Atlanta Real Estate Blog - Jarvis

 Yesterday morning and during training we (Keller Williams Agents) were given the announcement that Gary is at it again.  This time he has written a buyer book called, "Your First Home."  In it are photos of the authors first homes, explanations of appreciation and more.  It will become the STANDARD given to all my buyer clients upon signing of a buyer brokerage agreement.

Here's the official word:

Written by Gary Keller, Dave Jenks and Jay Papasan, the writing team that brought you MREA and MREI, Your First Home is a resource for aspiring home owners and a business building tool for you.

Providing first time home buyers with the information they need in order to confidently enter into the home buying process, this hardcover book is exclusively for Keller Williams associates and the perfect gift for potential first-time home buyers in your database.

The first book in the new Keller Williams Realty Guide series, Your First Home is drawn from the real-life experiences of hundreds of thousands of first-time home buyers, this book provides proven, practical guidance on how to:

• Determine how much home they can afford
• Secure the best financing
• Finance their new home, even with less-than-perfect credit
• Craft a winning offer and negotiate with sellers
• Spot serious issues at inspection
• Close on their new home and maintain it

Click here for sneak peek into the first pages of this new release!

This product will be available at Family Reunion in the KWU Bookstore for $12/copy or $100/10 copies.

A paperback edition is also available to consumers in bookstores for $16.95.

I'm looking forward to the next set of books.  Although KW tends to have a MLM or Book Club mentality on some things, everything from top to bottom I have received has been quality.

It's one thing to be solicited which I can understand, since I'm in sales. It's another thing to get a message like this:

According to industry experts, 50% of Realtors WON'T make it through 2008.  

They'll quit... go broke... or both.  

Most Realtors are downright scared about the future of their business... and they should be.  

The bottom line is, you need a "silver bullet" to survive in this market.    

 But I'm not going to insult your intelligence with a bunch of hype (like most real estate "gurus") and tell you that I've got the "silver bullet."   To be frank, I have something that works.  Something that actually gets motivated sellers to CALL YOU.   [I've not seen more irony in a marketing message in many, many years!]

  And I'm writing to tell you about it.  It's something that COULD make 2008 your best year ever.      (HINT: It's a very powerful skill you must master in this market.)   But it might not be right for you.   I'm gonna give you the facts and let you decide for yourself.     (Don't worry, it's F-R-E-E).   The good news is, if you use it, you'll do MORE than survive... you'll THRIVE.

It's this kind of sick stuff that I get in my e-mail that gets me all worked up.  I bet they have some good information there, I actually know one of the people that recommends them, but their advertising is a complete turn off and frankly offensive.  To call themselves Realtors then send this out is sickening (yet, I imagine it's effective).

Just needed to vent.

For those that are curious, the advertisement was promoting a pay-for training/coaching program for short sales.

I got an invite from a client today to join Yuwie.  I will admit I do have pages at Facebook, Myspace and the others.  I don't actively use them, except when clients see me and such. I will admit I have never received business from these sites, but I am hoping in the next year that it will help push the envelope with some clients (as in help me close the deal).

Basically, the above is just an excuse on why I have these sites.  Well most recently with Konnects, Tagged and Zolve, this Yuwie is intriguing.  It says, "

What is Yuwie?
=================
First off, Yuwie is 100% FREE. Yuwie is like any other "connect with friends" or social networking site. But we have one major difference.

Use Yuwie - Get Paid!

Yuwie pays you to blog, upload pictures, refer friends, chat, hang out, etc.

It sets itself up like an MLM Blog.  What it's done is create a very welcoming atmosphere, one that sort of polices itself in the interest of money.  So instead of seeing nasty stuff (granted I haven't looked that hard) it's taken the best parts of social networking and taken the leader of social networking (myspace)'s platform and given it to you in an ad/incentive filled experience.

I doubt you'll get clients and I'm skeptical of payment, but it's out there and I'm curious what other people think of it.

In any case, I signed up because of a client.  If you'd like to check it out, please click the link.  Otherwise, I look forward to your thoughts on Social Networking.

I came across this article by Alan Sharp and thought it was interesting.  It refers to Mailing your database with offers, actually the same offers twice.  This article was written with the assumption that you are mailing in quick succession or at the same time.

Mailing the same direct mail offer to the same consumer list a second time typically generates a response rate that's 65 percent smaller than the initial response. Mailing a third time usually generates a response that's more than 50 percent smaller than the initial mailing. But if you mail businesses or institutions with the same offer more than once, your results sometimes run the other way.

Some business-to-business direct marketers have discovered that the same offer mailed to the same list a second time produces double the response of the initial mailing.

Hard to believe, I know. But this just proves that business buyers and consumers are different.

The business executive you tried to reach with your first mailing may have been lying on a beach in the Seychelles when your offer arrived. Or her secretary may have pitched it.

Or the guy in the mailroom may have had a bad day and routed your direct mail offer to Bangladesh.

Or your prospect may have suffered a financial setback that resolved itself by the time your second offer arrived in his inbox.

Or the timing may have been off. Your prospect was not ready to buy last quarter but is ready this quarter.

These reasons, and many more, should encourage you to test mailing your direct mail sales letters to the same prospects more than once. Keep everything the same (list, offer, creative). Just vary the timing. Measure your response between mailing one and mailing two, and even mailing one and mailing three.

Keller William's Agents know from the Millionaire Real Esate Agent that a consistent mailing is the most successful and effecient route to market to a "Farm" area.  Spread out over a year, you should be able to realistically net 1 response per 50 mailings.  Much better than the 1 per 1000 that we've heard.  (For those at home doing the math, that would be 600 total mailings.  Or rather 1 in 600).

This study shows that sending the same offer out to a Realtor's Farm in close proximity won't really increase the effectiveness, since it's rare for Buyers or Sellers to change their mind about a buying/selling decision in the matter of days.  Typically, there is a 12 to 9 month buying cycle.

I was reading an article about cost effective ways to increase profits and came across some great statistics.  We are all familiar with the 80/20 rule, or at least should be.  The ideas that 20% of the people are responsible for 80% of the income, and 80% of the people make the rest of the left over 20%.  You can take this "law" or rule even a step further.  20% of your daily activities are responsible for 80% of your income.   OK now here's the hard part, that's right, 20% of your CLIENTS are responsible for 80% of your profit.

FOUL! you say.  That's not right, you claim.  You might have me on that one, because your business may be one of the 80%.  OUCH!  Let's back up a second and do some math.  IF you closed 50 deals last year, where are the source of those deals.  If you are like the average agent who "claims" that 50% of their business comes from referrals, then 80% of those 25 deals should have come from key sources.  Furthermore when you look at the numbers the key in on the actual profits.

That's right profit and income are different.  At least in my book.  Real Estate sales in no different than widget sales or anything else.  You might make a sale and even increase your income, but in my mind, there's an opportunity to lose proit.  

Confused?  I am too.

Let's take an example, say a client calls you to tell you she's in the market for a home.  To keep this short, we'll just say that she is nice at first, but then becomes a bit a handful as the process goes on.  You show her home after home, and she likes to discuss things on the phone.  However, her conversations are shallow and you get that "feeling" of just wanting her to close and you become worried about her even closing.  Finally you find something for her and she is under contract.  She remains a handful with weekly calls if not more as the closing process nears.  You spend time with vendors, loan people, other agents all to get the closing.  Finally, the day comes to closing and after you kindly explain to her that you will not be sharing your commission with her and why you EARNED your commission you decide that you will not be putting her on your mail list.

What happened?  You've just got paid.  Your income went up.  However, you've lost THOUSANDS! in PROFIT.  If you were able to identify her early on you could have referred her to the office newbie, collected 25% of their income and gone on to meet with another client.

If this idea makes you gasp, think harder. You're falling for the fallacy of increasing sales instead of boosting profits. If you stop marketing to unprofitable customers, you have more time and resources for customers who actually grow your business. "More than likely, 20 percent of your customer base is contributing 150 percent to 200 percent of total annualized profit (TAP); 70 percent is breaking even; and 10 percent is costing you 50 percent to 100 percent of TAP," says Atlanta marketing consultant Michael King. Take a detailed look at your customer profitability data and then direct premium services and marketing to customers who count.

Here's some keys to success next time:

• Identify the 20% of your clients that can give you more business. You have them, just dig deep.  It's not just who likes you and who trusts you.  Who can you call and actually have a great conversation?
• Identify the top 20% of activities that help you get more closings.
• Get better at qualifying buyers/sellers so that you are only working with the top 20%. Refer the rest.
• As soon as you see the turn (deal is going to take a lot out of you) pass it along so you can move on to the next.

Look, I'll admit I'm one of those sappy Realtors who likes to say he's doing this for the people and likes helping families live their dream.  I'm also honest enough to say there are certain people I don't mesh well with.  From now on, I will just say no! and pass them to someone who can help them, so I can focus on my 20%!

In an article that was reporte by Inman news, the latest statistics from Hitwise are out and Realtor.com is still top dog.  However, if you've been ignoring some other major players you're missing the boat.  Everyone's favorite, "no need for an agent" sites, Zillow and Trulia are in the top 20.  With Zillow having a major impact at number 4.  Think you might want to reconsider featuring your listing on there? Or how about the Realtor.com featured ad?  Think your clients are being served by Realtor.com....

Not so fast.  A key number is the marketshare each site has and the difference between 4 and 11 (or Zillow & Trulia - which is .8%) could be mere tenths of a point or huge percentage swings.  Which is alot when compared by millions of visitors.  So how bad did Realtor.com beat the other sites in the perverbial war of the internet? 

Realtor.com has over 8% of the marketshare compared to its nearest competitor Move.com at 2.73% of marketshare.  For those that are counting, Realtors account for over 10% of the market share over the pay for sites, FSBO sites or even Company specific sites.   Score one for us - say what you will about managing of these sites.

Other Tidbits from the report:

• The average visit to real estate Web sites in December was 11 minutes, 38 seconds, up about 30 seconds from November.
  

• 27.08% of all visits to the online 'Business and Finance - Real Estate' industry went to the top 10 websites for the month of December 07.

• 38.77% went to the top 20 websites and 68.12% went to the top 100 websites.

 TOP 15 SITES (% of Market Share)

1. Realtor.com (8.03%)
2. Move.com (2.73%)
3. HomeGain (2.34%)
4. Zillow (2.28%
   Remax (tied)
5. Rent.com (2.12%)
6. Yahoo! (2.05%)
7. ZipRlty (1.96%)
8. Apartments.com (1.84%)
9. ServiceMagic (1.45%)
10. Trulia (1.42%)
11. HUD (1.40%)
12. MSN (1.25%)
13. VisualTour.com (1.20%)
14. Homes.com (1.17%)
15. C21 (1.17%)

  When we look at these reports it's an interesting look at the dynamics of our sites.  If you were to dig into the top 1000, sites that were generic or "stealth" sites seemed fare better overall than the name recognition sites, at least "globally."  Whereas some company's name are netting them higher traffic allowing them to sell the leads back to their agents, other companies are educating agents how to do their own SEO. 

This will be a fun race to watch in '08, among others.

I recently had a funny experience that reminded me of when I first starting using the internet and would tell other people that indeed, "I read it on the internet."  Of course, we all know now that the internet is the infallible truth, right?

Point2 Agent offers free sites for agents and other services as well as a paid site.  At first it was a cute little template system and has grown into one of the largest communities, template sites, ... basically a globbity gloop of stuff for agents. 

In any case, I went to add two new listings I had in my current hometown of Hoschton, GA.  You can find out more about Hoschton here, but it's in 4 different counties.  Point2 Agent uses where the "capital" or city center is, which in general is a good rule, but in this case can horribly hurt the marketability of a home. 

For Example, the home I have listed in Trilogy Park is in Gwinnett County.  The home for sale goes to Gwinnett County schools.  Homes in Jackson and Barrow county (neighboring counties) go to their respective county schools.  These schools are not as sought after.  In addition, these counties are typically seen as "too far out."  So it's important that the listings be listed in Gwinnett County.

I sent an e-mail regarding the incorrect entry of their neighborhoods, here is the response:

P2A: "I just have a couple of questions to clarify: should Hoschton be in Gwinnett County?"

ME: "Hoschton, should be in both Jackson AND Gwinnett County.  A few other sites have done, Hoschon - Gwinnett, Hoschton - Jackson.   Duluth, GA is the same way, some of it is in Fulton, and some of it is in Gwinnett County, Alpharetta is similiar with parts of it in Forsyth and Parts in Fulton.   Most users won't complain because the error usually helps them.  In the same way, Hoschton would be better served in Gwinnett as more people search there, but most of Hoschton IS in Jackson.   Both of the neighborhoods you mentioned should be in BOTH cities and counties, as well.   Thanks!"

P2A: "Thanks for the email and I apologize for the delay in response. I have researched the information that you have provided to me, although the information that I found seems to be a bit different from what you have provided.

Hoschton is actually a city within Jackson County only, as listed on the link provided here. If you have a reference link for us to refer to, we would be happy to look into this issue a bit more for you, but from the research that I have personally done those are the results I have come up with. 

At this time, I am not going to proceed to making changes as I do not have enough information to support your request. "

ME:  "You might consider expanding your search to tax records to see where things lie.   The city center, or city limits or if you prefer, city tax payer areas are indeed correct, but in regards to real estate, especially since different counties mean different schools which in turn means different prices.   Obviously, everything on the internet is not reliable. Here is one tax record option, http://gis.gwinnettcounty.com/internet/go?initializeclient=true  Here is a direct mail's company site http://www.melissadata.com/lookups/ZipCityPhone.asp?InData=30548   Duluth http://www.melissadata.com/lookups/ZipCityPhone.asp?InData=30097   There's examples of this all over the country, but locally, the main ones I was concerned with were the areas I list."

After this e-mail they did finally update their site.  It's still wrong, but it's better.

The whole point of this rant was that a large company like Point2 Agent, laughingly trusted WIKIPEDIA for their data and not the ACTUAL SOURCE! It's also important to pay attention to these things that we are paying for and make sure the exposure is RIGHT.