{"id":12319,"date":"2010-06-18T08:31:45","date_gmt":"2010-06-18T15:31:45","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.bloodhoundrealty.com\/BloodhoundBlog\/?p=12319"},"modified":"2010-06-18T08:31:45","modified_gmt":"2010-06-18T15:31:45","slug":"harvesting-the-redfin-green-learning-how-to-work-with-web-based-prospects-who-may-not-have-known-they-were-contacting-a-realtor","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.bloodhoundrealty.com\/BloodhoundBlog\/12319\/harvesting-the-redfin-green-learning-how-to-work-with-web-based-prospects-who-may-not-have-known-they-were-contacting-a-realtor\/","title":{"rendered":"Harvesting the Redfin green: Learning how to work with web-based prospects who may not have known they were contacting a Realtor."},"content":{"rendered":"

I built our first real estate web site in June of 2001. I had just gotten my license that May, parking it with an apartment locating service called The Apartment Store. The folks Jeff Brown calls “house agents” like to laugh at niche players in the real estate world, but I passed on three residential brokerages to do rentals. Why? Because I knew I would starve to death — as 85+% of all new licensees do — waiting for my first home buyer or seller. Instead, I took a job where I stood a chance of getting belly-to-belly with five or six motivated people a day.<\/p>\n

But: I built the web site because I wasn’t in love with the people I was meeting. Jack English, the broker, had built his business around serving extremely marginal clients — apartment seekers with bad credit, past judgements, felony convictions, etc. Everyone deserves a second chance in life, but, for the most part, I turned out to be a poor fit for the targeted clientele. I moved some interesting people I was delighted to help — for example, two recovered heroin addicts and the sweetest paroled murderer one could ever hope to meet — but I also met a lot of people to whom no one should ever have extended credit.<\/p>\n

Even so, the experience was great. I got to talk to a lot of people, showing a lot of apartments and rental homes, and I got to learn, very quickly, what makes the frog jump. That’s why I built the web site: I realized that Jack’s business model was missing a better segment of the rental market. Less-than-ideally-qualified tenants needed help because they didn’t know who would take them and who would turn them down. But there was a much larger, much juicier, much better-qualified pool of prospects out there: People with plenty of money but no time.<\/p>\n

That first site, TheApartmentStore.org, was a killer lead generator. No one was doing anything using forms in those days, and GoTo.com was still selling pay-per-click for as little as a penny a click. I was hauling in four and Read more<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I built our first real estate web site in June of 2001. I had just gotten my license that May, parking it with an apartment locating service called The Apartment Store. The folks Jeff Brown calls “house agents” like to laugh at niche players in the real estate world, but I passed on three residential […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_crdt_document":"","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[379,6,5,27],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-12319","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"hentry","6":"category-innovation","7":"category-marketing","8":"category-real-estate","9":"category-redfincom","11":"no-featured-image"},"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":2857,"url":"https:\/\/www.bloodhoundrealty.com\/BloodhoundBlog\/2857\/black-pearl-marketing-minute-hour-your-first-six-months-as-a-real-estate-licensee-use-your-time-now-to-make-money-then\/","url_meta":{"origin":12319,"position":0},"title":"Black Pearl Marketing Minute Hour: Your first six months as a real estate licensee — use your time now to make money then","author":"Greg Swann","date":"March 30, 2008","format":false,"excerpt":"For years I lectured at the pre-licensing classes of the the college professor who taught my own real estate pre-licensing classes. I hadn't done this for the last couple of years, but I did a class on January 24th, 2008. We made a video tape of my talk, but I\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Blogging"","block_context":{"text":"Blogging","link":"https:\/\/www.bloodhoundrealty.com\/BloodhoundBlog\/category\/blogging\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":3142,"url":"https:\/\/www.bloodhoundrealty.com\/BloodhoundBlog\/3142\/bloodhoundblog-unchained-the-way-of-the-farmer\/","url_meta":{"origin":12319,"position":1},"title":"BloodhoundBlog Unchained: The Way of the Farmer…","author":"Odysseus","date":"May 19, 2008","format":false,"excerpt":"We're Unchained, but we're still wired to the net -- wirelessly. These posts are set up so that folks can make notes or comments in real time.Listing strong to farm strong Building single-property web sites Using engenu to dominate the long tail Zestifarming to dominate Zillow Blogging your listings \u2013\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Blogging"","block_context":{"text":"Blogging","link":"https:\/\/www.bloodhoundrealty.com\/BloodhoundBlog\/category\/blogging\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":4194,"url":"https:\/\/www.bloodhoundrealty.com\/BloodhoundBlog\/4194\/the-belly-to-belly-dilemma-questions-you-must-answer\/","url_meta":{"origin":12319,"position":2},"title":"The Belly To Belly Dilemma: Questions YOU Must Answer","author":"Jeff Brown","date":"September 3, 2008","format":false,"excerpt":"I was inspired to republish this post, which was first seen here almost 18 months ago, after reading the answer my son gave to a Brown & Brown client yesterday via email. I've spent four years mentoring him within an inch of his life. Pride bubbled up from nowhere as\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Real Estate"","block_context":{"text":"Real Estate","link":"https:\/\/www.bloodhoundrealty.com\/BloodhoundBlog\/category\/real-estate\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":6662,"url":"https:\/\/www.bloodhoundrealty.com\/BloodhoundBlog\/6662\/selling-real-estate-the-engenu-way-because-i-can-make-content-rich-web-sites-so-easily-i-can-make-my-points-more-convincingly\/","url_meta":{"origin":12319,"position":3},"title":"Selling real estate the engenu way: Because I can make content-rich web sites so easily, I can make my points more convincingly","author":"Greg Swann","date":"January 21, 2009","format":false,"excerpt":"Can premium rental homes in suburban Phoenix throw off positive cash-flow at 75% of market rents? An investor asked me that question the other day. It's an academic problem, really, a matter of costing out typical homes to see how they perform under that scenario. I can do that much\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Blogging"","block_context":{"text":"Blogging","link":"https:\/\/www.bloodhoundrealty.com\/BloodhoundBlog\/category\/blogging\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.paypal.com\/en_US\/i\/scr\/pixel.gif?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":2780,"url":"https:\/\/www.bloodhoundrealty.com\/BloodhoundBlog\/2780\/bloodhoundblog-is-the-number-one-real-estate-weblog-technically-true-for-a-brief-moment-but-we-still-have-some-growing-to-do\/","url_meta":{"origin":12319,"position":4},"title":"BloodhoundBlog is the number one real estate weblog? Technically true for a brief moment, but we still have some growing to do","author":"Greg Swann","date":"March 16, 2008","format":false,"excerpt":"A tiny trophy, a huge victory -- to come. We had a helluva week last week, our best ever -- until now. So what did we do this week to top last week's numbers? How about almost double? The real estate category on BlogTopSites is the home of truly competitive\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Blogging"","block_context":{"text":"Blogging","link":"https:\/\/www.bloodhoundrealty.com\/BloodhoundBlog\/category\/blogging\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":7884,"url":"https:\/\/www.bloodhoundrealty.com\/BloodhoundBlog\/7884\/if-you-want-to-learn-what-we-know-and-to-learn-what-we-are-learning-youre-coming-to-bloodhoundblog-unchained-in-phoenix\/","url_meta":{"origin":12319,"position":5},"title":"If you want to learn what we know — and to learn what we are learning — you’re coming to BloodhoundBlog Unchained in Phoenix","author":"Greg Swann","date":"April 14, 2009","format":false,"excerpt":"Okay, this is my last pitch for BloodhoundBlog Unchained in Phoenix. If you can't figure out which side of the bread has the butter on it, you're just going to have to wear a bib. Here's the deal: What we're going to teach you, nobody teaches. 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