Tag Archives: los-angeles

I have no intention of turning this into…

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a blog about southern California real estate, but I do have a non-fire related update from Southern California.

Brad Inman and I are going to be speaking at Beverly Hills REALTOR Association’s Head of High Office Tea this Thursday afternoon. From everything I can gather, it is going to be a pretty posh set-up at the Peninsula Hotel. The plan is for Brad to speak about the status of the industry for about an hour, myself to speak for about an hour and tea and conversation making up the last hour.

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Tickets are $40 and just about sold out.

Also, I shouldn’t admit this, but I honestly have not given much thought about what I’m going to say just yet… Conveniently, back in August I did a presentation on using blogs to build up an online brand for the KW Mega Technology Camp that came off well (and took about 45 minutes including questions from others who were on stage). I think I’ll adjust that presentation a bit but go with that general outline. If anyone who was at that presentation wants to give me feedback, I’d love to hear it! 🙂

Добро пожаловать на путеводитель Си

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I had a blast yesterday hanging out with the Pat, Jeff and the Sellsius gang in Koreatown earlier this week. We turned what I expected to be a quick lunch into a 2 1/2 hour conversation that never slowed down! (not only can those bloggers write, but they can talk! 🙂 ).

Jeff to a quick video that some might appreciate:

So, What’s with the title?
Pat has been getting so much traffic from Japanese visitors thanks to a little bit of Japanese text on his page that we all decided to test out a different language… I choose the text “Welcome to Seattle’s Rain City Real Estate Guide” in Russian since my wife can do the translating! 🙂

New seminar in Los Angeles this week…

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Last time I ran a seminar with Russ Cofano, I mentioned that I was considering creating a new seminar by slightly adjusting the topic… Instead of the seminar being “all about blogging”, or a “bloginar”, I really wanted to focus on the bringing an understanding to how online technologies are radically changing the industry and how agents can not only adapt, but thrive in this new environment.

After a few conversations about this idea with Errol Samuelson of Top Producer, he also showed a huge amount of excitement in the idea and offered to organize, promote and sponsor the entire thing. The result is that this next Tuesday and Wednesday I’ll be giving the new presentation (50% how the competition is changing the industry, 50% how agents can use online technologies to build up their online brand) in Los Angeles. We have tentative dates set for the end of the month in both Oakland and Seattle (to be announced soon) and assuming the seminars are well received, there’s no reason I couldn’t travel around the entire country giving advice to agents on how to enhance their existing business with social networking technologies.

If you are in the LA area, then consider visiting the seminar website to sign up (or the blog I created for the seminar). The event has already been picked up by both Greg and Brian, and from the comments on both sites, it looks like there should be more than a few people from ActiveRain and the RE.net in attendance! 🙂

Hope to see you there!

Improving Online Home Valuations?

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This past week, Top Producer quietly rolled out a home valuation tool, called HomeInsight, for a few markets in California and Washington*. I was not part of developing the tool, but I like it enough to pass along the link to Rain City Guide readers before the local media picks it up.

What differentiates this product from others is that it not only includes sold data, but also real-time listing data. The result is a page of information for each home that includes:

  • an interactive map that gives details on ten similar nearby homes (5 that are for sale and 5 that have sold) and
  • dynamic charts that give the average/high/low listing price, the average/high/low selling time and the average difference between asking and selling price for the neighborhood of interest.

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However, as with all things that sound too good to be true, there is a catch. In order to pull live listing information, the servers pulling this data have to go through an agent’s connection with their local MLS. (Don’t ask me to explain why, and definitely don’t ask Robbie, but anyone reading RCG for a while knows that the MLS’ have rules!) The result is it takes 5 to 15 minutes for the request to go to the local Realtor’s Top Producer account and then for the Realtor to initiate a report that pulls the data off the MLS servers (yes, a server call to the local MLS is necessary each and every time a request for a snapshot is made). Consequently, the only way to get your snapshop is from a link sent via email about 10 minutes after you complete the form.

So, how do you get a market snapshot for your home? Simply go to HomeInsight and fill in the required fields. (Remember it is only available in a few places right now!*)

If you don’t want to fill in the form, live in another part of the country, or feel guilty about sending people like Jim Reppond a “false” lead, then you can also check out this dummy snapshot filled with made up data.

And as much as I hate disclaimers, it is important to note that these are my opinions and my currently employer is not responsible for what I write on Rain City Guide.

* This tool is currently only available in parts of California (Hemet, Huntington Beach, Laguna Niguel, Long Beach, Los Angeles, Mission Viejo and Norwalk) and Washington (Bellevue/Eastside, Bremerton, Everett, Federal Way, Greater Seattle, Puyallup and Tacoma)

Free Bloginar in L.A. for 200 Agents!

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Russ Cofano and I are giving our 2nd Bloginar for agents next week on how to use blogs to effectively generate leads. Interestingly, the sponsor of the event, Coldwell Banker, decided to open up our seminar to all southern california real estate agents and not just Coldwell Banker agents (WOW!)… Not only that, but they decided to make the even free (Double WOW!).

The catch is that the facility can only hold 200 people and they’ve decided to offer seats on a first-come, first-serve basis! The only place to register is on this fancy flash page they created for the event! (A little bird has told me that there are already over 50 people 70 people 80 people 100 people registered for the event, and the organizers are expecting a full house!)

The event is scheduled to start promptly at 9:30am and last until 12:30 on July 19 at the Skirball Cultural Center in Brentwood.

Last time, we ended up rushing things (and skipping one of two planned breaks) because we really have four hours worth of material we’re trying to condense into three hours. I’ve attempted to filter things a little more this time, but with the inevitable (and valuable) questions that real estate blogging encourages from the audience, I’m sure we’ll be rushing to cover everything in the end this time as well!

Some of the reviews we had from our first bloginar were very encouraging…

Dale Crockatt:

Dustin and Russ, your first bloginar class was awesome! I have not been so excited about a new idea in years. We have been searching for an idea for the fourth generation of our website www.MountHoodHomes.com and I am convinced this is it! I was surprised you were not selling something at the end of the “show