About Lowndes County, GA

April 18, 2007

In industry climates like these, we are all afforded a chance to catch our breath and we finally have time to "look under the hood" and really evaluate our best practices in brokerage and individual agent businesses. Many offices within the C-21 system and the business as a whole are looking at expenditures through a new lens, particularly in the area of marketing efforts.

Ask most agents when the last time they got a lead from a newspaper ad was and they won't be able to tell you. Ask them how many calls they've gotten over the past five years from newspaper and I'd be surprised if they could count them on more than one hand.

Folks, here's what most companies won't tell you; newspaper ads are done in large part to a) appease sellers and/or b) attract new recruits. Many offices argue that they have to advertise in local papers because ABC and XYZ companies do(!). Huh?

In our company we believe that there has been an overarching and profound shift in the way brokerage is being carried out today. This is not the same world it was even nine months ago. Along with the shifts in consumer confidence, economics, and the number of real estate agents in the world, buyers are looking to the internet more than ever before.

Think about it just for a few moments. With $3+ per gallon gasoline,how do you shop for a big ticket item? Isn't there something to be said for knowing about a product market before searching in earnest? When you ae trying to find a business,where do you turn? How many of us leave a computer on 24/7 so it's ready if we need info quickly? Is there a more efficient way than the internet to do that? Do you smell what I'm stepping in???

Consider this: 75% of all adults in our nation have access to the internet and 86% of ALL real estate searches begin there. It is becoming apparent that the internet is maturing and is more democratized than ever before. The average american spends 44% of their media consumption time online with an average of 14 hours per week. Given these facts, here's a shocker;most real estate brokerages spend less than 6% of their marketing budgets on the internet!!!

C-21 corporate is really blazing the path and setting an example for it's franchisees. They are doing very little print ads, but are heavily investing in banner ads on popular web sites like MSN and Fox News. They are also heavily into the search engine race with real estate specific sites like zillow, trulia, and loopnet, not to mention general engines like yahoo and google. Did you know there are some 8 billion searches per month in the U.S. alone? That's an average of 44 searches per person per month.

At winnersville we are in the infancy of developing our new website, but we qare constantly adding new content. This blog is a part of that initiative. The video is also a part. We are investing in Search Engine Optimization. As new things come along, we want to continue breaking new ground in our region with our internet prescence.

April 14, 2008

Regardless of all the doom and gloom being pronounced by the pundits, let me assert that people are still buying real estate in the Valdosta-Lowndes County markets. Don't get me wrong because times are tough. Our listing inventory has crested 1200 houses for sale and current absorption figures indicate that we have a 12.6 month suppy of inventory in our MLS. An (actually really good and well researched) article in this past week's Valdosta Daily Times indicates that foreclosures have plateued at around fifty per month and have maintained that level since this time last year.

People are still buying regardless of what the media would have the public believe. However, things are softer and slower and that presents us all with certain challenges. The National Asociation of Realtors Chief Economist, Lawrence Yun, maintains that a good 80% of today's buying pool is sitting on the fence for the simple reason that they have property to move before reinvesting in another home.

This takes time, of course. Often times what we are seeing is that it may take anywhere from 12 to 24 months before a prospect incubates to become a bona fide buyer. This is an obvious change from the good ol' days of say '02-'05 in which prospects would either buy within a few weeks or at worst a few months because they had more confidence in the market and thus more options (swing loans, etc.).

People just won't stick their necks out like that anymore and really, who can blame them. This is a time of prudence and careful decision making as opposed to the swagger of just several short years ago.

But here's what all this means to seller. buyers and professional. Buyers now have the element of time to make decisions and as they are waiting anywhere from 12 to 24 months they can digest and assimilate a lot of information within that period of time. So, by the time they step into the negotiating arena, they are usually very well versed and sophisticated about a local market in terms of values, financing options, and local customs and concessions.

For the realtor, the name of the game is follow up. We now have the ability to automatically e-mail clients with property profiles that fit their parameters once such a property hits the market. Also, contact management software has never been as intutive as it is today. One of the great features of the LeadRouter System that we are now getting service for is that it has contact management software that prompts agents to follow up within a defined period of time. If an agent doesn't follow up, they don't get fresh leads as the system reasons that the agent is too busy to service new business. The broker can also look over the agent's shoulder as well. Yeah it sounds a little creepy and big brotherish, but accountability is becoming a big buzzword in our industry.

Okay Sellers, for you all of this points to the ever increasing need to PRICE PROPERTY RIGHT TO BEGIN WITH (!!!!! And if I had a way to highlight that last statement,I would). With an inventory of 1200 properties, houses in our services area are almost commodities with buyers caring very little for spending extra money for amenities and upgrades. We have several agents in this office who are still selling houses very strongly. I asked on e of them this morning what was the secret of her sucess and without hesitation it was that her listings have all been priced properly from the very first...

April 7, 2008

I spent an interesting few hours today on a telecon with top brokers from around the Southeast about a new tech initiative that C -21 is offering all it's franchisees. It's called LeadRouter and carries the main purpose of eqiupping offices to handle leads generated by the internet.

It carries a huge value for agents, brokers, and sellers alike in that once an internet lead is generated the e-mail (or other communique) is translated into a voice format that calls an agent for an immediate response. In the event an agent doesn't respond within a time peramater set by admin, the call goes to an agent on duty.

Many are saying that for the industry, LeadRouter may well be the most innovative tech advancement to come along since the internet. Hmmm... That's a bold claim,but one that might carry some weight.

Here's the deal; we are entering into an age that within the industry we are calling Web 2.0. Basically this is the second coming of the web in the arena of real estate sales. The internet is becoming more important than ever and at our company, we are investing a lot of time and energy into our online prescence.

The problem often is that as an industry standard, the average response time to an internet lead is 56 hours(!!!!). As we say in South Georgia, That dog won't hunt. What's more, it has been reported that over 50% of internet lead are NEVER followed up on. That's where leadrouter comes in. LR sends a message to the ultimately responsible party (that's me a our company) who can then make sure that a response has been made in a timely manner.

Today's consumer/buyer demands immediate response and in a world where information is ever shifting, a tool like LeadRouter is imperative. We are in the process of having service provided within the next several months.

April 6, 2008

Well, I felt real confident wih the info I posted on Friday because the numbers that I ran on Monday really couldn't have changed that much, could they?

Each month I run the absortion rate at the beginning of the month based upon last month's activity. The absorption rate is a great barometer of the health of the market and it is actually very easy to determine. Basically you take the number of listing and divide it by the number of consumated sales within the proceeding month. The dividend then is the number of months worth of inventory that we have given market conditions.

So what is our absorption rate? We now have 1227 homes for sale (The Inventory, which is up considerably from my last post) and last month we had 97 closed transactions among the thirty three offices that comprise the Valdosta Board of Realtors Multiple Lisitng System. That gives us an absorption value of 12.6 months.

To lend some context to this figure consider this; two years ago the absorption rate was clocking in between four to five months consistently. What this means to the consumer is more competition and longer marketing time.

Given this scenario and market climate, it has never been more important for realtors and their clients/sellers to price property right from the very beginning...