Tag Archives: real-estate

Use Your Sent-Items Folder as Inspiration

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It was so much fun to stop off in Seattle last week to give the seminar in downtown. Meeting up with Rhonda and Jillyane (and potentially a new contributor I’ll introduce soon!) was awesome!

One of the tidbits I share with the real estate professionals in the audience that seems to resonate well (at least based on the feedback I’m getting) is when I explain to them that even the non-bloggers in the audience are already writing blog posts, but they are not getting credit for it. Here’s my logic in a nutshell…

Assumption #1: Writing a blog post is just like sending a webmail (via Hotmail, Yahoo Mail, Gmail, etc), except that it is one step easier. With a webmail you need to (1) click on “write” or “compose” message, (2) fill in the email address of recipient, (3) fill in the title of email, (4) write your message, and (5) click “send”. Blogging is one step simpler because you do not need for step 2, i.e. fill in the email address of the recipient since a blog post is essentially an “email to the world.” Otherwise, all the steps are essentially the same with the final step being “publish” instead of “send”.

Assumption #2: The sent-items folder for most real estate professionals is already filled with good stuff that they are already experts on… For most real estate agents, the sent-items folder of their email program is likely to find information on neighborhoods, mortgage and closing process, local events, etc..

Because most agents are already sharing lots of their knowledge via email and because a blog post is nothing more than an email to the world, hopefully, you’ll start to see how I can say that most agents are already blogging… The idea that they are not getting credit for their knowledge stems from the fact that if a professional has a lot of stored up information in their “sent items” folder, then the search engines and other bloggers can’t give them credit for this knowledge. The last bit is critical to the seminar, but not necessarily to this blog post… 😉

Interestingly, both Steve Rubel (Turn Gmail Into Your Personal Nerve Center) and Greg Swann (Feed guarding: Protecting your weblog content from theft — or worse fates . . .) wrote articles today that either demonstrate the blurring of email and blogging (i.e. blogging via email) or take it for granted (i.e. RSS syndication).

By the way, I’ve been taking my own advice about unleashing the “knowledge” from my sent-items folder over on the seminar blog by publishing answers to many of the questions that I’ve been getting from seminar participants. I’ve been inundated with email questions lately which is great for providing me blog content, but not so good in terms of providing me time to answer everyone quickly! 🙂

another day of staging…

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Today was a busy day and another one that required a bit of handholding and education. We have been working with a client for several months now as they prepare a home for sale. The house has been a rental for several years and when I saw it in early December it was in not so great condition from a cosmetic standpoint. The former tenants had ruined the carpets in a scant 2 years of renting and there was plenty of cosmetic damage on things such as walls and doors where the teenaged daughters had vented their sibling rivalry.

You wouldn’t believe that this is the same house now.

I failed to take the photos I planned on today but I’ll post some of the “before” and “during” shots here and then I’ll follow those up later this week once we have the professional photographer’s work done. If anyone looks at this post, I’d really appreciate some feedback on whether you think me and the client did a good job. I’ve been offering a higher level of service to listing clients where we provide a lot of things such as professional cleanings, window washing (in & out), yard service, pro photos, and staging. I think it makes a big difference and I’d like to get your opinion too of whether going through this much work is worth it from the consumer’s point of view.

So, here are the beginning photos… stay tuned at the end of the week for the final shots…

front of the home – it needed some pruning, edging and trimming as well as a fresh layout of beauty bark.

Back yard photo – note the shrubs that have grown up high and are making the house look smaller than it is. The house needs plants that are more in keeping with the size and dimension of the home.

The kitchen and its cultured marble counter tops and older wall oven and gas stove top. Most people likely wouldn’t even notice but the stove top is too big for the space. Note how it goes past the fan above and is underneath the cabinet to the left. This is a fire hazard and was fixed when the house was updated for sale.

The living room carpet detail is hard to see here but let’s just say that it wasn’t the cleanest carpet I’ve ever seen. Lots of spots and stains. Underneath are what turned out to be really great oak floors as you can see a portion of them at the left corner of this photo. The floors were refinished prior to going on market this week. They look great and run throughout the length of the home in all bedrooms, hall, dining area and living room.

This is the 3rd bedroom just to give you an idea of how the room looked before since it is the smallest of the 3 regular bedrooms (not including the office that would likely qualify as a bedroom and has been used as such). We had the seller take out his home made bookcase, remove the dirty carpet, old trim and we had new doors installed.

Web2.0 is About You

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Wonderful video from a Kansas professor…

(via ProBlogger)

I’ve been told I move a bit fast in my seminars (more than once!), but I found this guy to move at light-speed! Interestingly, if the video makes complete sense to you, then you will have no need for my presentation. However, if you’d be interested in learning a bit more about how consumers matter in this web2.0 world (i.e. “you matter”), and how you, as an agent, can flip this logic to use these web2.0 tools so that you matter (i.e. “brand you”), then I’d love to see you at my Seattle seminar on February 20th! (Or in Oakland, CA the next day!)

So far, the feedback from the seminars has been overwhelmingly positive. I was a little hesitant to make a big deal out of the seminar before I ran a few trials because my presentation is more-than-slightly unconventional and I started to doubt myself. It wasn’t until I heard from some of the attendees that it was one of the best real estate presentation they had ever been to that I started to feel more comfortable that I might be on to something big. 🙂 Also, both Jeff, Rudy and Brian give some encouraging feedback that will definitely keep me presenting at a few more seminars!

By the way, my presentation style was highly influenced by a short presentation given by Chris Smoak where he was able to move at the speed of light because the presentation moved with him. (Chris is the guy behind one of my favorite mash-ups ever, Bus Monster.) After witnessing Chris in action, I just knew I’d have to create a similar presentation some day.

Finally, Greg has been posting the audio from my presentation over on the Bloodhound blog (Part 1, Part 2). Personally, I think the seminar is simply too long for an audio presentation (it NEEDS the visuals!), but some may find it interesting, nonetheless.

Buyer Beware – New Construction Sites

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[photopress:images_1_2_3_4_5.jpg,full,alignright] I wrote an article earlier today about a scammer. I can almost appreciate the creative talents of an obvious scammer like that. But when it comes to the real estate industry, I just want to puke.

I stopped into a new construction site yesterday to evaluate it for one of my clients. There are four people in the room. A guy sitting at the site plan talking to a young asian couple and a woman standing a bit on the side. I see the guy giving the “hard sell” about two and only two “available” lots. I’m standing back and looking at the site plan and I see about 50 available lots. Only two of them have “available” stickers and 6-9 have a sold sticker. So doesn’t that mean all the ones with NO sticker are “available”?

For some reason the young couple doesn’t “get” this, but I just keep my mouth shut and wait and watch. Can’t quite figure out who the woman in the room is yet. The guy tells the young couple something about how Tuesday or Wednesday is the deadline for them to get one of those two available lots. They thank him kindly and leave to think about which one they want, if they want one at all.

When they are out of earshot, I ascertain that the woman is an employee of the builder before I step up and say, “I’m here to help one of my client’s pick a lot. Where are those big electrical towers I saw when I drove up, but don’t see on the map here?” At this point point the woman gets obviously “annoyed”. I continue to ask questions about all of the good lots. The woman keeps trying to push me at the two “available” lots. I ignore her and continue to evaluate the better lots in the development.

As I’m leaving I ask about the other developments nearby. The guy knows nothing. The woman gives me the whole run down of the builders other projects.

Then they tell me that HE is the agent for the SELLER and SHE is the on-site agent for the BUYER. What a JOKE! She is obviously the closer of the two. She obviously works for the builder and knows more about the builder’s stuff than the guy posing as the “seller’s agent”. What a “Good Guy; Bad Guy” scam that is! Nauseating, isn’t it?

I have one final question. What is the commission to a Buyer’s Agent who isn’t “the builder’s hired closer/buyer’s agent”. He says “FULL COMMISSION”. I say, “What is FULL”. She says 3%. I say, what does the buyer get if they have no “Buyer’s Agent”. She says, they get ME. LOL What a hoot. I said so the buyer gets nothing if they have no agent? No price reduction? No upgrades? No something for the builder not having to pay an extra $21,000?? Nope. Nada. Not an option. I ask if the buyer had lost the opportunity to have an agent if they had “signed in” already. They said no. Great News!

So I leave, I go to my client to evaluate the property they will be selling. I tell them there’s an extra $21,000 on the table for us to include and negotiate, if they buy that new construction (which they had asked me about), or even if they buy a different property. My fee will be less if they buy the new construction, of course, because they were the ones who asked me to go there in the first place to check it out. Well, no. They just said they were thinking of buying in there before I even met them, and didn’t ask me to check it out.

So by poking my head into the New Construction site, even though they hadn’t asked me to, I found an extra $21,000 that would have been left on the table. Turned out they will not likely buy there, at least not before considering other options. My gut says if the builder is willing to pay 3% to an agent, even though the agent wasn’t with them when the buyer first went in to the new home sales office, there’s probably something wrong with the place.

Every not lot sold in a new construction site is available. Maybe not today. Maybe they WANT to sell two at a time because it squeezes the buyer more into making a quick decision. But if it Ain’t SOLD…I’ts AVAILABLE, regardless of the little stickers. No sticker equals available.

Getting Dirty with Your Feed Reader

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Because I talk so extensively about reading other bloggers and using a feed reader in general in the Online Marketing Seminar, I decided to post about that topic over on the Seminar blog so that attendees can have one place to go to “get started” with a feed reader. However, some RCG readers may find this information interesting! 🙂

Yet more vacant property theft news in the Puget Sound area…

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Staging Thefts Reported

January 29, 2007. It was reported to NWMLS that a theft of Staging items took place in Area 21 (Tacoma). The thieves broke off the door knob to get the Keybox and were able to retrieve the keys. A long list of items where stolen, stripping the house from towel racks to bedroom doors, including the kitchen island with butcher block on top. The Police Forensics Officer said, it looked like the thieves took things they needed to complete another house. If you have any information please call the police and reference case number #070280683.

It looks like thieves are getting even more gutsy and just putting a keybox on the doorknob isn’t the most secure. Agents – take note and work with your client to set up a safe method of access. Sellers – talk to your agent about the best way to secure your belongings and property. Perhaps come up with strategies for best placement and securing of keyboxes. For those with a vacant house perhaps it makes sense to not have a sign out front that makes it obvious to thieves that your property is on the market? I don’t know if these folks are accessing online systems to find houses for sale – but certainly it might help and it would force a thief to be more crafty than just seeing a sign outside.

The information at the top of this posting comes directly from the password protected NWMLS site for agents as did the previous post that noted thefts from other areas, noted by the codes the NWMLS and agents use to define territories.

$68,745.00 Paid to Rain City Guide Readers

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[photopress:dollars.jpg,thumb,alignright]Well I have to admit that it has been a very, very odd year indeed for me. I stumbled into the world of blogging, and I had no idea where it would take me. Well it took me into a totally consumer-centric view of my world.

Transparency turned out to be much more transparent for me, than for my “blogclients”. I started experimenting. I did not change how I worked in any way. But instead of simply charging what I “normally” charged, or what most agents charge, I decided to view the commission as “a retainer fee”. I then changed it at the close of escrow, to what I perceived to be a fair value for the services rendered.

Sometimes I changed it on day one and that worked out OK. But then in some cases, I found that what I thought would be fair on day one, turned out to be too much at the end, and so I “settled up”. Only once did I have to renegotiate what was agreed upon on day one by raising it, and the client and I both agreed on a different and higher amount. We did that about halfway through, as he changed his parameters, and we both agreed the situation was greatly affected because of that. But I addressed it as soon as it was going sideways, so he had plenty of time to change agents if he and I could not come to terms on a new commission. Fortunately that was not necessary, because we both agreed that the original negotiation was based on factors which did not hold true as time went on.

The stories, which I will try to detail on my blog tonight, will be covered in a somewhat vague manner, as I have to retain the confidentiality of my clients. But I will try to give the stories in a way that we can all learn what a true sliding scale of different fees for different services might look like. A commission schedule that is so fair, that no client felt like they overpaid, and several even felt like they underpaid. And the one man who got the service for free, almost forgot that he wasn’t my client at all 🙂

I never calculated the end result of the total monies returned at the end of the day, until tonight. It is almost three in the morning, and no one is more surprised than I to see that $68,745.00 was paid to my “blogclients”. While most of those clients had read both my writings here on Rain City Guide and my blog, I have to attribute the bulk of the clients to having come to my blog via Rain City Guide.

There were a couple of times when I went a bit overboard, and I admit there were a few times when it hurt like hell, especially in the beginning when I was “training myself” to view the settle up at the end as fairly as I could. But I can honestly say that the couple of times I erred with regard to fairness, I erred on my side of the fence. I did that because those particular clients were injured by someone before me, someone in the industry who “did them wrong”. I felt the need to compensate them for what happened to them, before I entered into their world.

Most importantly, when you treat your clients fairly, when you discuss commission issues openly with your clients, both buyers and sellers, everyone is happy at the end of the day. I treated them all like family. I charged them what I might charge my Mother or my Sister or even my own child, well…maybe some more like my cousin 🙂 I charged a fair value for the work at hand. And while even I am amazed at the total tonight, and frankly it hurts…it really does, I know in my heart that every single time, it was a fair assessment of a valid cost for the services rendered.

It doesn’t break down to a flat fee or a fixed percentage. Some needed a lot more assistance than others. Some found property quickly and some took a very long time. Some sold their property quickly, and some took a very long time.

I’m looking over my list and only $2,175 of the $68,750.00 was paid to someone who “asked for a discount”. Almost all of it, was offered to them by me, without their needing to ask for it. Most of all, my “blogclients” have truly been a joy to work with. They totally trusted me to have their back. They totally trusted me with their most important goal and they totally trusted me not to treat them unfairly in any way shape or form. Not just about the money part, but in all things. Every single one felt I had gone above and beyond the call of duty. And every single one appreciated my efforts on their behalf at the end of the day.

I would very much like to take this opportunity to thank both Dustin and Anna Luther, for this wonderful opportunity. I also thank them on behalf of my “blogclients”, who are all grateful for having Rain City Guide to help them through what might otherwise have been a more difficult process.

The internet is truly a wonderful thing, and we are all learning to use it to everyone’s best advantage. We no longer simply “surf the net” to suck up information. We use it as a vehicle to form relationships, both business and personal.

I need to put the actual stories on my blog because we are really not permitted to discuss commission specifics in a “group” setting, under anti-trust laws. And also because this post is already way too long 🙂

The Perfect Real Estate 2.0 Company

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[photopress:timeYOU_big.jpg,thumb,alignright]If I had millions of dollars like Jim and Shirley Wilson now have (254M Powerball this week) I would create what I feel is a void in market today. I would take a Zillow like property evaluation tool and add a social networking back end to it. This was actually some of the conversations Dustin, Robbie and I had over a year ago when I was first introduced to RCG.

Anyway, what the market needs now is a valuation tool like Zillow that is enhanced by taking in to account neighborhoods, the particular street the house is on, the property’s zoning, the neighbors to your left and right and many many more. Zillow has added features to allow home owners to update their statistics for a closer estimate, but there is nothing out there that allows the brainchild behind Web 2.0’s success… YOU! (also a reason I feel the Web 2.0 bubble is far from bursting).

This would allow owners, neighbors and most importantly realtors to add comments to their communities, neighboring houses and their own house. I can only imagine how valuable this content would be to future home owners. Matter of a face, this would add some type of accountability to neighbors and home owners to be ‘good neighbors’. I guess this would be like a Better Business Bureau for home owners. I am sure all of the tenured agents out there have heard horror stories of their clients having troubles with a new home where the Form 17 disclosures could not provide any protection. This would be especially valuable in multi family communities.

[photopress:my_currency.jpg,thumb,alignleft]San Francisco’s my-currency launched today looking to tap in to this resource. John Cook’s blog talks about it as My Currency takes on Zillow which I understand, but I feel the underlying message here is putting the power in the people’s hand. It is easy for a site to put together stats that combines total square footage by numbers of beds/bath times a special area by area multiplier (I assume this is similar to the formula most of these sites use), but the does that mean someone will actually pay that price? If this were true, I would sell my house today for 200k more than I think it is worth because Zillow says so 🙂

2006 Statistical Review and Highlights

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Straight out of the horses mouth. I noticed these stats posted by the NWMLS today. I found a smilar post on their public site, nwrealestate.com. You can see the detailed story here

During 2006, members of NWMLS. . .

  • Reported more than 96,000 closed sales with a combined value of more than $35 billion
  • Experienced a 6.7% drop in number of units sold compared to 2005, but an increase of about 5% in the dollar volume of the closed transaction
  • Reported 1,951 sales of single family homes priced at $1 million or more (up from 1521 during 2005) and 859 sales of condominiums priced at $500,000 or more (up from 623 during 2005).
  • The MLS area covering Bellevue/West of 405 had the highest number of million dollar-plus sales with 219, followed by Central Seattle/Madison Park with 165. For high-end condos ($500,000-plus), west Bellevue had the largest number (183), followed by Belltown/downtown Seattle (130) and Kirkland (117); 145 condos sold for more than $1 million
  • Among the 19 counties in the MLS service area, San Juan claimed the highest median price ($539,500) for single family homes that sold last year; King County followed at $425,000
  • Maintained a high ratio of cross-sales: more than three of every four transactions were listed by one office and sold by a different office
  • Added 139,814 new listings of SFH and condos to inventory, with the highest volume (14,541 added during June
  • Represented more than 30,000 home sellers, on average, each month
  • Reported double-digit price gains for SFH compared to 2005 in all but one county
  • In the four-county Puget Sound region (King, Snohomish, Pierce and Kitsap), only about 6% of single family homes sold for under $200,000
  • Sold more than 15,000 condominiums, about the same as during 2005; approximately 63% of all condos that sold system-wide were in King County.
  • Found wide variation in prices of 3-bedroom homes. For pre-owned homes (built 2004 or earlier), the median sales price ranged from $124,900 in Grant Co. to $508,000 in San Juan Co.
  • In King County, the average price of a single family home that sold in 2006 was about 2.9 times higher than the price in 1990 (up from $178,187 to $518,108).

NWMLS at a Glance

December 2006
Member Brokerages
2,075
Sales Associates
26,183
Counties included in Summary Report
17

Guilty of Slandering Seattle

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Irony only goes so far and apparently, my list of things you should know before moving to Seattle was only the tip of the iceberg in terms of the way I’ve been known to slander Seattle…

The story behind the story… Apparently, the powers that be on wikipedia agree that “Rain City” is not an appropriate nickname for Seattle! (It’s not listed at the time of publishing!)

I changed the nickname. As a Seattle native, I have never, ever heard it called “Rainy City.” It is not, nor ever has been a common nickname of Seattle. For one, we get less rain than most cities East of the Mississippi River. Seattle is most commonly called “The Emerald City” followed by “Jet City.” If you folks want to continue this nonsense, of re-posting a lsanderous nickname, please provide some documentation.

[photopress:starbucks_logo_with_RCG.jpg,thumb,alignright] This got me thinking of other ways I’ve slandered Seattle in the past and this photoshop of one of our prized institutions feels so wrong…

In all seriousness, does the name of a website really matter? Would you be a regular reader/contributor of a site that was named Emerald City Guide or Jet City Guide? How about if it were AnnaLuther.com as originally planned?