Buyers stretch the boundary of real estate blogging

Well, it's a blog -- technically. Newman's own is the newly launched diary of a young couple - Nora Krug and Michael Newman - who are proclaimed members of the "highly discriminated against minority - renters,"  and their pursuit of a home in the "post -Bush, pre-stimulus, late-bubble" Washington, DC area. 

Their diary is published through Slate, an online daily owned by the Washington Post (for which the couple work).

I found their first two entries to be well written, funny, insightful and a welcome divergence from the cacophony of inside real estate banter. It's not often we get to peak inside the consumer experience and view things through their lens. 

Of particular interest to me was the back story regarding the home they almost bought before they started blogging:

"Why move to the suburbs just to live in a smallish house with a long, unlovely walk to the train and be able to send Joe to an underwhelming school? But you'll move before Joseph goes to high school, Denise, our gung-ho agent, assured us. But hey, Denise—the economy could get worse! In fact it almost certainly will. We may have to stay in this house till Joe goes to college."

Nora is right. And perhaps this calls attention to the struggles consumers face trying to buy into neighborhoods and homes they can't afford and the struggles agents face trying to assuage them with advice wrapped in a false sense of comfort. How often did buyers of the recent past hear things like "money's cheap, you can afford to bid $50,000 over list" or "don't worry, in two years when the ARM adjusts, you'll be making more money." 

Nora sends a signal to her agent -- who they apparently like -- that what's paramount to them is being guided by truth and realism in their quest for a home. These days, truth and realism might very well be an agent's most prized value proposition. 

Honestly, though the story is only two entries deep, I am already emotionally vested in Nora, Michael and Denise. The one person I really can relate with is 17-month old Joseph, whose need for more space is something my own six-member family is currently dealing with.

And, Joseph: Something tells me this search for a bigger home may mean Mom and Dad might give a brother or sister pretty soon! 

Good luck Newmans. 

And Denise too. 

- Davison

Twitter: 1000wattmarc

Blazing a trail of ethics, morality and social interaction

If you read us regularly you know I am a huge fan of Zappos. My dedication to this company is born from their dedication to me - their customer - which I have now been for several years. I have purchased dozens upon dozens of shoes and other goods, outfitting my wife, myself and our 4 kids.

My relationship with them began a year before I actually purchased. I used the site to search for products and read the content but was not, like many consumers, always ready to start shopping immediately. While real estate still grapples with how to deal the passive web shopper, trying like heck to corral them with lead generation and capture mechanisms from the first visit, Zappos, hung back. Chillin'. It waited for me and, in the meantime, gave me access to everything. One day, I became a customer.

And then things got great. 

I am also blown away by their CEO, Tony Hsieh - the man - and the clarity with which he guides his company. I don't know him personally. And I don't have too to understand his dedication to the process. I do know this for sure: Every decision he makes must bow at the alter of the Zappos brand promise and answer to the question: How does this increase the level of super service we offer our customers?

I read his blog. I follow him on Twitter and continue to marvel at how he exudes positive thoughts during these challenging times.

Today, Tony published this Blog post correlating the skills he's amassed as a businessman to the game of poker. It's pointless to pull a few quotes. It's best to read this in its entirety but clearly, in his world, being humble, friendly, appreciative and always open to the possibly someone knows more than you are the key takeaways for me.

Zappos is more than a vendor of apparel. In fact, they are more than a company that provides great customer service. Zappos is fast becoming a model of ethics and morality for those looking to blaze a trail forward in the world of online social interaction.

I get it.
I'm grateful for it.  
And I grow as a result.

- Davison 
Twitter: 1000wattmarc

That's what I'm talking about

I lived in Rockland County, NY for 20 years. So the Rand name in real estate is familiar to me. I saw it on yard signs everywhere and understood it to represent a local real estate firm that specialized in Rockland County homes.

And that was it. And for the most part, I think, that's about as deep as it gets for most consumers. Read estate brands known only by their association to inventory, a sales force or an industry.

Now this doesn't only occur in real estate. Take the many cassette tape brands from the 70's: Agfa, Kompact, Universum, TDK, Philips, Orwo Maxim, Laser, Maxell, and Memorex. As a consumer I was hard-pressed to distinguish one from the other and only ever recognized these brands based on their affiliation with their industry. recorded music.

Today, the real estate marketplace suffers from the same ubiquity. It's replete with brand names recognized by their packaging and their association to either inventory and their sales force. 

So when I read this survey my first response was "big deal". Being the most recognized name means diddly if the masses cannot verbalize what you're recognized for. Just ask Rula Lenska, Granted, Alberto VO5 creatively and wisely exploited the meaningless nature of their Russian-born spokesperson and turned it into one of the hottest ad campaigns ever. But unless real estate firms are willing to and can execute a campaign on irony, it probably won't work for them.

If I were a real estate brand, Davison Real Estate would be replacing its Christmas party with a think tank session that tasked the smartest people of my firm to attend with their idea picks and shovels for a full day of creative mining to help locate the message and service vein of differentiation that we could build on for 2009. 

Right now, I could think of dozens of things but rather than offer the standard list of takeaways this time around, I will shine the light on an example of one way this can be accomplished.

The Prudential Rand RandBlog

Spend time on it. Notice how it methodically combines local events, with not so pretty news, hard hitting commentary, and op-ed pieces on the market written by the owners. These posts stand out as honest, informative and editorially segregated from the sales arm of the firm.

The blog is consistent and the contributions seem to be calendared. 

Having spoken to over 30 audiences this year, I know how fearful brokers are when it comes to blogging and how resistant they are to publish the things they know, love and believe in as it pertains to their community.

But this isn't only the most prudent thing you could do today, it's by far the most cost effective way to market your company, communicate your value proposition, leverage your intelligence and give the few folks inside your firm that really know the market a place to share it with the community.

In other words, to move beyond recognition to meaning.

Frankly, I buy the fear thing. I don't buy the concern how much time it takes or the learning curve. I think the only reason more brokers aren't doing this comes down to laziness. Because with over 1,000,000 new articles being generated by consumers on a daily basis filled with comments and opinions about their world, it just doesn't look all that good for a real estate to be silent.

Prudential Rand was once recognized for being in real estate, period. Today, they are working on being known for having a point of view, a voice, and what probably matters most to locals today: A demonstrated commitment to the marketplace and the people who live in it.

The blog needs a little design makeover. Simple things like subscribing it, contacting the company or knowing precisely where they operates are a tad hard to find. But it's nonetheless a good model for brokers looking to blog.

12 years ago, I moved away from Rocklin County and for many years missed home dearly. Of all the publications that I could subscribe too to remain connected, I've chosen a real estate brokerage blog.

- Davison  

Blogging, big broker style

We know plenty of agents who rock the blog. Brokers ... not so much. The Better Homes and Gardens team is a stand-out, but it's hard to cite many more honest-to-goodness cases of brokerages - especially big ones - really nailing it. There are lots of reasons for this I don't have time to explore right now. So let me get to it.

If you run a brokerage company. Go here.

Avram Goldman, CEO of Pacific Union Real Estate here in California, stuck his toe into the electronic waters about a year ago with "The Goldman Report," an email newsletter that combined his insights and those of his office managers/VPs with hard local market numbers. The voice was human, the content free from the sickening sweet gloss of market boosterism.

As a homeowner in the Bay Area, it's on my must-read list.

Now he's posting his weekly report on the blog above. It's not perfect. There are things I would do differently. But he's got the big items covered: A clear sense of audience, valuable content and a voice that encourages trust and engagement.

If you know another broker who gets it, please note them in comments.

-- Brian Boero

Disclosure: Better Homes and Gardens Real Estate is a 1000watt Consulting client.

Neighborhood blogging gets more interesting

Mashable reports today that outside.in, the hyper-local news and event website, has made its Story Maps application free for all.

What is it?

Story Maps plots your blog posts on a map, as opposed to the standard vertical/chronological display that slowly pushes your posts into oblivion.

Why is it important to brokers and agents?

Think about it: If you're a good real estate blogger you blog a lot about places -- homes, neighborhoods, schools, streets. Story Maps lets you display that content in a way that maximizes its value. Your posts are tied to place, not date.

For those brokers and agents who are serious about blogging, and have the chops to pull it off, this is exciting stuff.

There are other ways to do this, but Story Maps is the most elegant I've seen. Here's what it looks like:

-- Brian Boero

Lazy, cheap and dead in the water

In 1997, when I started using the web to aid in my relocation, I viewed hundreds of California real estate websites. Many of them were identical to one another.

Back then, I thought Genstar was a brokerage. Little did I know they were the website developer hosting so many of the sites I visited.

You would think most of those sites would now be retired to some desert junk yard like half century old Vegas neon.

Not true.

Too many are still floating in the ether, the worst from the class of '97. And their owners are still lost.

I never quite understood why a real estate person would sooner co-brand with a website company than their broker. And become part of this electronic house of mirrors where every agent, every broker who uses these products look the same.

There's plenty of reasons to love template websites:

√ They are cheap
√ They are a "set it and forget it" product
√ They are, generally speaking, reliable
√ They contain a ton of content
√ If you need to make changes, the big companies can usually make them happen within days.

This is what their customers will tell you. But these are the reasons why they I don't like them.

Cheap does not necessarily mean good. Or even cheap for that matter. If a $50 per month site doesn't rank, doesn't draw inquires, looks like crap and requires $1,000 in SEO surgery, our respective definitions of cheap differ.

"Setting and forgetting" means lazy. It may not matter when roasting a chicken, but you can be certain it does when it comes to how you present yourself online. 

Reliability. Granted. But most of these well established companies offer platforms created a decade ago. The site might be "reliable" like a '71 Ford F-100 on the Autobahn. 

Wealth of content. Yes. All of it boiler plate displayed on every one of their sites which does little to support your claim of being special. 

Making changes. Is 48 hours fast enough for you? How about 24 hours? How about 12? How about instantly?

Lazy, cheap and dead in the water

Maintaining your web presence adds more work to a busy schedule. But it pays huge dividends. It's where your customer is. It's the cover they judge your book by. 

So what does your cover say? Well if it never changes, looks like 100,000 other covers, is obnoxious to navigate it probably says, "I am lazy, cheap, and don't really care much about my customer -- in other words, dead in the water."

Blogs

It was inevitable that these simple self publishing tools would one day grow up to be fully functioning websites. They are nimble. Customizable. Google loves them. And they are cheap -- or free.

Granted, you must manage these sites, breath life into them. And that's what you need to do today if you have any plans to compete with the agent and brokerage next door already doing this.

Options abound. And new ones emerge all the time. Just this week, Michael Rahmn, who ran IT at Windermere shot me a link to his new product, a branded broker blog product that looks great.

In 2008, there is no excuse for failing to create a site that tells your customer: "I will stop at nothing to deliver you a great experience. I'm invested in my company and I am an independent thinker."

My good sense tells me, people are attracted that.

- Davison

HomeGain messes with the narrative

The story of recent online real estate history goes something like this:

In 2005 Trulia launches, blogs bloom, and the consumer and professional lie together openly on the sunny meadow of Web 2.0. The lead companies that had dominated the scene start to look like snakes lurking in the shadows.

In reality, the story is not so neat. HomeGain's Agent Evaluator product rocked the transparency and consumer empowerment angles starting in 1999. Blogging holds great potential, but few real estate pros master the practice and produce measurable results. Brokers and agents continue to buy leads.

HomeGain's release of an "Agent Blog Network" today underscores the dissonant reality of online real estate. The idea of putting a blog on top of a lead machine is pretty jarring. It doesn't fit into the narrative many, including myself, have helped perpetuate. I like that.

The facts are pretty simple. Agents that find it cost effective to outsource their traffic building effort pay a little bit of money to blog in front of the 5 million monthly visitors to the HomeGain site. Consumers get yet another means of evaluating whether or not an agent has expertise and brains. Good deal all around. 1.0, 2.0 ... who knows?

Who cares? Congratulations to Louis and the HomeGain team.

-- Brian Boero

FSBO, Web 2.0 style

I went to two open houses yesterday. My sister and her partner are looking for a place. The homes we looked at were on the same street in Oakland. One was listed by an agent with Pacific Union, a prominent Bay Area brokerage company; the other was a FSBO.

The first home, the one listed with a broker, is marketed adequately. It seems to be priced right. The listing appears on pacunion.com, Realtor.com, and Trulia. There are eight photos. Not enough, but better than some.

The second home, the FSBO, is more interesting. It too seems to be priced properly. The owner paid this company, (yikes, what a crappy site!) one of those flat-fee posting "brokers", to get the home into the MLS and thus onto everyone's IDX display, including that of Pacific Union. No big deal -- that's been done for ten years. And, as we know, it produces results less than 20% of the time.

But ... this homeowner also set up a Blog for his home. With 47 photos. He also took the time to list it for sale on Zillow, adding a bunch of photos there.

There are lots of things he did not do with the blog that he should have. He chose the wrong platform. And the photography is not exactly inspiring. But he still did a better job marketing his property online, where it really counts, than the pro down the street did.

It made me think about the impact Web 2.0 will have on the FSBO market. Despite more than a decade of Realtor bashing and consumer empowerment, the percentage of homes sold without an agent has remained flat. But will that continue now that consumers have access to the same free or nearly free Web 2.0 applications Realtors are just starting to adopt? Now that it's cheap and easy to get listings into the MLS, and most public listings websites no longer view placing FSBOs next to their broker listings taboo? Now that forking over big bucks for print advertising is no longer necessary?

I don't think so.

The entry of generations X and Y into the real estate market has been talked about a great deal -- usually in relation to practitioners' level of preparedness to "deal" with them. But many of these consumers, whose FSBO parents fumbled with useless "FSBO kits" and homemade yard signs, will look at the bounty of Web 2.0 applications -- from blogs to video editing and sharing tools -- and think long and hard before they pay 6% to have their property marketed just adequately.

Web 2.0 will empower Realtors with the desire and skills to master its practice. It will do the same for the FSBO-inclined consumer. With each coming year, an increasing number professionals who ignore this reality will be left in the lurch.

I think we're going to see a significant increase in FSBO's in the coming years. What do you think?

-- Brian Boero

Pocket full of Kryptonite

Faster than a speeding bullet
More powerful than a locomotive.
Look up in the sky, it's a bird, it's a plane, no … it's just a simple twist on an old idea.

The Golden Age of Superman

During the Golden Age, the supermen and superwomen of real estate performed feats of marvel. Super strength protected consumers from bad deals. Leaping ability allowed them to comb through piles of paperwork in a single bound. Super speed enabled them to handle issues the second they arose. Super vision allowed them to funnel through thousands of listings to locate the perfect home. Super stamina enabled them to work into the wee hours while we, the customer, slept soundly, protected from the devilish details.

And all the while, durability prevented slings and arrows from piercing their value.

Kryptonite

Ten years ago, it found its way into real estate's pocket. It took the form of an online listing. Soon, it shape-shifted into hundreds of new online applications and features -- a protean force that made Superman weak in the knees.

Kryptonite IDX stole his listings mojo. Kryptonite Web portals with data mashups drained her superhuman feats of market knowledge of value. E-mail updates sapped super vision of its power. A phalanx of Kryptonite templates overran his brand magic.

Many tools and systems sold to real estate people over the past decade bound them to cumbersome work-flow processes. And they produced no more business, despite the earnest promises of the Kryptonite peddlers who spoke of the moon but delivered craters.

Kryptonite ultimately is a product of the limitations we place on ourselves: age-old habits, tired traditions that worked in the past, and a belief that they will therefore work forever.

It's time to inoculate Superman.

Smallville

It's what real state used to be. Many still live here despite the massive consumer migration to Metropolis driven by a sense of empowerment in the flattened, global, information-ready, instantaneous world.

In Metropolis, consumers are in charge. They want to be involved in the process. They see their homes sitting on the market for months and want to know why. They are frustrated. They are no longer interested in being blissfully unaware. They think they know how to price, how to market.

They look to their agents to be their Superman and all they see is Clark Kent fumbling about in his everyman's disguise, doing the same things he's always done, the same things every other Clark Kent does.

Superman needs new powers.
Ones that build on the old.
And creates anew.

How Superman gets his groove back

Here's one idea:

It used to be that home buyers and sellers were kept apart during the transaction. The emotional currents flowing through a deal were often thought of as deadly. Does that thinking apply today?

Suppose buyers and sellers were brought together on a blog allowing them to interact in the new social environment that offers a fine balance of intimacy and distance. Imagine merging your website with your blog. 1 product. A site that contains your IDX but void of all the boiler plate, carbon copied, real estate 101 refuse that litters the road.

Using any one of several powerful blog tools, and there are more and more coming out all the time, an agent can upload pictures galore, video and post endless content about the things they know - their listings, the neighborhood, the market, local amenities... just about anything you think about and talk about everyday.

Sure, you can do this to some extend with a Web site, but what a listing blog offers is the possiblity that your readers might leave comments, ask questions and create a dialogue that will further extract your super powers.

When you can invite the client into the experience -- the experience of your technology, communication and process, answering questions, dialoguing with buyers, checking traffic stats, reading feedback -- you will slay many of the villains that plague upon your Lois Lane consumers. The antipathy. The frustration. The sense that you are not doing your job.

This is your chance to land on her roof, pick her up in your arms and fly her through your world.

Supermen and Superwoman do the unexpected.
They leap tall buildings in a single bound.
A blog is not a tall building, but just one simple story
Take that leap.

And … long live Superman.

Part III: Synchronicity

Part 1- Message in a Bottle
Part Two - Walking on the Moon

These are the chronicles of real estate people walking confidently into new territory. People that think to wonder why. They are connecting. Linking. Creating value.

Greg Tracy

What happens when you lay awake at night knowing there’s a better way to do the traditional brokerage business you’re managing? If you’re Greg Tracy, you quit your job and start Blueroof.com. When the new company launched in July of 2006, two things occurred immediately: 1) The shear elegance of the company's website got the industry abuzz, and 2) The transparent value proposition resonated in the local marketplace, producing a flood of inquiries.

BlueRoof's buyer rebate was expected to be the key driver of that interest upon launch. But, “It became apparent to us that people ultimately chose BlueRoof based upon the perceived value of our service,” said Tracy. The rebate seemed to be inconsequential. Two months after launch, the rebate was removed along with many of the other “alternative model” features.

2006 dragged on. The market tightened. Yet Greg was busier than ever. One progressive website in a sea of sameness adorned with value gave BlueRoof 114 transactions in 2007. For Greg it was all about giving consumers something that they just couldn't find elsewhere. "It was the experience, which began before they ever met us. It continued when they contacted us via our immediate response policy. It was about our enthusiasm. Our knowledge. And our follow up after closing. It's all about the experience."

In 2008, Blue Roof’s chimney is smoking with business. “It’s all about investing in your business,” says Greg. “Most agents spend what they earn and save nothing for rainy days.” There are no rainy days for BlueRoof. Not for the guy who believes in creating an experience for the consumer that's one of a kind.

Dustin Luther

How does someone who knew little about real estate, marketing or blogging become a leading authority on all three, a highly paid executive for national real estate portal, and creator of the most well know real estate agent blog in the business? 
 
According to Dustin “sometimes, the absence of knowledge is your greatest asset.”

We all get caught up in what we know. Assumptions imprison the imagination. But by not knowing where the limits are, you can be set free. This is what happened to Dustin after his wife Anna became an agent in 2004. Looking at all the experienced competition around her, Dustin focused his engineering mind on building a straight path towards success.

The first step was to promote Anna. A believer in getting what you pay for, Dustin decided to create a custom newsletter rather than using the typical, template driven stuff. By focusing on local issues and local market conditions and displaying maps by parcel, a benefit of Dustin’s GIS background, the newsletter circulated “because it looked like a lot when into it.” In others words, it offered value no other publication delivered.

2005. Putting newsletters together took considerable time. And money. Taking all he learned about the limits of print marketing, RainCityGuide was born. In keeping with the Luther culture, the blog had to be different. It was a guide instead of an agent soapbox. It was transparent, starting with the acknowledgment of Seattle’s notorious climate. And it was interesting.

But the turning point came when Dustin included a Google map mashup using a feed of data from Northwest MLS. “This had little to do with coding ability and everything to do with creating value for the reader”, Dustin explains. The result -- a presentation totally unique in the agent community.

Traffic ensued. As did questions about Dustin’s decision to invite other real estate people to blog along with he and Anna. “The blog was build for the readers”, he said. “Bringing other opinions to the mix served their interests. By removing the self serving nature, we allowed this to grow beyond us.” 

And it did. The blog became so popular Dustin was offered (and accepted) an executive position at Move.com, relocating his family to SoCal in 2006. RainCityGuide continued to flourish, serving as the premier blog destination for Seattle as well as the model for other group blogs in real estate.

Today, Dustin runs 4realz.net. He consults and speaks on the value of electronic marketing, social media and thinking about agent marketing differently. And while many agents sit and count the raindrops, Anna is busy running the referral business flowing southward from RainCityGuide.

- Davison