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November 26, 2007

The Odysseus Medal: “The most powerful two-way Internet communications tool so far developed”

by

Suburban Phoenix Real Estate Broker

Author website

Let’s talk about real estate weblogging, shall we? By an accident of synchronicity, that seems to be what bubbled up to the top this week. The Odysseus Medal goes to Gary Elwood for Naked Conversations: The Lynchpin to Your Real Estate Marketing Blog:

In a nutshell, blogging is one of the best ways to communicate with your market. Better than postcards, email newsletters, flyers, magazine articles, weekly radio shows.

How are blogs better than these communication channels?

There are six key differences between blogging and any other communications channel.

1. Publishable. Anyone can publish a blog.You can do it cheaply and post often. In addition, each posting is instantly available worldwide.

2. Searchable. Through search engines, people will find blogs by subject, by author, or both. The more you post, the more findable you become.

3. Social. The blogosphere is one big conversation. Interesting topical conversations move from site to site, linking to each other. Through blogs, people with shared interests build relationships unrestricted by geographic borders.

4. Viral. Information often spreads faster through blogs than via a news service. No form of viral marketing matches the speed and efficiency of a blog.

5. Syndicatable. By clicking on an icon, you can get free “home delivery” of RSS- enabled blogs into your e-mail software. This process is considerably more efficient than the last- generation method of visiting one page of one web site at a time looking for changes.

6. Linkable. Because each blog can link to all others, every blogger has access to the tens of millions of people who visit the blogosphere every day.

Of course you can find each of these elements elsewhere. And none is, in itself, all that remarkable.

But in final assembly, they are the benefits of the most powerful two-way Internet communications tool so far developed.

However, bloggers and sophisticated readers of blogs will sniff you out as a fake if you lie, hide, withhold or micromanage information.

Successful blogging is about being off-the-cuff, transparent and off-the-record so to speak. Even if you sin.

SEOBook has a tutorial on SEO for webloggers up today, and this is a rockin’ thing — in context. Real estate weblogging is relationship-based Read more

November 26, 2007

Examining Myths: Crummy Markets Mean a Short Sale Extravaganza!

by

Real Estate

Author website

With the recent events in the mortgage industry & in most of the markets around the country, many homeowners are left upside down on their homes, and unable to sell.  This is one of the real dangers of homeownership.  While we (real estate professionals) all tout the many advantages of owning a home, and primarily that “real estate historically appreciates,” getting stuck upside down on a home is a scary proposition…because you’re stuck in your home.

In markets like these, real estate agents & brokers also get a little scared.  Fewer homes are selling, and fewer commissions are earned.  Many get out of the business, and many begin marketing “creative solutions,” & “creative opportunities,” which includes the short sale.  Short sales as a subject really started popping up a few months ago, and it’s really increased – it looks like we’re on the left hand side of the bell curve.

Everyone knows that some Realtors love to puff the advantages of anything that will help them earn – let’s analyze some of the myths that are now being touted, and that we’ll see more of in the future.

Myth #1

“Short Sales Are a Great Investment“

A short sale, by definition, is a situation where the bank is cutting their losses in order to avoid the costly foreclosure process.  The bank is getting screwed, and they will try to cut their losses as close as possible – which means they ask for multiple BPO’s before they’ll agree to a sales price.  Multiple agents/brokers, who are all vying for listings from the bank, have given their expert valuation of the property.  The chance that the listing price will come in 20% below market or lower (which is the minimum to make a decent profit) is pretty slim.

Myth #2

“The Bank Will Cooperate With My Short Sale”

When trying to work out a short sale, you’re dealing with the bank’s loss mitigation department.  Loss mitigation will typically not talk to you unless you’re 60 days past due or more.  After you’ve crossed this bridge, they will discuss a short sale, but you’ll sit on hold for hours before getting anywhere.  Read more

November 26, 2007

7,373 Words – The NAR Code of Ethics

by

Incipient Real Estate Broker

Author website

In his post here earlier today, Jim Duncan said something I’ve thought since the day I stood up, raised my right hand and pledged to uphold the Realtor Code of Ethics:

I have argued before that if you need 8 9 pages to explain ethics, rather than a simple code of honor, you just might need too much guidance.

Adopted in 1913, and amended 31 times, the NAR’s Code of Ethics is 9 pages of double column single-spaced text. Seventeen Articles. Eighty two “Standards of Practice”. 7,373 words in 266 paragraphs.

It is loaded with gems like this (Standard of Practice 17-4, Subsection 5):

Where a buyer or tenant representative is compensated by the seller or landlord, and not by the listing broker, and the listing broker, as a result, reduces the commission owed by the seller or landlord and, subsequent to such actions, claims to be the procuring cause of sale or lease. In such cases arbitration shall be between the listing broker and the buyer or tenant representative and the amount in dispute is limited to the amount of the reduction of commission to which the listing broker agreed

Huh? Maybe it’s just me, but I had to read that 3 or 4 times just to make sense of it. And I’m not so sure I actually figured it out.

Do we really need 7,373 words to tell us how to act?

The United States Military Academy has an Honor Code. It’s no real stretch of the imagination to equate an “Honor Code” with a “Code of Ethics”.

West Point’s Honor Code consists of one sentence. 12 words.

A cadet will not lie, cheat, steal, or tolerate those who do.

It was derived from the Military Academy’s motto – the lengthy and convoluted, “Duty, Honor, Country”.

One of my old schools, THE University of Texas, adopted an honor code long after I left those hallowed halls. It is substantially longer than the Military Academy’s code, coming in at a War and Peace like 41 words:

The core values of The University of Texas at Austin are learning, discovery, freedom, leadership, individual opportunity, and responsibility. Each member of the university is Read more

November 26, 2007

The RE blog arms race

by

Realtor, Real Estate Ethicist

Author website

The (un)intentional arms race continues.

RCG, BHB, AG.

Seemingly every week brings another contributor, but to what end?

The writing has inarguably elevated the conversation. Two years ago the “divorced commission” concept was one that made sense, but had not congealed on a national level. Now, to a much greater degree, it has. I believe that there may be an end to Dual Agency in my lifetime, thanks in large part to the conversations held locally and nationally – again, due to these national blogs. The disagreements and debates are of a higher level than found almost anywhere else. The intensity with which writers and commenters argue is frequently fierce and typically civilized.

There is authenticity found here that isn’t found elsewhere. We’re not doing it for the advertising revenue. We’re not doing it for the salaries or the bonuses. We’re not doing it for all the “leads” that come our way. We’re doing it because we believe in what we do and seem to share a collective passion.

As Greg said earlier this year –

My immediate goal for BloodhoundBlog is to make it the best-read, most-rewarding real estate weblog in the RE.net. Further out, I want for our contributors to be so well known that they can pursue other opportunities: Public speaking, freelance writing, books, seminars, television shows, etc. I don’t know that we will attain this, necessarily, but the goal itself is definitely attainable: Witness Glenn Reynolds, the Instapundit.

For now, I’m interested in growing our talents to see where they can take us. I think we benefit each other more together than we would apart …

At least six Bloodhounds are speaking at Inman Connect in January; if that’s not a form of acceptance, I don’t know what is. Look at the list of speakers – Presidents, CEOs, Directors … bloggers! The numbers of bloggers is phenomenal. Gaining acceptance and influence is a journey, and each day, week, month brings another convert – and another reader/listener/follower. In response to a recent email – the people in Chicago are reaching out; the RE.net is too large and influential to be ignored. Influential and powerful groups all Read more

November 25, 2007

The Odysseus Medal competition — Voting for the People’s Choice Award is open

by

Suburban Phoenix Real Estate Broker

Author website

Twenty-five nominees. I confess that it’s faster for me on Sunday if I’m not too picky, but this week saw a surplus of very good posts.

Vote for the People’s Choice Award here. You can use the voting interface to see each nominated post, so comparison is easy.

Please don’t spam the voting. I accept that there can be differing moral standards on scamming social media, but only one of those standards applies here. If you email 300 of your closest friends, telling them to vote for you, I will ignore all your votes. We’re interested in what is popular among people who participate here, not how popular you are with your buddies. That doesn’t even seem to me to be a complicated idea, but I’m explicating it nevertheless.

Voting runs through to 12 Noon MST Monday. I’ll announce the winners of this week’s awards soon thereafter.

Here is this week’s short-list of Odysseus Medal nominees:

< ?PHP $AltEntries = array ( "Wade Young -- FSBOs How to convert FSBOs into listings”,
“Todd Carpenter — Interest rates MBS, 10 year notes, the long bond, and why I couldn’t care less“,
“Benjamin Bach — Follow-up How to add $150,000 in gross commissions to your bottom line“,
“Geno Petro — Racoons Racoons in the Trash“,
“Steve Belt — Trulia Voices From Trulia Voices: Is central Phoenix an African American area of town?“,
“Jonathan Dalton — Trulia Voices What Did My Mom Say About Cows Giving Away Milk?“,
“Jeff Brown — Brian Brady The Difference a Lender Can Make — Real Estate Investment Savvy“,
“Eileen Tefft — Thanksgiving A Thanksgiving Real Estate Story“,
“Dan Melson — Housing mess How to Avoid A Repeat of the Housing Market Mess“,
“Jay Thompson — Business card Experimental Business Card #1“,
“Rhonda Porter — LO compensation Let’s Do Away with Loan Origination Compensation“,
“Gary Elwood — RE blogging Naked Conversations: The Lynchpin to Your Real Estate Marketing Blog“,
“Kris Berg — Lake Arrowhead WTF – The Lake Arrowhead Home Blog“,
“Morgan Brown — Option ARM An Open Eulogy to the Option ARM“,
“Krista Baker — Targeted messages Reader Q&A: How To Write Your Message from Your Prospect’s Perspective“,
“Dan Green — Mortgage rates Pre-Qualify Your Loan Officer By Asking: \”Where Do Mortgage Rates Come From?\”“,
“Dan Green — Bloggers video Oh, The Bloggers You’ll Meet, The People You’ll Read more

November 25, 2007

Unchained melodies: Extraordinary machine

by

Suburban Phoenix Real Estate Broker

Author website

Teri Lussier asked me if there would be a theme song for BloodhoundBlog Unchained. She later repented of the question, but she was more right than she knew. Of course there will be a theme song for the conference.

We are champions of iconic ideas, words and images and sounds and scents that communicate the same one message on multiple, parallel tracks. The goal is to say one thing that says tens or hundreds of things, all of which turn out to be the same one thing.

This is not the theme song for BloodhoundBlog Unchained, but it is very definitely a theme undergirding my own unchained life. This is Fiona Apple performing live this August with Nickel Creek (O, for a DVD!). The song is Extraordinary machine.


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November 25, 2007

Real estate transactions without producing a single sheet of paper with Microsoft OneNote and PDF Annotator

by

Realtor, Real Estate Investor

Author website

I’ve fallen off the face of the world for a long time, but I’m back and I’m here to provide a follow-up to my discovery of Microsoft OneNote and tablet PC’s. In short, I’ve been able to complete my last 3 transactions …from first meeting the client through to closing ….generating less than 10 sheets of paper myself ….total (2 transactions had zero paper that I  produced and the third had about 6 sheets). It has simplified/revolutionized how I organize my client data and all the information that’s gathered in the course of a transcation, my notes, my tasks, prospecting, …you name it! I’ve been able to reclaim a good portion of some desk space since I’ve been able to do away with almost all my printed client files. When I go out for a showing, all I bring is my tablet pc and my keycard. The benefits go on and on.  It has by far surpassed my expectations from only a few months ago.

All my information about all my transactions are at my finger tips. Lender contact, escrow, title, cooperating agent, etc. No more waiting till I get back to the office to dig through files or worse yet, pull out the boxes of closed transactions from 6 months ago to find something. I have it all right in front of me and I have to thank OneNote for most of it. I have yet to see any other agent carry one of these things around and I just think … they just haven’t seen the light yet! 🙂 Last week Stewart Title emailed me saying they were going to start going all electronic and had this huge write up on the benefits. It was nice to see an industry that generates a TON of paper going in this direction. It’s just gonna keep going!
Here is the setup that I’ve settled on…this is by no means an advertisement for these products (as they all have little issues or quirks).

Data management – Microsoft OneNote. OneNote stores all the Read more

November 24, 2007

Real estate representation has never been about information brokerage

by

Suburban Phoenix Real Estate Broker

Author website

I’m behind on these, but this is a good time to catch up. This is my column from the Arizona Republic from last week.

 
Real estate representation has never been about information brokerage

As I write this, the National Association of Realtors is holding its annual convention at the Venetian Hotel and Conference Center in Las Vegas. This year marks the 100th anniversary of the founding of the trade group, a cause for celebration.

But the NAR is also embroiled in a years-long anti-trust suit brought by the United States Department of Justice and the Federal Trade Commission. Real estate buyers and sellers are steadily migrating to the world-wide web as their primary communications medium, even as the housing market is suffering through an extended downturn in many parts of the country.

Of the challenges facing the NAR, perhaps the greatest is finding a path to relevance in the internet age. The group’s own statistics demonstrate that a steadily increasing percentage of home buyers and sellers are conducting their search for real estate information and representation on the web.

This internet-focused client base can be significantly more tech-savvy than many Realtors, with agents constantly racing to catch up. At the same time, Realtors’ presumed traditional value proposition, access to MLS listings, has been obviated by on-line MLS systems and nascent Realty.bots — venture-capital-funded internet start-ups devoted to delivering real estate information.

In fact, truly valuable real estate representation has never been about information brokerage — a fact both the Realtors and the Realty.bots seem to be slowly discovering.

The value a Realtor brings to a home seller is not the MLS listing, which is at best an administrative function. A skilled listing agent should advise sellers on pricing, preparation and presentation — the factors that get skillfully-marketed homes sold when no other houses are selling.

The best advice a buyer’s agent can provide to his or her clients comes not in a stack of MLS listings but in specific tactics to deploy during negotiations, inspections and throughout the escrow process.

Whether the NAR can sustain relevance into the twenty-first century remains to be seen. But, even though consumers may find Read more

November 23, 2007

Black Friday — Not Just Crazed Women Shoppers — Drinking the Kool-Aid — Perception and Confidence

by

Real Estate Investments Broker

Author website

What takes hold of women on Black Fridays? It’s like a perfect storm of planned group hysteria, guaranteed bargains galore, and shopping, shopping, shopping. Realizing how many women will take umbrage to this, I hereby stipulate only a smallish minority participates in this annual ritual of dueling plastic at dawn.

Pardon me — did I say dawn? My bad. How ’bout 4 AM?! And this after coma inducing feeding frenzies the afternoon before. I guess when the monkey needs feeding, energy isn’t a problem. 🙂

I see on the far horizon the possible sighting of Black Friday, The Real Estate Version. As my crystal ball is as cracked as yours, I’ve no idea whatsoever when it’ll begin. I’m sensing it though. It’s coming from that spot located in the back of my head, where all the small voices reside. This voice is barely audible. I’m not even sure if it’s the right voice, but I know one thing — it’s louder today than it was last month.

Like malls around the country, holding the fort against the hordes of shopping junkies, there is method to their madness. There’s a clearly perceived empirical benefit driving them. I have to believe that, cuz my own mom talked my own Much Better Half into participating. Yep, I awoke this morning just before 10 from my expertly induced Thanksgiving coma, to find Trophy Wife asleep on the couch in front of the TV. Nothing like doing over five hours of pre-dawn battle with Black Friday Kool-Aid drinkers I guess. 🙂

Let’s create an analogy here to the current real estate correction.

Assuming the annual January clearance sales will follow the holidays as night follows day (for Black Friday participants, kinda like the hair of the dog) let’s call post January, The Shopping Correction.

The RE Correction has lasted for over two years now, or roughly the equivalent of these things historically. For shoppers, going from January to Black Friday is an eternity, much as this correction must seem to most who’re feeling the pain of the RE version.

What if, as my little voice seems to be Read more

November 23, 2007

Quarrying metaphors to name the BloodhoundBlog Conference

by

Suburban Phoenix Real Estate Broker

Author website

We have a name, and we have the birth of a look:

We went through zillions of ideas — Brian and Cathy and I, our contributors, some commenters here, but mainly marketing guru Richard Riccelli. Richard came up with fantastic names — not just words but their graphic expression — but we went off and did things our own way anyway.

All of us were looking for a defining metaphor, an idea that encapsulates everything we are trying to communicate. Richard, to his credit, was much more benign toward our attendees. My position was that we built this place on attitude, and we need for people to understand that that attitude will be on the program — in essence will be the program.

The graphic look falls out from the metaphor, and, if the idea is the right one, everything falls out from the metaphor. Integrity is the state when every disparate thing is all one thing, when every different way of communicating ideas comes together to communicate the same one idea. I don’t know if we’ve achieved that here, but that’s the goal we’re aiming for.

We have an idea for a conference exploring a radically different kind of real estate marketing. You can learn more about it by clicking here.

We have an interest list that you can join so that we can keep you up to date with our plans by email. Append yourself to that list by clicking here.

We have dates: May 18th and 19th, 2008, with some advance fun on the evening of May 17th.

We have an insatiable lust for the most killingly perfect venue, but we don’t know yet if we can get it.

We are having preliminary conversations with the most killingly perfect keynote speaker, the progenitor of many of the ideas we champion.

And we have a name and a look and a big, bold, bad-ass attitude.

And there is much more to come…

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November 23, 2007

Consumers to Realtors: “Don’t push me, I’ll pull you instead — and if you push too hard, I’ll pull away”

by

Suburban Phoenix Real Estate Broker

Author website

This is my column for this week from the Arizona Republic. Not by coincidence, I’m talking about the curriculum of our forthcoming marketing conference.

 
Consumers to Realtors: “Don’t push me, I’ll pull you instead — and if you push too hard, I’ll pull away”

There is a quiet revolution going on in the world of real estate marketing — in the world of marketing in general. We are gradually changing from a push-based kind of selling to something that is much more pull-oriented.

What do I mean? Picture me pushing my business card into your hand. Or pushing a flyer at you. Pushing an ad in front of your eyes in the newspaper — or a commercial on television. Since marketing began, it has always been about pushing things, with the effort being led by the pushy salesperson.

As with everything else, the internet is changing this. Your own pursuit of information — not just marketing information but putatively disinterested facts — is becoming more and more pull-oriented.

Interested in wide-screen TVs? You might visit a store or two tomorrow, but tonight you’re going to research everything you can find on the internet. You might start with a Google search, then go to Wikipedia to learn all the arcane details. You might click on a few manufacturers’ or retailers’ pages, but you’re just as likely to read weblogs or discussion forums to find out what real people just like you love and hate about their new televisions.

By the time you show up at a store — or more likely an on-line store — you will know enough to make the right choice without any help.

And here’s the interesting thing: If some pushy salesperson tries to talk you into making the wrong choice — you’ll understand exactly what is going on.

Buying or selling a home is more complicated than shopping on-line, but more and more consumers are going through the same research process before they contact a Realtor.

What does it mean? In the long-run, push-based marketing is a diminishing return. Consumers are going to shop until they find a Realtor they know they can trust — and Read more

November 23, 2007

The Starbucks Virgin

by

Incipient Real Estate Broker

Author website

I’m standing in line at Starbucks this morning, in dire need of an eggnog latte fix (sinfully delightful, and good for you!). It was readily apparent that the guy in front of me may be the only person left on the planet who has never before ordered a drink at Starbucks. He was the rare and elusive Starbucks Virgin.

And he looked mortified when the girl ahead of him fired off her order:

“I’ll have a venti half-caf triple shot four pump sugar-free vanilla caramel macchiato.”

The barista, full of typical Starbucks holiday cheer — nose ring and all — approaches Mr. New Customer who has been contemplating the menu for the last seven minutes and says, “What can I get for you?”

“Um, I think I just want a cup of coffee. Uh, maybe with some flavor in it??”

“We’ve got vanilla, hazlenut, Irish creme, almond, mint, Valencia, toffee…”

“Uhm, never mind. Can I just get plain old coffee?”

“Do you want short, tall, grande or venti? With or without room?”

“I just want a cup of coffee.”

As I watched this exchange take place, I saw an overwhelmed customer being “helped” by an experienced worker bee. One too busy to truly help this guy through the process of getting what he walked in for.

Granted, the line behind Mr. New Customer was building rapidly. I’m sure Ms. Nose Ring felt compelled to speed this guy through the line and help waiting customers, most of whom probably knew exactly what they wanted.

Mr. New Customer finally got his coffee, and he walked out mumbling and shaking his head. I wouldn’t be surprised if he never sets foot in a Starbucks again.

And so my warped, caffeine deprived brain began to do what it often does — attempt to associate what I’m witnessing to the real estate business.

Connect ordering at Starbucks to buying a home? Are you nuts?

Not really, and it’s not that big a stretch.

Ms. Nose Ring Barista seemed oblivious to the fact that Mr. New Customer was exactly that — a Starbucks virgin. The guy was overwhelmed with everything happening around him. He was afraid of making a mistake and looking Read more

November 23, 2007

A proud day for proud Bloodhounds: Jay Thompson joins the pack

by

Suburban Phoenix Real Estate Broker

Author website

Everything’s all right until something goes wrong. You child takes a bad fall and broken bone tears through the flesh and skin. A jet engine on your vacation flight flames out. You took the wrong road in a driving rain and now you’re up to your hubcaps in mud.

Jay Thompson is a man out of Kipling, and I can imagine him in each one of those stories. Calmly setting and splinting a bone, then racing to the hospital. Exuding quiet confidence as he explains why the plane can fly safely on three jets. The man owns a Jeep, and I’d bet a large dollar he knows how to extract your sedan from the mud.

Jay is a man possessed of an unprepossessing competence, a man’s man who just gets in there and gets the job done. I’ve worked with him on half-a-dozen projects, and it has always made me proud to set my shoulder beside his.

And so I am very proud to announce that Jay is joining us today as a contributor to BloodhoundBlog:

Want to find Jay Thompson? Just Google for “Phoenix real estate” — he’s above the fold. Jay is a legend among real estate webloggers, but he’s also an incipient broker, a confirmed desert rat and a committed family man.

Make him feel welcome, if you would. He won’t even have to try to make you feel safe.

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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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