This is how it would work.  You would pick some area that seems ripe with a financially viable, tech savvy group of people in need of information and hopefully a new home.  What type of information would you feed them?….oh…everything of course.  You see, you would figure out everything your ‘peeps’ are interested in and pipe it to them fresh by blog and RSS feed.  High School player bios, the latest track results, and who’s cat had kittens….people love that stuff right?   All the good stuff.  They wouldn’t be able to get enough, so they would come back without having to be prompted by other means.  Of course you would go neighborhood viral worse than like little Johnny fresh out of kindergarten.

 People would stumble across the site on Google and many others would find it on flyers/mailing that would eventually be phased out once the web presence took over.  Then,  your constant craving for the information I have would keep you coming back like some sort crack head.  You wouldn’t be able to get enough.   Of course all the while I would be subliminally establishing myself as an expert in your area.  The perfect person to sell  your home and the best resource for a buyer.

While all of this sounds great, my gut feeling on this is that it’s not quite possible/likely yet.  I personally am not pursuing this approach to blogging locally.  I am working on some approaches to this but an online newsletter it shan’t be.  I can imagine a client being a little put off by the fact that you just decided that your going to insert yourself into their lives.  I’m on record as saying I don’t think you jack black bencasino gratuites frcasino island blackjackblack jack daveycasino bonus de bienvenueregle jeu roulettewww traiteur casinobonus gratuitsjeu roulette casinojouer video pokerbonus gratuites de casinojack black spider mancomment gagner à la roulette en ligneregle de la rouletteslot machine gametelecharger jeu poker texasjouer seven card stud gratuitesle poker en ligne en françaispoker en ligne bruelentrainement poker gratuitesjouer au poker sans telechargerle poker apprendre à jouerpoker le jeujeux de poker sur internetpoker gratuites sans telechargementworld poker gratuitesjeu de pokerjeu poker freewaretelecharger poker holdpoker en ligne argent virtuelpoker holdem gratuitesjeu de carte pokerjeux poker tour en lignepoker online argentjeux 7 card stud gratuitespoker en ligne francaistour de pokerjouer au poker onlinejeu javalogiciel poker texas holdemjeux pokerjouer poker en ligne gratuitementtournoi texas holdemtelecharger jeu poker gratuitesstrip poker gratuitementpoker sans internetle jeu du pokersalle poker onlinepoker source onlinepoker texas gratuites can be a successful hyper-local blogger unless you live there, have kids, grew up there or have some other attachment that people can use to relate to you on a personal level.  Maybe you should open your office there.

I have some concerns about the hyper-local approach because it seems to be a house of cards built on a card table. 

The card table is the premise that you are filling a need.   The idea that people will continue to choose area experts since everyone charges the same.  The idea that an agent that sells in one subdivision is not qualified to sell in another.    Can you imagine the tedium involved in putting this together?  Tedious as it is, it is possible it could pay off.  Especially if you’re making the comparison to established agents who are using the old fashioned methods successfully but will that transfer well to the Internet? 

Here’s a few more random thoughts, questions and observations that should be considered before starting down this path.  I wouldn’t say you shouldn’t attempt this approach, but rather, I would attempt to resolve these conflicts or plan ways to address the potential issues early in your development process.

1. Brokers need the people,  but people don’t need you.  Is what you got fresh enough to be news to them?  Would they even care to read your stuff?
2. There’s a small matter of trust and privacy. “I don’t want you taking pictures of my kids or anything.”
3. Who Voted you Mayor?  Would they feel you need their permission?
4. This sounds like an incredible amount of work.   Is it sustainable?
5. Will this create a steep barrier to entry?
6. Who is better positioned to do this same job?  Will they take you out at the knees next year?
7. Will the shrinking real estate margins crimp your projected profit?
8. Will this work if you’re competing against an established farm agent?
9. Where do people currently get the information you will offer?
10. How much will it cost to market the blog or will you rely on Google to deliver people to you from the subdivision you’re targeting?

Correct me if I’m wrong, I’ve seen lots of attempts at local blogging but haven’t seen anyone suggest that they’re ‘killing’ it with this method.  A deal or 2 here and there doesn’t deem the method an absolute success.  Even the most successful national bloggers don’t put up numbers that match top farm agent numbers.  While there might be 20 agents makeing the high 6 figures in a big city, the big time local bloggers aren’t among them.   It makes me think the hyper-local approach is over-hyped and merely a new topic for a real estate conferences to ponder and theorize about. 

I personally have researched many of the agents locally that blog as their primary rain maker and it really isn’t that impressive.  It’s a living.  It’s not a surprise really,  I feel they get a fair return on their invested time and money but I’m personally willing to trade money for time if it gets me to the same point or better.   

  The method doesn’t approach the numbers that standard farming brings in.   I’m left with the thought, that if you don’t have any ideas to generate business and you have a very limited budget, this can’t hurt.  I’m sure there are tons of agents out there that have the time to focus on this.   The 2 biggest problems with this is that the Internet hasn’t achieved a true hyper-local capability yet though I would expect that to change.  Second,  I’m not convinced that people would be any more likely to use you than the other guy that got some face time with the potential clients. 

As for the house of cards analogy, once you have it all built and up and running, people using you and all…how easy would it be to knock down.  Will you be able to keep up or will competition take over where you left off.

  Here’s a tip.  Your clients probably Googled you.  Blogging is key to your business because people use the Internet for research.  Especially so when it comes to real estate.  You have a chance to create your own spin, your own buzz.  Potential clients get to know you anonymously  and make decisions about your expertise and qualifications prior to making contact.  Even after meeting you they may want to learn more about you.   

 Just a few thoughts.  Here’s some further reading on the subject:

• Seth’s Blog – Advice for real estate agents (quit now!)
• Jeff Brown – House Agents — Wanna Start the New Year Kickin’ Ass? Here’s How  - My apologies to Jeff for not getting back to the subject sooner.  I had to ‘wrap my mind around it’ some more.
• Life that Pops – Everything new is old

 There is a lot said there and in the comments that might trigger some new thoughts on the subject for you. 

Today, that language has become RPGIV, reflecting continuing enhancements that make it an extremely effective language for manipulating data. You will not likely use it to write an operating system or make pictures dance around on your screen, but computers used by tens of thousands of businesses have it as their base computer language, generating reports and entering and displaying data.

The future of RPG today, though, is in doubt, even though programs totaling billions of lines of code are running today on hundreds of thousands of machines. This is a reflection of the state of computer science today, as well as an example of the fact that, too often, what is often serviceable and effective is set aside.for what is fashionable.

In programming, the fashion today is centered around the Web, and languages associated with the Web – Java, Perl, Python, Ruby, C++, Visual Basic, Javascript, and so on – visually oriented languages, for the most part. Can RPG do the Web? Yes, but you have to jump through hoops to make it work. There is no facility in RPG that allows it to use HTML as effortlessly as its customary screen display files. And there are forms of RPG from IBM and ASNA that resemble VB and Java with their Windows displays, but they are by no means nearly as ubiquitous as VB. The kids learn VB or teach themselves Java or C- they do not learn RPG. It is not sexy; RPG is like its cousin COBOL – they are functional business languages, but Windows and Web processing have to be grafted onto them to work on Windows or the Web. RPG can be used in conjunction with Java on the AS/400; it works quite well to use Java for the user interface and RPG for the core business logic; but people tend want to forget the RPG and use something (anything) else.

In short, all RPG has going for it is that it works. It runs on a machine (the AS/400 or iSeries or Series i) with a database (DB2) incorporated into the hardware- no extra database software, though it can run SQL (and RPG can call and run SQL statements). The operating system (OS/400) makes even Linux seem to run flaky by comparison, without the need for systems administrators, and the machine it runs on seems to run forever. There is no such thing as the “blue screen of death”; at least, I haven’t seen one in almost 30 years. (For a long time, Microsoft ran its business on the AS/400, well into the latter half of the 1990’s.) RPG can call C++ and Java programs, and they can call RPG routines. It can also run HTML, with a little bit of extra effort.

Perhaps RPG and the AS/400 are too good at what they do. You can run 35-year old RPG programs unchanged using RPGIV. (Try running 1980’s vintage GWBASIC programs unchanged using VB. It likely will not be easy, perhaps not even possible.) Planned obsolescence is not implemented, as what seems to be true in the programs of Microsoft and other software producers. (And frankly, I believe IBM has done the right thing, purely on principle. Programming should be done to benefit those who pay for it to be done, not to entertain the programmer. Change the program if you need to improve or fix it, not just for the sake of change.)

RPG is being taught by very few schools; some community colleges have given up on their RPG-AS/400 courses due to lack of interest. Few new programmers are being educated. The RPG programming population is getting grayer and grayer. Though it can be used quite elegantly to produce powerful data-crunching programs, the young are not learning it. Crunching data is not entertaining. On RPG forums the topic of the future of RPG is argued quite violently; perhaps it will survive as long as people care about it. It would be a shame to see vast numbers of programs rewritten because people no longer care to use this highly functional language.

I find it difficult to believe computer science grads find it difficult to learn a language that I could learn in a very short time under less than ideal conditions. (I typed my first programs into the computer on 96-column punch cards and fed them into a card reader.) I have read opinions of obviously educated people who feel that the RPG logic cycle and the use of RPG “level break” handling (of processing when a designated field changes in value) is incredibly complex; I read about it in my RPG textbook, said “Hey – that’s pretty cool” and didn’t need to give it any further study. It is incomprehensible that these people find it difficult. Evidently, it’s sometimes easier to learn something when you know nothing about the topic than when you think you know something about it and your mind is halfway frozen shut.

I wish I had a solution; far wiser heads have yet to come up with a solid solution for the growing shortage of RPG programmers. But it would be such a waste if someone doesn’t.

 Guest Post – Curtis Barron

In case your just hearing about it (doubtful), here’s what its all about. It’s like a soap opera without the bad dialogue.

Check out the rise and fall of iPhone (or whatever they’re going to call it)

The Rise:

• TechCrunch
• BloodhoundBlog
• TimeMagazine on iphone

And Fall of iPhone

• GigaOM – Battle for Iphone – Cisco sues.
• Gizmodo – Cisco sues over trademark violation

Seems somebody forgot to tie up the whole trademark thing. I’m sure Steve thought it was “a go” the day before, but if it’s not in writing, it doesn’t exist. They’ll probably work it out, but I bet Cisco’s negotiating position just got better.

That was fast.

I actually don’t think it’s failed. It seems to be a great design, though I don’t think it’s going to quite live up to all the initial hype. Maybe they should increase the memory to 20 megs, rename it iPod Mobile and call it a day.

Technorati Tags: iphone, mobile, technology,

People love the anonymity of the Internet. They don’t want to be sold. They just want something that you’ve got. They hate to leave their information, so they will not, if they can avoid it.

‘They’re not that into you’

Unfortunately for agents, real estate is rarely an impulse purchase.A person will spend a few months thinking about it before they even make a move to contact a broker. It’s far more likely to believe they already have someone in mind to use. Someone they know personally. They could easily know a friend who had mentioned someone they had worked with on the purchase of their own home. Perhaps they already have a family member who is in the business. They may just want to try to FSBO the property or work with a seller directly. Maybe they want to use the agent who’s selling their neighbor’s house. Whatever the case, everyone has a website and it’s unlikely your website sets you apart from the crowd.

It’s really about the initial contact. Where did my clients come from? I mean, there is a difference between someone hearing of your company because of your strong presence in the area, then ending up at your website, and them showing up at your website after an Internet search. Your website is a much stronger tool when it’s a landing place for interest generated by the buzz you’re creating in the neighborhood. But as far as an proactive business tool, it comes up a little weak. Relying on the Internet alone is imagining that if your client had a rolodex full of thousands of business cards, yours would somehow be pulled out consistently enough for you to make a living. Even if you’re in the front of the great Google Rolodex, that doesn’t guarantee you’re going to get more business.

How do I know?…well, I look up all the agents with top 10 listings in Google for the main keywords for Denver. I then see how much business they do. Its usually pretty average and sometimes even below average. When I look up the top producing agents, though, it’s quite common that they might not have a top website. They have no top 10 listings on Google and very little web traffic.

A website isn’t the key to an agent’s success.

Most agents will admit that there is little in the way of a positioning statement on their website. It’s likely there is nothing in the way of price mentioned there, so there is usually very little in the way of a benefit to a client mentioned there. Oh I know we all have the usuall rhetoric about how we are experts in some area, we can get top dollar and are masters of the universe. But there really isn’t that much that makes what one agent does different than the next one. People know this. To be successful, you need to sell benefits. Selling 101, right? What is the benefit to your client? Personally, I prefer, ‘I’ll save you more money’ or ‘I’ll make you more money’ as opposed to ‘I work for the largest company in Colorado’ or ‘Here’s my…

If agents want to be successful, they need to be realistic about where their leads come from and how can they get in front of more people for the least amount of money. While a website is an important tool to relay information, it will never replace the value of a face-to-face visit. The money that you could blow trying to generate leads from the Internet is phenomenal.

So, I’m sure you’re asking, why do I have a website? I still see a website as a key component of my business, but I doubt it will ever be the storefront I had hoped. It’s destined to be a card in a Rolodex. Who knows, I might get a few people that show up organically from the sea of Internet users out there looking to transact some real estate in the Denver area. Far more likely though, they may see my yard sign, postcard, door hanger, newspaper ad, my first time buyer seminar or have a friend drop my name and wonder who I am. By the time they reach my website, they’re already on their second contact. If it looks good at that point, and they’re ready, I might just get a call. But I’m not going to wait for it or rely on it.

I will try to spiff it up a little this year though; it looks pretty bad. One day, people may change. Maybe one day having a top ten listing on Yahoo or Google will be just like having a brick-n-mortar location right next to the supermarket. Just in case, I’ll keep trying to improve the website. Besides, I want to be part of the top 10 crowd on Google simply because I like to win.

Technorati Tags: Denver, Real, Estate, Marketing, Budget, Internet, Advertising

 

“I love Zillow.”  “I liked them before they were big.”   

Saying that I was a big fan of Zillow.com from the start is kind of like saying, “I liked Dave Matthews before he got big” (My wife, a Virginia native, loves to say that).  For one, nobody believes you, and second, nobody cares.  Regardless of what people would think of me, I’ll say it. I love Zillow, specifically, the Zestimate™.   If you haven’t been following along, Zillow has come of age. I personally like to go on the record with my likes and dislikes ahead of time. I keep a record whether I’m right or wrong. I feel that there are a couple of components missing that will have to be incorporated quickly if Zillow wants to become a fixture in real estate. One of them is probably the most important.   It’s built off an assumption.  

Assumption – People are inherently lazy. If someone doesn’t have to do something, they won’t.  If it doesn’t look easy, they will put it off for later (and probably never do it!). Bottom line – people will choose the path of least resistance. I know this doesn’t apply to the hard working bloggers out there or my clients that are reading this but it’s true of the majority of people. 

1.      Brokers/Agents don’t want to spend all their time uploading their listings to Zillow.

2.      People want to see everything that is for sale and don’t want to go all over the place to find it.

Solution –   Make it easy.Easy for Brokers – Until Zillow can automatically pull in the IDX data or data that is being posted on websites (My Ihouse website automatically feeds Yahoo, Oogle, and Trulia with a click of a button, but I hate the website designs), Zillow will never gain even 50% of listings out there because, in my opinion, most brokers/agents are lazy (no offense).  Also, most agents are not web-savvy. (I’ve read the average age of a real estate agent is in their 50’s, does this say web-savvy to you?) They don’t want to be entering their listings over and over again for each site, they want easy.  Easy for People (especially buyers) –  People (The mob) is even worse.  If you’re a FSBO listen up!  When I get a listing, it gets posted all over the internet.  It’s on the local MLS, the local MLS public page, Realtor.com, Yahoo.com, and every other site that draws from the IDX.  I also post them on craigslist, my website, and some homes even get their own website but where do you think the actual phone calls and emails come from? Most don’t come from the internet, at least not yet.  It’s a given that a broker will sell a listing if he lists it at the right price on the MLS.  He could get slightly more for the place if he expertly markets the home property to play up its high points.  The majority of  buyers in my view, a little better than 75% of home sales in Denver, come from cooperating with another local agent and the rest come from leads to the listing agent.  This means to me that buyers wander around the internet until they’re sucked into the net of marketing put out by good agents.  When someone looks at the MLS, they believe they are seeing everything for sale.  Because of this, people either make the move to purchase or wait because there was nothing they wanted to buy. They saw it all.  It’s all on the MLS.  Therefore, if Zillow wants to compete, it needs to feel like it covers everything. Agents want their listings posted on Zillow.  As long as Zillow is not branded by another company, brokers will want it done.  For Zillow to be a long term success buyers need to have the feeling that looking at homes on Zillow saves time.  If it’s good for buyers, it’s good for brokers.  Make it easier for them because people don’t need Zillow to buy a home right now.    Buyers will come because they don’t want to feel like they’re being ripped off and they want to compare the Zestimate™ with the list price. Though, I’m sure some come to see the cool bird’s eye views of the home, most people want something more tangible.  (I can’t see my house.  I was disappointed.)  As long as there are some buyers on Zillow, I will post all my listings there but I don’t think most agents will go thru the trouble.  So I think this is priority number one for Zillow, making it easier to get the listings up and running.  Zillow hasn’t made any wrong moves yet so I’m sure there is a whole team of people working on it.

And for anyone who still hasn’t heard about the most interesting thing to happen this year in internet real estate, please see my previous post, the ZillowBlog or follow this link to DrewMeyers extensive list of responses. 

Technorati Tags: Zillow, Real, Estate, Zestimate, Home, Value, Business