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August 22, 2007

Easy nomination form for The Odysseus Medal

by

Suburban Phoenix Real Estate Broker

Author website

I built a quick and easy nomination form for The Odysseus Medal competition. You can continue to use the BlogCarnivals entry form, but I put this together to make it easier to nominate posts written by other people.

The form lives at the top of The Odysseus Medal information page, which is overdue for a rewrite. If you want an even quicker solution, go here and drag that URL into your toolbar. Copy the URL of the page you want to nominate and click on that link. Autofill then paste then submit. Duck soup.

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August 21, 2007

A first crack at custom real estate directionals

by

Suburban Phoenix Real Estate Broker

Author website

I wrote about this before, but I don’t think I have what I want even yet. These will print 18″x12″, but I may go to 24″x18″ the next time. My design skills are not the best, but I arrived that this because I wanted three things on the sign, and this seemed like the best way to get them. I wanted the name of the brokerage, the web address for the house, and the maximum amount of photo I could get. This is what I ended up with for a first attempt:


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August 21, 2007

Seth (and Teri) on business cards

by

Rust Belt Realtor

Author website

Sometimes when I write a post, it is done in little bits at a time- a few minutes here and a few minutes there. Then news or shift happens and oh bloody hell, it changes my post, or horrors-I just trash the whole thing. Take this post for example: It sat in draft mode growing old and stale for about two weeks. This morning I took it out, shook the dust off, spruced it up, and was going to give it one final proof read this evening before posting. Now thanks to Seth, it’s a few hours worth of old news and I’ve rewritten some of it. I hate it when that happens, but for better or worse it’s going to print.

I recently switched brokerages and have been up to my eyeballs in changing my marketing materials, creating new information, ordering new business cards. Yes, I ordered business cards last week, and after some discussion with my husband and much research, I took the big leap of faith and listened to my market. I now have business cards without my photo on them. And now I see that Seth approves- if only I had posted this morning.

No picture on my business card. This goes against everything I’ve been told to do by Realtors and “experts” but in addition to Seth questioning this, both my market and my husband have asked me “Why do Realtors put their photos on their cards?” My husband, Jamie, who kinda sorta likes the way I look, was thrilled that my photo isn’t on my cards, “It’s more professional” says he. While I don’t market directly to my husband, I do market to people like my husband, so it’s probably safe to say that if he likes it without the photo then people who think like Jamie will prefer the photoless cards as well.  Even my teenagers prefer them- “Yeah, it’s different”. High praise, indeed. In truth there are other things about my cards that Seth would probably hate but what do I care, I’m not marketing to him.

Recently I received an email telling me that I am missing opportunities by not being more aggressive about promoting myself. The email was referring to my blog and it came from another Realtor. I have Read more

August 21, 2007

Google’s new embedable map says, “Buy this house on Friday!”

by

Suburban Phoenix Real Estate Broker

Author website

And now for some bazillion-dollar arm–twisting in behalf of a forthcoming listing:


View Larger Map

I wanted this from my sullen teenager a year ago, but he’s been busy trying to portray the subtle distinctions between indifference, ennui and anomie — it ain’t easy! In any case, let me feed this from a DB file and I’m done with Zee Maps, too.

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August 21, 2007

Seth on business cards — of particular interest to Realtors and lenders

by

Suburban Phoenix Real Estate Broker

Author website

Seth Godin on business card mistakes:

  • Don’t print your own cards. Just because Avery and others make those little perforated sheets of paper doesn’t mean you should use them.
  • Don’t use big type for the address and contact info. The #1 way we can tell if a business card is cheesy is with a glance at the type size. Really.
  • Don’t buy those color business cards with your face on them. You’re not an ordinary real estate agent, so there’s no sense in acting like one.
  • Don’t go with metal business cards. It might work for Steve Wozniak, but everyone else wants to bring your cards on an airplane.
  • You might think it’s a great idea to do a full color card with a big (lousy) picture on it. It’s not.
  • I like rounded edges. But only if you leave plenty of margin. (as below)
  • Margins matter. Anytime your type gets anywhere near the margin, you’ve blown it.

However: For real estate promotion, the business card form factor is a tiny little workhorse. Here’s a Black Pearl that’s not in that post: People fear commitment. Taking a flyer from your flyer box can seem to them to be too much like risking being “sold” by you, you Loki-like trickster. We buy flyer boxes that have a little pocket at the top for business cards. If someone won’t take the flyer, they just might take the much smaller, less threatening business-card-sized flyer we make for the home. After the “Sold” rider goes on, we swap out to our business cards or to a card promoting us as listers.

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August 20, 2007

So if there has to be a bail out…

by

Mortgage Banker

Author website

What if Jeff and Brian are right?  What if it is preordained in the cards that a federal bail out of Countrywide is an absolute necessity and a foregone conclusion should the behemoth lender fail?  While Jeff certainly provides a well reasoned and thrilling John Grisham version of a Countrywide rescue; why wouldn’t we look at some other (less plausible no doubt) bail out options?

Let me say this first and foremost: I don’t support a bail out of Countrywide.  Period. I think its a horrible idea for all the same reasons bail outs in the past have been bad ideas – they reward the wrong-doers.  Why do we reward the Mozilos and their billions of dollars while punishing the American public?    If I am forced to accept a bail out, I would rather it be a bail out of the American public rather than a few rich puppeteers overlooking the pacific ocean from their posh Malibu homes.

Here are a few outrageous ideas that probably won’t work for a million reasons, and have a shot longer than you do of being hit by an asteroid tomorrow morning; but just for fun lets float a few out there.  My bail out options to keep from rewarding the greedmongers:

A couple of general guidelines:

  • Bail out options apply only to loans secured by primary residences; and maybe even just to owners of one property.
  • Bail out options apply only to those loans underwritten with full income documentation (maybe stated income for self-employed borrowers)

Bail out options for the American public (hey, if my tax money’s going to anyone, I’d rather give it to my neighbor):

  • Pre-payment waivers: Anyone with a prepayment penalty on their existing mortgage receives a voucher to refinance with out being penalized. This could be financed by individual lenders, Wall Street banks, or investors.
  • Voiding of pre-payment penalties: Alternatively, the government could pass legislation nullifying all pre-payment penalties allowing borrowers to refinance immediately with out paying the fees associated with the penalty.
  • For those that paid a pre-payment penalty between June 2006 and today – a tax credit for the full amount of any pre-payment penalty paid Read more
August 20, 2007

Sub-Prime Borrowers Got Lucky- They Didn’t Pay Enough

by

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

Author website

I floated an idea about a federal bailout, along the lines of Chrysler in 1980, of Countrywide Financial Corporation. I wanted to highlight two things in this post: Countrywide is in trouble and their trouble is our trouble. My premise is that the collapse of CFC goes beyond the 55,000 employees. I may have been guilty of thinking like Charles Erwin Wilson.

Jeff Brown replied, “Countrywide ain’t no Chrysler” and proved that my premise may be an insult to Adam Smith. His idea of a bailout was more along the lines of a Tom Clancy novel with Ben Bernanke playing Jack Ryan, Angelo Mozilo playing Dr. Strangelove, and Bank of America playing the United States Marine Corps. Life often imitates art so my money’s on Jeff’s covert bailout plan.

What really happened to the mortgage market ? They didn’t properly price loans for the risk they assumed. While Hilary Clinton is crying about the “poor borrowers” what about the poor lenders who got caught in the middle of this mess? Borrowers said “We’ll buy it if you give it to us on the cheap !”, Wall Street said “We’ll take the extra yield!”, and we all said “This time it’s different !” Extrapolations proved that a two bedroom condo on the Las Vegas Strip would sell for at least $5 million in this new economy, fueled by leverage.

Read Ralph Alter at The American Thinker:

The dirty little secret of the sub-prime crisis is the fact that sub-prime lenders failed to charge interest rates high enough to offset their expected level of defaults. Make no mistake: sub-prime lending is going to have borrowers who fail. Even conforming borrowers sometimes default. Enabling lenders to charge enough to make profitable loans to less qualified borrowers will result in a higher level of foreclosures. But it will also enable legions of “sub-prime Americans” to realize the American dream of home-ownership.

Who were the losers of the explosion of non-prime lending? The 10-15% of the homeowners who were able to buy homes, Read more
August 20, 2007

The Odysseus Medal: A challenge to the mind and a challenge to the-way-things-have-always-been-done

by

Suburban Phoenix Real Estate Broker

Author website

We had a lot of truly great posts this week. I’m not the kind to pick three posts for first place and six for second place, but I do understand the temptation. Steven Groves, for instance, has much to teach us with MLS2.0 – What is the future of real estate listings? Is the market turning? There are good reasons to say no, but what if it is? Then Patrick Kapowich has news for you with Deja Vu ~ Many Qualified Buyers Sit Out the “Sweet Spot” of a Buyer’s Market, Then Enter The Market in Droves, When the Scales Tip. There are other truly outstanding posts in the short list of entries, and the truth is, I could go on about them all day.

But: There can only be one best. This week, that honor and The Odysseus Medal go to Michael Cook with Does the Real Estate Industry Need Realtors? I know many Realtors reading here disagree with Michael’s argument. That’s fine. The question is, what are you doing about it? It were well if you were able to defend your value proposition well enough to best Michael in a fair debate, but you don’t have to set the bar the high. Here is what you do need to do, though, and what you need to get better and better at doing: You have to create and be able to defend your value proposition with your own clients. What is it that you are bringing to your transactions that exceeds your cost in sales commission? If Michael’s post — and others like it — lead you to internal turmoil, that’s a good thing. Pain is nature’s gentle way of letting you know there is a flaw in your thinking. Ruminating on the challenges a thoughtful man like Michael Cook puts before you will make you better at what you do — and better able to defend your value to your clients.

And if that’s not unsettling enough to our sensibilities, The Black Pearl this week goes to Carl Drews with How real estate commissions work. Drews is not a professional, he’s Read more

August 19, 2007

The People’s Choice Award: Pick the best of this week’s real estate writing

by

Suburban Phoenix Real Estate Broker

Author website

Here is the (not very) short list of this week’s nominees for The Odysseus Medal. You can vote for one of these posts for the People’s Choice Award.

These are this week’s entires:

Voting ends Monday at 12 Noon PDT/MST. We have file permissions issues with the new server, so you definitely can vote more than once, and I definitely will catch you. So don’t.

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August 19, 2007

Is it Stupid to Hold An Open House – Or is it Great Marketing?

by

Mega-Producing Realtor

Author website

Kris Berg had a wonderfully written post regarding open houses. This was my comment:

There are just two valid reasons for an agent to hold an open house and neither of them has much to do with selling the house being held open.

Reason 1: find stray (motivated) buyers (those that do not have an agent) and become their agent.

Reason 2: meet neighbors who will later want to sell their home.

Doing something time consuming one doesn’t want to do in order to “keep the seller happy” makes no sense.

One time many many years ago before I understood what I have written above I was holding an open house. I had lots of traffic and came to realize that virtually all of the people streaming through were not buyers but were neighbors, looking for decorating ideas and just liked seeing the inside of the other units in the complex. After seeing all of the rooms, as they were on their way out, they would realize they hadn’t even asked me the price – and as they were leaving would ask how much it was selling for. As any real buyer would have wanted to know the price sooner than later – after about 10 people through – I knew my day (yes, it was a Sunday) was a total waste, unless I could find a way to entertain myself. I choose the price. Just to see what would happen, I started quoting prices (in $10,000 increments) lower and lower to see if anyone would even blink. This was a $150,000 condo and I got the quoted price down below 100k. Each of the visitors just thanked me for my time and left.

There were several comments commenting on my comment (The BloodhoundBlog Method?) and I wanted to respond to those – and possibly clarify why I wrote what I did.

GolfingAnyoneAm I aware that some agents are very skilled at actually selling the house being held open? Yes. In fact, Greg and Kris both commented that they have sold houses numerous times by holding them open. My good friend Dean Selvey (currently the number 1 Re/Max Read more

August 18, 2007

Drive On: We’re back, but DNS resolution can be flaky

by

Suburban Phoenix Real Estate Broker

Author website

If you’re seeing this post, you’re finding BloodhoundBlog on our new file server. A word of caution: Domain Name Servers attach like Velcro, at little at a time. You may yet see Delia’s Gone again before we’re done. By Monday or Tuesday, any flakiness should be gone. I’m just warning you, that’s all.

I know, too, that email to me has been bouncing since yesterday as a consequence of this switch. If you got something back, send it through again, if you would.


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August 18, 2007

Redfin: Lessons in How NOT to Succeed

by

Realtor, Associate Broker

Author website

No apologies for the topic. As many problems as exist in the real estate industry — many more than the practiced elites would like to acknowledge, many fewer than the bubbleheads need to satisfy their tantrums — Redfin has made itself a prominent example of how not to improve things.

A few days ago in a comment section I wrote that Glenn Kelman’s a phony. It was the heat of the moment and I only wrote it because, well, he is a phony. He has to be.

On the one hand he has to corral capital and customers by feeding the realtor stereotype of the venal do-nothing narcissist, exemplified here in the Sixty Minutes shtick. But on the other he desperately needs the cooperation of the very people he’s trashed if his model has any chance of succeeding, thus the apparent charm exuded at Inman Connect. He creates a crisis of disdain for the full service agent, sets himself up as the champion of the little guy to quell the crisis, then calls on the full service agents to help him do it. Quite a dance, that.

But.

I admit I haven’t spent a lot of time on the Redfin website. It’s not in my market, and I’ve read and seen enough to know it’s a model that’s not likely to succeed. I’ve left the particulars to others and the market to its natural flow.

But I never thought the champion of the little guy would be dumb enough to try to con: the little guy. The following comes from a BHB reader, Leonard Wallace, who…I’ll let him tell it:

I’m a broker in Maryland where Redfin arrived last month. I’ve read many of your [BHB] posts about Redfin, but I haven’t seen anyone comment on their blatantly false advertising. Here’s a screen shot of a listing in the Washington area:

Leonard goes on to point out:

Redfin’s minimum commission on any buyer transaction is $3000. That never came out in the Sixty Minutes piece or anything else I’ve seen: note here, the first page of the ‘how to buy’ section. That’s why, I suppose, a $500,000 selling price Read more

August 18, 2007

How to take away the objections to drawbacks in a home

by

Suburban Phoenix Real Estate Broker

Author website

This is me in the Arizona Republic (permanent link):

 
How to take away the objections to drawbacks in a home

I was looking at the web site for a For Sale By Owner home the other day. In the site menu was a heading called, “Drawbacks.” I thought this was an excellent idea at first blush, the kind of inspired salesmanship I almost never see.

The fact is, everything is a trade-off. Everything has advantages and disadvantages. This is not a secret. Buyers already know that every home they look at will have drawbacks.

What is inspired — what could have been inspired — is calling the drawbacks to the buyer’s attention. Why? Because then you can take away the objections.

Like this: “We know this room is small for a bedroom, so we pre-wired it for digital cable and two phone lines. That way, you can use it as a home-office and also as a guest bedroom.”

The buyers will see that the room is small, but by acknowledging and addressing the defect in advance, you can help them see around the problem.

I said the idea of a “Drawbacks” page could have been inspired. Instead, when I clicked through to the page, I saw this:

“There are no drawbacks! Come and buy this house right away!”

This is far beyond being uninspired marketing. This is the kind of ham-handed ignorance and arrogance we associate with Hollywood’s idea of a venal Realtor.

Since you know exactly what objections buyers are going to raise with your home, your best strategy is to acknowledge and address them in advance. This communicates that you are honest, that you are not trying to pull one over on your buyer, and it also gives you a chance to reframe objections in a way that can help to sell the home.

If you don’t want to admit that your home has drawbacks, say nothing. Every buyer’s biggest objection is the fear of being hustled into a bad decision. If you go out of your way to look like a hustler, you will scare buyers away even if your home really is close to perfection.

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August 17, 2007

When Russell Shaw Speaks – You Should Listen

by

Associate Broker

Author website

Fellow BloodhoundBlog contributor Russell Shaw is a fountain of practical real estate knowledge… so when Mr. Shaw recommended a Xerox Phaser color printer to us – I took him up on the offer.

The street price for this particular printer is $1100, so I had to think hard about this purchase. There are so many other things that I could spend a thousand bucks on… but after all – it was a highly recommended purchase by Russell.

After checking out Ebay, I found a seller with a few of these printers brand new in stock at a [gasp] shockingly low price. So… I jumped on it.

The printer arrived a few days later (all 60 pounds of it) and it installed very easily. It’s nice having a network printer, for a change. I can send it a print job from any of my computers without worrying about a particular computer being on.

The prints are great – regular magazine quality… all nice and glossy.

The next day, I went to print some flyers and – nothing. No power lights, no indicators, nothing. I checked Xerox’s website to follow their troubleshooting guide… but to no avail. It would appear that I now had a rather large paperweight.

So I called Xerox, and they were nice as they could be. They contacted the local service representative and he came out the next day to install a new power supply. When you buy one of these printers, you get a full year of on-site service including parts and labor… a nice benefit. Russell advises us to purchase the extended warranty, as well.

Well I am tickled with this purchase… and I would like to publicly thank Mr. Shaw for his recommendation.

Now if any of you might be thinking about following Russell’s advice, perhaps I can save you a few dollars. Here’s another one from the same seller on Ebay for $599 (or $629 with Buy It Now.)

http://tinyurl.com/2z5qbo

You can thank me after you thank Russell. 🙂

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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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