Austin Smith - Goomzee.com

Everyone knows the importance of having ‘hyperlocal’ content on your blog, but how many people, I wonder, recognize the importance of being ‘hyperpersonal’? Last week I was tasked to uncover some hyperlocal blogs in our current clients’ markets. Most ‘experts’ will say the best way to get on another blogger’s radar would be to lurk around the site until you find a post you feel comfortable commenting on. But I must say that I am not a fan of waiting, plain and simple. I found several blogs across the States worth following and here is how I went about garnishing the authors’ interest via ‘hyperpersonal’ means:

There is a real person behind every blog. This person has a unique childhood, a high school they graduated from and will remember forever. These people have first loves, firstborn children, and first houses just like the rest of us. ‘Hyperpersonal’ speaks to the idea of meeting the person behind the brand name, the history and memories behind the face. The most tactful way I found to do this when sifting through new blogs is to send a simple email to the main author. Some blogs are managed by groups of contributors, so maybe pick your favorite one or the overall admin contributor.

So what do you email them once you’ve found an author? I took the time to read through their latest page of posts, trying to find at least one positive remark I could make about their blog. Examples range from:

“That front view shot is perfectly framed with those tree branches. Nice shot! This house looks great; hopefully won’t take too long to sell.”

…to:

“You guys have some great hyperlocal links and content on your blog, such as local school district info and community events.”

After finding something I liked about their work, I also took the time to seek out their real name. One of Boise, ID’s fine REALTORs responded favorably to this email. She said her team “really appreciate[s] it when people take the time to learn our names.” She also asked for a little more information about Goomzee and Realty Connect.

As you can see, my initial, personalized message opened the door to an explanation of my company’s product. I didn’t have to include my value statement in the initial message because my ‘hyperpersonalization’ spoke for itself. I received many such replies from America’s agents, and have since come to realize that while real estate marketing needs to be ‘hyperlocal’ to be effective, online marketing needs to be ‘hyperpersonal’, or it will be dismissed as nothing more than SPAM or solicitation.

Jeff Turner of Realestateshows.com said this on the subject: “There’s always going to be need for face-to-face communication in real estate. Find a way to marry the two worlds.”

Last week’s team meeting produced an interesting tale of ‘overpricing woe’. The parents of one of my associates listed their house in mid-2006 at $590,000. The inaccurate list price was determined by their real estate agent, and the property sat on market for nearly 2 years, suffering a price drop of almost $200K. By the time my co-worker’s family unloaded the property, they had to settle for only $400,000; this unpleasant situation could’ve been avoided if only it had initially hit the market in the correct price range.

Overpriced listings are, unfortunately, a common practice in real estate. Some agents overprice their listings thinking they have provided themselves with “wiggle room” when it comes time to negotiate. Other agents price too high because they are either in agreement with the seller’s over-inflated valuation, or they are “buying the listing”: an unethical practice I will expound on later in this post.

Overpricing a listing for the sake of “wiggle room” may seem like a good idea, but in the end it will only serve to hamper your selling efforts. High priced homes do not yield as many inquiries as listings that are priced competitively; the lack of offers usually leads to several price reductions and a lengthier term on market, two factors that serve to erode the integrity of your listing. Savvy buyers will shy away from ‘lemons’ that have sat for months on end, only moving in for the kill when the agent has reduced the price by half of its original value.

Sometimes homes are priced too high for no other reason than the agent-seller team is in agreement. The trick in this situation is being able to look at a property objectively, as a buyer would see it. The seller’s viewpoint is obviously biased, but rightfully so since he/she has large sums of money invested in the property. Oftentimes valuations of a home are inflated due to upgrades the seller has performed. Sadly, buyers tend to not see the value in these upgrades, opting instead to modify the home themselves and therefore considering any upgrades the current owner has performed nothing more than the offering that’s on the table. Overpricing your listing based on current homeowner upgrades has the potential to lead to the unpleasant situation where the homeowner realizes that they spent more money on upgrades than they will ever see at the time of closing.

Unethical agents will sometimes attempt what is called “buying the listing”. This happens when the agent enters into a listing presentation with a purposefully over-inflated CMA. Of course, since homeowners oftentimes (through no fault of their own) have inflated valuations of their property, the ‘shady’ CMA aligns with the seller’s wishes and the agent has effectively bought himself a client by knowingly catering to their unawareness. Sometimes agents enter into these situations with the intention of talking down the seller at a later date; this, also, is not a good idea since your initially over-inflated price will undermine any chance the agent has of cashing in on the “New Listing Hype”.

You will get no argument from me that this is a touchy situation. No agent has ever won a listing by strong-arming their clients and ordering them around like green recruits. But, the question becomes: at what point are you catering too much to the seller that you are, in fact, sabotaging the transaction? It is the responsibility of the agent to draw on their industry expertise to protect their clients from low-ball offers, high-priced listings, and any physical harm incurred at the negotiation table. They are not only investing in your expertise, but ultimately placing their future in your hands. It is the duty of the agent to live up to those expectations.

A recent sign order resulted in our supplier mistakenly printing over 30 extra sign riders.

Acknowledging the mistake, our supplier offered to dispose of them at no charge, a courteous gesture...

...but in today's economic and environmental climate...

...how could we just throw away 30ish perfectly good signs? Instead, we returned the signs, and asked our provider to simply re-label them when the time comes for the next order.

Fantastic! An environmentally-friendly, all-around 'green' solution to a potentially wasteful problem! Goomzee also reduces paper waste by delivering listing information to homebuyers via text message. In fact, I even get 'THE LOOK' from co-workers when I print something onto hardcopy. It's exciting to work for a company that does its part for the environment.

In what areas are you taking steps to 'Go Green'?

I am moving! True, packing, hauling, sorting, and paying 1st Month's Rent is not at all enjoyable, but a new place to live in is like taking a new lease on life. Sadly, I have to be out of my current residence by the end of this week, and I haven't even started packing...Hello Procrastination, my old friend.

No matter. What I'm missing in terms of packing/sorting joy, I'm more than making up for in terms of networking. On Wednesday I set up an appointment to take a walk-through of a condo up in the South Hills of Missoula. Slightly off the beaten path, a bit of a struggle for my little Nissan to get to, but a great place nonetheless. What surprised me when I got there was the real estate agent standing expectantly in the front lawn, clipboard hugged to her chest and her eyes scanning the entrance to the one-way cul-de-sac. You see, I had responded to a Craig's List Advertisement for this condo, and therefore wasn't expecting it to be an agent- listed property. As I opened the door and stepped into the street, I was thinking to myself that this agent must realize the marketing value inherent in a good online presence, a trait exclusive to tech-savvy agents. This was my 'in'.

We took a quick run-through of the single-floor rental and got right to business talking about fees and utilities and whether or not my 4-foot red-tailed boa Susie could claim a corner of the condo. Business was over as quickly as it began, and soon a lull in the conversation proffered me my shot at the door. Taking my opportunity, I stood up and threw my shades back on, reached for my wallet, and asked her, "How's business for ya? We've noticed a bit of an uptick in the market lately..."

This was it, the moment of truth. At this point I had let her know that I am somehow connected with real estate through some sort of official capacity. Now it was on me to make or break the connection; I slowly extended my hand, offering her a crisp, clean new business card.

"That's for you," I suavely grinned.

I could see her breath catch in her throat, a slight hand tremble, a lean against the counter as she took the card, flipped it over a few times, and ultimately tucked it safely into the clipboard. As she accepted the card and glanced at its modest black lettering, a wave of accomplishment washed over me: I had just handed out my first business card in a professional setting.

So I may have embellished a bit on her reaction, but it was still an exciting moment in my week. Until last Wednesday, I had not had any face-to-face networking on a business level. Sure, I've handed out biz cards here and there, but my mom and my roommates are not viable business contacts. The interaction I had with the agent at the condo was the first time I've met with somebody under the Goomzee banner, the first time I talked shop with an agent in the field, and the first time I unloaded a biz card to someone who will actually read it (hopefully).

So now I know what it's all about: F2F (face2face). I trudge through my daily blog rounds, sift through the Twitter noise, and take pains to keep my company's Facebook page updated, and now I know why: so I can convert my online interactions into living, breathing, face-to-face relationships.

I hope everyone had a great time networking at NAR's Midyear; don't forget to keep it up when you get back home! Happy Selling!!

“I question the validity of a practice that allows you to be paid when you didn’t do the job you’re getting paid for.” - Brenda Florida, Century 21 Alliance of Lansdale, PA

“Procuring Cause should simply go away. It’s an antiquated system.” - Tom Early, President of National Association of Exclusive Buyer Agents

Procuring cause. It pains me just to type the phrase; like the words “Root Canal” or “Pepto-Bismol”, ‘procuring cause’ packs around negative connotations like they’re a new-born litter of possums. What most agents don’t know is that while procuring cause may be a danger, it is in fact a two-way street that has the capability to benefit both listing and selling agents.

Verily, hast thine gotten ahead of thineself? Thou hast! Forgive me; for all you readers out there that are still in the dark as to what procuring cause actually means, let me explain. Procuring cause disagreements arise when a prospective homebuyer expresses interest in a property and is, in some way, introduced to the property by a licensed real estate agent. The introduction could take place at a showing, open house, or in the agent’s office over a cup of coffee and a stack of photos. After this meeting, the buyer drops off the face of the earth, only to re-appear a few months and a few different showings later with another agent. The buyer, along with Agent #2, then expresses interest in the house introduced by the first agent, and suddenly #2’s commission is in danger. Disagreements arise because Agent #1 feels like it is his client since he struck up the relationship and showed the buyer the house he wants. Agent #2 thinks it is his sale because he has taken the buyer to several other houses and was unaware of Agent #1. Who gets the commission?

As you can see, procuring cause cases get pretty nasty, pretty quick. The beauty of procuring cause is that the outcome, most often decided by a mediator or arbitration panel, is entirely situation-specific, or ‘property-specific’. Panels will award procuring cause to he who has the following legitimate claim: the ability to define that you, as the REALTOR, started the unbroken chain of events that resulted in a transaction. ‘Breaking’ the chain of events is often defined as either ‘abandonment’ or ‘estrangement’.

NAR’s Arbitration Manual proffers the following definitions of ‘abandonment’ and ‘estrangement’: ·

• Abandonment – when the broker's inactivity, or perceived inactivity, may have caused the purchaser to reasonably conclude that the broker had lost interest or disengaged from the transaction. ·

• Estrangement - the broker engaged in conduct which caused the purchaser to terminate the relationship, either via words or actions.
  

In other words, when you put off calling a client because you’re busy playing Bejeweled, you have no case upon which you can claim procuring cause. Also, if you perhaps decide to replace a stripe of your client’s cherry-red painted Porsche with the champagne color of your Yukon on the way out of the office lot and then subsequently blame it on your shotgun-riding client, you have no case upon which you can claim procuring cause. Sad, I know, but painfully true.

We already know what Mrs. Florida and Mr. Early have to say on the subject; but what about you? Have you ever estranged a buyer and squandered a sale? Or have you taken pains to place all your ducks in a row, which in turn has awarded you with procuring cause and a cut of a nearly-lost commission? What steps have you taken in the past to avoid procuring cause disputes?