to start handing out homework assignments for the folks coming to BloodhoundBlog Unchained in Phoenix.

As has been noted, my piece of the program will entail doing hard-headed stuff at the server level.

To do that work, students will need a web browser, which everyone has, but they’ll also need an FTP client and a text editor — ideally a true programmer’s editor.

I live in the Macintosh world. I’ve been using Fetch for FTP and various editions of BBEdit for text editing since the mid-1980s.

But, obviously, most of the folks coming to Unchained will be running Windows — as will I, for that matter, since I don’t have a Mac laptop.

So: I need advice.

What’s a Windows FTP client worth having? I don’t need security, but the ability to open multiple sessions in multiple windows would be great. Right now I use FileZilla and mostly hate it.

And what’s a worthwhile programmer’s editor? I haven’t looked at eMacs in years, but I remember not loving it much back when DOS was still the boss.

Price range? I’d love free, but cheap is not the end of the world. Flexibility and ease of use matter, too.

So guide me. What should I be looking at?

April 2, 2009

Should Blogs Enjoy the Same First Amendment Rights as Traditional Press?

by

Database Marketing Expert

Author website

Aaron Krowne, Founder of the Mortgage Lender Implode-o-Meter, posted the following article yesterday.

New Hampshire Judge Orders ML-Implode To Divulge Identities of Anonymous Posters

Questions:

1)  Should blogs/consumer advocacy websites enjoy the same First Amendment protections as traditional press?

2)  Does Justice McHugh’s decision disturb you as much as it disturbs me?

3)  On the other hand, how is a company like The Mortgage Specialists  (innocent until proven otherwise) protected against an insider leaking confidential documents, the validity of which is yet to be substantiated?

I am a proponent of the ML-Implode-O-Meter and a believer in Aaron Krowne.  So I’m afraid I could be biased here.  However, if you share my opinion regarding the sanctity of the First Amendment:

a)  Aaron has created a few advocacy groups on Facebook so please look him up if interested.

b)  Here’s a list of volunteers helping Aaron.

Perhaps Aaron himself puts it best:

“If the order stands, a flood of similar lawsuits filed by corporations against ‘whistleblower’ and consumer advocacy web sites could appear across the country”

More negative coverage of “The Mortgage Specialists” can be found here.  I actually called them prior to publishing this article – fully expecting for the phones to be disconnected.  Instead, my call was taken on the first ring.  During our 2-minute conversation, the TMS employee told me that “all that had been taken care of”, it was a “compliance issue, not fraud”, and that the guilty parties were no longer with the company.

April 1, 2009

You’re Unique – Just Like Everyone Else

by

Realtor, Rabble-Rouser

Author website

What makes you unique?  I’m not referring to your eleventh toe or your ability to recite the Arabic alphabet backwards.  That’s not unique – that’s plain odd.

Why do clients want to work with you?  What makes you better than the rest of the pack?  I ask this question based upon the comments I received in my last past.

Simply because you may rank first or second in a Google search does not make you unique – it makes you visible.   Now that you’re visible, what is the value you bring to the table?

I did a search on an address of a property I’ve listed, sadden to see that my SEO wizardry had failed me – Trulia and a whole host of other sites beat me to the punch – but honestly, I don’t care.  My client’s property is well represented in cyberspace.  It’s visible.  But visibility is not value in and of itself.

Now – say you use the fact that you rank first, maybe second on the list of the Google search you ran, specifically on the property’s address – or maybe even on the property’s characteristics – terrific!

But wait – as a consumer, I see your site and perhaps Trulia, Redfin or another local broker’s site with the same property – and a slew of other sites with the same information.  It’s visible but it is not specifically clear to me as a consumer why I would choose your site versus another.  Perhaps I choose your link because it’s first on the list.  Not a bad choice, but it was relatively arbitrary – it ranked first – not necessarily best.

If you’re marketing yourself as the best professional to sell a client’s home because you own the ranking of their property in a search result, you’re kidding your client – but mostly, you’re kidding yourself.

Greg Swann nailed the value proposition as to why high visibility on the web is a key differentiator:  he’s visible – but he also sells his clients’ listings in less time than comparable properties in his market.  Like almost 50% less.

Your high visibility facilitates your ability to sell Read more

April 1, 2009

An Open Letter of Apology to Chaz Berman

by

Database Marketing Expert

Author website

Ten years ago, as Director of National Accounts for MyPoints.com,  I found myself smack dab in the middle of an eerily similar boom-to-bust cycle we’re experiencing in real estate today.

Back then, MyPoints could do no wrong.   Advertisers were lining up to spend money with us. Investors were throwing millions of dollars our way.  We were partying like AIG executives – it was pretty sick.   Fun, but sick.

My boss at MyPoints was Chaz Berman.  During our meteoric rise, Chaz made promises that ultimately he couldn’t keep.  Promises of increased pay.  Increased responsibility.  I was on track for a VP Title and VP Bucks.  (Important note:  I was already very well compensated and had more responsibility than I could handle.)

Fast forward to 2009, the roles have reversed.  Instead of being the employee, I’m the employer.  Instead of taking directions, I’m giving them.  Here are the lessons I’ve learned from sitting on both sides of the table.

1)  Most employees are ungrateful whiners.

And looking back on my tenure with MyPoints, I was as whiny and ungrateful as anyone I’ve ever managed here at Top of Mind Networks.  Instead of focusing on what earned me promotions, money and praise in the past, I started letting some unrealistic promises made in a 180 degree different environment dictate my work ethic and my demeanor.  I took my job for granted.  I failed to realize that I was truly blessed – making a six-figure income, living in beautiful San Francisco, selling a killer product, etc.  As market conditions deteriorated, so did my attitude.  And for this, I owe MyPoints.com and especially Chaz Berman my sincere apologies.  Chaz, you were in a no-win situation and you were dealt a “Pai-Gow” of a hand.  I’m glad to see you still thriving today – you deserve it.

2)  Most employers stir the pot.

Nothing stokes the fire of negativity within a company more than a lack of transparency and communication.  In hindsight, I believe MyPoints did a poor job of setting expectations with employees – at every level of the company.  Perhaps the fact that we were a publicly traded Read more

March 31, 2009

It’s Springtime in Madison, Wisconsin. The trees are in blossom, the students are protesting — and I have a no-fee referral for an investment-savvy agent who works like a Bloodhound…

by

Suburban Phoenix Real Estate Broker

Author website

An old friend, very smart, very good with numbers, has landed in Madison, Wisconsin. He’s sitting on way too much cash, and he realizes he needs to capitalize that dough before it gets inflated away to nothing.

That much is a silver platter. Deep pockets and unlimited future earning power, a client to die for. But: He’s an attorney, non-practicing, and an MBA, also non-practicing. He can handle the truth, no matter how ugly, but you will never slide even the smallest lie past him. You need to know what you’re talking about, and you need to be able to back up what you say.

He’s living in Middleton Hills, but he’s interested in investment opportunities anywhere in the Greater Madison area. He’s never been a landlord, so he’ll need education in that regard — and it’s plausible to me that he’s a better candidate for commercial properties than for rental housing. That’s something you’ll have to work out.

What I’m looking for, in exchange for a no-fee referral, is an agent who works like a Bloodhound. If you’re willing to work hard for a serious, motivated, monied investor, give me a howl. I’ll put you and my friend in touch.

March 31, 2009

Don’t Discount Points As A Strategy To Lower Mortgage Costs

by

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

Author website

Discount fees (sometimes called “points”) are considered pre-paid interest.  Points are generally tax-deductible and are used to lower a buyer’s mortgage rate.  Most real estate agents have been taught that “points” are “padded profit” to a lender or loan originator and should be avoided at all costs.  Jeff Belonger debunked that myth yesterday; I was surprised to see the misinformed opinions being offered by the real estate agents and mortgage originators.

Today’s low interest rate environment combined with low expectation of immediate home price appreciation offers a perfect opportunity for buyers to secure a low mortgage rate by employing a strategy of “buying the rate down” through a discount fee.

Let’s look at an example, from today’s rate sheet-$400,000 purchase price, $100,000 downpayment, for a 720 credit score borrower with adequate income documentation:

RATE               DISCOUNT FEE     NET BORROWER COST

5.00%                            0                          $0

4.75%                            1%                     $3000

4.5%                              1.5%                  $4,500

The proper way to perform this analysis is to determine the expected minimum hold time for the mortgage.  Most real estate agents will agree that in this environment, transaction costs combined with low expected appreciation rates suggest that five years is the absolute minimum to hold the property.  Buyers may elect to move (and rent) the property but few agents would be so bold as to suggest that the buyer could make a profit in less than the five year time frame.

It is my opinion that refinancing the mortgage loan will be difficult and unprofitable, during those same five years because:

  • low price appreciation will limit buyers ability to “harvest home equity“
  • interest rates are at a 35-year low.
  • rapid inflation seems likely due to massive government borrowing and the Federal Reserve’s “printing money” policy of the past 8-12 months.  Inflation leads to higher mortgage rates.

Five years will be our minimum hold time for the mortgage loan then. This amortization schedule helps us determines what the lowest total costs are over five years.  Simply add the cumulative interest (at month 60) plus the discount fee to determine the total costs:

RATE      CUM. INT.   Read more

March 31, 2009

Announcing RealSearchUSA.com

by

IDX Search Entrepreneur

Author website

No, that’s not me with The Hoff and a Google Search Appliance, that’s Google’s UK Sales Mgr.		 RealSearchUSA.com will be a network of Independent brokers connected by a unique function – a natural language Real Estate search engine. Our goal is to create a true consumer benefit: A Google-inspired (and powered) natural language search experience that leads to a good, local independent broker.

The success of our network will be determined by Word of Mouth (or, more accurately, Word of Email, Word of Facebook, Word of IM, Word of Twitter…).

Here’s the thing about that: We, as the technical force behind the network, have no control over what happens after we hand a homebuyer off to a broker, but that is the part of the experience that will drive WOM for both the broker and the network.

Since we work on an exclusive territory basis to preserve the competitive advantage of a unique user experience, we need to be sure that we are working with the right brokers if we want to see that WOM, so we are being selective about who we hook up to the network.

That’s why I am announcing RealSearchUSA here on BHB: If we can network Web-smart brokers together at the Search Result level, not only would we be off to a good start, we would be taking concrete steps to strengthen the independent brokers who are poised to shake up this industry whenever a recovery gets going.

In most cases, we can place a Google-powered Real Estate Search box on an existing Web site, as we have done here for Mike DiMella at Charlesgate Realty in Boston. It is a network based on an upgrade to Search, which is the function that most Real Estate Web site users are looking for in the first place, but here is the kicker: This search function will also make you a node on a network of independent brokers like you.

Allow me to explain the node thing:

We build Real Estate Search Engines using Google’s Enterprise technology. Our goal is to provide the best Real Estate Search experience for people who like the way Read more

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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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