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Five Focus Areas of Evolution for REALTOR Associations

It’s time for REALTOR Associations to do something they don’t like to do: Change. Certainly, over the past two decades, I’ve watched a fair amount of “changes” at REALTOR Associations worldwide: Executive Officers have come and gone; Associations have moved to bigger, then smaller, then bigger locations; they have changed their newsletters from print to email. All of these are “changes” but none of them represent the Change I mean when I say it’s time for REALTOR Associations to change.

I mean: It’s time for them to Evolve.
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Note to NAR: Help your REALTOR Members Change the Housing Market

I just received my copy of the 2008 Annual Member Profile from the National Association of REALTORS. Amazing - just amazing - how many of you aren’t going to be around next year. But this isn’t another requiem for the change-resistant REALTOR. Believe it or not, this posting will explore a simple suggestion that NAR could implement to speed up the housing market recovery. And let’s be clear: Except for places that are still returning to market norms (some people call them “declining or falling” markets) a lot of places in America are bouncing back (or continuing along just nicely) like Des Moines, Austin and Charlotte. So for everywhere else, where the market doldrums are more media hype than market reality, it’s time for REALTORS to stop waiting around for the market to fix the consumer. It’s time to do something about it.

The navel-gazers have been shuffling around whining that the Fed, the market, the interest rates, the consumer, everyone ELSE other than the REALTOR is holding the market back. Using our famous contrarian logic, what do you think we think? Right - maybe it’s time for the REALTOR to heal thyself.

Sales is a perception-driven business. People purchase just about every non-staple good based upon some degree of emotion that can be influenced by sales professionals, marketing and other consumers. Shoppers for new cars are keenly aware of the models their friends just bought last month; and they’ll be hard pressed to overcome their emotions not to try to “keep up with the Joneses” in their purchase, too. Smart marketers play off of this; even smarter sales people leverage this emotional response - if they can learn about it - when working with their prospects.
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Boost your Blackberry with a Powerful RSS Reader

Here’s a cool tool I’ve been playing with for a few weeks. It’s called Viigo and it’s a RSS reader for your Smartphone. I’ve been testing it on my Blackberry Pearl (which still continues to leave my students in awe at the fact that they don’t need to carry around lunch-box sized smartphones unless their cranky old MLS mandates it) and it has worked flawlessly. So it’s time to share the product with all of you.

Oh, yes. And it’s free!

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When Companies Listen to the Customers, it’s Magic

Well, I don’t know what took so long, but Microsoft finally seems to have read its emails, listened to its voice mail and talked to its customers. According to a headline over at Engadget, Microsoft is going to support Windows XP until 2013. It’s about time!

Customers worldwide are breathing a sigh of relief as the Redmond Behemoth seems to have remembered a fundamental premise of running a good business: Listen to your customers!

There’s no magic in that premise. Your customers will tell you everything you need to know to be successful. After Microsoft launched Vista, both customers and industry reviewers provided it feedback. As expected, some people hated it (usually those whose computers were manufactured by Henry Ford Senior) and some loved it (those of us who understood that an OS change means, well, some things are actually going to be different). But more and more, especially amongst corporate clients with large installations, lots of proprietary software and sometimes older hardware in the field, the message was simple: Please don’t take Windows XP away. We might get to Vista in the future, but right now, we’re happy (and in a recession, without extra finances) still using XP.

Unfortunately, Microsoft, whose engineers and sales people are rightly enamored with their own products, just wasn’t listening. They were so certain they were right, so sure they could push the change through, that they turned a deaf ear to their clients. Even after giving a little - pushing back the mandatory cut-over date for computer vendors to sell machines with Vista only - Microsoft continued on the path of most resistance. They said: Vista or Nothing!

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The Consumer-Unfriendly Myth of the REALTOR Independent Contractor

In our ongoing attempt to transform the real estate industry from a cottage guild angry at the internet to a technology-integrated modern production system focused on the needs of the consumer, we’re going to engage in a little myth-busting today. At one point, mankind believed the sun revolved around the earth. We soon learned that it didn’t - and that discovery made it possible for us to eventually go to the moon and beyond. What might happen if we dispel the myth that real estate agents are independent contractors?

Let’s clarify the essentials: An independent contractor has two definitions. The legal meaning is that of a worker or organization who provides services to another organization without being an employee. For example, when a home builder constructs a new home, he calls in an “independent” electrician to run the wires. The builder does not “hire” the electrician, and provide him certain obligations under the law, such as insurance, health care, unemployment insurance or training. And mostly, he doesn’t withhold his taxes and contribute half of his Social Security benefits. For most companies, this arrangement is normal, and usually occurs between two “companies” such as a software company and a marketing firm; a dry cleaner and a delivery service; a car dealer and a towing company. In the case of our builder, he says: Show up at this location; Look at the plans. We’ll agree on a price. Do the work. I’ll pay you.

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REALTOR Marketing Challenged by Gas Pumps

According to the NAR Survey of Home Buyers and Sellers (2007), buyers who search online real estate want to see the following (In order of importance):

1. Pictures
2. Property Descriptions
3. Virtual Tours
4. Area info
5. Maps
6. Agent Info

Now, most real estate agents look at this list and immediately see #6 and get all upset. What? It’s not about me? They don’t want to see my high-school photo? Oh no!

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Lights, Camera, Video on your Website

Part 1 of a 3 Part Series on Video and Real Estate by Amy Chorew.

You have less than 6 seconds to capture a visitor to your website. Can video be the key to engage the consumer? Could be, if your video is professional looking and polished. Creating good video is an art form - it gives a good first impression each and every time. If you ever need to be reminded of how bad real estate video can be, just visit YouTube and search for some real estate videos there…. Okay, real estate video is evolving…

What can we learn from industries who have already made video on their websites standard fare? First off, the types of videos we should have on our websites. Consider:

• Welcome message
• Testimonials from Top Clients saying
• Property Showcase of particular listings
• Town Profiles and other “informational” video

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If Zillow Zestimates are Zilly, why is REALTOR.COM doing them too?

Listen to this blog entry by clicking the play button above.
You can also click the podcast icon to listen in your default mp3 player.

Been having a great discussion with the fellow over at 4REALZ.NET over the new REALTOR.COM Home Estimator tool just released - and quite quietly, we might add, since even we techhies missed the press release (so we suspect the public did too…. and about half the REALTORS who don’t even know REALTOR.COM exists…)

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Dumb Things Technology Still Does

I love technology. Of course I do - I’ve built a company around it, with it, because of it. Every day our technical support call center answers thousands of calls about technology. We help REALTORS build careers with the benefits of technology. I’ve even been known to play a video game or two, in my day.

But sometimes, doesn’t technology just seem to be dumb?

I don’t mean that the people using the technology are dumb. That’s just normal: Some of us just take a little longer than others to find the scroll bar or locate the “any” key (when asked to press any key to continue…)

That’s just it. If we can press any key to continue, why do we have to press a key at all? Just do it. Don’t wait for us slow-poke humans. If there is no consequence to what key is pressed, why does the technology make us jump through the hoops? There are countless points in our day when the computer pops up a window and say, “Hey! I’m about to do this to you!” and the ONLY button it offers is “OK”. What if it’s NOT ok? Too bad - no button for “Not Ok!” Once in a while there’s an “OK/Cancel combination” but then again - Why would we cancel? If we started a process, shouldn’t the computer assume we want to do it? Stop? I want the computer to speed up!

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Why iPhone will Never Beat Blackberry

Perhaps I’m just getting old, but I still don’t get the fascination with the iPhone (new or old). Maybe someone can help me out? I just read the cool story at Engadget (love their site - bookmark them!). Apparently the whole universe has become star-struck again as Apple plans to release its next version - cuter, cooler, whatever - of the iPhone. And they’re about to release a software development kit so people can write software apps for it. Just about the only thing I can say about these two moves is: It’s about time. Apple must have learned its lesson about releasing the SDK, because it’s lock-down on hardware/software in the Mac personal computer end of things prevented it from dominating the universe.

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Where’s the Bad Real Estate Market?

Ok, here’s a totally unscientific study:

1. I bumped into a REALTOR last night at the registration desk for a conference we’ll be attending today. She was telling me that she had three offers on three properties yesterday and she has another that is coming in this morning. All are likely to be accepted. She is busier than ever!

2. A house three doors down from my home in Andover sold in under a week last month; it actually had multiple offers and it entered a bidding war (My neighbor was one of them). Two more homes within a mile just went on the market and sold within about ten days as well. NONE of these homes was a “prize” catch. In fact, one of them was so ugly, the “front door” was in the BACK of the house and only two garage doors faced the street (honest!). It’s definitely a “tear down” project.

3. Gold dropped about $25 yesterday. That tells me the dollar is getting stronger. Which means commodity prices may start to flatten or even fall. A stronger dollar means more purchasing power for the consumer, and with so much inventory at bargain prices (3 million unoccupied but built homes nationwide) there should be a buying spree going on (except that somehow REALTORS or the press or politicians can’t seem to ignite one…)

So can someone please tell me where the bad real estate market is?
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MLS gets SAD and REALTORS Wither Further

I never ceases to amaze me. With the industry in turmoil - real turmoil meaning homes aren’t selling, credit is harder to come by even for good borrowers and silly groups like the Austin City Council trying to kill local real estate with local environmental-efficiency upgrades before permitting a house to sell - the REALTOR industry just keeps shooting itself in the foot. Never mind a weak dollar, shaky lenders and foreclosures undermining the markets in the states with the largest economies in the country - FL, NY, NV, and of course, California. Don’t worry about the changing generations of buyers disrupting the comfy-cozy medieval guild system we used to call the real estate business. And as for new third parties like Trulia and Zillow, they aren’t even on the radar of really disrupting the business, considering how easily they were co-opted into playing nice with the big franchisors.

Nope: Just leave it to the local MLS system to put the final nails into the coffin of good old real estate.

That’s just what’s happening in San Diego this morning, as Kris Berg, a local REALTOR and member of Prudential California reports this morning in a wonderful article (written as an open letter) on the Inman News site today (See the article or her personal blog or trackback link).

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Lord and Taylor should Sell Real Estate

Frequently in this column, I have argued that REALTORS have a lot to learn about selling and customer service from “professional” sales organizations. A common reference has been Zappos.com who puts at least seven photos of every pair of shoes online. Zappos proves that just because you have a large database of “inventory” there’s no excuse for not having lots of clear, informative information and images for your products. Zappos even raises the bar on “descriptions” on inventory: their writers describe shoes in terms of customer desires and needs - like “sexy, comfy, classy, etc.” This is totally unlike REALTOR home marketing, which mostly consists of “it has bedrooms, it has baths, it has a kitchen.” Zappos markets the product based upon how the buyer wants to buy it - desires and emotions - while most REALTORS market property as if they were giving a description of a car accident to a policeman.

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Prospecting Simplified with Microsoft Outlook

Prospecting Simplified with Microsoft Outlook

With a hundred emails a day, a schedule full of tasks, three listing presentations, a showing and a training class, how is a modern real estate agent ever supposed to keep up with her marketing plan? Simple, if you let technology do the work! Regular readers of this column know that there is no way to do it if you’re still generating postcards, labels and postage, but transfer your prospecting to email and follow up becomes simplicity itself. Let’s see how.

From a technology perspective, follow up marketing should take no more than 15 minutes a week. If that sounds too good to be true, read on. If agents and brokers are going to get their money’s worth from their web sites, search engine marketing and banner ad campaigns, they have to ensure follow up marketing takes place aggressively enough to maximize the potential of every lead. Even with the variety of wireless tech tools - from email-ready cell phones to mini-tablets like the Samsung Q1 - that simplify managing email on the go, too many REALTORS lack a systematic approach to converting the leads they already received last week, and the week before, and the week before, and the week before….

And that’s why the cost of marketing never seems to pay off.

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How to Kill a Brand Name

Take a look around and you’ll likely notice something about today’s “brand names” in business. Too many of them are crumbling. Now, I don’t mean “imploding” like Bear Stearns; that’s too amazing a disaster to consider anything more than pure mushroom-cloud brand bomb. Rather, I mean the slow rot of some of America’s most “trusted” names in commerce. Sears. Hertz. Ford. American Airlines. Even “recent” brand wonders like Dell computer are disintegrating like rusty chrome bumpers on a ‘74 Oldsmobile Delta 88 (a brand that no longer exists itself).

Why are these brands - once market leaders and marvelously profitable companies - crumbling brands sinking to the sea floor like a sorry-about-that-iceberg-thing luxury liner? Simple.

Neglect.

And a very special kind of neglect, too. Not the take-a-stupendous-risk and fall-flat-on-your-face kind of neglect. Not even the “hey, we’re a car company but let’s try to hate our own products because oil is bad” kind of stupidity, either. I mean a much more simple, invidious neglect. The kind that comes from hiring people who don’t know what your company stands for, don’t care who the customer is, can’t say what their job really is and never receive meaningful training to change any of it.
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