Real Estate Solutions

Tech Solutions - Wellcome Mat

It appears that 2008 will be the year of the video in real estate and Wellcome Mat is quickly becoming known as the YouTube of real estate. This resource allows any real estate professional to easily upload their own 3-5 minute video tours.  You’ll find the final results similar but of a much higher quality than YouTube. Once uploaded, your video can be embedded into any website or blog.  The site also is an excellent resource for finding a videographer in your area.

From my bookshelf – Riches in Niches

The books I love are pretty worn; I’m hard on them.  I even turn down the corners of the pages that speak to me.  I have plenty of corners turned down in Susan Friedmann’s Riches in Niches, How to Make it BIG in a Small Market.  SEO experts lecture about using "the long tail" in your internet strategy. Susan explains how to use "the long tail" in your everyday business and for me, it relates perfectly to real estate.  It’s the "sell more of less" theory, the same theory that Seth Godin talks about in Small is the New Big.

Most real estate agents try to serve too many masters. They will work with investors and builders and single family homebuyers.  In between, they might show a rental or two or throw on some boots to walk a piece of farm land. Just for good measure, they’ll try to dabble in commercial real estate.  At the end of the year, a typical real estate agent will have put a gazillion miles on their car.

Many years ago, there was an agent in my office who’s niche was mobile homes.  Diane was the expert. She could drive by a mobile home and tell you what model it was and what year it was built.  If you have ever seen the movie, My Cousin Vinnie, Diane was like the character portrayed by Marisa Tomei who knew everything there was to know about cars. Most agents hated the idea of listing or selling a mobile home because they were cheap which meant the commissions weren’t much. As a result, when a call came into almost any office in Eastern CT for a mobile home, they’d suggest the customer call Diane.  Diane made well over $100,000 back in the 90’s selling almost exclusively mobile homes.  Since she was the expert, she was also able to raise her commission which helped when selling cheap mobile homes.  Later in her career,  Diane become an expert in selling HUD foreclosures, another area that most agents avoided.  She learned everything she could about the process and became the HUD Foreclosure expert in the area.  I’m sure she never thought about "the long tail" or Seth Godin but it sure put a lot of money in her pocket.

In the book, Riches in Niches, Susan coins becoming an expert in a niche as a "nichepreneur". She goes on to talk about ways to enhance and capitalize on your expert status.  I’ve always subscribed to the "Do one thing really well theory".  What I do really well is list property in my small town of Ledyard, CT.  90% of my commissions are earned from listing property in one small town.  I realize that a new agent might not be able to narrowly focus on one small niche but it is something to strive for.  By becoming an expert at just one thing, you become a "nichepreneur".  That is a very good thing.

If you get a chance, be sure to watch My Cousin Vinnie. I promise it will make you laugh and you’ll see an expert in action.

Real Estate mentoring groups

I’ve been a member of the CyberProfessionals since 1995.  The group originally met chatting on the old RE/MAX Compuserve forum and had an idea; meet in person and share tools, systems, marketing ideas and technology.  Only 9 agents attended that first meeting in Stamford, CT and we arrived by car, plane and train.  Each of the attendess presented a topic they felt would benefit other members of the group.  I remember being wowed by a presentation on Microsoft Publisher; another member spoke on representating buyers, long before buyer agency was commonly practiced. I talked about farming, a topic I am still passionate about.

Since that first meeting in Stamford, the group, now numbering over 50 and no longer just RE/MAX agents, meets twice a year in locations across the country.  At our meetings, we each share our "fifteen minutes of fame".  You’ll find the rest of our history and membership information on the Cyberprofessionals Website.

Forming or participating in a mentoring group is a golden opportunity to improve your business and make lifelong friends. With the rapid rise of social networking sites, it is easy to make contacts with agents from across the country you might want in your group. Consider meeting prior to the NAR convention or another industry event like a Real Estate Franchise convention.

My advice…have few rules, keep it casual, and share your best stuff!

CT Real Estate agent unteathered

My laptop arrived with me this week at Inman Real Estate Connect in New York City. I had planned to do some blogging from NYC.  Unfortunately, despite internet access throughout the hotel including free wireless in the lobby, I was unable to connect.  I’m usually not very far from my laptop.  I have this routine of reading the news and checking my overnight email with breakfast.  I check the news again during my lunch break. Except when I’m on appointments, most of my real estate day consists of online activities like email, lead generation, feedback from showings, MLS updates, statistical reports, and lots of other things technical.  Evenings are my time to be creative; that’s when I work on my websites and blog.  In between, I visit with my network of friends on social networks like flickr and twitter.

When I arrived home, I was still unable to connect and it turns out that Comcast was the culprit all along. For those in Gales Ferry, you’ll know what I’m talking about.  Comcast has been having intermittent outages since the end of December.  One of those outages did something bad to my computer and as a result, I was unable to connect in NYC.  It’s all fixed now but the Comcast connection is still iffy.

Being without internet access for almost 4 days was challenging. The whole situation made me realize how dependent I am on technology and being online.  I was able to keep up with email for the most part with my Blackberry but still had 521 emails to review once I got home.  If you are waiting for an email from me, I expect to catch up real soon.

Adopt a real estate orphan

The National Association of Realtor’s 2007 Profile of Home Buyers and Sellers reports that 23% of home sellers used the agent they previously used to buy or sell a home.  Let’s do the simple math; that means that at least 7 out of 10 sellers did not use the agent who sold them their home.  Uh oh.  That’s not a very good statistic.  It is, however, one you can take advantage of.  By the time most sellers are ready to sell their home, their agent is out of business or didn’t keep in touch.  Regardless of the reason, this is good news if you plan to be successful in the real estate business for the long term.

Orphans have always been an important part of my business.  Last year I was on a listing appointment and as I went through the kitchen with the seller, I noticed one of my calendars on the refrigerator. Mr. Seller had been receiving my "stuff" for 18 years - calendars, magnets, postcards, newsletters.  Mr. Seller was proud of the updates he had made to the house since I sold it to him.  He had me convinced.  When I went back to the office and went through the file from 1989, I realized I hadn’t sold Mr. Seller the house after all. In 1989, I added Mr. Seller as an "orphan" in my database. The agent who had really sold him the house had been out of the business about 10 years.  I get more than a few listings from "orphans" every year.  Most of the time they are convinced I sold them the house.  They say that when they call in to make the listing appointment.  "Remember us? You sold us the house about 10 years ago".

The odds are very high that with the exception of maybe a holiday card for the first couple of years, a client’s own agent will abandon him.  And the odds are just as high that their own agent won’t be in the business after 3 years.  In fact, it is business you can count on it.