What Real Estate Consumers REALLY Want

 

Every week there is new set of charts and graphs that come out. They analyze every minutia of data and all the information imaginable. New killer-apps are being released at such a rapid pace it’s tough to keep up with them all. And why?

Well, according to the techno-listing sites, the third-party aggregation websites, like Redfin, Zillow and Trulia, apparently what people really want is…. yep, more data. That’s right- more and more data. Every conceivable number and metric they can think up.

It’s like a race now. Who can churn out the most data, and cram it onto their website, the fastest. Who cares if it’s relevant or if anybody will actually use it- it’s DATA! It’s cool color charts and graphs that can show you everything you never thought possible. Come and see how many times people in this neighborhood walk their dogs on Tuesday mornings or find out the ratio of homes that sold for 1/25th of their initial listing price, during the first 118 hours being on the market, after being sold 2-3 years earlier, that have a redwood deck, and were listed with a Realtor named Sally- all in a cool pie chart.

So, this is where all the investment capital is going with all these techno-listing sites- more data? Millions of dollars are being pumped into these companies by investors who are counting on profits from all this data, yet none of these companies have made any profit. Think about how ridiculous this is. Redfin gets $20Million and it’s whole model is based around the idea that if they give more data and info, people will just buy homes online. The whole Redfin company, with all of their PR, news coverage, and dozens of full time employees and agents, only sold about 1000 homes last year.  For a comparison, I sold 114 homes last year. And these investors keep pumping money into this sinking ship.

Zillow just got another $30Million and Trulia has now received almost $18Million. And the business models of these companies is to get advertising (more stuff to put on the websites). I guess they figure at a certain point people will just become so buried with all the data on their websites that they’ll just have to fall over and surrender to them. When these companies run out of money (like they all keep doing), they simply come up with some new graphs and heat maps and show the suckers investors how this new data will finally get them some of that “profit” they keep hearing so much about, but alas… it does not come.

I receive a lot of advice on what I should add to my website. I have had no less than twenty companies approach me to sell me some cool new data field or information feed.  And I like data, and using it to give people good information, but enough is enough.

 People don’t want more data- they want a great experience.

I don’t want to climb over piles of charts and graphs to find what I’m looking for. If I’m thirsty I don’t really care if the glass has twirling lights and does my taxes- I just want the water that’s in the glass. The next cool drinking glass that has dancing girls and live-streaming music might be hot for a little while (like these tech-sites), but in the long run I believe that people will always use simple, easy to use water glasses. Because when they are thirsty they want the water, not the glass.

My point is- don’t cram your website with as much stuff as you can find. Instead, use good data and information, and present it in a way that offers a good, fun experience for your consumers. Give them a presentation that is visually appealing, as well as powerful and technologically advanced. Don’t forget that people make decisions based on emotion, and we always will.

Give me a great experience and I will give you my business.

BlueRoof at Inman Connect NYC

One of the best parts of attending a convention is the networking that takes place. Getting your story out, building those connections and relationships, and learning from others- these are all intregal pieces of growing a brand and a successful career in an ever-changing industry.

From the convention comes this write-up from Marc Davison, head of 1000Watt Consulting, who is helping to guide real estate brokerages into the future with consulting services.

This interview from brokerIPTV.com, who captured many of the speakers from the convention for private interviews.

With the launch of BlueRoof360, we are hoping to help change the industry for the better through guiding agents and helping them craft their own online presence and value proposition for consumers. Having fine companies spread the message about us is an enormous help, and I’m grateful for the generous publicity both of these companies are giving us.

BlueRoof360- Industry Best Realtor Websites, Lead and Client Management

In 2007 we closed 114 homes because of our website. While the majority of real estate agents were seeing their businesses slow down significantly and the overall market lose energy, our business has stayed very consistent. You may, or may not, want to be a top-producing agent, but I’m sure you wouldn’t mind an extra sale or two each month.  Technology does not take the place of personality and personal contact but, when utilized correctly, it can help us connect with our clients and also bring us business.

Understand, I am not a technology guy getting into real estate. I am a Realtor (over 14 years) who uses technology very well. As a real estate agent, if you want to get business from the internet and offer real value to your clients what are your current choices? You can use Point2, Advanced Access, Homes.com or myriad other template websites, you can (even worse) use a page on your broker’s website, or you can spend a lot of money building a custom website and hope the people building it know anything about real estate and design.

Now, finally, there will be another choice that brings the power and design of a custom website, innovative technology, simple and intuitive design and a price that makes sense.

Enter BlueRoof360

BlueRoof360 will cost $200/month and will be a complete online solution for real estate agents. Get business, offer better service for your clients, give value to the consumer, and grow your team and your bottom line.

I have been the managing broker for several large (100+ agent) real estate offices. I have become a student, learning what consumers like and want. By meeting them from my website and working with them I have been able to learn a lot about how to use the internet for real estate over the last five years. And because I am a real estate agent and I have managed, recruited, trained and hired hundreds of Realtors, I understand what real estate agents need and what they like and want.

It is fascinating to me how so many people think that spending nothing for nothing is a better bargain over investing something for an actual profit. If you spend $400/year and get one sale from it and $5000 commission (like most P2 or AA users do) that is good. But spending $60,000 and getting $800,000 in return (as I did last year) is better. One sale gets you some money and one person referring business to you. One hundred fourteen sales gets you much more money and 114 people referring business to you.

As Greg says, “If 10,000 people exhibit a casual interest in your product, you will have earned nothing, whereas if one person actually buys, you will have earned a huge pay-check.”

Consumers want a better overall experience including value, service, interaction and information. They want to feel as though they are being taken care of but that they have good information and still run the show. Agents want simple tools that enable them to focus on the relationship and they want business that comes to them without referral fees.

To offer real value to the consumer and get real business from the internet you need to have a few very important pieces that all work together. It all begins with a destination website. Not a form-filled, template website, but a website that is designed well, has cutting-edge technology, is fun and easy to use, and has great information for the consumer.

Next you need to know how to drive traffic to your website. How to make it seen and how to make it a place that people will want to come back to again and again, and tell other people about.

When someone asks for help or requests a showing on a property you need to respond very quickly- 15 minutes or less (under one minute is ideal). You need to have a near-immediate connection. People do not want to wait and they won’twait. They’ll usually work with the first agent to get back to them.

You need to be able to stay in touch with your leads, clients, past-clients, family, associates and friends. You need to give the consumer (your current and potential clients) excellent service. You need to WOW them.

And you need to continue to grow and learn from others who are doing it. But it has to be easy. It has to be simple to do. Real estate agents do not like complicated, difficult programs and hours of learning how to use stuff. We like fun, easy and simple.

BlueRoof360 will allow you to create your own custom website. Not a template website, but a custom website. A template gives you pre-defined spaces that you can change text and images in. We give you a very easy-to-use creation wizard to create your own layout, and then change it around to meet your personality. You’ll have some coaching on how to design it and what works well (colors, fonts, text, etc). You can use suggested themes or colors, or go off in your own direction.

We’ll show you how easy it is to use and what has worked well. And we’ll show you what people like. But you get to decide if your website has a bunch of text or if it has map-based search or games or an instant chat or video or your own blog or whatever you want.

You’ll also have a complete, but very simple to use, lead management and client management system. When someone requests to see a property you’ll be notified immediately by text message and email and that person’e information is instantly entered into your lead management system. To schedule the appointment, you simply drag and drop the person’s name on to your calendar. Assign an email keep-in-touch campaign with three clicks. You can use pre-designed campaigns or edit them or make your own. We have tried “Top Producer” client management system twice, but both times our team would not even use it because it was so complicated. We paid over $149/month and it just sat there. We’ve designed ours to be simple to use.

When you sell that person a home they are now a client. You click the button to move them to a client and their info is now entered as a client and you enter all the contract deadlines and information (as much or as little as you choose). If you only want to use three deadlines or you want to use twenty for each file- that’s up to you and very easy to do. You can choose to be alerted (via text message) before every appointment you have or not at all. Maybe you just want to be notified the day before the inspection deadline- no problem, it’s simple (two clicks and it’s done).

You can allow your clients to log in to their own account and see their file. A listing client can see everything you have done on their file and when. They can see when the magazine ad went out and when the sign was ordered and every showing. They can see all the feedback from their showings and your own personal notes. This doesn’t take the place of your personal communication, but it helps you to stay in touch with them even when you are busy and it helps them stay connected to the transaction in a new and interactive way.

When the file closes you can place that person as a past-client and set them up to receive monthly emails from you. Use pre-created ones, edit them, or make your own. Every time you take a new listing it’s sent to all of your past-clients, friends, family and associates. Or not- it’s up to you (one click makes it happen or not happen).

And you’ll have a community area where you can see everyone who is online and see their websites or send them a message. You can take part in the ongoing real-time chat discussion between everyone online. Throw out a question or just say hello. Read the internal blog, learn from the forums areas (and vote for the posts that helped you), read the community calendar or schedule an event in your area. It is important to have support from other agents who are succeeding and gain ideas from them and share your ideas. Networking can bring you referrals and can be a fun way to stay in touch with other agents around the country.

You’ll get coaching on how to convert leads, how to grow your team when you’re ready, how to drive traffic to your website, and how to create a great website. BlueRoof360 is a simple, powerful, well-designed online solution for real estate agents and brokers.

Keep doing what you are doing now and just use this to add some extra deals every month. Or go full-out and close hundreds of deals this year from your website. Either way, a long-term online presence will grow your business and give you tools to give better service and value to your clients.

As Jeff, TheXBroker, says…

“So where is the middle ground of killer technology and rePro listing penetration? I think BlueRoof is headed down the right path. Technology (Solvent) + rePro (Solute) = A Solution…one that both consumers and professionals can benefit from.”

The internet is a simple, powerful way to connect with people and grow your business and now BlueRoof360 will give you a simple and powerful way to do it.

BlueRoof on HouseHunters This Week

 

Trisha, my wife and business partner will be featured on HGTV’s HouseHunters later this week. She’s the only Utah Realtor to ever be on the show, and most certainly the most beautiful to ever appear on network television.

The show is titled, “To Be or Not to B&B”

From the HGTV website, “In Salt Lake City, a young couple searches for a place to hang their hats and their shingle.”

Shows times are:

€     December 20, 2007 10:00 PM ET/PT
€     December 21, 2007 2:00 AM ET/PT
€     December 22, 2007 5:30 PM Mountain Time

Point2 Agent Shaken Up- Good For Consumers and Agents

 

I don’t know as much about Point2 Agent  as a company as many agents do, but I am a member and have used the system. It seems to me to be an entry-level type service with a template website given and then you pay for add-ons and additional services. One thing I do know is that the company, as far the real estate piece of what they do, is centered around template websites. I think it’s important for our industry to evolve and maybe it’s time to begin to step-up to a higher level of website than templates offer.

There are better options than templates.

For most agents, a template website is their only on-line presence- either a template or an “agent page” on their broker’s website. So consumer’s see all these template sites and it affirms to them that agents don’t know much about technology. Often the consumer ends up going to the better websites (clean user-interface, enjoyable search experience, etc) that they can find, and in most areas Zillow, Realtor.com and Trulia are the best they can find.

Problem with Trulia, Realtor.com and Zillow is they are not real estate companies- they are technology companies. They take agent information (listings) for the purpose of selling ads and leads to agents. Their purpose is not to help consumers find homes, it’s to sell ads or leads. Obviously that’s not the best business model for the consumers (or agents)?

Now Point2 Agent is getting all shaken up and people are talking about it. I don’t wish bad on them at all, in fact for many agents they have been the only a good solution, but I think this shake-up may a good thing in at least one way- maybe it will open some discussion about different and even better online solutions for agents.

Instead of creating well-designed websites that offer real value to the consumer, agents usually either get a cheap  template just to have a website or they pay a technology company (Trulia/Realtor.com/Zillow) for leads. I understand why- it’s a lot easier and much less expensive than it is to build a custom site. Custom websites can cost a lot. I spent well over six figures on BlueRoof.com, and it’s tough to pay that kind of money, especially if you have no experience converting online leads and have no idea what sort of return (if any) on your investment you’ll get. But help is on the way.

Point2 and other template sites serve their purpose, to be sure, but I think many agents who have a Point2 websites would like to have something better.

In February there will something much better.

See it here:

http://blueroof.wordpress.com/2008/01/18/blueroof360-industry-best-realtor-websites-lead-and-client-management/

BlueRoof on InMan TV

Real Estate Video by - Real Estate Blogger

The interview was filmed in San Francisco during InMan connect a couple months ago where I was also a panelist discussing blogging and had other interviews and a lot of people to meet and things going on. Before the interview we were joking around, having a few drinks and having some fun, and I remember telling myself to slow it down and relax so I wasn’t going too fast or being silly. I may have taken it a bit too far because I seem tired or slow or something. But no worries- I’m grateful to have the support and respect of people in the real estate industry. As I’ve said before, this is an exciting time to be in real estate.

Thanks to InMan and Jessica- the whole crew was really great to work with.

BlueRoof.com Wins W3 Award

 

The W3 Awards were announced today and BlueRoof.com was awarded a silver award, which is probably much more exciting to me than to you, but I thought I’d share it with you anyway. A Gold award went to Zillow, and then they have a ”Best in Show” award, but that always goes to a new home development website with flash tours of the floorplans and stuff (they’ve never had a home search website win that award).

I feel good knowing that BlueRoof is the only local home-search site to win an award, and it’s always nice to get some recognition for your work and effort (and expense).

BlueRoof.com is still very unfinished. We have a lot of cool ideas to make the site much better, but it’s expensive and time-consuming developing new ideas (especially the ones I have) so I’ll take it a step at a time. For now, thanks to the W3 organization for the award…

People Don’t Buy Homes Online

I’ve been utilizing the internet to sell homes longer than almost anybody. My first real estate website was built back in 1998 (which might be considered Web.05) and featured a few spots where I could change the photos and info about homes and a few pages of clip-art and text. It was crude, for sure, but also high-tech and innovative back then. Heck, I was a broker with the first company (Prudential California) to ever accept a real estate contract on a house online. Site unseen, but the buyer had an inspection period to come see the home before the close was finalized.

Today I run a team of Realtors and have multiple websites that have flash, motion video, map-based search, Web2.0 looks and feel, consumer-generated content, self-updating information, virtual tours, online offers, and even property notifications by text message or email. Last week I brought some clients into the office to search for homes with me and the MLS was down so we jumped onto BlueRoof.com because the website takes the MLS info and downloads it onto my own servers twice per day so although we couldn’t access home info on the MLS, people in the office could still search for homes on BlueRoof.com. That’s all good stuff, but does it sell any homes?

My websites today are certainly much fancier than they used to be. They have a lot more stuff and they give a lot more information to the consumer (or agent) using them. But at the end of the day, when I sell a home it’s not because of my website, it’s because I did the work.

People meet me through the internet, but ultimately they want the same things I want when I’m shopping. They want someone to help them look at options, make a decision and coordinate the transaction. Whether I’m shopping for a car or for mutual funds, having solid professional help is what I want. And home buyers aren’t typically going to buy a home simply because they saw it online. They want to go out and walk through the home and see the location and hear about the area. They want to feel the space and listen for a train going by or a neighbors annoying dog that barks too much. And you need to be there to experience these things.

It’s become cliche to say “buy a home online” or “find your home online”, but the reality is that while people do find homes to look at while searching online, they aren’t actually buying their homes online. They aren’t sitting down in front of their computers and pulling out their credit cards to make a purchase. The reason good Realtors are selling as many homes now as ever is the same reason the internet has not disintermediated the Realtor from the transaction- people search online and find agents and inventory- and then they contact a Realtor to help them.

People are using the internet now more than ever to search for property, that’s for sure, but ultimately they aren’t finding homes online, they’re finding us.

Why 90% of Realtors Fail

 

My first day in the business I attended a Mike Ferry seminar that my brokerage had organized. I took a lot of notes (which I still have). Mike was up on stage telling stories about the 90/10 rule and about agents failing and how he believed successful agents became the top in their field (mostly it involved cold-calling). The next day (my first day actually working) his theory was confirmed when I went into the office and my broker showed me a desk with a phone and a Coles Directory (basically a telephone book listing names and numbers by street instead of by last name). He told me I’d be sharing the desk with about two or three other new agents and he showed me how to use the directory and where the copy room and break rooms were and that was basically my initial training. Later I would attend a two week training course the office had, but at the beginning it was all about that phone. So I got on the phone and began making calls.

The calls went something like this…

Hi, my name is Greg Tracy and I’m with Coldwell Banker Real Estate. May I speak to the owner of the home? I’m calling to ask if you have thought about selling your house now or in the near future? If you were to move where would that be?And when would you be making that move?Do you know anyone who may be thinking of selling at this time?Thanks, have a nice day.

Here’s a checklist to making money in real estate;

Take one month going through schooling - About $450 Pay Licensing and Association fees - About $1000

Buy business cards/yard signs/open house signs - About $400

Find home to sell

Market home - discuss marketing with seller and choose from following;

(Of course these costs are one reason so many agents simply put homes in the MLS and hope they sell)

Go through escrow period (inspections, appraisal, title, loan)

Close deal

Closing gift - Up to $100’s

Finding a home to sell is the hard part because who wants to list with a brand-new agent who has no experience? And if you do find a home to list, what if you spend the money marketing it and then it doesn’t sell?

What if you are really good (or lucky) and find five homes to list and spend $500 to market each of them all and two of them sell?

Average price home in Salt Lake is around $260,000. If an agent lists a home at 6% and gives 3% to the other agent their commission would be $7800. Now pay the broker $2300 (30%- not bad for new agent) and subtract the $500 marketing and the agent gets $5000. Not bad, except how long did it take to sell that home and get that check? Average time on market is about two months right now, plus the average 30 day escrow and you’ve spent three months waiting for that $5000 check.

The average agent in Utah sells 3-4 homes per year- that’s $15,000-$20,000 per year. This is all agents- new agents sell less.

Factor in the stress of a feast-or-famine income schedule, the emotional stress involved (way above average) and the process of prospecting for business (not very fun) and you begin to see the pressure a new agent feels. Many spend $2000 getting into the business and make less than $10,000 or even $5000 their first year.

And thousands of people get their real estate license every year and sell one or two homes and then leave the business. So those sellers may have listed with an agent who had little money to market their home and little experience to do the job and may have a bad experience. And that experience is how they now see Realtors.

There are over 8000 Realtors in the Salt Lake Board of Realtors, but only a couple hundred do most of the business. Most of the 10% of agents who do stay in the business are part-time, either because they have a full-time job or they have spouse who brings home the money and just do a deal or two each year. Or they think they are full time but don’t do much business anyway.

Starting out in real estate is a tough gig and I try to talk friends out of it. I’ve seen a lot of people get into the business feeling pretty confident only to leave a year later with their savings account drained and their confidence shattered.

Those who succeed can do pretty well, making a great living and enjoying a wonderful career, but the odds are 90-10 that it doesn’t happen.

BlueRoof Among Utah’s Top Blogs

 

Chris Sandberg ranks Utah’s Top Blogs (by Technorati ranking) for traffic and BlueRoof.com Blog is ranked #13 for traffic- right behind, and just ahead of, some excellent bloggers.

So what makes one blog get more attention than others? They say that “content is king“, and content is obviously a big factor in the popularity of a blog, but there are other factors that play into it. Here are the things that help your blog become more successful and help you stand out;

Presentation of the content is, in my opinion, one of the most important parts of a good blog. Many blogs are just a mess of text and ads thrown onto a page and I don’t usually read them for fear of a headache. I like clean looking blogs with good organization and the use of color and negative space to separate sections. And I like the overall feel to be friendly and visually appealing. A couple of good examples of this would be The Harper Team blog and Seth Godin’s blog. Their presentations are fun and appealing. I also think images help a lot.

Participation makes a significant difference in growing your blog. Reading other blogs and commenting in a way that furthers the discussion and builds your reputation so those other bloggers will want to link to you. I participated in, and won one of the first blog carnivals for real estate, appropriately called the Carnival of Real Estate and I’ve also hosted the carnival.

Recognition from other sources, especially credible sources, can help bring you traffic and give you credibility. Having Random Meanderings, Future of Real Estate ,  Inman News Blog, RealtyThoughts,  3OceansRealEstate, BloodHound Blog, and many other great bloggers write about me has really helped and I appreciate it very much.

Linking to other websites, blogs and articles, and having them link to you helps you get indexed in the search engines and gain traction within the millions of blogs out there. I’ve already linked to a dozen other places in this post.

Controversy - or at least some honesty without political correctness keeps things interesting and real. One of the reasons many blogs suffer is they are bland because they try to please too many people.

Updating often with new material is critical. Sometimes it’s tough to find the time or motivation, but if you want your blog to matter, you’ve got to put in the effort.

 

*Since this top ranking list was published the position for BlueRoof.com Blog has moved up to 29,876 while two others have gone down, making BlueRoof.com Blog now ranked #11 for Utah’s Top Blogs.  

Thanks for reading…

Most Searched For Terms in Real Estate

            

When it comes to real estate in America, what do people search for? Before I began writing this I made a list of my own to see just how close I could nail it. I mean, after all, I’m a real estate vet with years of experience and I run a couple of the most-visited real estate web sites in Utah, so I should have some pretty good guesses, right?

Here’s my list of what I thought the most searched for terms that drove people to my websites would be (excluding the website names):

1-”real estate”

2- “homes”

3- “homes for sale”

4- “realtor.com”

5- “real estate for sale”

These are generic terms and not area specific. My top list of terms searched for in northern Utah, my market would be:

1- “salt lake real estate”

2- “Salt lake city real estate”

3- “real estate salt lake city, ut”

4- “utah homes”

5- “salt lake homes”

Both seem like fairly straight-forward lists, so how close am I?

PropBot says:

This is interesting because on thier site you basically just type in anything, like a search engine, so a lot o fpeople probably search for things like 3bd, 2 bth home in Tulsa. What’s really interesting is that a specific home is ranked #7.0

Escape Homes says the top terms on their site are:

According to HitWise, the top-searched real estate terms are:

A lot of people use search engines to type in domain names instead of putting the domain name into the address bar- just out of habit or for the spell-check or something.

RealtyTimes columnist Jordan Glogau did some reasearch and found:

This is some great research because it shows how people search in different categories. I would think more people would search for California then New York, with more people living there and so many more homes there.

And then for BlueRoof.com. During the last 30 days here are the top search terms people typed into all search engines to find BlueRoof. Of course this is not a list of the top terms searched for- rather, it’s a list of the top keywords that people searched for and then were taken to BlueRoof- it’s still interesting to see which keywords have been used most frequently. I’m sure most sites have the top terms as being their site name, but the top search terms bringing people to BlueRoof.com are:

So, again many people use the search engines to type in domain names instead of the address bar. And if you take out the people who actually searched specifically for BlueRoof the top keywords would be:

1- homes for sale in Utah

2- salt lake city real estate

3- utah homes

4- real estate utah

5- homes for sale utah

6- real estate in utah

7- salt lake real estate

8- salt lake city homes

9- homes for sale in salt lake city

10- salt lake city homes for sale

So most people are searching for similar terms when coming to BlueRoof. When I look at my other website, which doesn’t have a brand name like BlueRoof does, the top terms for the last month are:

The main surprise to me is how few people actually searched for the keyword MLS. I would think many more people would. If anyone has any additional stats on keyword searches or on your own website acitivity (you don’t need to share numbers like I did) please share them or give a link where we can see them. 

Inman News Interviews BlueRoof

      

Glenn Roberts of Inman News interviewed me recently for an article discussing company blogs, which was published today. Along with BlueRoof, the other company blogs included in the interview were HotPads, Zillow, Zip Realty, Sellsius, and The Real Estate Tomato.

Roberts also covered the launch of BlueRoof back at the beginning of August 2006 and has written a ton of great articles about the industry and where it’s heading.

Blogging gives a company, a group, or an individual a public voice. One of the great parts about blogging is the direct connect it has with readers, the communication and feedback. Blogging can change the way one thinks about their topics and why the blog in the first place. And blogs can be updated as often as the owner wants, so checking back with a favorite blog throughout the day you might find more than one new post.

I think it’s important to give blogs a personality and not stick with only factual postings. Most major blogs have their share of criticizing and opinions about new trends in the industry and that’s part of the attraction, or as Sellsius calls it Magnetism (the ability to bring people back). Even if that means some people don’t like it.

The legs of blog posts are probably the most amazing part of blogging to me. Check out the daily hit report on this post I wrote about Feng Shui.

As you can see it I wrote it back in August and when I first posted it there were a few people a day who found it, then it went unread for months until January and then this month it just began being read and is averaging between 6-8 searches per day. Not a top post, but it shows the legs a post can have.

The chart represents people who go directly to that post from a search engine or are linked from another blog, not total reads, so you really get an idea of how topics will have interest all-of-a-sudden and will cause people to search for them.

Other posts have similar trends…

Some are consistently sporadic…

Other have interest from something in the news- months after they’ve been written

You just never really know when a post is going to get attention- many times I’ll post about something and it gets read for a few days and then is forgotten…

but you never know when it will come back again.

Shooting from the hip blind-folded on subjects I know nothing about

         

I remember blogging a few years ago when nobody read blogs and I didn’t think anyone would ever read my blogs. I had a few blogs (most are no longer active) and now I really only post to this one. Back then I wrote about much more personal things.

And because this is my blog I write about things that I think about and have opinions about. I was interviewed a few days ago by Brad Inman about blogging and he asked me where I come up with the content for my posts.

 The content for my posts come from happenings in the industry, local interests and news, and my thoughts and opinions about whatever. The beauty of a blog, at least my blog, is that it is purposely not a politically-correct bore-fest of facts and promotion. It is opinion and open dialogue.

I moderate the comments very light-handedly. They are immediately posted and sent to me and I delete comments that are spam, personal attacks, and sometimes just because they are obnoxious.

I’ve had a lot of advice about how I should run my blog. Some say I should advertise on it, some say I should not allow any comments, many tell me that I should be PC and not give any opinions unless they are flattering, and many advise me to post about big things that searched for a lot and link to tons of people. Hearing advice and different opinions has been great. Some of it I agree with and some I don’t.

But I don’t apologize for the way I run my blog. I’m going to have people disagree with me and that is a good thing if it leads to honest dialogue and debate. I’ve had my opinions changed before and I know I’m not always right- in fact I’m wrong all the time and that’s something that I like about blogging.

        

There are a lot of people that read my blog from a distance. It’s interesting to me how many agents in the area read my blog but don’t comment on it (at least they don’t comment on the blog- I’m sure they comment about it to people they know). Agents quote lines to me and tell me about things they liked. Usually I had no idea they even knew what a blog was, let alone- they actually read mine. And I’m sure they are some of the “anonymous” comments, and that’s fine by me.

I do think that people should stand behind what they say and include their name, but some people have their reasons and I’m okay with that. All I want is to further the conversations, get the dialogue out there and allow people to formulate their own opinions and give their two-cents if they want. And when I’m wrong and make a fool of myself, that’s okay, too, because at least I’m out here shootin’ away and taking my best shots.

This post was inspired by my main protagonist, Mike Elliott.

           

Real Estate Revolution Not For Sellers

     

Taking a look at the Real Estate industry from the perspective of an involved real estate blogger who does a lot of reading, research and speculating about the industry, I can tell you that at times I have been excited, optimistic, frustrated, and hopeful about the “Revolution” happening in the business. But when I look at the reality of it all, without judgement, I’m mostly amazed and here’s why;

Everything is still the same

At least when it comes to listings. Sure, there are a few more companies and some new models, but when you look at the market share of these new models- they seem to be taking their business from other new models and smaller shops, not from the large brokerages. In my area the large brokerages are growing and although there are tons of small companies popping up every day, the don’t become relevant and they aren’t taking away market share from the established companies.

There is a pool of consumers (25%) that are going to use alternative models, go the FSBO route, and use the lowest-bidding agent they can find and that’s just the way they are. They would rather “save” on commission then make more money with a higher sales price.

And that pool of people are selecting between those smaller brokerages and new models, but the majority (75%) of consumers are just not buying into it. They are going to use a large full-service brokerage no matter what is going on in the industry and no matter what “special deals” there are. They don’t care so much about “saving” money- they care about the job that gets done.

So newer models and smaller shops are all competing over 25% of the market and the major brokerages are all competing over 75% of the market. There are some cross-overs here and there, but this is the same ratio we’ve probably had for the last ten or fifteen years and it doesn’t seem to be changing much.

I like the new innovation. In fact I happen to think I have the best real estate search on the planet  (BlueRoof.com). I feel this way because I’ve been told this by a lot of people and my clients feel this way, but mostly because it’s just my own opinion. I’m building it to be what I want in a real estate search. Of course there are tons of things I am still adding to it and improving on it- that’s how websites are. But as much as I like the new innovation and the new sites popping up- the consumers are still listing with big brokerages.

Seattle seems to be a hot-bed right now of real estate tech, with Zillow and Redfin and about ten other new models, but isn’t JohnLScott  and Coldwell Banker still the biggest and growing?

Buyers are finding agents on the internet, but sellers aren’t finding their agents that way- the RE 2.0 market is a buyers market- not a seller’s.

Used to be that you had to “List to Last”- meaning that to last in the business you had to get listings. Not so anymore- now you can have buyers come to you by using other people’s listings on your website. But the listings aren’t coming so much from internet.

At BlueRoof we’ve taken a lot of listings (about one every 2-3 days average) and we’ve had quite a few of the clients contact us from the website after reading about us or hearing about us or just finding us. But the amount of buyers we get compared to sellers is huge. My other website is even more so.

What thisall means to me is the consumer is enjoying the internet search and innovation when they look to buy a home, but when it comes to selling, the new “revolution” is pretty much the same as it has been.

BlueRoof + Sellsius =

 

A photo- op apparently. 

And I still can’t figure out to get that cool little degree symbol at the end of their logo. So Rudy comes in town to ski in Park City over holidays and we get a drink. And he tells me about Sellsius (degree symbol) and shares some of the company’s history, which is interesting.

So we all got the Meme that was passed around a couple weeks ago but this is my reverse meme…

Five things you don’t know about Rudy Bachraty III at Sellsius (degree symbol)

1- Rudy hasn’t worked in a year

Dude must be loaded- can you imagine taking a year off? I can hardly manage five days at a time for a vacation. A full year would be… well, I dunno what it would be- but Rudy does.

2- Rudy actually knows how to make little symbols in text

It’s like putting emoticons into his blogs and emails. Even in personal emails there it is- that cool little degree symbol at the end of the company name. When I asked Rudy about this he had an answer about how to do it rather than say what I would said, “I have no idea, my web guys put it there.”

3- Sellsius has some pretty cool marketing materials ready to go

And I’m not just talking about the shirts (thanks by the way). The promotional items he left with me looked pretty good until I got home and realized that it opened up even more and the gloss and print was great- and then it hit me- they’re actually serious about this company thing they’re doing. And his wife designed the marketing so they’ve got access to a great designer who probably cares about doing a good job for them (and may push him to get to work sometime this year).

4- Rudy is a pretty cool guy

Once you get past the fact that he is about seven feet tall (maybe 6′5) which is taller than me, you realize that he’s a down-to-earth guy that’s fun to hang out with. We’ve all been to conventions and got into a conversation with someone and wished for an emergency reason to leave. And with the internet you never really know how socially adept someone is going to be because some people can hide behind cleverly thought out text and their studied and spell-checked blog posts but can’t hold your interest for five minutes. Rudy’s a fun guy to get a drink with and he seems like he really cares about what he’s doing, and I don’t just mean he cares about not working all year (he probably cares about that, too), he cares about promoting other people. He wants to be the voice of promotion for anyone who needs/wants/deserves it.

5- He knows how to work a meeting

He brings me a bag of gifts (good first impression), remembers things about me from my blog (does homework or has good memory), chats it up (not socially retarded), remembers to bring a camera (I always forget), clears the drinks off the tables for the picture (there were many) so we don’t look like drunks, and then remembers to blog about the experience right afterward (he has nothing else to do all day).

Sellsius (degree symbol) was already one of my favorite blogs and now I like and respect them even more. Their business model seems like a good idea and the marketing I’ve seen looks great so I wouldn’t be surprised to see them on the cover of Realtor magazine soon, either for establishing the blog and company, or for showing how long people can actually go without working, which would totally appeal to the Realtor crowd.

Happy New Year from BlueRoof

This has been an eventful and interesting year for me and I wouldn’t have it any other way. It started out with a bang and it’s ending with bang and in between I’ve enjoyed the ride. Some highlights from my year include;

A trip to Hawaii (Hana)

With my incredible wife. I’ve been to Hawaii before but this trip was amazing- I probably felt more fully relaxed than ever before. It was in January after all the holiday travelers had left and we had the entire resort to ourselves (well, it felt like it at least).

Taking our entire family on a cruise

We all went down to Mexico for over a week and tested the limits of one huge ship. This was the first cruise for all of us and we all enjoyed it a ton. We call it the “ice-cream” cruise because every time we saw one of the kids they were eating ice cream. I enjoyed the alone time with my wife, the excursions and the piano bar was a blast.

Launching BlueRoof.com

Everything about it has been exciting- from the inception and pushing it through to the TechCrunch party in Seattle where I met some real entrepeneurs, to the Inman Connect where we got some attention and began a pretty cool little company story. It takes a lot of energy and effort to build a website and it takes a lot of energy and effort to start a company. Doing both can be very expensive, a big pain-in-the- @ss, and pretty exciting. There are a lot of pressures that come with owning a company and knowing that families and careers are depending on you. Change can bring out the best or worst in people. Of course there are many variables, but some people seem to handle change well while others do not and it’s been interesting to see how different people react and handle different things. The company has also brought my wife and I closer than ever. We have worked together for years now, which is really cool because most couples can’t stand to be around each other very much but we can be together all day and still want to be together all day tomorrow, and this entire experience has only made us want to be together more.

Making our Home

No, not building our home. We bought the place last year and we loved it then, but this year we’ve really made it ours. It’s a relatively big house (almost 5000 square feet) and finishing each room off in our own style and taste, a lot of remodeling  and adding our own personal touch has made it our home. We still have a lot that we want to do to it, but this is why I would never want to rent again- we’re making our home as we go and it’s all ours.

The Holidays

Every year I love the holidays, especially Thanksgiving, but this year (probably because of all the pressure we’d been under) I really enjoyed my time off with family and savored every moment of it. Christmas is always fun when you have a bunch of kids and seeing them have so much fun is magical and it reminds me of what life is all about- enjoying the ride.

And this year I have really enjoyed the ride…

 Here’s to 2007- I hope it’s as exciting and fun as 2006 has been,

Cheers!

Specialists Benefit Real Estate Consumer

 

Most of my career in real estate has been on the listing side. I usually have gotten my business from for-sale-by-owner’s (FSBO). I call them and ask if they would like help selling their home and then follow up with them (sometimes for months and months) until they become frustrated enough trying to sell on their own that they’ll list with me. Most agents don’t enjoy working FSBO’s because it’s tough emotionally, but most agents do prefer to work with sellers because it generally takes less time. And I’ve done well helping people sell.

And I’ve worked with buyers also, usually a couple at a time, showing homes in between my listing appointments. But I always worked whatever leads I could find, whether they were buyers or sellers or both- I would, as most agents do, take the business wherever I could get it. Nothing wrong with that…

But now I’m working exclusively with buyers and referring all of my selling clients to a listing specialist (Tom) on our team. And I believe our clients are better off for it. Tom works exclusively with sellers and so he can focus on them and make sure they are taken care of. He is not driving around showing homes, which takes a lot of time. He spends all of his time working to sell the homes we have listed, writing and re-writing the ads, tracking the traffic and showings and getting feedback on the showings, discussing the market and strategy with the sellers, and showing the homes he has listed. Since most of our clients come to us from our website, he doesn’t need to spend all day prospecting for new business, which is where most agents spend the majority of their time. He is listing more homes than most agents but also is much more available to his sellers than most agents.

More time for sellers= good.

And because I am only working with buyers I can also specialize and spend all of my time with them. One of the benefits for me has been that I can be readily available to my buyers and spend as much time with them as they need. And because I’m not spending my time trying to get listings I can dedicate more of my time to assisting my clients finding a home.

More time for buyers= good.

Moving can be a frustrating experience, but finding a new home can be fun if you have the right help. Some people spend days, weeks and months driving around looking for homes or going through newspaper ads or out-dated magazines trying to find a good home. That would frustrate me, plus that way you never really get to see all the homes available.

When I help people find a home I search for homes with them and try to show them homes they are going to want to see. Instead of spending days driving around looking through homes they won’t like and becoming frustrated, they can spend their time having some fun shopping for homes they will like to look at. I search for homes, find homes, schedule the showings and coordinate the routes. I drive them or they can follow me if they prefer, and I show them through all the homes. And then of course I pull comparables, help write and present the offer and coordinate everything all the way through closing and the best part is I am paid by the listing agent so the buyer doesn’t have to pay me anything for all of my services.

It’s good to specialize in certain areas of town or cities so we can know them really well. Many agents spend time specialize in geographic areas, but few specialize in buyers or sellers also. By focusing on buyers I can give them the very best service and attention, and that’s good for everyone.

Security Warning

Also- comments that are self-promotional, rude, or simply unappealing to me…

(Thanks Sellsius)

BlueRoof, Our First 100 Days - Part 1

    

When we first opened as a brokerage at the end of July we knew this would be a ride, but it’s been even crazier than expected. We’ve had a lot of fun and a lot of stress, and I wouldn’t trade it for anything.

BlueRoof began by accident, really. I had decided to do a re-design of a website that I’ve had for a few years, but after meeting with my web-developer and seeing some mock-ups I decided I would build a new website altogether. So I did a ton of research on names and logos and everything else and put together the plan for what I believed would be the very best real estate website possible. I figured if I was going to spend my time and resources, I’d go all the way with it. Whether it actually became the best real estate site or not it would, at least, be my favorite.

As the website starting to come together and I thought more about it I considered starting my own company. I had always wanted to. And I was always complaining that I could do things better. So why not see what I could do? The timing was right with the consumer begging for change and the local real estate market booming. I discussed it with my wife and a close friend and decided to do it. I approached Mike Shehan, who was the Director of Marketing for Prudential Utah (and by far the best marketing person in the business) and asked him to be a partner. Mike had owned his own company before and has a good business mind. Mike also has a lot of strengths where I don’t, so I thought it would be a great fit. Luckily for me, he agreed to come on board.

    

Building a good company from the ground up is tough, but with the demands of launching a major website, BlueRoof.com, and the fact that our business model is challenging the traditional real estate establishment- well, it’s been interesting.

Before we launched, I had already began to get to know some pretty innovative people in the industry. I had been in contact, through blogging with Spencer Rascoff, Zillow’s CFO before they launched and I was one of the people searching for clues about what they were doing, which led me to a bunch of other innovative websites and companies. At the end of May I attended the TechCrunch party in Seattle, co-hosted by Redfin and met Eric Heller and Glenn Kelman and some other Redfin and Microsoft guys that let me pick their brains.

Right after we became a brokerage we attended the Inman Connect convention in San Francisco July 26-28. We went to the convention to accomplish three things;

-Get the BlueRoof name out in the industry

-Discover and Learn

-Have a Blast/Meet Fun People

And we had huge successes with all three. The first hour of the first day we attended Michael Harrington’s opening address about the state of the industry, where he described how the industry needs to change because it is broken and where he thinks the industry needs to go. We were listening and realized that he was describing our business model. One of the things he talked about was how the MLS’s are too controlling with the information and there should be a place where people can see all listed homes AND For Sale By Owner (FSBO) homes at the same time. BlueRoof.com had this. So I stood up and announced that we had every listing from every brokerage and FSBO homes on our website and you could search for them and see the results together. He asked how we did that when the MLS would not allow it and I replied that we just did it. A few minutes of back and forth and a woman toward the front of the audience stands up and says she is with the local MLS and we weren’t allowed to do that. It was a beautiful moment. Everyone held their breath or laughed, laptops were opening our homepage throughout the room and now we were given a villain to make us look even better.

So after that first meeting people were talking about what happened and about BlueRoof all week. People were coming up to us and telling us how great it was that we were doing what we were doing. They would ask us about our company and we would over-hear people discussing it- it was great.

We went to the convention booths and found some great technologies. Some we have implemented into our business and some we will implement, and then some didn’t work for us, but it’s good to see the “new stuff” anyway.

Mike’s girlfriend flew into town and with my wife we met a bunch of people and had a lot of fun going out (very late) every night and playing around in the city. We drove out to wine country and ate at some great local restaurants and enjoyed our time quite a lot.

It was a great trip for us. When we got back home our work was about to begin…

BlueRoof.com/ Utah Jazz Video Slam Dunk Contest Begins

BlueRoof has teamed up with the Utah Jazz to create the biggest slam dunk contest in the state. For all ages, the contest is simple, just film yourself or someone else slam-dunking (wearing a FREE BlueRoof.com T-shirt or logo), upload it onto YouTube, and copy/paste the YouTube URL on to the promo page of BlueRoof.com.

Then come back to BlueRoof.com between December 1-8 to vote for your favorite slam dunks. The top three vote-getters will be shown on the JumboTron in the Delta Center and on the televised half-time show and the crowd will determine which dunk wins.

See examples HERE.

The winning dunk will receive four tickets to an upcoming Utah Jazz basketball game, a autographed team basketball and an autographed game jersey.

You can pick up a free BlueRoof.com T-shirt at the Delta Center ticket office or at the BlueRoof offices at 6955 Union Park Center, Cottonwood Heights, Ut 84121. Or you can print out the logo and pin in on to your shirt, or even just write it on a shirt with marker.

Show us what you’ve got and we’ll show it to a crowd of 20,000 people and give you, a child, or friend a chance at celebrity.

BlueRoof Real Estate Search Engine

Searching for Real Estate Related Topics?

See the BlueRoof Real Estate Search Engine…

  

                                   CLICK HERE

  

(Credit Search Engine Watch )  

Patience is No Longer a Virtue…

… it’s a national treasure. In a world of A.D.D. and A.D.H.D. and multi-channel surfing and instant replay and headline news and “feeder”-reprieve and text messaging and go-go-go we are a more efficient populace, but we are definately not patient.

When I search on Google I am told how many gigaseconds it took to find my results as if 0.00013 seconds means something different to me than 0.00045 seconds does. I mean, really- what is the cut-off point between fast and slow?

     

If I’m using a website I want it to be fast. And when people use my website they expect it to be fast, I know this because I get emails all the time complaining that it was too slow this time or that it was so fast the last time. Here is an excerpt from an email I received yesterday…

“…but having the best user-interface means less if it’s too slow. My last search took 17 seconds to load 102 houses. I suggest increasing your bandwidth, adding an additional server, or increasing the memory on your current server.”

First of all, we’ve added additional servers and increased our server’s memory several times to keep up with our growing traffic. But as anyone with a website knows, traffic is not a steady stream, it is a tidal wave followed by a trickle. One minute the site may take 17 seconds to load and then next it could take 5 seconds to do the same search.

And on a side note- if you’re on dial-up don’t complain to me about the speed- you wave all rights to complain by having dial-up. That’s like complaining to your car-dealer that your mini-van doesn’t handle well.

But 17 seconds isn’t really that long. Loading over 100 homes, including photos and detail information, and placing them on a map, takes some calculations. Let’s see you do it, smarty pants…

There is a contigency out there that supports Web 1.0 sites, or as I like to call them, “really boring template sites” because they are “fast”. So if I understand this arguement correctly, they would rather have a webpage that looks like a spreadsheet, has no substance, and is clogged with links and meta-tags if it will save you a few seconds of loading time?

Not me- I’d rather have all the goodies and a site with some soul. I like websites that are visually appealing, easy to use, and fun. And although I’m a pretty busy guy, getting all of that is worth an extra five or ten seconds.

People Love BlueRoof! (or hate us)

I was reading Inman Blog and came across a post from Tuesday (no linkbacks) that mentioned this post from Real Estate 2.X which talks about how companies are buying the domain names of their company with the word “sucks” after it so people can’t buy that domain name. So, of course, I went and bought www.blueroofsucks.com because, like I mentioned on RE 2.X, if anyone’s going to talk about how much I suck, it’s going to be me. And then in my emal this morning Mike (our prez) sent me this photo from a fan, which I actually like quite a bit (ahem…)

              

And it got me thinking about how some people get so threatened by new competition, especially when you are doing things that are better for the consumer.  

Leaving the corporate environment of a large brokerage and founding a start-up is an interesting experience. Some people at my previous brokerage have been insanely negative about what we’re doing, probably because our business model is threatening to theirs.

Others have been really supportive and understand that there is room in the industry for different models.

Kind of goes back my last post about Good Realtors and bad agents…

But the best part about our new company is all the support we get from our clients. The consumers like what we’re doing because we are a new business model and most consumers really don’t like the traditional real estate models.

When I meet with people and show them our model and how we can help them they get excited about our model. We’ve had people tell us they were going to name rooms in the home after us and they send us incredible testimonials and they refer all their friends to us, which is the greatest endorsement they can give.

We’ve had other brokerage’s agents send clients to us to list their home because their broker wouldn’t let them do the same things we can do and we’ve had agents at other companies call us to ask if it was okay to put their home on BlueRoof as a “For Sale By Owner”, which of course we support. We’ve had title reps (and these guys know all the companies) in the area refer their friends to us. Last month we even represented a husband-wife Realtor team from one of the largest brokerages in town buying their property.

Many people have contacted us to tell us that they are not buying or selling right now but just want us to know that when they do they will be using BlueRoof.

It’s been overwhelming and humbling and very encouraging and we appreciate all the support we get. But just to be clear, we are not striving to get business soley because of lower commission rates- we are building our brand on our value proposition, which includes service. Some say you can’t have it both ways, good service AND a better value proposition, but we believe you can.

It’s really great that so many agents are so supportive. I have a lot of friends at other brokerages and I have a lot of respect for them and their business. There are a lot of good agents out there and I know that my model won’t work for everyone. Maybe someone is offended by the color blue- they won’t like BlueRoof.com.

And some of our advertising is silly and adolescent, but that’s only because our company is still adolescent, plus our president is basically just a little kid running around like an adult. We’re just in our infancy- we’ve only been a brokerage for three months now. We’ve done really well and had more success as a brokerage than any other new brokerage model I know of. Already in our first three months we’ve listed 45 homes and sold 42 on the buyer-side. That means we’ve already average about a sale a day.

 We’re trying to be different, and a little disruptive, because that’s what the industry needs and most importantly- that’s what the consumer wants.

The Difference Between Good Realtors and Bad Agents

          

First off, let me say that there are a lot of good Realtors out there, with many different brokerages. There is not just one brokerage that is good and there is not only one good Realtor out there. Many go to work every day taking care of their clients and doing the best job they can.

Many real estate agents are not good at their work- not good for the industry or their clients. Of all the Realtors in the three states (Utah, Colorado, California) I have been a broker in, I would estimate that about 5 to 10 percent of real estate agents are what I would consider to be really good Realtors. The majority of brokerages and agents either put themselves above their clients, or are simply average at what they do, selling a few homes eachyear to family or friends, but not excelling in their field. The good ones learn their business well, continue to grow and always put their clients first.

If you call three agents, even from the same office of almost any real estate company and ask them to present you with a market analysis and marketing presentation to sell your home you will almost certainly get three completely different marketing plans and three different values for you home. And these are three people in the same office of the same company. Why?

Because each agent decides how much money they want to spend marketing a home based on any number of factors, including how much money that agent has, how much time they want to spend creating marketing, how much they think they will make from the sale of the home, how talented they are marketing, the resources available to them, the culture of their company, the seller’s needs and demands, etc.

The opinion of value will vary because each person has their own opinion and use their own comparables, but also because some agents want you to believe that your home is worth less than it really is so they can get a quick sale and some agents will tell you your home is worth more than it really is just to get the listing, while other agents will be fair and honest with you.

And if an agent doesn’t want to pay for a virtual tour do you think they are going to say to the seller, “I’d rather not pay for a virtual tour, even though it would really help us sell your home, is that okay with you?” Of course not! They’ll tell the seller that they don’t need a virtual tour or that tours don’t sell homes or they just won’t bring it up at all. But no matter which of these options they choose the seller loses. The seller, their client, is the one who is hurt. And this is from the person they are asking to help protect them.

The agents usually want to price it right and put it on the MLS. “Price it right” usually means to price it for as low as they can get the seller to price it. So they are actually trying to get the seller down in price, working against their own client, before they even start.

And then they ”put it on the MLS” hoping that another agent will sell the home. The lowest priced home in any group of comparable homes will theoretically sell first. But who wants to be the lowest priced home in a group of comparable homes?

I teach our agents to always put the client first. And this includes giving the sellers the very best information on pricing so we can price the home to get the seller as much money as possible, even if it takes us a little longer and costs us a bit more to sell. Because that’s what the client wants- as much as they can get. If the seller wants to price it lower for a quick sale than that’s their decision, but it won’t be because we pressure them into it trying to make a quick buck.

Flexibility in marketing homes= BAD. Making sure every home has a full marketing package= GOOD.

Using a below-market price as the marketing plan= BAD. Helping a seller decide the highest price they can get and then marketing the home to get that price= GOOD.

      

Our company, BlueRoof, has standards that are higher than most brokerages when it comes to representing a seller. When we market a home we start by representing our clients.

We are a full-service real estate company. We do not do “entry-only” or ‘limited services” listings. We represent our clients- all of our clients. We schedule the showings and present the offers and negotiate on behalf of our clients and we coordinate the entire transaction, all the way through closing. We market like crazy and work on nights and weekends and we (gasp!) answer our phones.

Over 90% of listed homes sell because of the MLS and internet. Either another agent finds it for their buyer or the buyer finds it online. This is where much of the marketing value comes into play, but we market everywhere (including print, postcards, and radio) because we don’t want to miss any buyers out there.

     

We market homes for less commission than some brokerages, and more than others. I know what my services are worth and that is what i charge. When it comes to personal services, you get what yuo pay for. Hire an attorney or a landscaper and you’ll find the same thing- the best charge more because they are worth more.

             

Bad agents sell homes as quickly as possible, good agents sell homes for as much as possible.

Bad agents tell you what to price your home at, good agents help you determine the highest price possible.

Bad agents are hard to get ahold of, good agents are easy to get ahold of and have an assistant to help.

Bad agents take a listing and then you don’t hear from them, good agents have systems and are accessible. They coordinate the transaction.

Bad agents count on other agents to sell your home, good agents market directly to buyers as well as the MLS.

Bad agents do as little as possible, good agents do as much as possible. Bad agents try to convince you that the higher their commission is, the more money you’ll make, good agents negoatiate a commission that works for you, and explain that buyers and selers determine the final sales price, not the agent (or their commission).

Bad agents do not like their competitors, good agents appreciate working with other people in the industry and realize that these people help them, and their clients, when they work together.

There are some major differences between brokerages and agents, and there are good Realtors and bad agents in every market. It’s always good to know your options…