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December 30, 2008

The return counter — Looking AG’s Trojan Horse in the mouth: MyMarketWare works hard for the money, almost hard enough…

by

Suburban Phoenix Real Estate Broker

Author website

Continuing with my discussion of the bribe/gifts proffered to the contributors to Agent Blunderbuss, here’s a quick look at MyMarketWare.com.

I looked at this product when it was introduced and was not all that impressed. I like it better on second glance.

What is it? YASPWSS: Yet Another Single Property Web Site Solution. Like many of these services, the offering is pretty light-weight. And like seemingly all of them, it inflicts treacly music upon the end user. But, to be fair, the price for a site, hosted for a year, ain’t bad.

Keep in mind, as you read, that my frame of reference is our own engenu sites. I can do anything I want, to any level of detail or depth that I want, and I can reorganize an entire, huge web site on a whim. There is no YASPWSS on the market that is going to impress me.

MyMarketWare works to one level deep. That is, from a site’s “home” page, you go one level down, no deeper. Given that architecture, I would have loved to have seen at least the on-site links done within an iframe on the index page — pseudo AJAX.

You can link to off-site pages, which is a bonus, since it makes the sites effectively infinitely extensible.

The pages of the sites themselves are built in ASP, with a huge block of obfuscated code near the top of each one. Positioning on the pages is effected with both CSS and HTML tables, which seemed odd to me. MyMarketWare promises decent SEO from these pages, but they seemed very verbose, to my eyes.

I personally want a lot more photos than MyMarketWare makes available, and I want to be able to sort and organize them by category. The slide show software, apparently available on one page only, was fairly robust.

There are decent contact and scheduling forms, and MyMarketWare promises to feed your site’s details to various Realty.bots — which is probably also being done by other vendors you are using.

My overall rating of MyMarketWare’s demo single-property web site was “eh” but not inadequate. It does a decent job at what it does, but Read more

December 30, 2008

House Keeper

by

Chicago Broker Owner Realtor | RE 2.0 Blogger

Author website

Can a man save his face, his ass, and his house at the same time? The moral and Big Board gods claim naught.  But still, rooting through the year end financial rubble atop my desk—the economic equivalent of the Gaza Strip, I consider the question (pondering Realtor that I am).

I tally my Christmas card total while I search the mail pile for fellow holiday survivors. I uncover just three scant acknowledgements this dim Season; one from my parents with a modest check enclosed (made out to my wife, of course); one from my daughter with a nice handwritten note; and one from our missing housekeeper. The latter is a nativity scene, written in Polish, and sent to our house via Air Mail.  I’m assuming it either says ‘Merry Christmas!’ or ‘I Quit!’ We haven’t seen her in weeks. Perhaps she moved back to her motherland where she can actually make ends meet scrubbing floors. I suppose she just resigned before we had to let her go anyway. (I mean really, who can’t keep their own house clean?)

I turn back to the task at hand and continue sifting through the pulp, avoiding paper cuts, and careful to sidestep 2nd Notices from lesser, non FICO reporting insurgents; my dentist, the Chicago Tribune Classified Section, the lawn service guy who never picked up my leaves this year. I hear a mutter beneath the wrack before electronically mine-sweeping my Schwab account to stave off the more formidable creditors for yet another 40 days and nights (with Grace Period); Bank of America Mortgage, BMW Financial Services, my genius accountant.

I look again at the three lone Seasons Greetings and reflect. I haven’t physically written, licked, stamped or sent out an actual Christmas card in years—not to family, not to friends, not to clients. I’m surprised I receive anything in the mail at all, to be honest. Between Twitter, Facebook, and Harry and David, all I seem to do anymore is Text and order online. Like an iPhone crackwhore, I find myself scrolling the cyber alleys for expired listings and below market abandominiums.  It has to Read more

December 30, 2008

Social Media Webinar With Brian Brady & Jim Cronin

by

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

Author website

If you haven’t caught this message on the Real Estate Tomato, Jim Cronin and I will be hosting a social media webinar at 1PM (PST) – 2:30PM (PST), today:

Blogging ain’t enough if you want to put up big numbers on the scoreboard. I play this game to win so I’m all about scoring points.  Every day, I want to hit a grand slam, catch one in the end zone, score a hat trick, or hammer three-pointers.  I EXPECT to win, every single day, because of my social media strategy.

Five years ago, I started learning how to use social media to circumvent the pending “Do Not Call” legislation.  Since college, I always made my living on the telephone.  A typical day consisted of me rooting through my rolodex, with two-phones glued to each ear.   That damned “Do Not Call” list threatened my very existence

LinkedIn changed all that, in 2003.  I was invited to LinkedIn and found that I was the only mortgage guy in a roomful of well-earning tech folks, who owned homes.  Myspace came, in 2004.  I honed the rich demographic data to connect me with REALTORs by creating and promoting a group called MLS on Myspace.  Active Rain was a no brainer.  Facebook is the perfect combination to mix both consumer direct and professional referral platforms.

I’ll be walking, step-by-step, through the mechanics of :

1- setting up a profile on LinkedIn and Facebook

2- adding people you know to your sphere of influence on thos platforms

3- How to identify potential referral opportunities within your contacts’ contacts

4- How to engage the respective communities.

The webinar is free and has over 210 people registered.  There is room for 40 more.  If you can join us, register here.

December 29, 2008

The return counter — Looking AG’s Trojan Horse in the mouth: No mere API-ing ape, Dwellicious is a true dead-pool mash-up

by

Suburban Phoenix Real Estate Broker

Author website

O wad some Power the giftie gie us
To see oursels as ithers see us!
It wad frae monie a blunder free us,
An’ foolish notion:
What airs in dress an’ gait wad lea’e us,
An’ ev’n devotion!
        –Robert Burns, To a Louse

In a comment on AG’s bribe/gift extravaganza, I said:

And, yes, the Dwellicious campaign stunk to high heaven. It’s headed straight for the dead pool, once it actually launches. The same dumbass “idea” has already failed several times. To say anything else is absurd.

That remark turns out to be grossly unfair. Dwellicious is not all-on-its-own to the dead-pool destined, it is a mash-up and mash-note-like send-up of a vast host of future dead-pool denizens.

Here’s the pitch. People will shop at lots of different Realty.bots, see? So Dwellicious gives them an easy way to organize all the houses they are finding on these various sites. It has social-networking tools built in, since, apparently, social-networking-type homebuyers can’t even go to the bathroom without permission from their TwitterButtBuddies. Not only that, but Dwellicious taps into every available Realty.bot and social-networking API, which will possibly prove to be astounding if anyone ever accidentally uses this silly site.

I watched the Dwellicious PR campaign a few weeks ago, assuming that it had to be astroturf, but today is the first time I have paid even one second’s attention to the product itself.

It’s actually quite an instructive clusterfrolic, if there are web entrepreneurs out there who want to learn how to get just about everything wrong.

Here’s the straight dope: Dwellicious seems to have been developed by paying devout attention to the TwitWit echo chamber — without one second or one dollar being devoted to actual market research.

Premise: People will shop at lots of different Realty.bots.

This is almost certainly false. Homebuyers window-shop at sites like Trulia and Zillow. When they get serious, they move to a particular, robust and — important concepts ahead — complete and non-redundant IDX or VOW search engine.

(A subsidiary premise of the entire dead-pool-bound Realty.bot movement is the idea that some strange imaginary people might want to purchase a residence in more than one major Read more

December 29, 2008

A trolley comes to Phoenix: Tendency in reporting and why it matters

by

Suburban Phoenix Real Estate Broker

Author website

So it’s almost five days since I dropped the dime on the bribe gifts being thrust upon the contributors to AG. Has anyone publicly renounced them so far? We got to see Jay Thompson issue some tepid caveats about the gift products — from our pages, not AG’s. And we got to watch in horror as Russell Shaw imploded, which wasn’t pretty. But if anyone has actually come out and said, “Get thee behind me, Satan!” — I’m not aware of it.

Doesn’t much matter, by now. The moment is gone.

You — meaning you, the invisible reader — will react as you choose, and that is not only your business, but it’s your perfect right. But I can give you a very simple lens for understanding the issue, one that not even the chorus line of tap-dancers who showed up in our comments could manage to gainsay:

Suppose you are finally about to be interviewed by the real estate reporter from your local “City” magazine. Very big deal, very exciting, maybe your chance to break through to the target market you’ve spent a fortune trying to attract. But then you discover that the reporter has taken $2,000 in in-kind gifts from your fiercest competitor. How does that make you feel? Is it possible that the reporter is on the up and up and the gifts mean nothing? Well… yeahhhh… Is is plausible to you that you are about to be served up like a plate half full of cold leftovers? That’s what’s running through your head, isn’t it? Taking expensive gifts from people you write about doesn’t mean you are necessarily corrupt, but it sure makes you look and smell corrupt.

In our comments threads, there were a lot of specious arguments made in defense of taking these bribes, or at least not renouncing them. One of them was the notion that “everyone is biased.” This is a very common fallacious dodge — which is to say a persuasively invalid argument. We start by acknowledging the obvious facts that each of us has a unique point of view, and each of us is operating Read more

December 29, 2008

2008 in Dog Years

by

Rust Belt Realtor

Author website

2008 rocked! Yeah, the economy tanked, but I do believe that crisis means opportunity so I’m not sweating that right now- I’m looking for ways to make the best of this situation.

Professionally, this year has been productive. That shouldn’t be misunderstood to mean that I’m swimming in transactions, because I’m not. But I’m not in debt and I’ve grown professionally through some experiences. Due to my own failure to communicate, I experienced a painful wake-up call from some clients while I was at BHBU in Orlando. What can you do when you are 1000 miles away? If you are me, you stop what you are doing and communicate. And communicate. And communicate. And you do what you need to do to make things right- and I have. And then you take a drive to Coco Beach with your husband and have one of the most wonderful dinners of your life. I’m grateful for clients that let me know their thoughts and let me work to fix things. So now I’m stronger, smarter, and more prepared than I’ve ever been- that’s progress, that’s productive.

For many reasons, mostly of my own creation, I have never been focused on my business the way I need to be. This fall a family situation changed and suddenly I had the opportunity to see things a bit more clearly. Uninterupted time is now mine. Goals? Time management? Focus? It’s mine all mine! And now I can take the tools, tips, and techniques I’ve been surrounding myself with and slowing honing and really get to work. This is good. This is very good. 2008 rocked but 2009 should be slamming and if it’s not, I’m hanging up my license.

This was a dog’s year for being online. It was amazing to meet so many people on twitter, at conferences throughout the year, and through emails. And to all the people who have vented publicly and privately about BloodhoundBlog, thank you. I’m a better and stronger person because of you, I hope each of you can say the same.

Greg Swann, this week, and this post, this post, and this Read more

December 29, 2008

Net Happiness is Not Based on Net Worth

by

Real Estate Renaissance Man

Author website

As 2008 comes to a close it’s important to remember… well, it’s important to remember what’s important.  Ben Stein does a pretty good job of that in this article.  He is ostensibly talking about the fallout from Bernard Madofff’s Ponzi scheme, but he says a whole lot more:

We are more than our investments.  We are more than the year-to-year or day-by-day changes in our net worth.  We are what we do for charity.  We are how we treat our family and friends.  We are how we treat our dogs and cats.  We are what we do for our community and our nation.  If you had $100 million or $100,000 a year ago and now you have a lot less, you’re still the same person.  You’re not a balance sheet, at least not one denominated in money…

It’s a tough thing to remember in a business measured by commissions.  Our lives are surrounded by miracles and drowned out by laughter.  Having money may improve our lifestyle, but it does not improve us.  Losing money may cause us hardship, but it does not lessen us.  Our happiness is a function of how happy we see ourselves at our core.  It is a choice of awareness.  Ben Stein gets that.  Choose to be happy – it’s more fun.

December 28, 2008

The Goal-Getters Game: Yes, you want to set goals for 2009, but here’s a game to make sure you actually follow through on them

by

Suburban Phoenix Real Estate Broker

Author website

The Goal-Getters Game is a variation on some of the ideas we have been playing with in email since Thanksgiving.

So first: ‘Tis the season for New Year’s Resolutions, made in haste and forgotten more hastily.

The Motivational Speaker Circuit, both inside and outside of the real estate world, is always all over the idea of goal-setting. But real changes in you life can only come from goal-achieving.

In our email discussions, I brought up Jerry Seinfeld’s “don’t break the chain” system of goal tracking.

Years ago when Seinfeld was a new television show, Jerry Seinfeld was still a touring comic. At the time, I was hanging around clubs doing open mic nights and trying to learn the ropes. One night I was in the club where Seinfeld was working, and before he went on stage, I saw my chance. I had to ask Seinfeld if he had any tips for a young comic. What he told me was something that would benefit me a lifetime…

He said the way to be a better comic was to create better jokes and the way to create better jokes was to write every day. But his advice was better than that. He had a gem of a leverage technique he used on himself and you can use it to motivate yourself—even when you don’t feel like it.

He revealed a unique calendar system he uses to pressure himself to write. Here’s how it works.

He told me to get a big wall calendar that has a whole year on one page and hang it on a prominent wall. The next step was to get a big red magic marker.

He said for each day that I do my task of writing, I get to put a big red X over that day. “After a few days you’ll have a chain. Just keep at it and the chain will grow longer every day. You’ll like seeing that chain, especially when you get a few weeks under your belt. Your only job next is to not break the chain.”

“Don’t break the chain,” he said again for emphasis.

Teri has mentioned that she is already Read more

December 28, 2008

The Case For Paid Reviews

by

Real Estate

Author website

As I’ve said in the past, I’m not a fan of the term “Web 2.0.”  I’ll take it a step further and say that there are many aspects of the “Web 2.0” movement that I dislike.  There are enough aspects of the movement that I find silly that I can, and will, fill a post (but not now.)

Contrary to popular belief, I am a fierce capitalist.  Granted, I do love the open source movement, but I also think that there are ways to monetize open source, working within our capitalist system.  Much of “Web 2.0” seems to be anti-capitalist.  Users want everything free (no registration, no paid memberships, etc…) and in many cases don’t want site owners/bloggers to earn directly from their endeavors.  It should be a labor of love, right?  Any money earned should be earned indirectly, the 2.0’ers say.

Chris Johnson hit some great points in his recent post, and I agree with 95% of what he says.  However, I don’t reach the same conclusion.

In the past, paid blog reviews were fantastic for SEO, but with Google’s call to turn in paid links, and with the proliferation of the nofollow tag, this isn’t the case any longer (for white hats.)  However, Paid Reviews are still fantastic ideas for many vendors.  Why?  Highly targetted traffic.  Traffic that can, and will convert.  When was the last time you clicked on an ad when reading a blog?  However, would you follow a link to a vendor, if a blogger you respect wrote a thoughtful review, and the product pertained to you or your business?  Many people do…even when they know the review was purchased.

I disagree with Chris’ conclusion that all Paid Reviews are bad for blogging.  However, I do agree that paid reviews can, will, and should evolve.  He’s correct that Ratespeed could possibly have become better, had an intelligent conversation occurred, and all aspects been discussed.  How much more valuable is honest criticism over blanket praise?  If the community you’re targetting recommends you change, and you make those changes, how would that community respond?  There’s real value in that discussion – value Read more

December 28, 2008

“U.S adults” may not want foreclosed homes, but homebuyers sure do

by

Suburban Phoenix Real Estate Broker

Author website

This is my column for this week from the Arizona Republic (permanent link).

 
“U.S adults” may not want foreclosed homes, but homebuyers sure do

Did you see in the news where only 47% of U.S. adults would consider buying a foreclosed home?

An amazing number, isn’t it? What does it mean?

Almost nothing, of course. The real estate market in Phoenix, along with many, many other cities, is dominated by foreclosed homes right now. They are virtually all that is selling.

So how could so many homes be selling if so many people are averse to buying them?

This is a nice lesson in the uselessness of public opinion polls. “U.S. adults” are not homebuyers. Homebuyers are homebuyers. Asking U.S. adults how they feel about sushi or blackberry wine will tell you nothing about their sales, either.

What the survey does tell us is that the news has gotten out about the sometimes difficult process of buying a foreclosed home — especially a short sale — and about the often dismal condition of those homes.

And yet, foreclosed homes are selling and virtually nothing else is.

Why?

Because they’re cheap, that’s why. Even in the nicest neighborhoods, a lender-owned home will sell at a discount of 50% to 80%, compared to owner-occupied homes. In not-as-nice communities in the West Valley, you can pick up a stucco-and-tile 3 bedroom, 2 bath, 1,500 square foot home with a two-car garage for $50,000.

As I write this, there are 120 homes like that, all built 1995 and later, listed for $75,000 or less.

Let the price rise to $100,000 and there are 690 available right now.

Last month, 191 of those homes sold for $100,000 or less. That’s an implied absorption rate of 3.61 months, arguably a seller’s market.

So on the one hand an undifferentiated population of U.S. adults, who may or may not be in the market to buy a home, has a generally negative opinion of foreclosed homes.

And on the other hand there is a land-office business in foreclosed homes.

We will see many years’ worth of foreclosures in our market. How we feel about that in the abstract makes no difference.

Technorati Tags: , Read more

December 28, 2008

Psalm

by

Suburban Phoenix Real Estate Broker

Author website

I’m kicking this back to the top of the blog, as well. I think this is a good example of the kind of behavior that has been denounced for millennia by would-be bosses, but I also think this approaches an ideal expression of how human beings should behave. Plus which, it’s the stuff I’ve been talking about all week, boiled down to its essence — and I think it’s good Sunday reading besides. I live to be proud of my life, and the moments that gave birth to this essay are among the proudest of those I’ve lived so far. This is the best I have within me. This is a seed I long to see cast to the winds, to grow wherever it can take root. –GSS

 
Psalm

Art is demanding, and that’s good. But art is petulant and importunate and presumptuous to a fault. Art is that damned nuisance of a snoopy neighbor who keeps knocking, knocking, knocking on your cellar door. Art goes straight for the places you forbid yourself to think about and rummages through your most terrifying secrets like a burglar tearing through your underwear drawer. Good art makes you hate it as you devour it, shun it as you immerse yourself in it. Good art makes you restless and jagged and ragged and inspired. Good art makes you shiver. Great art makes you cringe.

Art is a vanity in precisely this way: I presume to recreate reality in my own image and likeness, and I have the effrontery to demand that you not only acknowledge that reality but prefer it. I presume to seize the universe and squeeze out of it a tiny seed of truth. And I presume to plant that seed within you — without your consent, perhaps without even your knowledge. And I presume to nurture this new universe I have caused to grow within you until you scream — if I am good enough — scream from agony and delight. And I presume to do all of this for no purpose of yours, but only for reasons of my own devising. And at the Read more

December 27, 2008

Which is the most useful tool, on social media, to engage your audience and create offline conversations?

by

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

Author website

I asked this question on LinkedIn.  Scott Schang‘s answer rang my bell the loudest:

Social Media has introduced me to other professionals that has resulted in business relationships indirectly. Although I have completed transactions as the result of blog responses, that is not the norm.

I would say that I use Social Media primarily as an idea factory to stimulate my marketing juices and utilize technology and 2.0 tools for business promotion and sales tools.

I consistently utilize online webinars, youtube videos and constant contact which creates a perpetual cycle of automated action items that convert contact into clients.

My product is really education and expertise. Through my internet “presence” I am perceived (rightfully so I would hope) as an expert in my field. I think there’s also a familiarity you develop by being so easily accessible on SM sites.

I have also met many professionals like yourself that have helped me to grow and become more innovative and creative through these on-line relationships.

I have built working referral relationships with many other professionals and I believe that my social media reputation helps to facilitate these relationships.

Bloodhound Unchained in Phoenix last year was really the launching point for my confidence to take more chances with my commitment to social media and I realized that I was far from alone in my search for enlightenment.

Rhonda Porter impressed me with her proactive use of Twitter to “build” a community:

I would have to say Twitter. I have “on-the-fence” clients that follow me for rate quotes and eventually convert. Facebook is a close second as I’m reuniting w/old friends from school and their friends and so on…

Linda Davis and Teresa Boardman impressed me the most from the REALTORs because I discounted the use of of Flickr.  I already noted their comments here.  Here are their Flickr accounts:

Linda Davis on Flickr

Teresa Boardman on Flickr

Linda Davis and Kristal Kraft will be teaching at Unchained this April.  As an added bonus, here’s Kristal Kraft’s Flickr PhotoStream.  All of these ladies get a lot of comments on their pictures; I think that’s a bitchin’ way to connect with people.

Danilo Bogdanovic always blows me away with Read more

December 26, 2008

A sermon for the ninety-and-nine: Don’t mimic bad examples among big-name real estate webloggers

by

Suburban Phoenix Real Estate Broker

Author website

I’m kicking this back to the top from December 21, 2007. This was, I think, the second the the last time that I pissed off the echo chamber clique of big name real estate webloggers by pointing out that they were thoughtlessly committing a serious error. I was right about the issue addressed here, which is why, despite three or four days of mob outrage, no one adopted the insulting video tactic discussed in this post.

I don’t like the way people behave in these mad spasms, but I don’t care, either. The only behavior I control is my own, and, as I discussed last night, I never take an action I know in advance is morally wrong. Doesn’t mean I’m never in error. My contributions to BloodhoundBlog, very often, are discussions of what I’ve learned from my many, many errors. But I strive never to be intentionally in error.

But I have a unique understanding of the ontology of human ethics, and it’s something I feel a responsibility to share with the readers of this weblog. If you want to see everything I’ve written here on the subject, pursue the Egoism in Action category.

Or don’t. I’m easy enough to ignore — which will tell you a great deal about those mad spasms, if you trouble yourself to think the matter through. But if you want to profit by my experience at this kind of mass communication, I’m happy to share what I know. –GSS

 
I always thought that bible story about the lost sheep was stupid. If it were me in the story, I would stay right there with the ninety-and-nine, making damn sure that tomorrow it wasn’t the ninety-and-eight. Too bad about the lost sheep, but the mission-critical job has to come first.

Here’s an interesting fact about weblogs, and about internet discussion forums in general: You will almost never hear from the ninety-and-nine. If you manage to build an audience, you will hear from people who are reading your site. That’s a good thing. But if you take those people as being representative of your audience, you are making a mistake. You Read more

December 26, 2008

How Much Does Knowledge Cost?

by

Realtor, Rabble-Rouser

Author website

We are drowning in information but starved for knowledge.”  quoted by John Naisbitt.

As RE Web 2.0 has evolved, there has been so much emphasis on the data, yet as we sit and evaluate the present solutions, consumers are still unclear how to interpret the information.

“Information is not knowledge.”  quoted by Albert Einstein.

Buying and selling real estate isn’t all about the data – it’s about knowledge and expertise.

If knowledge is not information, what is knowledge?

According to Merriam-Webster online, knowledge is defined as the following:

Knowledge:  (1): the fact or condition of knowing something with familiarity gained through experience or association (2): acquaintance with or understanding of a science, art, or technique b (1): the fact or condition of being aware of something (2): the range of one’s information or understanding <answered to the best of my knowledge> c: the circumstance or condition of apprehending truth or fact through reasoning : cognition d: the fact or condition of having information or of being learned <a person of unusual knowledge>
If consumers are to gain value from technology in the real estate arena, the solutions must be focused on the interpretation of the information.  Interpretation of information is knowledge.
Who possesses knowledge in the real estate arena?  Experienced Realtors, brokers, mortgage professionals, attorneys, title/escrow agents, property inspectors, experienced investors and others involved in the transaction.  Experience gained over time, after executing a number of transactions.
The prevalent mindset is to reduce the cost of the transaction by reducing the commission paid to the real estate agent because technology delivers information more openly to the consumer – but what value has been created?  Has true value been really created if more information has become available?
Reduced fee business models often focus on reducing the most value aspect of the transaction – the knowledge and expertise of the real estate professional.  Granted, if the knowledge and expertise is not readily identifiable, it makes sense to pay less.  I believe reduced fee models address the barrier to entry for new agents who may lack Read more
December 26, 2008

Over $100? You Better Improve My Friggin’ Bank Account!

by

Real Estate Investments Broker

Author website

I was inspired to write this post as I read the comments on Brian Brady’s recent post on Cyber Pros… The conversation turned to the relative value of various barcamps, seminars, and conferences. As you might’ve guessed I have some thoughts on the subject. Go figure.

I’ve attended seminars etc. since the mid-70’s. Back then, and until the internet created its own mushroom cloud of ‘experts’, they existed for the sole purpose of sending you back home better off than when you arrived. In those days the seminars were taught by the giants of the industry. I spent much of my late 20’s attending seminars in awe of the speaker. Unfortunately that’s not so these days.

From 1976 through about 1999 I was able to rely on coming away with much more than fool’s gold or networking opportunities when I laid my money down on seminars, or conferences. The gold standard (pun intended) was in 1980 when I completed the intense/expensive six day long CCIM courses, all five of them then. The info I learned and applied in those five weeks was phenomenally effective, salient, and results oriented. They were there to teach — and let the chips fall where they may. The failure rate for CI 101 back then was about 50% — with an open book final. That’s real. They didn’t, and still don’t tolerate posers.

I don’t know a single soul from those courses to this day.

Of course, if I’d taken them recently, that wouldn’t be the case. I’d of been better off having networked with classmates. But given the choice of either or? Give me the information, the knowledge, the ability to successfully apply every time. Though I attended investment real estate seminars like a groupie back in the day, nothing impacted my ability to produce positive results for my clients and my business more than the CCIM classes. Nothing, not even close.

I’ve been to a couple barcamps. The cost is usually so low, from free to $100 or so, that if I take away the proverbial ‘one nugget’ plus the cool networking, I’m a happy ‘camper’. I 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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