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

Brokers, it's time to get out of the cockpit

Brian wrote this piece just about a year ago. The title became the basis for a live presentation we have given throughout this past year on a variety of topics including branding, marketing and communication, sales and creative thinking. 

----

“Good morning, folks, my name is Brian Marsh and I’m your first officer on today’s flight out to Aruba [pauses amid chuckles].

How many people on this plane have never flown jetBlue before? Great, how about you stand up and tell us a little bit about yourselves?

Seriously, I’m grateful you’re on board with us this morning. We’ve got some tailwinds, so our flight time out to D.C. will be a quick four hours and thirty minutes. And all reports indicate a smooth ride.

Sit back and enjoy the jetBlue experience – and thanks again”

I was headed out to Washington from Oakland on a jetBlue flight last week.

The screen in front of me had already told me I “look good in leather” – the material covering my seat – and commended me for being a “good screen reader”. Now the first officer had come out of the cockpit to greet us, joke around a bit, and tell us what to expect.

The week before I had flown from Houston to Oakland on Continental. My seat smelled of body odor. The flight attendants were surly. My tray table restricted my breathing. I arrived home with a sore back and headed straight for the shower.

The guy flying the plane could have made me feel a little better about this, but he chose not too. He remained, as most pilots remain, a leaden voice coming through the squawk box, distant and unconcerned.

I hate Continental. I love JetBlue.

Brokers, it’s time for you to get out of the cockpit too. Times are tough. People are hurting. They’re angry, and unsure.

It’s been a long flight and the peanuts aren’t helping.

How often do you, your office mangers or your VPs, personally greet clients in your office? How often do you call buyers to congratulate them upon closing? Or send them a handwritten note?

Do you speak candidly and sympathetically to your customers about the challenges facing home buyers and sellers? Or do you remain ensconced in the soundproof cockpit of the executive suite and let your marketing department do the talking?

Have you lent humor to your interactions with sellers? Or are you still hoping to still the anxious minds in your market with postcards?

All this buzz about blogs? It’s not about technology: it’s about you, your voice, and a conversation you need to be having with your customers.

I know. There are reasons to stay put. You don’t want to edge in on agent relationships. You don’t want exposure to criticism. Let me tell you something: When you speak to your customers with a human voice you are forgiven for your mistakes. JetBlue botched hundreds of flights and stranded a hundred and fifty passengers on the tarmac at JFK for nine hours last winter in an operational meltdown. People gave them the flack they deserved and went on loving the company.

Get out there. Hold a town hall meeting. Spend 20k to hire a top shelf economist or personal finance expert to help your customers navigate a challenging economy. Give them the data they need, however ugly it may be.

Speak frankly. Be open. Push yourself to communicate in new ways. Take a look at this. I know -- it’s far from perfect. And the opening video is filled with cant. But he’s trying. He’s left the cockpit. He’s telling us what to expect and injecting his brand with a dose of humanity.

I know a lot of smart brokers. People who’ve been through rough times before and have a genuine passion for helping people. Trouble is, they don’t have – or don’t think they have – the moves in them to pull something like this off. I think they underestimate themselves. The tools are there. It’s what Web 2.0 is all about.

Get out of the cockpit and face the crowd. It’ll make everyone feel better.

-- Brian Boero

Let's call it Zulia

Brian wrote this toward the very end of December 2007. I remember both of us flying down to Los Angeles (each from different destinations), meeting at the airport and grabbing a cab to meet with a client. We were throwing ideas around and before long we realized the cabbie was completely lost. In the few minutes I spent trying to get the cabbie back on track with the directions we had, Brian hatched this idea and presented it to me. It was one of those moments when I wished we still had our tech company so we could build an app that enabled our customers to do this. I loved this idea then, and I still love it today. ...Marc

On Friday, Davison and I gave a presentation to a group of top producers at a large real estate company here in the Bay Area. At these things, I usually play Ed McMahon to Marc's Johnny (minus the pre-show hi-balls). I keep things moving and laugh at all the jokes.

But this time I wanted to take a few minutes to share an idea I had with the crowd. I offer it for your evaluation below.

I've been thinking that if I were to sell real estate in my neighborhood, one of the things I would do would be to create a comprehensive database of images, sales histories and notes on every single home in the neighborhood (in my case, about 1,200 homes).

In other words, I'd create my own private Zillow or Trulia -- or, really, something even more valuable to my clients and prospects. Maybe I'd call it Zulia.

The data would be impeccably accurate, the images would be clear street level views, and it would be frequently and meaningfully updated. Each home would have its own page. Heck, I could even run this on Wordpress. Every home would be a post.

But -- and the real value would lie herein -- all of the data, all of the images, would be complemented by my own assessment of the home. This might include observations taken on a broker tour at some point in the past ("next door neighbor raises German Shepards"; "living room gets very little light in winter"), or notes on sales prices that would make such data much more meaningful than a list of out-of-context comps. I might, for example, note that an unusually low sales price could be attributed an out of area listing agent, not a marker of a market shift.

This database could be used in a couple different ways. I could either use it as a tool for myself and my clients and keep it password protected. It would be helpful in discovering buyer preferences or helping shape sellers' perception of their home's value. Or I could leave it wide open.

Either way, I'd be using the Web to leverage my valuable experience and knowledge in a new way that would help clients and differentiate me from every other agent in my neighborhood with a stack full of comps from the MLS.

The agents in attendance liked the idea. But in reality, most were selling super high-end homes and don't get their fingernails dirty in the nitty gritty of technology. With a more time and effort, this could even be done at a brokerage level.

Your thoughts?

-- Brian Boero

Cut print, but fill the value vacuum

If years of business turbulence and dubious ad performance weren't enough to move you to eliminate your print newspaper spend, yesterday's Tribune bankruptcy may be the signal you've been waiting for.

The Los Angeles Times killed its once-great real estate section three months ago. Now they're bankrupt. There are lots of sad things about this, but none of them have to do with brokers who have paid too much for too long for ads that are, as Google's Avinash Kaushik would say, "Faith-based initiatives."

Truth be told, most brokers know continuing to pour money into print makes no sense from a strict ROI perspective. These ads don't sell houses. There are two major barriers that come up time and again in our discussions with brokers struggling with the need to right-size and update their marketing budgets to reflect reality:

1. Sellers expect to see their home advertised in print

2. I need to be in papers to maintain my brand

These are legitimate concerns. Cutting print off at the knees probably will hurt you if you do not take action to fill the void of perceived value you create by doing so. This action cannot be taken in isolation.

Most brokers don't yet know how to fill the void and thus remain handcuffed to the old way they know makes no sense. They may cut a little here, shrink a little there. But the P&L still tells the same story.

It need not be so.

The embrace of listings syndication by brokerages was a step in the right direction. But it's just a start. A new marketing plan needs to be built upon the ruins of the old model. One that can be presented compellingly to consumers, the performance of which can be measured, and the value of which hangs not so much on money spent, but expertise and technology leveraged.

I refuse to accept that most sellers -- the median age of whom was 39 last year -- aren't open to a well-thought out electronic marketing strategy in lieu of the quarter-page ad in which their home shares center stage with an agent head shot.

As for the branding question? We've known for ten years that the first place consumers go in the real estate process is online. Plenty of room for branding there, even, despite what you might think, in the sterile world of CPC. 

So, the reasons why many brokers persist with print are valid -- but only for those unwilling to to take commensurate action to replace it.

It can be done. We're working with several companies right now to do it. They've stopped writing the big checks and sleep well for having done it.

-- Brian Boero

I am a lead

As drab as the market feels, I just closed on my investment home in Portland.
Sold.
Check just came in the mail.

Granted, the sale price established though a CMA was obliterated by a Zestimate -- the tool the buyer chose to trust rather than the conventional real estate pricing formula performed by my agent. It missed the important things like upgrades and improvements, specific location, view, and the overall stability within my particular neighborhood.

But these days, many out there don't know who or what to believe. Some view the Zestimate as a mis-marked price tag. As the Blue Book for real estate. And when the cashier rings up a different price they argue on principle. Frankly, I don't blame them a bit. I would do the very same thing.

So it goes in the wacky world of real estate. And with things so unstable, I was happy to have a buyer willing to even make an offer.

I have to hand it to my agent - he worked hard to close this sale. Dealing with a difficult buyer during a difficult time was no easy feat considering how desperate I was to make the last three years of ownership account for something more than a $20,000 loss.

I'm not bitter at all. Given the market, I'm grateful for the small things, like how the buyer qualified for a loan. And how the bank had a few bucks left in the vault in make the loan. And I'm grateful for my agent, who is a good man and did a great job.

So what now? I received a check yesterday -- the deposit on the home. I'm basically back to where I started three years ago. Almost.

So anyway, I hear that now is great time to buy. That's what I heard three years ago and that didn't work out like we planned. But I'm willing to go at it again. After all, I've got some cash for a down payment, rates are low and if I can find something that flows positive with 10 or 20% down, in a market where prices have fallen and rentals are hot, and...

Well, not so fast, Davison.

Yes. I need more than a few superficial reasons to jump back into the pool.

Perhaps someone can explain to me exactly why now is a great time to buy. And where. And provide me with facts -- and an analysis of those facts -- to back that statement. Like many consumers out there, I'm a bit shaky and not ready to simply believe an ad campaign. But you could say I am motivated.

I suppose, when it comes right down to it, I am a lead.

- Davison

Sirius XM

The long-awaited merger of satellite radio's two players has finally been approved by the FCC. As an early subscriber to XM who converted to Sirius, I am pleased that, soon, I will be able to reap the benefits of their combined programing. 

Here in real estate, the merger should serve as a breadcrumb left on the path of logic and forward thinking.

Why the merger makes sense

Other than slight differences in individual programs (comedy, music, talk, etc.,) both XM and Sirius are seemingly duplicate models performing duplicate functions vying for the same consumer.

Each company employs staff performing similar functions. Since both entities are not yet profitable, merging will dramatically reduce these redundancies, which would, if allowed to fester, bring about their ruin.

The merger creates one incredibly strong entity from two struggling companies with less than 5% market share fighting each other to the death.

What this means for real estate

This is almost too obvious. M&A activity has dropped off the table in real estate, but does that make sense? Is not a down market the best time to combined staff, mingle offerings, and shore up financials?

I think there's a valid argument here. I've spoken at association meetings and wondered out loud why one association with no technology but a core education competency isn't partnering with a neighboring association with great technology but vulnerabilities in administration or education.

Sirius XM

This is the name of the new entity. To me, it's genius.  Both names own market share. Both names are well known to satellite users. XM is a channel on Ford radios and Sirius is branded on Mercedes. Why create a new name and make customers feel expired?

I think real estate could take a chapter out of this book. What do you think?

- Davison

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

The Swiss Army Knife problem

Realseekr launched this week. The site is the newest among a group of IDX-based search plays, which includes Roost, Terabitz, Estately and others.

Here's what I like about it:

1. The listings strategy. IDX is the way to go if you can stomach the legal, political and data hassles
2. The integration of chat and SMS
3. Grant Freer, founder and CEO. He's smart and has an infectious enthusiasm I really like

But these things are overshadowed, in my mind, by a problem that afflicts many in the online real estate category: Lack of focus.

The site, like a Swiss Army Knife, does many things but doesn't do any one thing especially well (if you've ever tried to use the little scissors or saw on the Swiss Army Knife you know what I mean.) It offers some home search, some local/social stuff, blogs, agent search and more. The site suffers from bad information architecture and I struggled with the extremely busy user interface.

One of my favorite books on Website usability is titled "Don't make me think." When I look at the Realseekr home page, I have to think a lot:

Here's just a sample: The consumer and industry facing messaging here is mixed, so I have to parse that. Then I need to think about what the check-marked benefits mean. For example, what does "Make friends and connections" mean here, on a real estate site? As a consumer, I may think, "what does "FSBO" mean?" I also have no idea what "featured properties" means. Why are they here? And in any case, any of these "featured" properties is almost certainly not the one property I ultimately hope to find (if I'm a buyer).

And it's quite possible (again, if I am a consumer) I will not know what any of these three search categories mean:

I'm not picking on Realseekr. I just think it's the most recent example of a larger trend in online real estate: Scope creep, feature bloat, Swiss Army Knife Syndrome ... whatever you want to call it -- there's too much out there that's too complicated.

I've been thinking this about Zillow for some time now. It does not suffer from the IA and usability problems Realseekr does, but it nonetheless seems a bit scattered to me.

I think about this like the difference between going to a barbeque and going to get a haircut. At the barbeque, I'm up for anything: A beer, a margarita, a little frisbee, some grilling and playing around with the kids. When I go to the barber, I'm there for one reason, and there's no confusion about what I'm going to get.

Online real estate, for those who are serious, is more like getting a haircut. I want something: A home, a mortgage, an agent -- not a half-satisfying taste of everything seasoned with a sprinkle of serendipity.

There are exceptions, of course. Companies that get lifestyle media and marketing can pull off a more experiential, less utilitarian sort of site. The thousands of Active Rain members demonstrate that real estate pros are willing to socialize online.

I just don't think that's where most will succeed.

The brass ring lies in making something complicated astonishingly simple.

-- Brian Boero

Brand management is Job One

Take a look at this postcard I got in the mail today:

Better Internet than I already have. Plus cable. For less money. What a rock-solid offer! Great call to action!

But I'd never take them up on it. Ever. Because it's Comcast, a brand freighted with all kinds of negative associations in my mind. I know I'm not alone. The offer is killer. The brand ... well, not so much.

Now take a look at this image I snapped in my neighborhood:

There are brand problems here too. First of all, someone is trying to sell me on handling the biggest financial transaction of my life, one charged with emotion, from a bus bench. Second, there are actually a number of competing brands here. On top of all this, the offer itself -- while seemingly as compelling as Comcast's -- is as sketchy as a three dollar bill. The fine print on this ad reads, "Seller and Dave and Carla must agree on a price and completion dates." which of course qualifies the offer into utter meaninglessness.

The takeaways:

Many real estate brokers consider brand management an afterthought, a frivolous exercise compared to the real business of recruiting. That makes no sense. A trusted, healthy brand is a pre-condition for everything else you do. If you manage every touch point with vigilance, if you define your brand promise and uphold it unerringly, everything -- marketing, sales, recruiting, retaining -- becomes easier. If you fail on the promise more often than not, or fail to maintain fidelity to the brand in every context, everything -- even pitching a no-brainer like Comcast is -- becomes a challenge.

Even more fundamentally, make sure any offer you put into the marketplace stands up to the scrutiny of today's consumer, who is more skeptical, more informed, and less susceptible to marketing gambits than ever before. I am sure the bus bench ad above generates some business. But it's certainly not a way to build long-term trust, value and brand equity.

Your brand is everything. Obsess on it.

-- Brian Boero

Wake them up from their dead dream

Back in 2002, when I was a partner at a technology company, a client surprised us with an unannounced visit. He drove five hours from his corporate office. Arrived wearing jeans, Tony Lama's and his signature Tommy Bahama shirt.

He hung out with our staff. Handed out gifts -- plaques denoting his appreciation to everyone involved in working on his project.

Later that day, he joined us at The Cliffs in Shell Beach. He bought dinner, handed out cigars. We stood near the gazebo and toasted as the sun deposited itself into its piggy bank horizon.

Then he handed each of us an envelope. I stumbled in my efforts to vocalize sentiment. The best I could come up with was something along the lines of "man this is so over the top and completely unnecessary." 

"Never forget who brung ya." he said, grinning.

Back then, his account was the life-giving deal that birthed our young company from the canal of anonymity. He would say that his gesture was a little gratitude for the big work we did to help launch his new idea. I would disagree. His gesture, one of many, taught me much about creating lifelong clients.   

Who was your first customer? You know, the one who took a risk on you before you were a proven anything? They brung ya.

Who was your last client? The one who bought into your reputation. Believed in the word of mouth about your company. Your service. Or maybe they were someone who took a gamble on faith. They brung ya too. 

Do they feel forgotten? What have you done to keep them believing, loving, heralding you?

Do they know how deeply woven into the fabric of your success story they are? If not, why?

Better yet, forget why. Instead get busy dusting off the memory. Wake your customers up from their dead dream. Shock them. Amaze them.

Vendors, brokers, agents: Find that gazebo where you can stun your customers and partners into speechlessness.

- Davison

Sunset from The Cliffs