12 Days of Christmas for Realtors

(Urban Outfitters is selling a Charlie Brown Christmas tree.)

Twelve days of Christmas for Realtors:

12 ARMs a-justing;

11 lovely Listings;

10 Bankers Begging;

9 Leads a-calling;

8 Maids a-cleaning;

7 percent Commission;

6 working Websites;

5 golden Offers;

4 Calling Centers;

3 day Weekend;

2 Points at closing

...and a closing and a sale per week!

Happy Holidays to all - and to all a GREAT NEW YEAR!

Obeoman

steven.stearns@obeo.com

Real Estate is still Number 1!

...a total no-brainer and a great idea to share with everyone!

Anyway, on with the Monday Mashup:

REAL ESTATE IS STILL KING:
Nice little piece from the Birmingham Business Journal - according to a survey by the Guidant Financial Group, the majority of those folks holding money and looking towards their retirement saw real estate as a secure and worthy investment - despite the obvious market issues right now.

There are always peaks and valleys, but if you connect all the high points, the curve still goes up. Tell that to your lookie-loos on Sunday!

...c'mon, get your blog on - watch this:
And since we are all counting on the value of homes, why not add to your value as an agent by being more 2.0? Get started by watching Eric Hersman of Realty Thoughts at Inman TV. Blogging, social networking, being in online communities for Realtors, like Wannanetwork or activerain - all can lead to offline connections that can help you grow your sales. Eight out of ten consumers are online - where are you on that "X"?

...still on the fence? Don't think that all this webby stuff will work for you? :
Better read the Reno Realty Blog by Diane Cohn - she dishes on what is up with real estate in her neck of the woods, how the professional Realtors won't starve and says her blog is helping - so they are spreading the word with blogging classes.

As for me, I am working on a blogger meet-up sometime in the next three weeks for bloggers in Madison and Milwaukee- if you wanna come, just call me or drop me a line!

Obeoman
steven.stearns@obeo.com

We all need a little magic....

...maybe this video explains the current real estate market!

Enjoy!

Obeoman

steven.stearns@obeo.com

Markets are like donuts - who do you face?

As ideas are like compost, so Donuts will bring you a customer or two, despite all the gluten-intolerant and calorically-conscious people out there.

The hard sell does not work; the real evidence of this: the fact that most Realtors still do not have a website. (You do have to have donuts for this group -reaching them on the phone is possible but may take all year.)

The other group of Realtors still do not understand the basic premise that marketing is achievement, not activity. They point themselves at marketing programs reluctantly, often not considering the cost and are often sold a bill of goods on DIY, SEO and SMS ending up with alphabet soup and nothing S-O-L-D. (For this group, you sometimes need therapy.)

The rest of the Realtors and brokers often stare at each other before the stare at a vendor. The broker will usually tell a vendor all his Realtors work independently, so a meeting with them will be tough. And these Realtors know what they are doing, often don't want to work in teams, but can't figure out what globalization is doing to the real estate market, don't honestly believe that they are a conduit for information and service specialists and get beat down with the commission stick by sellers. (Their stare is a hungry look. They need to eat, obviously - but they don't necessarily want to pick up the tab.)

So who do face?

Do we use the consumer to drive the Realtor to the vendor?

Or should we put the donuts on a stick?

Obeoman

steven.stearns@obeo.com

Zill-OW-OW-0W!...and: road blogging, road construction and flooding.

...with its most recent improvements, Zillow has accomplished what it set out to do: see if others would write more about what it is doing than it is actually doing - the discourse at Sellsius is well worth the read - the very immediate and real issues of transparency, liability, and accuracy are all in the soup. My take - as I predicted last week - Zillow could be moving toward Zill-0w! - …this whole situation with Zillow reminds me of kids telling ghost stories around the campfire, and everybody screaming bloody murder at the end of the tale - but nobody is dead.

It could also remind you of “People who live in glass houses shouldn't throw stones.”
Reliability and liability - this is why Realtors have E&O coverage.
This is also why Zillow goes out of their way to wrangle their content on the World Wild Web - to shed the liability back onto the parties doing business. And to have Realtors work harder, of course - at being local experts and working with their sellers and buyers -which isn’t a bad thing at all.
Remember, Zillow was founded to flatten the market, generate ad revenue, make aggregation easy by having volunteers give up their information for whatever motivation and - just like Expedia - raise the question of why somebody is getting paid "all that money" to do something you think you can do yourself.

Meanwhile, the road calls: the blog is going on the road this week through Thursday!

SHAMELESS CORPORATE PLUG: ReMax North Central and Obeo will be on the road in Wisconsin April 10-12, visiting those Badger RE agents in Neenah, Waukesha and Wisconsin Dells showing off Obeos' new products, ObeoConnect-NEVER miss a buyer!-and Obeo HomeSite. A full slate of top technology trends and savvy speakers from ReMax, as well.

...and a great way to get a finger on the pulse of what is going on out there, RE-wise.

Stay tuned - we promise no further commerical interruption.

...and what else has been going on the past few days?

Minor flooding, in our back yard along the Rock River. BFFL Theresa and wonder dog, Bear, assure us all is well.

...and of course, the OTHER season:
This will likely be the scene in front our home until November of this year.

(Thank you,Wisconsin Department of Transportation.)

...and over at WannaNetwork, one of the meatiest discussions on Illegal Aliens housing ordinances is proving that once people start talking and thinking global, networking takes on a whole new meaning.

...something else missed last week due to the wind howling through the Zillows: RISMedia is out there ready to bleed:from Stefan Swanepoel -"...the real estate industry is still marketing all over the board and really doesn't understand the online marketing channel, says the report's author and trend expert, Swanepoel." This discussion of the Foreign Born Opportunity-the demand in the U.S. for immigrant housing is something ALL Realtors should have on their READ-IT-NOW list. I've been yammering about this global trend to anyone who didn't openly laugh at me for months.-MORE on this later!

Happy-post Hippity-Hoppity to all.

I'm outta here.

Steve

steven.stearns@obeo.com