I’ve been busy the past several weeks attending real estate education events. First was the NARPM Convention (National Association of Residential Property Managers) in Las Vegas last week. Immediately upon return, there was three days in Austin at the Texas Association of Realtors Winter Meetings at the Hyatt. Then last Monday at an all-day Realtor Technology Forum, stupidly named “xplode“. I’m all educated out. Now I need to figure out what to implement and what to ignore. The “ignore” list is huge. The “implement” list is small.

But there is one thing all these Real Estate related education conferences have in common other than real estate. They could all double as Baby Boomer Conventions. Very few young Realtors.

While in Las Vegas the first night, Sylvia and I ate in a steak restaurant in our Casino/Hotel the, Orleans. While eating, looking around at the 1960′s decor and all the old people there, I commented to Sylvia “we’re the youngest people in this place”. She responded with one of the gentle, rhetorical “wife” responses that every husband will recognize, “So, you think we look younger than everyone in here?” Translation: “Uh, we look that old too, honey”.

No way! Say it ain’t so! I’m 49 and 1/2 and these people all look so old. Like they’re at least …well, … 50. Or older.

I guess maybe my age-perception of myself and Sylvia hasn’t kept up with the actual aging we’ve experienced. We were both in our late 20′s when we started in real estate. As of Sept 2012, we’ll both be “in our 50′s”, like the average Realtor.

Question: Will us older Realtors be able to relate to and help the younger generation of buyers?

Yes, I believe so, contrary to a lot of myths fed to us Realtors at education seminars.

Myth #1: Younger buyers don’t want to talk on the phone or use email. Older Realtors need to start texting and use Skype.
Baloney. Sylvia and I have helped a lot of young buyers in their 20′s and 30′s. They all talk on the phone and use email just fine. None of them, not one, has ever asked to use “Skype”. And they don’t text at a higher rate or any differently than people in the 40+ demographic.

That’s not to say Austin Realtors should stick our heads in the sand and not pay attention to “generation gap” issues, but a lot of Realtor “Seminar” Education on this topic serves up trite and stereotyped descriptions of the “younger generation” as tech crazed, gadget dependent people who reject “old school” ways of communicating, such as phone or email. We haven’t seen that at all in our practice. You can’t do a deal properly without email or talking by phone. That’s not going to change, ever.

Myth #2 – Austin Realtors need to know and use every possible App, Gadget and Social site out there to remain relevant.
Baloney. At one of the Realtor Tech forums I attended, one of the speakers did nothing more than rattle off a list of a couple of dozen iPhone/Android “must have apps for Realtors”. What she failed to do, as pointed out by one of the attendees, was explain what specific problem each app solves. For example. Pintrest.

I know about Pintrest, and I don’t have an account or use it. According to the About page, “Pinterest lets you organize and share all the beautiful things you find on the web“. So what? What specific problem does this tool solve for a Realtor or a real estate client? Or, how does it help prospective buyers and sellers find you? If these questions are not asked and answered about every App presented as “must have”, it’s just useless pabulum being fed to naive Realtors trying desperately to stay relevant in the tech age.

Yes, some Realtors are making very effective use of some very good tools such as Evernote and DocuSign. One presenter also shared a list of web and device apps, but in her presentation she followed a pattern of explaining what it is, followed by, what problem it solves or what function and benefit it provides.

For example, Evernote. I picked up that tip and am just now becoming acquainted with Evernote as a productivity tool. I don’t know if I’ll adopt it, but it’s certainly worth a scheduled block of time to learn more and see if it can help me in my business.

I could rattle off some more myths, but let’s stop at those 2, which are the most egregious.

If you’re a Realtor in Austin, or anywhere, you’ve heard all these “must have” things. Be careful. Don’t think you have to adopt 100 new ideas or technologies to stay effective and “up to speed” as a real estate professional. Informed, yes. Aware, yes. Early adopter of every gadget, app and idea fed to you at a seminar? No.

Yes, we’re getting older and our clients are getting younger. But they still want good advice and someone they can trust to help navigate the transaction. Age may even be an advantage if the younger crowd recognizes the value of wisdom and experience. We should keep up with technology, but not stress out over trying to implement every new thing technology has to offer.

On March 9th I’ll start 5 days of “education” at SXSW Interactive. I last attended SXSW Interactive two years ago. This is very tech heavy education, but NOT real estate related, which is a good thing. A real good thing. There won’t be any old lady Realtors telling me I need to download and use Pintrest in my real estate business. And I’ll get to rub elbows with people who look as young as I feel.

IDX Choices when entering a new Austin MLS Listing

When an Austin Realtor enters a listing into the Austin MLS system, we have to make some selections about where the listing will display online. (See screenshot to the left) Of course it will be an “MLS” listing, available to any other Realtor who is a member of the Austin MLS. But we also have to select which other third-party sites will display the listing.

Recently, in Austin and elsewhere, listing agents have become increasingly frustrated with how listing data is used and displayed, and in fact sold back to us. Some are starting to question whether the current “sharing” of listings to other sites, such as Realtor.com, is in fact beneficial.

The real estate industry was stupid and foolish over a decade ago when it resisted the placement of listings online in the first place. Instead of recognizing where the industry was headed and what consumers wanted, the industry and its “leaders” operated from an old 1980′s “MLS Book” mindset. This opened the door to lawsuits and eventually third party aggregators who saw the void and filled it.

Let’s look at the internet choices selected by Realtors when adding a listing to the Austin MLS, and what they mean.

IDX:  Allow listings to be displayed on IDX sites. When you visit a listing search page on a Realtor’s website, you are accessing an IDX site. Ours is at: http://www.mlsfinder.com/tx_actris/crosslandteam/ and provides a way for consumers to “search the Austin MLS”. Buyer Agents use IDX search sites to capture leads. If you see a listing that interests you on an IDX site, the “Contact Us” form you fill out goes to the agent running the site, not the Listing Agent.

As of this writing, there are 63 Austin MLS listings flagged “No” for IDX of the total 6,643 homes listed for sale. That’s about 1%, or 1 out of every 100 homes for sale. The percentage of luxury homes is much higher. Of 398 Austin homes listed for $1M or more, 28 are flagged “No” for IDX, which is 7% of the total. So, if you’re searching online for a $1M+ home, you’re only seeing 93% of the MLS inventory.

Some of the luxury Brokers in Austin are not happy with IDX and have voiced complaints to the Austin Board of Realtors and sent around a petition letter demanding changes. Other Brokers in Austin, who like IDX, and whose buyer agents depend on it for connecting with new buyers, responded with a counter-petition. The drums have started beating.

Internet Display: If seller selects “No”, this listing will not be included in MLS data feeds to Internet websites that display property listing data, whether intended for advertising the property (AustinHomeSearch.com, Realtor.com) or providing online brokerage services (IDX or VOW sites). The listing will in fact not appear anywhere on the Internet. It will be an “MLS Only” listing. Only 14 of 6,643 Austin homes for sale have this flagged as “No”. Obviously, very few sellers/agents want a listing to be completely offline.

AustinHomeSearch.com: If “No” is selected, the listing won’t appear on AustinHomeSearch.com, which is the public-facing MLS feed of the Austin MLS. It would be dumb to select “no” here, because the listing agent contact info is displayed with the listing instead of some other agent’s contact info. 34 listings of the current 6,643 have this flagged as “No”.

Realtor.com: If “No” is selected, the listing won’t appear on Realtor.com. 77 listings of the 6,643 total have Realtor.com flagged as “No”. I expect if I follow up this article in a year from now, that 77 will have increased quite a bit. More on that later.

 Prop Addr (Internet): This can flag a listing to not display the property address on the Internet. 149 listings have the address not displayed on internet sites. Some sellers may want this for privacy reasons, but the listing will still be mapped and not hard to find.

Allow Automated Valuations: Some Virtual Office Websites (VOW is like an IDX site, but can show more info to registered users, such as days on market, original list price, etc.) may provide an automated valuation model function. An AVM uses statistical calculations to estimate the value of a property based upon data from public records, MLS, and other sources. The accuracy of AVM’s have been criticized because they do not take into consideration all relevant factors in valuing a property.

If “No” is selected, a VOW website may not display an automated valuation next to the property listing.

We mark “No” for this on all listings. There are however, 1,197 listings (18% of total Active) for which this is flagged “Yes”. This astounds me, but doesn’t surprise me. I think a lot of agents just don’t know what it means, and since they mark all other of these fields “Yes”, they do the same for these last two as the listing is entered. Marking “Yes” is not, in my opinion, in a seller’s best interest.

Allow Third Party Comments: Some Virtual Office Websites may provide functionality that permits the customer using the VOW website (such as redfin.com) to enter comments about the listed properties. If “No” is selected a VOW may not display comments or reviews with the listing.

This is dumber that the Automated Valuation. Do you really want random people on the internet to be able to leave comments and “reviews” about your home for others to read? We mark “No” for this on all listings, but there are currently 771 listings in the Austin MLS for which this is allowed. This cannot benefit a seller.

As a Seller, Should You Care?
If you have hired a Realtor to sell your home, you want it sold for the highest price possible, in the fastest amount of time with the least amount of hassle. You probably are not even aware of the mechanics of the above minutia. You just know that buyers will be able to find your home online and see it with their Realtor.

But what if your Realtor explains to you that the listing will be in the MLS, on AustinHomeSearch.com and on the Broker’s website, but nowhere else? Not on Realtor.com, Zillow, Trulia, etc. Just on the Austin MLS, Broker website, and the public side of Austin MLS AustinHomeSearch.com. Would that be ok with you, as a seller? It’s your listing.

You might ask, “will that cause it to sell slower and for less money?”, and if the answer is “no”, you probably won’t care.

For 2011, the average Days on Market for homes sold in Austin was 80 days. Those homes sold for 93% of the Original List Price. For listings marked “No” for IDX, the average Days on Market was 64 days, and the SP/OLP percentage was 93%. So, non-IDX listings sold faster, and for the same sold/list ratio as IDX listings. Of course the non-IDX sample size is too small to be trusted, but still.

Realtor Revolt – It’s Coming
I predict more agents are going to start doing exactly as I’ve described and restricting where their listings are displayed online. Some Brokerages around the country have already started pulling ALL listings from the online IDX sites.

We’re all sick and tired of the scumbag telemarketing vultures from Realtor.com, Trulia and Zillow calling and trying to sell us “Featured” or “Enhanced” agent products that would “allow” us to “fully benefit” from the search traffic on those sites. That’s the same search traffic that wouldn’t exist without our listings.

Realtor.com Request Form

For example, at Realtor.com, if we pay the extortion fee, then online inquiries will actually be placed in contact with the listing agent instead of the agent who “bought” the zipcode in which the listing is located.

As it is now, if you fill out the generic form (screen shot to left), you will be contacting someone who, at the moment they receive your inquiry, knows less about that property than you. They’ll probably have to research it quickly in the MLS before they respond. Or maybe they won’t. And when they call, you’ll wonder why they are so clueless about their own listing, until you figure out it’s not their listing. You have reached an “Advertiser Realtor”, not someone knowledgeable about the home that interests you. You are a “lead” that agent paid to receive. Your a number adding to the revenue of Move, Inc., which owns Realtor.com. That’s how it works.

Sylvia and I haven’t decided to stop placing our listings on IDX sites, or Realtor.com. But I’ve been thinking about it a lot lately. It probably won’t happen this year, but I think many Realtors are tired of having our own listings marketed back to us by the third party advertising sites.

And it’s not about trying to “double dip” a listing. We rarely even work with buyers who call from our signs but instead refer them to a buyer’s agent so that they can be properly represented. It’s not about that. It’s about sellers being well served, and buyer/consumers getting what they want and being well served as well. Where we’ve ended up doesn’t accomplish that outcome.

I don’t think it serves a buyer well to be placed in contact with an “advertiser”. I don’t like reducing the person, the human being, that a buyer is to a “lead” to be sold by Realtor.com to a completely untested, nonvetted agent/advertiser. At least Redfin, in its attempts to disrupt the real estate industry, has from the start been focused solely on creating a great experience for real estate consumers. They fire lousy agents who get bad reviews. Realtor.com could care less about the agent or the consumer experience. It just wants to sell ads.

I hope other Realtors start getting as irked about all this as I am. I hope I start seeing the percentage of non-IDX listings rise. I wish consumers knew that, already today, you are not seeing every available listing on Realtor.com or Trulia or Zillow. Yes, you’re seeing 99%, but not 100%. Don’t you want to know about that 1% one you’re not seeing? Or, if searching above $1M, don’t you want to know about the 7% of listings you are not seeing?

When the 1% becomes 10%, which is what I hope, the business model of these third party advertiser display sites, which exist not to serve consumers but to sell ads, will start to unravel. When consumers start to realize that they could be missing the one listing they would have wanted, then the issues of data integrity and data trust will come into play. You can trust what’s in the MLS, but you can’t trust what you see on a third party site.

And when that happens, when we start to clear the clutter and get back to really taking care of consumers instead of selling advertising to Realtors, sellers and buyers both will be better served. See Jim Abbott’s video announcement explaining why his San Diego Brokerage has pulled all listings from 3rd party syndication.

No doubt every Austin Realtor has forgotten – or almost forgotten the electronic MLS key when showing a property. That really stinks when it happens. Me and Sylvia are still old school and carry around these horrible devices. The alternative would be to use an iPhone app that requires a small infrared stick that plugs into the bottom of the iPhone. The problem with that is if you lose your iPhone, or the battery goes low, you’ve also lost your MLS key.  I’d rather spread the risk to separate devices. I also don’t want to have the tiny plugin stick to keep track of or junking up my key ring.

Anyway, I drove way up northwest by the lake today, past Lakeway, to show some buyers who had driven up from Corpus Christi to meet me at a house. This was a 45 minute drive from my house. About 15 minutes away I realized I left my MLS key laying on my desk, where it had been charging.

I quickly assessed the options in my head while not panicking, but almost panicking. I checked the listing agent on the MLS printout and noticed it was a KW agent in Lakeway. I just happened to be on 620 not far from the KW office.

I called the agent and got ahold of the assistant. “I’m on my way to show your listing on {Street name} and left my MLS key at home. Is there a combo box on the property or is the MLS box the only way in?”, I asked cheerfully, keeping my optimism high. “No”, the well informed assistant told me, “there is no combo box”.

“OK”, I said. “Do you have a spare key in the office that I could come by and pick up? I’m not far from you” . There was no spare key either.

I was now about 12 minutes away. I could either:

a) Turn around and know for sure that although I’d be terribly late arriving (like, 75 minutes late), I could call and ask the client to go get lunch and show up later for the appointment.

b) Show up on time and deal with it, knowing I might not be able to get in.

c) Call a Realtor friend close by and beg them to meet me there.

I’ve always been lucky. I decide to give myself a chance to get lucky and proceeded to the appointment to face the music. I’d just have to figure out a way to get inside.

Showing up, the clients’ vehicle was there but they were nowhere to be seen. They were walking around in back I guessed. It was a big lot. I headed to the front door and tried the doorknob. No luck. I checked under the mat. No key. I ran my hand across the top of the trim above the door. No key. I looked around the porch for a nearby rock. There was one to the right, in the dirt next to the porch. A nice small flat one about 6 inches wide and looking completely out of place. Underneath there was a key. I tried it and it opened the door. Then I went and hunted around for my clients.

Disaster averted. I already had my script worked out. “I’m sorry but I forgot my MLS key. Have you guys had lunch yet? Let me buy you lunch at a great place down the road while I run and get my key. It will take me about an hour and a half”. Luckily, I didn’t have to make the embarrassing confession or the offer.

I’ve had agents call me from our listings when they’ve forgotten their MLS key. We usually also have a combo box on vacant listings, but not occupied ones. A few agents have been saved by that, and by having me luckily answer when they called (our office line rings simultaneous to our cell phones).

Once I showed a house and saw another agent’s MLS key laying there on the counter, but the people and the agent were long gone. Woops. Bet they didn’t get far. That would suck. I had no way of doing anything with it so I left it on the front porch and assume the agent came back and was grateful to find it mysteriously laying there. She would have had no way to go inside to get it had I not left it outside.

Even if you don’t forget the MLS Key, the battery can drain and it becomes unusable. These devices of ours really have us. Without them we’re helpless as Realtors. I don’t experience malfunctions that often, but I’ve heard about agents who have suddenly been unable to open a lockbox with a key, for no explainable reason. I heard one griping about it at the Board of Realtors office a few months ago.

But the moral of the story is about luck. I’ve been very lucky in life because I give luck a chance to happen. That often requires a leap of faith, and the ability to just trust that things will somehow work out. Think about that. If I had turned around and went to get my key, and called the clients with an apology that I was going to be late, I would have guaranteed myself a bad outcome, though a more predictable one.

Buyers often foreclose on the opportunity for luck by ruling homes out. Not making that lowball offer. Not loosening up the search criteria a bit. Or ruling out homes just based on internet photos, which can be very deceiving. As humans, the more we make ourselves available to be lucky, the more likely it is luck will bump into us, as it did me today.

The Real Estate company Redfin recently announced the release of its Agent Scouting Report in its various markets around the US. This allows Redfin “clients” (term in quotes because anyone can sign up at Redfin.com and instantly be a “client”, whereas most agents think of a client as someone who has signed an actual Listing or Buyer Representation Agreement).

What is the Scouting Report? It allows consumers to view some stats on the current and past activities of Austin real estate agents. Here is a screen shot of Sylvia’s below, so you can see what we’re talking about, then I’ll elaborate further.

Click to Enlarge

It would be a good idea to click on the screen shot to view an enlarged version. If you have a Redfin account, you can click here to view the actual live version.

The Scouting Report allows anyone, in seconds, to type in the name of an Austin Realtor and see what the past 36-month production stats are for that agent. If this becomes a widely adopted and accepted way for consumers to evaluate agents before hiring, it could be a game changer for our industry. I’m all for it, with some reservations. But overall, I think it’s a good thing.

For example, Sylvia’s Scouting Report will reveal that, in the past 36 months, she’s closed 107 sales (53 Buyers, 54 Sellers), which is about 3 per month over a 36 month period, through the Austin MLS. It doesn’t include builder sales or non-MLS sales. The report will show a map of the location of each home and a link to the photos, sold price and full details of each sold home. The easy-glance maps helps a consumer see the geographic areas of operation of an agent, and where the concentration of business is for that agent.

One word keeps appearing in most of the articles and Blogs I’ve read about this – “Disruptive”. As one who thinks the term “disruptive is thrown around too often by the media, especially in the past 5 years about the real estate industry, I think this could actually be disruptive to the real estate industry and its agents.

Let’s start with one well known fact. Real Estate Consumers do a very poor job of selecting agents. The Scouting Report might change that and start weeding out the dead wood agents from the industry.

Most (over 70%) of real estate consumers hiring an agent from scratch hire the first agent to return their call, according to NAR surveys. More than half only interview one agent. So, as an agent, you don’t have to have a record of success, you just have to return calls fast.

This is why so many real estate Lead Conversion workshops and courses focus on agents becoming “hyper-responders”. There are all sort of products that enable this hyper-responder mode. Software that instantly texts you the phone number of a sign caller. Call Capture products that route sign callers to live agents who collect the lead info and text and email it to you. Caller-ID capture systems that even email to you public data info on callers based on Caller-ID (creepy). Email auto-responders that reply to inquiries with multiple automated follow-ups.

Sylvia and I have never bought or used any of these “instant response” or “lead capture” products. We just try to answer the phone and return calls reasonably quickly. During business hours, our phones ring simultaneously at our desks and cells, so we’re pretty easy to reach. And, for sure, I’ve returned a lot of calls the next business day to be told “we already hired an agent”. So, I know it costs us business, not being hyper-responders, but I don’t want to live life as a tweeked out hyper-responder, ready to jump and jerk into action at every ding or tweet that my iPhone emits. If I’m at my daughter’s volleyball game, I’m at the game and I’ll return calls later. If we’re out for dinner, we’re out for dinner, not talking on the phone in the restaurant. I don’t believe in the 24/7 access that some agents try to provide.

Maybe the Scouting Report, or the inevitable copycat industry clones that will follow, will raise awareness with consumers and ultimately help with the public perception of real estate agents as professionals with records of success, or lack thereof. If you’re going to hire a listing agent who has closed 2 sales in the past 36 months instead of the one who has closed over 100, do it for reasons other than the immediate return call. If that consumer behavior doesn’t change, the Scouting Report will be a nice tool for a small few only, and the wider general real estate consumer population will continue to reward instead call-backs instead of evidence of success.

Problems with the Scouting Report
There is some data the Scouting Report doesn’t convey well. For example, my own Scouting Report makes me look lame. Sylvia and I are a team, and we’ve always run most of our deals through her Agent ID in the MLS. Almost every listing and buyer sale is run through her MLS ID, so a Scouting Report on me doesn’t show my level of production. This is true of other husbnad/wife teams, and the larger Mega Teams.

For example, I know and agent with over 500 closed sales in the past 36 months. Most of those were handled by “listing specialists” or “buyer specialists”, but the deal was credited to the primary agent. Therefore, there may be a listing agent under that team scenario who has successfully transacted dozens or 100+ transactions but for whom a Scouting Report will show a big Goose Egg. That’s going to be a problem for some.

There are other shortcomings in the data that was chosen for display, and the data NOT displayed (for example, Expired/Withdrawn Ratio for listing agents, Sold Price to Original List Price ratio, etc), but overall, I’m in the camp that this is a good thing for consumers, if they will take advantage of the data and use it wisely.

One of the toughest things to balance as an Austin Realtor is finding the right frequency and methods for staying in touch with our past clients. On the one hand, we have the National Association of Realtor (NAR) surveys of buyers and sellers showing that over 90% of real estate consumers never hear from their Realtor again after closing.

Wow! This, in an industry where repeat business and referrals are extremely important to succeeding, is amazing. Clearly most Realtors drop the ball on “after the sale” follow up.

At the other extreme are those Realtors who follow up too much. Consider the quote from this Inman article titled “Is your real estate client a friend?“:

“There are salespeople out there who have inserted themselves into my life with constant contact, and I don’t seem to be able to get rid of them. They put themselves into my online conversations and follow me everywhere. Once we get onto their mailing list we can never get off”.

As my teenage daughters would say, “Eww, creepy”. I know what the author means. I’ve met mortgage and insurance people at industry events such as “lunch and learns”, we exchange cards, and next thing you know I’m receiving regular automated email newsletters and junk mail, getting followed on Twitter and Friend Requested on Facebook and LinkedIn.

None of those “connections” makes me more likely to become a customer or referral source. And in these instances, I’m not even a client or past client.  That said, I do receive follow-ups and “just touching base” calls and annual birthday and/or holiday communications from various vendors, and I do value those follow-ups. But the weekly email newsletters from the mortgage gal I met just once at a Realtor lunch? Not valuable or useful in an way.

Sylvia and I don’t generally seek out clients online and try to “Friend” them or otherwise get connected. Many “Social Networking for Realtors” workshop classes encourage this as a lead building strategy and as a way to stay in touch and “connected”. No thanks. Feels too creepy. They should title those classes “how to be super annoying and bother people”.

The exception is for the clients who actually do become real off-line friends as a result of the real estate transaction, or for those who initiate the connection with us themselves.

So, for an Austin Realtor, what is the right mix and balance of staying in touch with past clients without bugging them or becoming a creepy Social Networking Stalker?

It depends. Let’s start with examining the reason for followup and why it’s important.

Remaining Top of Mind
This really is the one and only reason. People forget. Even highly satisfied past clients will forget who their Realtor was 5 or 10 years later when they need help again. Not all, but many. Even if they don’t completely forget, why should they reward with repeat business a real estate agent who has completely ignored them after the sale?

So, some sort of follow-up and “staying in touch” is absolutely required. It would be stupid not to. Therefore, we must.

By reminding past clients that we’re still around, still in business and still ready and able to help if needed, we make it easy for people to remember us and possibly use us again or refer friends or family.

I just spent the past month entering all mine and Sylvia’s past clients into a new contact database. The database allows us to track referrals and repeat business. I’ve always had a vague sense that about half our business comes from the internet, and the other half is repeat and/or referral business. But the new contact management system let’s me see the exact stats.

From above, we can see that referrals are an extremely important source of new business for Crossland Real Estate. Each of these broad categories has sub-categories that I haven’t split out in our tracking yet. For example, most referrals are from past clients, but many are from other Realtors and non-client friends/family.

The “Internet” category includes internet searchers as well as long-time blog readers (who I suppose were initially web searchers). In the 1990s, when we were brand new, Direct Mail would have been the largest category, along with “Cold Calling”. As Realtors mature in the business and remain long-term, the percentage of Referral business should always be growing.

If Sylvia and I had completely ignored and never followed up with any past client, the graph above would look completely different and so would our productivity. The Referrals would be far less. Referrals are the most valuable type of new lead, as they usually come having already decided to do business with us.

So, how have we managed to create a solid referral base? Well, it’s not because we’re smart or have any secrets. Nor have we utilized technology or a brilliant follow-up plan with automated emails or “drip” campaigns. Mainly, Sylvia just tries to have some regular, genuine “touches” with past clients. Those “touches” (as we term any form of contact with a past client) are generally non-intrusive “hellos” or notes, gifts, birthday cards or other form of contact that serves as a friendly reminder that we’re still here and still thinking of you.

What we don’t do is what is considered to be most effective. That’s the phone call pretending to just say hi but with an eventual “who do you know that needs help buying or selling a home in the next 90 days” pitch. We’ve been to those seminars. That stuff actually works, believe it or not. And for the hard core, numbers-driven Realtor trying to rapidly increase production, it’s the most effective thing to do, whether it bugs people or not. You have to be on the phone talking to people and asking for leads every day.

But there is something about that direct approach that never felt right for us. We tried the scripts (pre-fab things to say on the phone) at one point but quickly stopped, as it felt phony and forced. Unnatural for us. For those who can pull it off without feeling like a pest, more power to you. You’ll probably sell more homes than us if you do it consistently.

We prefer the “soft touch” method over the direct and blatant asking for leads. It’s a tough balance, especially when business slows down as it has this year. If we had a real estate coach, she’d be hammering us to “get on the phones and start calling your database and asking for referrals”.

But, in the end, we have to like what we’re doing. Every Realtor has to find his or her way of staying in touch and asking for referrals whether it’s direct and to the point or passive and more subtle.

Earlier this week someone I’ve never met, Paul B from Round Rock, blessed Crossland Real Estate with a disparaging 1-Star review on Yelp. It reads:

Unprofessional and unpleasant demeanor.  General lack of realistic market knowledge and trends.  Probably better suited as a property manager, but lacks the proper people skills to be effective as either a listing or selling agent.  Argumentative and combative.

Definitely would NOT recommend, especially as a listing or selling agent

It’s hard to describe how jarring this was to read at first. Hit me smack in the face. I haven’t felt a jolt like that since the final scene in Boogie Nights. Crossland Real Estate has escaped all such “bad reviews” online until now, though I knew the day would come. After the initial shock and dismay, it settled in that Crossland Real Estate now had a 1-star rating on Yelp, which in turn displays next to certain search results. Not good. Not the sort of visual indicator that motivates a prospective new client to click through to our website from a search results page. For a moment I leaned back in my chair and stared at the ceiling and thought, “it was so much less complicated in 1993″.

To add insult to injury, Yelp has “filtered” the two legitimate 5-star reviews and the 4-star review written by actual past clients of ours because the reviews are deemed “suspicious”. Yelp considers those reviews “suspicious” because they are the only Yelp reviews written by those reviewers. I actually talked to a Yelp rep about this last year and he said that the automatic “filtering” system hides solo 4 and 5-star reviews to prevent abuse. That makes sense, but these are actual client reviews, not bogus made up reviews. Yet, since Paul B from Round Rock has written 12 reviews, he’s considered a valid Yelp reviewer, even though, as I reported to Yelp, he’s never been a client of ours and we know not who he is or why he wrote what he wrote.

So, determined not to let a 1-star review from Paul B of Round Rock stand as the only visible Crossland Real Estate review on Yelp, I decided I needed to somehow dilute Paul B’s opinion with some rebuttal reviews more reflective of the truth. But this needed to be done without running afoul of Yelp’s rules. Here’s what I did.

After reading through Yelp’s rules, I found that asking for reviews, while frowned upon, is not expressly prohibited. Here is what Yelp says in its FAQ section:

Q: Should I ask customers to write reviews for my business?
A: Probably not. It’s a slippery slope between the customer who is so delighted by her experience that she takes it upon herself to write a glowing review and the customer who is “encouraged” to write a favorable review in exchange for a special discount.  

OK, then. I get it. And I’m willing to get on that “slippery slope”. But knowing that it’s not forbidden to ask for a review as long as it’s not in exchange for special discounts or other considerations, who should I ask? We have a notebook full of paper Client Surveys that we mail out to clients after closings, which they return to us in a pre-addressed stamped envelope. That’s real old school but we’ve never stopped doing it. Just received another one back yesterday, all “10s” with some very nice comments. On each survey is a Yes or No section which asks “Can we use you as a reference?” and “Will you write a recommendation letter for us?”. Everyone always answers “yes” to these.

So, I could ask those past clients, but what good would it do if their reviews are just going to be “filtered” and hidden. What I needed was some reviews from past clients who are also established Yelpers.

Digging around further on the Yelp website, I found a “find friends” section which allows the import of contacts from Google Contacts, Outlook, Yahoo, Hotmail, etc. This is the same way you find “friends” on Facebook or Linkedin when you first sign up. I entered my Gmail credentials since all my contacts are in Google Contacts. The process produced a page loaded with hundreds of contacts who also have Yelp accounts. Next to each contact name were small icons indicating how many “friends” each contact has on Yelp, and how many reviews each contact has written. Bingo. That’s the data I needed.

Now I knew which of my current and past clients, colleagues and contacts are established Yelp reviewers. These are the people who can write a review that Yelp will presumably deem legitimate. These are the people who can help me . These are the Yelp users who can help me dilute and disempower the unflattering words and 1-star ranking of Paul B. of Round Rock.

Next was the decision of what to say in a personal “review request” email to each selected contact. I agree with Yelp that this needs to be done carefully and with integrity. Therefore, the message was short and factual.

“Would you be willing to write a Yelp review for Crossland Real Estate, based on your knowledge of our business practices, your experience and interactions with us?”

And then the factual reason for the request.

“Someone we don’t even know and have never worked with wrote a disparaging Yelp review about Crossland Real Estate, so now we have a ”1 star” rating. Meanwhile, Yelp hides/filters the 3 positive reviews we have because those reviews were the first and only Yelp reviews written by those clients. This is frustrating and has prompted me to become more proactive and start requesting reviews from current and past clients, colleagues and peers who have written at least 1 previous Yelp review, as you have.”

For any of you thinking of using a similar process to ask for and build reviews, I think it’s important not to request a specific star rating. I would never ask someone “can you give me a 5-star Review?”. That’s way too car-salesman-like. I don’t want just 5-star reviews, I want honest, helpful feedback, whatever the “star” rating. It’s also important, I believe, to not even directly encourage a positive review, or to say anything sleazy like “if you don’t feel you can provide us 5-stars, please call to discuss”. Ever bought a new car and received that blatantly shameless plea for “all 5s?”. Disgusting. Don’t do that. If I ask someone for an opinion, it’s for better or worse, and the chips ought to fall where they may.

I think, over time, those of us who provide services that are valued by our clients will achieve a natural balance of “mostly great” 4 or 5 star ratings that hopefully help review readers gain insight into what to expect should they use our services. No company or service provider is perfect, and I am frankly skeptical of the companies I see on Yelp, especially restaurants, plumbers or other services of a highly subjective nature, with gobs of 5-star reviews. That doesn’t seem natural to me and I don’t believe those reviews. I suspect it’s a result of an effective campaign of some kind instead of naturally occurring. And if you read some of the writings, some seem almost “professional” in nature, too well written in fact. Though I’d love to be so well thought of, it’s not my expectation to achieve “all 5s” year after year and I would never expect that outcome.

That said, as I wrote personal emails all morning and early afternoon that day, sending them one at a time and personalizing each one to some degree or another, the result was a slow trickle of 5-star ratings starting to appear. By the next morning, 6 in total yielded from 12 emails sent to a combination of past clients and industry peers.

One current client wrote back “That bad review kind of irks me.  I have posted one in your defense. Thank you, it is my pleasure to help any way I can.” Others were similar.

Finally, I wrote the “public response” to Paul B’s contribution to the Crossland Real Estate Yelp page. Yelp allows a “public response” in answer to negative reviews. I kept this clean, cordial and fact-based, but also used it as an opportunity to throw in some plugs for our accomplishments and industry experience.

As a result, instead of one lonesome 1-star review on Yelp, we now have, as of this writing, six 5-star reviews, among which Paul B’s 1-star review seems rather silly, ridiculous and impotent. In fact, I hope he leaves it there. It creates a brilliant contrast and, as I said before, makes the reviews in whole seem more “real” than a slate of all 5-stars would be.

What’s the saying, “if life gives you lemons, make lemonade?” That’s how we as business owners need to approach the online world of reviews. Paul Bs 1-star review of Crossland Real Estate on Yelp isn’t a bad thing. It turns out to be the catalyst that sparked a real serious motivation for me to start thinking of ways to proactively address this internet rating/review phenomenon. Without that 1-star review, it may have remained on my back burner. So he actually did me a favor because Crossland Real Estate now has a more impressive online reputation than it would have had the 1-star never been written.

There is more work to do. Aggregating the various reviews we do already have in places other than Yelp and making those reviews easier to find and read for prospective clients is next on my list. Unless there are WordPress plugins or other tools to accomplish this, which I haven’t researched yet, I’m probably going to have to create a “Reviews” page with snippet quotes and links to the full content on the various repositories. This would be the next generation of our “Testimonials” page.

Also, figuring out a way to invite reviews without causing an uncomfortable sense of obligation for those being asked might be tricky. The 1-star review provided a concrete reason with urgency attached. That made for a nice context for a direct “call to action” request for a review. That’s not the case going forward. So, like anything else I want in life, I simply ask with no expectations, and make sure people know where we can be reviewed.

So here goes: if you are a past client, regular blog reader, have knowledge of Steve, Sylvia and Crossland Real Estate, have something you want others to know, and feel so inclined, we can be reviewed at any of the following repositories:

Sylvia’s Linkedin Account - 10 reviews already (must have Linkedin account).

Steve’s Linkedin Account - 3 reviews already.

Crossland Real Estate Facebook Reviews - 5 reviews already (must have Facebook account).

Crossland Real Estate Google Places page – 2 reviews already (must have Google account).

Crossland Real Estate on Yelp - 7 Reviews + 3 hidden. (must be Yelp Community member and have posted prior reviews)

Crossland Real Estate on CitySearch - 0 Reviews thus far. Can use Facebook login.

Crossland Real Estate on Yahoo Local – 0 Reviews thus far. Can use Facebook or Google login.

CrosslandTeam.com Testimonials Page - 47 Reviews (can’t be created online, just for reading if you’re interested. Havent updated in two years, which is next on my list as well)

I was at the TAR (Texas Association of Realtors) Winter Meetings in Austin yesterday. One of the events I dropped in on was the Professional Development Open Forum. It was announced at the forum that the Texas Association of Realtors is going to start providing a pre-license course for those thinking of obtaining a real estate license in Texas.

The course will provide an opportunity for those thinking of becoming a Realtor to get the straight skinny on what being a Realtor in Texas is really all about. This way, before you waste a bunch of money taking classes that don’t really teach you anything useful about succeeding as a Realtor in Texas (but which are required before you can obtain a Texas Real Estate License), you can decide if you’re willing to do what it takes to thrive in this profession.

This idea is a result of complaints from Texas Brokers about the the fact that most newly minted real estate agents are fairly clueless about and unprepared for the real estate career they just entered into. The state-required classes that are mandatory to become a real estate agent do not prepare one to become a successful practitioner. Those classes are designed to help you pass the real estate exam, that’s it. Your ability to pass the Texas real estate exam does not at all correlate with the actual skills and attributes needed to be a successful Realtor. In fact, few, if any, newly minted real estate agents are ready and able to write up a mistake-free sales contract, or even properly explain the real life implications of each paragraph of a standard contract.

This pre-license education makes sense to me. If was the instructor, I’d make sure those contemplating real estate as a career know about the extremely high failure rate and why the failure rate is so high. I’d make sure they know the truth about what “business” you are really thinking about entering. (hint: it’s not really a “real estate” business). And I’d make sure you understand the harsh financial realities of being self-employed with a highly unpredictable monthly income stream.

So, what does it take to succeed as a Realtor? Let’s take a look.

What “Business” is the Real Estate Business, really?
To be a successful Realtor, you are in one business, and one business only. That is the Lead Generation Business. Without leads, you have nothing, period. You’ll either have to learn to generate your own leads, or pay for them.

In 2008 when the real estate market in Austin tanked, Sylvia and I had or busiest year ever. Other agents in our office (back when we were still with Keller Williams in Austin) would ask “how are you guys staying so busy?” The answer was 5 words – we have plenty of leads. That was it, nothing more. Without leads, you’re toast. With them, you are in business.

Leads are generated through one of only three ways – Networking, Prospecting or Advertising.

Networking and Prospecting
If you have no money but a lot of time (which is the case with most new Realtors), you prospect or network. This means, from day one, you are on the phone every morning from 9AM to 11AM calling people you know (family, friends and acquaintances) and asking for business. You are letting the other team parents at your kid’s sporting events know that you’re now in the real estate business and would appreciate any referrals they can send you. You are handing out cards and asking friends and family to please remember you if they need help or know someone who needs help buying or selling real estate in Austin.You are, in short, spreading the word and reminding people that you’d appreciate their business and referrals – constantly, all the time, everywhere you go. That’s your job.

And you are either sitting long hours in open houses every weekend (for other agent’s listings when you’re new) waiting for qualified buyers to come through who might decide to let you become their buyer’s agent, or you’re knocking on doors in your new “farm” neighborhood, passing out door hangers and asking those who answer if they or anyone they know is thinking of selling their home in the next 90 days.

Sound like fun? Or would you rather stab yourself in the left hand with an ice pick than do these things? Many, if not most, new agents are either revolted by the idea of bugging their family, friends and acquaintances in this manner, or are too scared to actually do it.

To those of you unwilling, there are no short cuts or easier paths. What did you think, that people were going to line up to hire you, even though you have no experience and don’t know how to (properly) fill out a sales agreement? No, you have to let people know who you are and what you do. This means working your “Sphere of Influence”, building relationships, obtaining referrals, and prospecting for people you don’t know who might need your help.

The biggest reason most new agents wash out the first year is their unwillingness to prospect and network, or the inability to do so effectively. This is the business you’re getting into. If you are unwilling or unable to do it, you’ll have to pay for your leads either through Advertising or by working for a Broker that provides leads in return for a bigger slice of your commission pie.

Advertising , Marketing or Paying for Leads
Agents who don’t want to network or prospect as outlined above, have the option of advertising instead. Mail out postcards to your farm area and hope you get a call. Or purchase pay-per-click advertising on Google and hope that you get enough website traffic to generate some calls. I don’t recommend this for newbies though. Even if you have the money to invest in advertising, and even if it’s effective, it is a very expensive way to generate leads. It also requires that you be willing to stick with it. For example, mailing a batch of postcards just once is a waste of money. You need to budget for a 6 or 12 months campaign because it’s the repeated exposure to your message that really starts to generate the leads down the road, not the instant response. Pay-per-click can bring instant web traffic, but it costs a lot.

Finally, if you don’t want to network, prospect or advertise, you can work for a Broker who does know how to generate leads, and pay for those leads through a commission split. Brokers who use this business model expect you to convert the leads though, and you have to close a higher volume of business to make your numbers work. Or you can work for a very busy listing agent as their Buyer’s Agent, working the leads that come from the sign calls. This is a good way for new agents to start also, as part of an established Brokerage or Team.

The above summary is just a thumbnail sketch of what you need to understand before deciding to become a Realtor. If you’ve read this far and are thinking “I can do (at least some of) that”, then I have some more hard news. Generating the leads is just the start. It’s what allows you to get out of the gate, but you still have a long race to run.

Lead Conversion
Many agents can’t convert the leads they do generate or receive. Their buyers never actually buy. Their listing appointments never turn into listings. They are getting leads but are spinning their wheels and unable to turn any of the leads into a closed sale. It only take 2 or 3 months of this for despair and discouragement to set in.

The inability to convert leads is a curable problem though, and can be solved with good mentoring and training, learning some simple scripts and learning how to weed out buyers who are not ready to make a decision and sellers unwilling to price and prepare the home properly. But you have to be able to tough it out and survive long enough for that to happen, and you need a good Broker or mentor to train you and teach you how to earn the trust of the people you deal with so they’ll respond to your advice and suggestions.

Deal Execution
Finally, the last piece of the puzzle, after you successfully learn to generate and convert leads, is the ability to execute deals. Agents have to be competent and able to shepard transactions through the myriad of hoops and hurdles that are part of the business. Not only that, you have to be able to do this with multiiple deals simultaneously, year after year, in order to sustain an ongoing income. It’s more tiring than it sounds.

Many agents, even the ones capable of generating and converting leads into executed contracts, come to find that the actual transaction phase, or what we call the “contract to close” period, is one unbearable nightmare after another. It is during the contract to close phase that the ugliest side of buyers and sellers can come out. Not always, but often enough that if you can’t deal with it you have a problem.

All the fears, misgivings, second thoughts, anger, anxiety, frustration, distrust, doubt and worries, which are the normal part of being a human being and going through a major purchase decision, reveal themselves in the form of “deal problems”, which are really “people” problems, during the contract to close phase. It’s your job to solve those problems and make sure your client gets what he or she wants and needs, both from a transactional logistics standpoint and an emotional support standpoint.

If you don’t have the patience, communication skills, problem solving abilities, compassion and intuition to get people and deals over the humps that invariably arise, you will come to view the real estate business as “not fun”. And if it’s not fun, you won’t be happy, clients will sense that, and you won’t survive.

And, to complicate matters further, if your financial well being, and the personal stress of that, is also added to the equation, because you really, really need this next commission check to be able to pay your rent, feed your kids, or make the next car payment, your ability to be a fierce advocate and a competent “fiduciary” for your client is compromised.

This will affect your ability to give clients the hard advice, which is often to walk away or pass on a particular deal because it’s not the right deal for them. For some agents, separating their own financial realities from the deal can be difficult if not impossible, and this causes problems.

The Take-Away

The failure rate in real estate is extremely high. Very few of those who get in remain in past a year or two. Real Estate is a “Lead Generation Business”. Generating leads requires repeated daily efforts that most people find unpleasant, difficult, time consuming and costly. Converting leads is difficult as well. Converted leads that turn into deals require a broad and deep set of transaction competencies and dedication to your client’s best interests. Hopefully the TAR pre-license class will offer an opportunity for those considering a real estate career to rule it in or out from a more informed perspective.

Austin was recently featured on the CBS Evening News as the city with the strongest job growth in the U.S. This is somewhat of an “all sunshine” puff piece, but it nevertheless highlights some of the good things happening in Austin. Job growth drives real estate demand, so if this year keeps heading in the right direction with jobs in Austin, we should see the Austin real estate demand start picking up as more job seekers move here and more companies relocate to Austin.

Vilfredo Pareto

Five years ago when my oldest daughter started middle school volleyball, I declared to her after observing a few matches that I could coach a winning team by doing just one thing. I would, I told her, spend every practice having every girl practice serving. 100s of serves each, every practice. Not until every player could serve with 90% success 90% of the time would we even practice anything else. And by serving well and consistently, the team would win every game. Of that I was certain.

And now my youngest is playing girls middle school volleyball, and nothing has changed on these middle school teams. I watched two matches last night. If a coach, at that level, were to do nothing other than teach every kid how to serve the ball over the net with 90% success, that team would win every game even if they lacked the ability to do anything else.

How did I become an expert at girl’s volleyball? Simply by observing the mathematical fact that very few serves are successfully returned. Often, less than 10%. Get a serve over, you get a point, 9 out of 10 times. And most players can’t get a serve over. Thus, the games are reduced to a contest of missed serves and missed returns, with very few actual volleys back and forth.

At the level of play I was observing, the team who got the most serves over the net won, period. To confirm this, I even kept a scratch sheet one match, tracking the number of serves made and missed by each team. And the theory was proven. No team ever wins without getting the most serves over the net.

–

Having run out of magazines to read around the house this month, I perused my bookshelf of old books the other night and pulled down my old copy of Eat That Frog! and started rereading it. There on page 19 is the chapter about the 80/20 rule, or Pareto’s Principle. Vilfredo Pareto would have been a successful Realtor because he would have understood how to use his time and focus his efforts. The rule says, simply, that 20% of our efforts account for 80% of our results. Or, stated the other way around, 80% of what we do accounts for only 20% of the results. We should, therefore, figure out what activities or efforts produce the most solid results, and focus on doing a lot of those things and less of the other. This is actually the same observation about serving that one can make while watching middle school girl’s volleyball.

Were I to coach a 7th grade girls volleyball team and employ my serving theory, my team might not consist of the most well rounded players, but they’d know how to serve consistently and we’d win every game. We’d be champions by doing just one thing really well with consistency.

So what’s this have to do with real estate and whether Realtors are successful or not?

It has everything to do with it. When other agents or even regular people we know ask me and Sylvia “how’s the real estate business?”, and we say, “great, we’re staying really busy”, they often seem surprised. “I thought it was a terrible market in Austin and everybody is really slow, how do you guys stay busy?”, they ask. The question is answered in 5 simple words…

…We have plenty of leads.

That’s it. Nothing more to it. We’re not necessarily smarter, more efficient or better organized, but we do know how to get business. Real estate is a lead generation business first and foremost. If you can’t generate leads, nothing else matters, period. Your just like the team that can’t get any serves over the net. You’re not going to win.If you don’t have leads, you have nothing to do. Your job is not selling real estate, it’s finding people to work with and earning their trust and confidence. That’s your job. Selling real estate is just the service provided, and you do need to know how to do that, but your main purpose as a Realtor is to get in front of and/or found by people who might need your help to buy or sell a home in Austin.

This isn’t a secret. It’s well known. But it’s not known in a way that is reflected in the things most Realtors spend time doing. Instead, a lot of time is wasted on keep-busy stuff that is not lead generating in nature. I observed this daily when we worked at the “big brand” office with 700+ agents from 2005-2009 (the largest single location real estate office in the world) and saw the new agents come and go.

A new agent would walk in our office and ask stuff like “do you think I should have my home phone number on my business card?” or “what database do you use to keep your contacts”, and I’d say, “it doesn’t matter – that’s not what’s going to make you successful or not. Have you sent a letter to everyone you know letting them know you’re in business?”.

And they haven’t, because they don’t have signs yet, or don’t have cards to send with the letter (I don’t care, send it anyway), or they haven’t detailed the car yet, or previewed enough houses, or got a new laptop yet, or taken enough training classes, or whatever. There’s always something keeping agents in the “getting read to get ready to get ready”, mode. Meanwhile they still have no leads, no appointments, no listings and no buyers because they’re neurotically fretting over meaningless stuff, the 80% of things that don’t really matter, while doing none of the 20% stuff.

If you’re an Austin real estate agent who has no listings and no active buyers, here are a few things you can do today, this afternoon, that will help you get busy again.

1) Knock on doors.

That’s right. Print 200 fliers with your information (or just take some business cards), budget 4 hours, get in your car, drive to a neighborhood, and go knock on doors in your farm area. The flier doesn’t have to be perfect – that’s not what will matter. Don’t spend three days neurotically wordsmithing and fussing over your flier! When someone answers, say “Hi I’m {Your Name}, Realtor, and I’m hoping you know someone who needs help buying or selling a home. Are you thinking about selling in the next 90 days?”

If you know how to ask the right questions, the rest will take care of itself. The Rookie of the Year for Keller Williams Realty in 2008 did nothing but knock on doors in one of the worst markets in Califonia. He knocked on more than 20,000 doors in 12 months, which sounds like a lot, but if you divide by 50 weeks, it comes out to about 80 doors a day 5 days a week. That could be knocked out in 2 to 4 hours each morning. It costs nothing but time and printing costs and you’ll lose weight and look better after a month or two. And you’ll have some listings.

2) Cold Call

That’s right. Pick up the phone and call people you know and ask if they or anyone they know needs help buying or selling a home. If you don’t know anyone, call FSBOs from Craigslist, or expired listings from the MLS. This works, but few do it. It might take 200 calls, but you’ll have a listing.

3) Open Houses

When Sylvia returned to real estate sales with Keller Williams in 2005, she had nothing going on so she previewed vacant homes and found a staged and vacant listing she liked in Circle C, called the listing agent, got permission to hold an open house, then sold it to a lady who stopped into the open house that weekend. This is unusual luck, but luck happens to those who put themselves out there, and she wasted no time getting out there.

Open houses are a numbers game and the best way to meet buyers who are actually taking the time to drive around and look at homes. Yes, some weekends are duds, many lookers are not serious, but that doesn’t matter. It’s a numbers game. If you are out there, and have taken the time to learn the area schools, other listings and surrounding amenities and businesses such that you can speak articulately about the pros and cons of the home you’re hosting as well as the neighborhood in general, you will attract a buyer looking for a smart agent like you. And you’ll soon have a serious buyer to work with.

None of the above three things cost much money. They all produce faster results than almost any other lead generation activity. And guess what? … these are the same things that worked in 1972 before there were even answering machines, cell phones or pagers. Nothing has changed. The leads are at the properties they own, or at the open house you’re hosting, or on the other end of the phone call you just made. That’s where the leads are. Where are you? On facebook? Twitter? Taking a nap? Standing around the coffee pot lamenting your lack of leads? Do what Pareto would do, go do the 20% stuff.

These 3 business building activities all require consistent and repeated effort. But any agent with too much free time and not enough money should be doing these things instead of wasting time on facebook, sending tweets or whatever else is on the 80% menu.

Back in 2005 when Sylvia and I started CrosslandTeam.com and our Austin Real Estate Blog, we were in the process of taking a break from Property Management, having just sold our Property Management company the year before and taken a year off from real estate altogether. When we started back, we only brokered sales, mainly to investors at first, but eventually to mostly regular home buyers and sellers, which now make up the majority of our buyers and sellers.

Now, 5+ years later, we’ve built up a small portfolio of fee managed homes again, at present almost 50 managed homes. Sales remains our main focus, and we’re still very busy, averaging 3 or 4 closings most months, even in the down market. But the property management side of the business has slowly grown as well.

Why is that a problem?

The problem in trying to run two real estate brokerage specialties under one website is that each dilutes the other. It’s frustrating to me, when talking to a prospect, to hear “oh, you manage homes too?”, or, ironically, the opposite, “oh, you do sales also?”. Both have perused the same website here at CrosslandTeam.com but, depending on which pages they landed on and read, or which blog articles, come away with differing messages about what we do. Or, as one prospect told me incorrectly once, “you guys seem like you’re more of a management company than a sales company”. What? NOT TRUE, darn it. That’s the problem.

Additionally, in trying to remain findable by those who need to hire an Austin Realtor and/or Property Manager, it’s hard to focus the website keyword optimization efforts, as well as the site content, on two different types of businesses, no matter how closely related. This affects the choices for title tags and meta descriptions used on site pages and in blog articles.

So I’m announcing today the launch of our new sister site dedicated specifically to Property Management and Landlord-Tenant issues, CrosslandProperties.com.

The great thing about having two real estate websites and blogs is that now I can go full throttle on the Austin Property Management Blog with articles specifically related to landlord-tenant issues. I’ve held back on a lot of that over the years because I didn’t want to water down our expertise in real estate sales by generating a bunch of landlord and tenant related content. Believe me, there is a deep well of never-ending material to write about on the topics of managing rentals and dealing with tenants. So I’ll now have an unrestricted online venue for those topics at the new property management blog.

And when you arrive at CrosslandProperties.com, there is zero confusion about the services offered. It’s clearly a Property Management website. This goes back to the issue of focusing a website on the specific niche or service being promoted.

The downside is for those of our blog readers who like seeing a wide variety of topics here, including landlord-tenant stuff, rental market stats, etc. You’ll have to keep tabs on the second blog as well. I’ll probably cross-post a lot of content at first, linking from one site to the other, as this blog article does, but eventually, the rental market and landlord topics will reside mainly at the new site.

Hopefully I know what I’m doing. Running any type of service business nowadays is complicated from the marketing end as almost every marketing decision has to address the web-facing aspects of relevance, and the matter of getting found by web searchers.

I’m sure multi-trade service companies have a similar challenge. Let’s say you own a service company that does both A/C Service and Plumbing repairs. To which business do you optimize your website and search traffic for, and in which trade are you the “expert”, or do you come across as a “generalist” who dabbles in more than one specialty?

Same with lawn service companies that have added tree work and/or pest control. If you’re going to be found online, you have to figure out who and what you want to be to the person who lands on your website, or simply create two different websites, each focusing on the specific marketing message you want to convey. The latter is what I’ve chosen.

Life was easier in the early 1990s when we just mailed post cards, knocked on doors, and cold called FSBO ads from the newspaper.

Anyway, I’ve posted the most recent Austin Rental Market Update over on the new property management blog. Stop by and have a look. If you want to subscribe to the other blog feed, click on the Subscribe link at the top right of that site once you get there.

Last weekend we took a vacation to the Island House in Corpus Christi on North Padre Island for 4 days. While there, late one night, while checking email and logging into Facebook, I was presented with the following login message:

Your account was recently accessed from a location we’re not familiar with. For your protection, please review your recent activity to make sure no one is using your Facebook account without permission.

Reviewing your activity takes just a few moments. We’ll start by asking you a couple of questions to confirm that this is your account. (If we recognize your computer, you’ll be able to skip this step.)

I guess Facebook, in its infinite wisdom, thinks if I’m logging in from my laptop in another city (different IP address than usual), something might possibly be amiss, and I must therefore validate myself by passing a test. The “couple of questions” turned out to be a photo lineup of 7 “friends” whom I had to identify from photo arrays, selecting from 6 possible names for each individual, or choosing “I’m not sure”.

Only two selections of “I’m not sure” are allowed, and ZERO incorrect answers are allowed. Each “friend” has two photos to review, some which are indistinguishable, my favorite being when the square surrounds a tiny spec of a face within a picture hanging on a wall in the background.

But mainly, with most photos being of decent enough quality, the question remained, Who are these people?! (my “friends”). I don’t recognize any of them, let alone enough to go 5 for 5. Each failed effort requires a 1 hour waiting period before a new try. Meanwhile, my iPhone access still worked, as did the granted permissions from 3rd party tools such as Ping.fm, from which I make most of my status updates, so I wasn’t totally “gone” from the standpoint of status updates, but was unable to log in from a web browser and do anything on Facebook.

This morning I’d had enough. Somehow I would defeat this validation system and regain control of my Facebook account. I finally did. Here’s how.

First of all, how did I end up with a bunch (718) of “friends”, most of whom I can’t even identify in a photo? For starters, Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg stated long ago that a “friend” on Facebook isn’t like a “real life” friend. He or she is simply a Social Network friend with whom you’d like to be connected for some reason, perhaps because you share a common connection such as graduating from the same college, or you’re both onto knitting, you’re friends with common friends, or you share the same occupation.

In my case, the latter category was the culprit. More specifically, as a former member of the Keller Williams “network” on Facebook, and as a Realtor, I accumulated a bunch of Realtor “friends” online. This would be the key to figuring out how to reclaim my login.

As I stared at the first set of photos this morning, again wondering “who the heck is that?“, it occurred to me that the unknown person was most likely a Realtor, and thus, if I Google their name + “Realtor”, there is a good chance I might find a photo of the Realtor with that name and be able to compare it to the photo I was evaluating.

And so, one by one, I cut and pasted each name next to each photo and added “Realtor” to the end. One was a dead on match. Easy. One down, four to go. For two others, reasonable guesses had to suffice because, oddly, the “real life” facebook photos of some Realtors (one male, one female), taken at a picnic for example, and grilling a burger, cause those poor Realtors to look 20+ years older than the professional photo headshot which appears on their websites!

This required a lot of back and forth, studying of eyebrows, nose shapes, hair style, shape of mouth, etc., to try to be as certain as possible. For the female, I just picked the one that looked most like a daughter of the subject. For the male Realtor, I had to enlist the help of my 17 year old daughter. “Could this possible be that guy?”, I asked, after ruling out all the others. She agreed that it could be him – the eyes looked sort of the same – but she couldn’t be sure either. Remember, no wrong answers are allowed. I made the selection and proceeded, fairly unsure if it was the right pick. For the next photo I lucked out and had a Realtor Convention Photo, and there right on his shirt, was a big name badge with the first name visible and readable.

For the final photo, in some sign of devine intervention since I was all out of “Not Sure” answers, I got someone I actually know and recognize in real life and who looks exactly like her photo. This was the first time it had happened in all my attempts.

And then the moment of truth… the final click… and …. low and behold, I was back in!

Jeez. I’m not even what I would consider “addicted” to Facebook, but it really irked me to be locked out like that. There is no way to reach someone at Facebook by phone – I tried. All solution efforts direct you to the help page, which says you simply have to answer the questions correctly. I’m now seriously thinking of unfriending people I don’t actually know again.

But, really, how stupid is it of Facebook to constantly be suggesting “friends”, trying to get us all to add people we don’t actually know, and then to use face recognition of said “friends” as the one and only way to prove that the account is yours after they lock you out.

Google Voice is now open for signup. You don’t need an invite. You might be wondering if getting a free Google Voice account is something you should bother with. I think you should. I’ve been test running Google Voice for a few months now. Like a lot of the Google products it is fantastic in some ways and limited in others.

I currently utilize it in the following manner:

Calls to our main office line are forwarded when no answer/busy, or out of office, to a (non-Google) hosted voicemail service that provides call options to reach Sylvia or me. (i.e. press 1 for Steve, 2 for Sylvia)

If the caller selects me, that call is forwarded to Google Voice which in turn rings my cell phone if the call is during a time for which I have it set to foward, which is pretty much all day every day until nighttime. If I don’t answer, Google Voice, takes the message, transcribes it into text, and emails it to me.

From my Gmail account, either at my desk or on iPhone, I see the voice message alongside my email messages. I can either click to listen, or just read the text. Sometimes the text is a perfect transcription, sometimes it’s a garbled mess, depending of course on how well the caller speaks and enunciates. Usually, it’s a mix but readable.

Below is a sample message which is typical, though slightly altered. I changed the phone number and the message slightly.

Voicemail from:  (512) 555-1212 at 11:19 AM
Hi Steve, this is Sandra Bullock. I’d be Roger’s I spoke to Brian about co-staring with you in my next movie. He said that we can meet tomorrow. Give mea call and just confirm that you got this message. Thank you. Play message

For most messages, you can get the gist of who’s calling even though the text isn’t perfect, and you can discern what they’re saying. Google dims/greys the text for the parts of text it wasn’t sure about. It saves a lot of time otherwise that would be spent listing to messages, especially long rambling ones. And it makes for some sometimes humorous text content.

I also have my iPhone programmed to use Google Voice as my voicemail instead of the ATT voicemail, so if someone calls my cell direct and I don’t answer, the message is left in Google Voice (you program this through your phone). This allows all my messages, personal, office, business, etc. to funnel into  the same voicemail bucket and then end up consolidated into my Gmail inbox so I have a single point of communication retrieval for all voice and email.

When Sylvia and I were in Mexico City for 5 days earlier this month, it would have been real expensive to call in and check voice mail every couple of hours. With Google Voice forwarding all messages, including Sylvia’s,  into my Gmail, I was able to stay on top of things with little trouble by just checking email on my iPhone. I forwarded many of the messages to our agent Penny and she was able to take care of things by simply reading the text and calling the number.

If I’m out driving and/or away from the office, and it’s not safe or convenient to check email, I call in to Google Voice to listen to messages over the phone. I press 2 while listening to a message and it calls the person back, we talk, I press * when done, press 7 to delete the message (though a permenant copy remains in my Gmail archive forever), and move on to the next message without having to hang up and without having to fiddle much with the phone while driving.

With earplug/mic on, this makes it really easy to knock out a bunch of return calls during a 30-45 minute drive across Austin. Callers see my GV number as their caller ID, but that’s not really a problem as it’s become a defacto second cell number since that’s where it forwards to.

Google Voice will also record inbound calls if your press 4 after answering. The conversation is recorded and then emailed the same as voice messages. I don’t use this functionality, but it would be handy as an emergency maintenance number whereby the call is documented as well as a fax or email. I could say to a tenant, “ok, I’m going to record this call, so as soon as you hear the recording announcement, state your name, property address and describe the issue you’re calling about, and speak clearly”. I’d end up with a recording of the call, a transcript, caller ID of the caller, time and date stamped. Pretty cool. Haven’t tried it yet but I’ve been thinking about it.

Google Voice can also screen and/or announce calls, but I don’t use that either. I just have the calls come straight through because I’d rather answer and talk than deal with lots of voicemail later. It’s also easier for the caller to not have to say your name. But because I’m receiving unscreened/announced calls, I don’t know when my cell rings if it’s a direct call to my cell number or if it’s been routed through our office line -> GV -> cell.  But you can set Google Voice to show the GV number instead of caller ID on all inbound calls, and then you’d know it’s being passed through.

It will also handle calls different for different callers. For example, if I were to have all “Friends” set up under a “Friends” group in my Gmail contacts (which links to Google Voice), I could tell GV to handle that call different and play a different voice message  greeting to all callers from the “Friends” group.

Likewise, you can set individual contacts to be handled as you wish, such that calls from your kid’s cell phone ring through 24/7 but calls from your ex-wife are set to “blocked” and she hears a “this number is no longer in service” message. If Granny is hard of hearing, you could set the message played when she calls to {loudly} “HI GRANNY, IT”S ME BILLY. START TALKING AFTER YOU HEAR THE BEEP, OK? I’LL CALL YOU BACK LATER, OK? BYE” Pretty cool.

You could set up Contact Groups for any subset of Contacts in your Google Contacts account and set call handling settings and greetings appropriately. I don’t do any of that, but it could be done. The call handling capabilities are very powerful.

All that said, the call quality sucks. There is a lag or delay which causes you to talk over each other. I’ve learned to compensate by pausing longer after I think someone is done talking, but it’s still my biggest complaint and it can be very annoying. But my ATT iPhone isn’t much better by itself and drops calls all the time. I think we’ve all become so use to poor call quality that it’s not deemed as our fault, or a lack of professionalism. It’s just how it is.

Google Voice  is not set up to provide auto-attendant or business features. It’s basically a free consumer service (I didn’t cover the free long distance and super cheap international calling available with GV) so it’s not a good multi-user product yet. Mainly that’s an issue if you want to be able to transfer live calls or forward voicemails to someone else, but for me, I just forward the email instead.

That’s the basic overview. I haven’t even scratched the surface of the capabilities of this service, especially when combined with iPhone, Gmail and a clean Google Contacts database of all your people. But the Google Voice site has a lot of videos and info about what you can do with the service. It’s a good service, free, and like most Google Beta stuff will surely improve over time, and now you don’t need an invite to sign up. Just go to Google Voice.

You’ve no doubt heard of Zillow, and know how inaccurate its Austin real estate valuations can be. That’s not completely the fault of Zillow because Texas is a non-disclosure state, meaning when you sell your house, it’s nobody’s business what you sold it for, or what the buyer paid.

This results in limited sold data being available in public records. Thusly, it’s more difficult for third party estimation tools such as Zillow, Trulia and Yahoo to produce an accurate home value estimate. In most states, all real estate sales data is public record and thus there is more data from which to draw conclusions about a particular home value. Not so in Texas. So, with the exception of lower valued homogeneous neighborhoods where value ranges fall within a fairly tight range of size, age and condition, estimates from Zillow (or Zestimates as they call them), can be all over the map, sometimes grossly inaccurate.

Lately I’ve been experimenting with a new valuation tool that mashes up public data with actual Austin MLS sold data. This is called Value Map and is provided by our Austin MLS to its members. I have mine it set up at AustinValueMap.com because the default url is long and ugly.  It’s free, no signup required. And so far, I’m finding it to be surprisingly accurate, though of course not perfect. You can also sign up for alerts when a property similar to yours and within a two mile radius is sold. For some reason, though provided by our Austin MLS, you can type an address from anywhere in the U.S., not just Austin. Try it out, let me know what you think about the accuracy of the value for your property, even if you’re not in Austin.

Lending and appraisal companies seem to be trending toward automated valuation system. The Value Map product is used by banks and appraisers all over the country. It uses a proprietary algorithm to determine values. Often, when we sell a house, the bank trusts the value produced by this methodology and won’t even order a full appraisal, opting instead for a “drive by” appraisal, where an appraiser drives by to make sure the house is indeed there, but doesn’t go inside or perform the full appraisal. I think this is dumb.

On the other hand, though it might be inaccurate, the valuation tool won’t commit purposeful fraud, as many appraisers and lenders did during the most recent real estate boom. So it may be, from a bank/lender perspective, the benefit of fraud elimination outweighs the occasional over-appraising of a home. And probably, if the value is way off from the contract price, they’re going to order a full appraisal anyway.

But as a buyer or seller, will there ever come a day when you simply type in your address and it spits out the true market value of your home (what a buyer would pay)? No (except by coincidence), and here’s why.
Let’s take a 15 year old home in Circle C for example, like one we recently encouraged our buyers to walk away from after the inspection revealed over $20K in needed work.

This particular home had all original mechanical equipment, including the roof. One of the A/C systems had a coil leak and need replacement. The other was functioning ok but at the end of it’s useful life. Ductwork was deteriorating, the roof was baked (literally, from poor ventilation and design), and there was a basket of miscellaneous repairs on top of the big ticket stuff, such as original water heaters and appliances, plus more small stuff.

So, if you’re a buyer of a home in the 12 to 18 year old range, with all original equipment, you have to assume that you will be paying to replace all of that stuff very soon, and you thusly, it would be prudent to mentally add the cost of doing so to the price you’re paying so you can know what the home is really going to cost you. In the case of a 2500+ sqft home with two HVAC systems, roof, water heaters, some siding, we’re easily talking over $2oK to replace a roof and two A/C systems. If you don’t make adjustments to what your willing to pay, you will in fact be paying $20K too much for that home. On a $250K home, that’s more than 8% of your purchase price. Figuring it costs 8% to 10% of sales price to sell a home, if you buy the home in its depreciated condition, you’ll need to see almost 20% appreciation in value before you get to break even. Not a smart buy.

And since there is no valuation tool that can know the age and condition of the major component items of a home, there will NEVER be a valuation tool that can accurately predict market value of a home. Also unknown to a valuation tool are the “look and feel” attributes of a home and its surroundings. For example, two identical homes, same builder, same floorplan, two blocks apart, can easily sell for more than a 10% difference in price.

This could be, for example, because one home has all of the aforementioned component items updated and replaced and sits in a culdesac lot with trophy oak trees in the front and back yard backing to a greenbelt, while its identical twin two blocks away backs to a busy street, has a plain lot, no trees, and needs complete replacement of roof, HVAC systems, water heater and appliances. Add an updated kitchen with granite and stainless appliances to the first, and original outdated kitchen in the second, and these two homes will not be valued anywhere close to each other by ordinary buyers and experienced agents. But an automated valuation tool would spit out the same or similar values for each.

So while I think we will continue to see adoption of automated real estate valuation tools, and they’re fun to play with, if you really want to know what a house is worth, you have to go inside and have a look, have it inspected, and have a Realtor who knows the neighborhood run a CMA with appropriate age and attribute adjustments.

If you have a second, type in your address in the Austin Value Map and leave a comment here or otherwise let me let know how close it came to what you think your home is really worth. (NOTE: For homes currently listed for sale, it may return the list price value, which is sort of weird, but that’s what it seems to be doing)

I just wrapped up 5 days at SXSW Interactive. It was a fantastic conference with many great workshops, panels and discussion events related to technology, business, the internet and social networking. Much of it was relevant to the real estate business and small business in general, which surprised me.In fact, I attended two discussion workshops dedicated to real estate.

The first was “Making the Move from California to Austin“. Lots of good interaction, insight and questions regarding the differences between the larger California cities (the Bay Area in particular) and Austin. There were many Californians in attendance and it was fun to hear why so many feel drawn to make the move to Austin. I could say more, but that’s not the topic of this article.

The other real estate related event I attended was titled “Can Web 2.0 Kill the Real Estate Industry?“. This one surprised me because I actually got pretty worked up and steamed at how completely uniformed those are who dismiss the real estate agent as an obsolete, useless tour/taxi driver. It’s extremely irritating to listen to people who don’t know what they don’t know speak as if they know everything.

Interestingly, the folks in the audience who had actually purchased or sold a home recently defended real estate agents and said they greatly valued the services received. This sentiment is reflected in the internal surveys we sent our own clients after the close of each sale, which uniformly rate the experience as a very good one (whoa, I need to update that page on our site!).

Anyway, the discussion that took place stirred up some thoughts regarding my profession, what we do and how we are paid, and how the internet has changed things. Since I wasn’t able to fully make my points in a couple of short soundbites during the open discussion, I’m going to expand on my thoughts here.

So, with almost all MLS listings online and so much information available to real estate consumers nowadays, why is it that an agent is still needed? Why can’t we just be replaced by the internet? And, as one grouchy know-it-all complained about repeatedly, why should the listing data be controlled and disseminated only through private MLS Associations with strict rules on how the data is used and displayed online? Why isn’t all this MLS listing data free for the public to see and use?

I’m going to answer those questions, and others, by starting at the beginning – with the Seller.

Everything Begins With the Seller

Let’s say that Ms. Home Owner is happily living in Austin TX, working in an industry she loves, doing well, and one day she gets an unexpected job offer that will require her relocation out of state. The offer is too good to pass up, so she makes plans to move in two weeks and sell her house.

At this point, the house is not on the market. Ms. Home Owner considers keeping it as a rental, but she really doesn’t want to be a landlord. She’s busy preparing her move and getting ready for her new job. She has neither the time nor the expertise to sell her home on her own, and she doesn’t have any local family or friends who want to buy it. She decides to hire an Austin Realtor to list the home for sale so she can focus on other things.

The Realtor she hires is a member of the Austin MLS (Multiple Listing Service). Let’s take a quick look at what an MLS is. From the National Association of Realtors:

“In the late 1800s, real estate brokers regularly gathered at the offices of their local associations to share information about properties they were trying to sell. They agreed to compensate other brokers who helped sell those properties, and the first MLS was born, based on a fundamental principle that’s unique to organized real estate: Help me sell my inventory and I’ll help you sell yours.

From Wikipedia:

A Multiple Listing Service (MLS) is a suite of services that (1) enables brokers to establish contractual offers of compensation (among brokers); (2) facilitates cooperation with other broker participants; (3) accumulates and disseminates information to enable appraisals; (4) is a facility for the orderly correlation and dissemination of listing information to better serve broker’s clients, customers and the public.

A multiple listing service’s database and software is used by real estate brokers in real estate …representing sellers under a listing contract to widely share information about properties with other brokers who may represent potential buyers or wish to cooperate with a seller’s broker in finding a buyer for the property or asset. The listing data stored in a multiple listing service’s database is the proprietary information of the broker who has obtained a listing agreement with a property’s seller.

The Austin MLS is a Broker-to-Broker member service. An MLS listing is, in short, an offer from one Broker to another to bring a purchase offer. It was never meant to be a publicly advertised database. The internet obviously changed that. But still, the information, or “data”, contained in the MLS listing becomes the property of the Broker and the MLS once entered. The seller can, however, dictate to the listing agent certain parameters regarding the content of the data.

How Much Control Does a Seller Have Over her Listing Data ?

An MLS listing in Austin is required by MLS rules to have at least one photo. If a seller, for some reason, wanted to display only 1 photo, then the “data” would reflect the owner’s wishes. Likewise, many of the fields in an MLS listing can be left completely blank per MLS Rules. There are “Required” fields, and “Optional” fields. So, only a basic set of data is required to be present in an MLS listing.

Also, when entering an MLS listing, the agent can, if the owner wishes, say “No” to the check boxes asking Yes/No for inclusion in Realtor.com, AustinHomeSearch.com, or IDX Participation. (listings displayed on other agent’s websites). And, even if “Yes” is chosen for those other sites, the address can be withheld by selecting “No” for the “Address on Internet” field. The owner can instruct the listing agent in how all of this is handled.

In fact, if the seller so chooses, she can say “I don’t want it listed in the MLS at all, just find a buyer some other way”, and the listing would not even appear in the MLS or any of the aforementioned public websites. So, in this way, the Seller – the owner of the home the listing data describes – has full and complete control over that sales listing data and information from the start. If a seller somewhere doesn’t decide to sell, there is no data to begin with. The data belongs to nobody else without consent of the owner/seller.

Of course, as listing agents, we will want to include the listing in the Austin MLS with as many good photos as possible and as much information as we think appropriate to the sales and marketing effort. But the point I’m making is that the data about the home and the listing, and how it is used, is entirely controlled by the seller and her listing agent under the umbrella of the agent’s MLS Rules, should the agent and seller decide to include the listing in the Austin MLS. I recently sold a listing without the MLS, so not every home requires MLS or internet exposure to sell.

OK, So What’s the Point?

I lay this out so it might be easier to understand how stupid it is for some loudmouth knucklehead in a real estate discussion workshop to be talking about Ms. Seller’s home and it’s listing “data” as if  that information and data is public and belongs to him. And he’s angry he can’t have it. Some seem to believe that the MLS ought to be a public utility, containing data freely distributed to others to do with as they please.

But it’s the seller’s home and she alone can decide when to sell the home, whether to do it herself (FSBO) or hire and agent, whether to hire a full service or flat fee or reduced fee agent, where and how it will be marketed by that agent, how much information will be shared and how it will be shared, how the home will be shown, who can see the home, how they get in, when they get in, and even the financing terms and conditions she’s willing to consider.

Ms. Seller exercises this level of control by hiring a Realtor who belongs to an MLS which provides the framework and set of rules that facilitate this level of control. This level of control is good for the seller and the real estate industry. This system insures that the home will be marketed and sold under a pre-established set of rules and guidelines by agents who are subject to established standards and ethics and who use standard forms and processes to bring the transaction to successful fruition.

There are heavy fines and penalties for being sloppy with the data, or entering inaccurate MLS data. Appraisers and banks rely on the data to value homes. Your loan and/or your buyer’s loan depends on this system of valuation and the reliable data it prvides..

So when some loudmouth knucklehead in a real estate discussion workshop declares that Ms. Seller’s listing data, and that of the thousands of other sellers in Austin, and the U.S., ought to be his to plaster all over the internet in whatever form or fashion he thinks will be profitable to him (seller privacy be damned), and that he ought not have to disclose or display on his site who the listing Broker is because the listing Broker is irrelevant to the process (Broker merely obtained the listing), then I just have to shake my head and shout out loud, as I actually did in the workshop, “why do you think you deserve free use of this data when you’ve invested no money or time to create it?”.

Moochers have no free entitlement to this data, either free or paid, to use it in any manner not authorized by the seller and her Broker via MLS rules. It just ain’t no more complicated than that.

Listings Should all be Online with Buyer (Looker) Reviews

As if it wasn’t bizarre enough that “disruptors” think they should get free use of the listings procured through the efforts of Realtors, and that those same Realtors who should then be cut out of the process, there also arose discussion of the peculiar notion that all listings should be displayed online and subject to the “reviews” of buyers who have toured those homes. A sort of Yelp, or Trip Advisor for individual real estate listings.

Oh Jeez. Really? As a seller, do you want people who saw your home but didn’t want to buy it, or perhaps who made a low-ball offer that you rejected, going online and leaving anonymous comments about your home for other potential buyers to read? Do you? And there would be no limit to what they could say about your decorations, color choices, personal items, family photos, etc.

I ask, would that be beneficial to your sales effort? If so, how? Remember, these are people who saw your home but didn’t want it. Or maybe they haven’t seen your home at all, or don’t even live in your state, and have just taken up the hobby of commenting on the online photos of MLS listings. Perhaps they amuse themselves and their friends with snarky comments about your home.  To whom, I ask, is this “right” owed?

You should be frightened that there are data aggregation engineers/marketers who want to take the MLS data of your home for sale and put it out there on the internet to be used in this fashion. Luckily, the dues we pay as Realtors to our associations and MLS provide the funds to fight this sort of nonsense in court, and protect you, the seller, from having your privacy violated in this way. You just want your house sold, not to have your listing used in some Web 2.0 Social Commenting website, or to generate traffic and ad revenue for the sites who view your listing data and photos as a well to be tapped for their own purposes.

As a seller, I’d say to such an internet commenter, “you didn’t like my home? Fine. Shut up. Go find a home you do like and buy it, but don’t be making online comments about my home”. And I’d say something similar to the web surfers who think they might have valuable insight to offer about a home they’ve never seen.

This “Listing Review Functionality” is what the “Free MLSers” think would make things more helpful for buyers, so they could better evaluate properties, by, as one attendee put it, “leveraging crowd-sourcing technology” into the home search process. Oh brother.

With regard to this notion, as I listened to this gibberish, all I could think to myself was “my God, are individuals becoming incapable of evaluating their needs and making their own decisions without consent and ratification from anonymous internet masses”?

Are we, as a people, becoming so unsure of ourselves that we can’t assess our needs, evaluate our options and make decisions independent of anonymous reassurance from the internet?

Yes, I read car reviews. And I think gathering information is good, and listening to the opinions of others is valuable and helpful in many ways in life, including relocation and seeking a good neighborhood and home. But again, this goes back to the seller. It’s the Seller’s house and the seller has no obligation to subject herself, nor her sales listing, to the anonymous scrutiny of non-buyers on the internet. It’s just stupid to think that would benefit sellers in any way, and it’s the seller who controls the listing and the information, so it would have to be sellers, listing agents and our MLS who decide this would be ok.

Commissions and Uncompensated Effort – Are Realtors Paid Too Much?

Fiftyfour percent (54%) of the listings that departed the Austin MLS in January 2010 departed as failed sales efforts. They were either Expired or Withdrawn listings. Think of all the color fliers printed, the staging paid for, the virtual tours created, the time and effort expended by listing agents to acquire these 971 listings and enter them into the Austin MLS and market them at open houses and property tours. And not one penny was earned by any Realtor for all that effort. 971 homes, marketed for free, no commissions earned.

Let’s talk about all the buyers that didn’t buy in January but who were driven around and shown homes. We don’t have a way to track this with regard to number of showings, but the miles driven, gas burned, and time spent was all absorbed by Buyer Agents for zero compensation in January.

We don’t ask buyers to pay us up front. We don’t ask people to chip in for gas. Consultations are free. Our time is free. You can search for weeks, months, or years with an agent – FOR FREE.

This is the way the consumer wants it. Sellers don’t want to pay a commission or fee if the house doesn’t sell. Buyers don’t want to pay up front for the time and expense required to consult with them and show properties. Realtors only get paid at closing. We earn a “Success Fee”, if it were termed properly. In between each success fee is a whole bunch of uncompensated effort, which is ok with me, I’m not complaining. That’s the way our business and compensation is structured. It works for us.

But, as a Seller, when you see your Realtor’s commission of $9,000 on your settlement statement, you only think of it in terms of the amount you are paying and the work and effort you observed for the sale of your particular home. And sometimes it seems too much, especially on a quick sale, or if things went smoothly.

But the average agent nets 43% of Gross Commission Income (GCI) after expenses (per broad national agent survey conducted by Keller Williams Realty), so the agent really earned $3,870 net from that $9,000 the seller paid. From that $3,870 must still be paid self-employment income taxes, health insurance, and the cost and expense of all the aforementioned uncompensated efforts that are a required part of the business.

Where did the other $5,130 go? It was burned up paying dues, fees, commission splits, E&O insurance and the myriad expenses related to all of the efforts that didn’t result in a sale. The uncompensated efforts required to remain in business.

Yet the same loudmouth knucklehead in the discussion seminar who thinks all the MLS data should be his for free, to bastardize and put up on the internet for his profit, with all your house details Ms. Seller, to do with as he pleases … that same guy thinks Realtors are overpaid and don’t deserve the commissions we earn.

The Realtor Pay Perception Gap is easy to understand. You paid $9,000 to your Realtor, but he receives only $3870 net, before taxes and insurance.  Greater awareness of these financial realities would go a long way toward helping people understand what they are paying for when a commission is paid. In short, ask not what you paid your Realtor, ask what it costs for a good Realtor to remain in business so that he or she is available to you when you need her. If we could charge a deposit to every buyer and seller before lifting a finger, commissions could be cut in half. But the consumer doesn’t want it that way. Nobody is ever going to pay up-front fees. So our Realtor Commission system is exactly what the consumer wants it to be.

Online Rating Systems for Realtors and Homes

And the workshop discussion got even better. These guys (the I-Want-Free-MLS-Data-And-Realtors-Are-Paid_Too-Much people) think we need an online rating system for homes. As I pointed out to them, again, out loud in the workshop, “we already have a rating system for homes. It’s called Expired and Withdrawn Listings. That’s your rating system”.

The market rejects homes that buyers aren’t willing to buy under the prices, terms and conditions sellers are willing to accept. That’s simple, clean and pure. You don’t need to know what some internet moron thinks about the wallpaper, the neighborhood, or anything else. The home is either Active and available for purchase, Expired or Withdrawn, or SOLD.

If you like an available home, buy it. If you don’t keep looking. That’s your rating system. If the home you liked got bought by someone faster than you. That’s your rating system.

And these guys think we need Internet reviews for Realtors also, so Realtors can be rated so buyers and sellers can have more information to help them pick an agent. Well, we already have a really good rating system for Realtors too. It’s called “they didn’t last the first year”. It’s called “they haven’t sold a home in two years”.

It’s called an INTERVIEW, where you, as an intelligent individual ask simple questions such as, “how many homes have you sold in my area in the past 2 years”? Or, “how many buyers have you helped buy a home like the one I want, and what is your process for helping us make a good decision”? And you ask these questions of Realtors recommended by your friends, family, and co-workers. That’s your rating system.

Then you listen to the answers of 3 to 5 different agents, and you’ll know which one is right for you. A “Yelp for Realtors” can’t possibly provide you the high-touch, face to face information you can obtain by asking about 5 simple questions.

Instead, the average real estate consumer, 70% of them, selected their Realtor because he was the first one to respond to an email or phone inquiry. That’s it. Return your calls fast, and you’re deemed good enough to hire by the average real estate consumer. We are taught this at real estate seminars, and there are products available to enable us to be super fast responders. A rating system isn’t going to help the selection process given this reality. Consumer just have to get smarter in how they pick an agent, and stop allowing the bad ones to survive just because they respond to an email in 30 seconds.

So, Will Web 2.0 Render the Full Service Real Estate Agent Obsolete?

No, because Buyers still need to be driven around and shown properties and they still want good advice. The smart ones know that the good advice they want is best obtained from experienced agents who know the neighborhoods, the homes and the schools in the areas the buyer likes. Just ask Redfin why their “internet only” model failed and they now drive people around, just like the traditional agent always has. You can’t sell homes you know nothing about while sitting in front of a computer in a call center.

Sellers will always be too busy to want to self-market their homes. They will always want the aforementioned benefits provided by an MLS system. They will never collectively dump the tight reins and control of an MLS system for an Open Source internet listing service with no rules or protocols for controlling the data, showing the home, submitting offers, etc.

They will never want to deal directly with buyers and will always prefer a buffer between them and the buyer. They will always want and need guidance and advice with regard to home preparation, staging, contract negotiation, and the ancillary decisions and considerations that come with selling a home and moving. They will continue the value and benefits of a fiduciary relationship with a competent Listing Broker.

So, no, I don’t think the internet, or Web 2.0, is going to kill the real estate industry.

I’m day three of five into the SXSW Interactive “Festival” in Austin. Though I wasn’t at first certain that a convention like this would be a valuable use of time and money, I am now convinced it is, and I know exactly why I’m here.

I’m here because I want to gain insight into new and emerging technology and how we as humans, and business people, interact with that technology. Also, as a professional in an industry that has been chronically and predictably behind the curve and late to the party on almost all new and emerging internet technology, I can’t rely on real estate workshops and conventions to keep me up to speed. In a way, at this point in history, SXSW Interactive is more relevant to my real estate business than any real estate convention could be. It’s causing me to wonder if I shouldn’t attend more non-Realtor related educational opportunities.

So, below, are some initial observations and insights about my experience thus far.

SXSW Interactive Attendees Are Definitely in a Different Tech League than Realtors
The contrast is palpable. This is revealed in the level of conversation and discussion I am experiencing not only in the workshops, but also at the lunch table with people  I’ve met. I spoke for 30 minutes this morning with a guy launching a startup to better connect job seekers with jobs that match their needs. His niche concept is very interesting, and I thought it even more interesting that his business, like mine, is essentially one of matching people with a solution to their needs.

Yesterday I met and talked with an Image Consultant who helps star athletes and rising executives manage both their physical appearance and public perception. Where else would I run into this guy and get to hear about his business and the challenges he deals with? Like my business, his leads come almost entirely from internet search and personal referrals. So, even though our businesses solve entirely different problems, we are here for the same reasons.

The final, stark contrast between SXSW and a typical Real Estate Convention, is the energy level. SXSW is alive, edgy, very fast moving. The buzz can be felt. The F word is allowed, and used by more than one Panelist I’ve heard. Every day is something new. The people are energetic. The demographic is a bit older than I expected. Young, yes, but plenty of Baby Boomers too.

Also … how can I say this … the people here are smarter than your average real estate agent. A lot more intellectual and articulate. That is not to say there aren’t a lot of very smart real estate people. There are. But one doesn’t have to be intelligent, or even smart, to succeed in real estate.  You just have to do some basic stuff consistently. In fact, super brainy people usually don’t do well in real estate because they over-think and over-analyze things that don’t matter instead of focusing on the easy boring stuff.

So, summing up SXSW vs. Realtor Conventions in one word each: SXSW = Vibrant. Realtor = Placid.

Twitter isn’t Stupid – Nobody ever taught me how to really use Twitter, but I’m seeing it used in ways I did not know existed before. And I’m hearing it discussed in terms of being both a threat and an opportunity for various industries.

One example of a threat comes from the ability of people to start trash talking a business, not just through Twittter but on any Social Networking site, and having that bad news spread before the business even knows what’s going on. Southwest Airlines is an example of a company that recognizes this threat and therefore has dedicated staff monitoring Social Networking chatter so that a disgruntled customer might be identified and helped before harm is done by allowing the issue to spread like a virus. This all falls under the category of “Brand Reputation” protection, and Social Networking sites are the new playing field.

I’ve also learned more about something I have started to figure out on my own about Twitter. It started as a “what I’m doing right now” site, to which I properly wondered, “who cares what I’m doing?”, yet I nevertheless toyed with it and have in fact posted Tweets of me “eating at Rudy’s”, complete with a photo of my BBQ plate. How embarrassing is that?

Instead, over time, I learned on my own that a better business use of Twitter is as a tool to leverage traffic to our website and blog. So, if I write an article about the Austin real estate market, it’s a better use of Twitter for me to post a quick synopsis of the article with a link to the full article. That generates traffic and traffic results in leads. So, at SXSW, I’ve been able to confirm something I was already aware of but not sure about.

But the other thing I never knew about with Twitter is that it is a well used substitute for chatting with your neighbors during a workshop presentation and providing instant feedback to the panelists or moderators. Each workshop has a Twitter Hashtag specifically for that class. Attendees chatter and send messages and question to the panelists and moderator through this “back channel” communication medium. People at SXSW who are making tweets will include a SXSW Hashtag and thus their tweet will appear for someone following that. I was completely unaware of this before. Here is an example of a live feed of people tweeting at sxsw.

Cell Phone and Laptop Batteries are Inadequate for Tech Power Users
The people at SXSW are at once both impressive and pathetic. Never have I been amongst so many people so tethered/addicted to their laptops and handheld devices. It’s almost disturbing, yet still fascinating. The batteries on these devices don’t last an entire day without charging for these power users, and therefore we have an enormous number of “charging stations” (sponsered by Chevy) spread throughout the various venues.

I might not be as smart about technology as most of the attendees, but I was smart enough to buy a laptop with a 9 cell battery, which gives me a solid 6 hours of use – way more than I need here. I also turned off 3G on my iPhone and just use the SXSW WiFi for internet, so my phone lasts the entire day also. So in that way, I guess I’m ahead of the curve based on the number of people I see fretting over dead batteries and having to sit on the floor next to a charging device.

But I’m not sure what to make of the tech addicted demographic here. In a normal real estate workshop, it would be rude to be operating your iPhone during the presentation, or to have your laptop open doing stuff. At SXSW, it’s the norm. Everybody, everywhere is operating their laptop or handheld device at seemingly all times. I admit I’ve rather enjoyed exploring being able to do this in a place where it’s ok, and not considered rude. I’ve never hauled my laptop arounf with me at a conference, and I don’t really need it, but having it with me allows me to take a break and write this blog. This is simply a different, more tech device friendly education culture than I’ve even experienced.

At the Board of Realtors, if you are taking a TREC MCE class, it is strictly forbidden to operate a cell phone or even have it on your table. If you are caught, you can be kicked out of the classroom and lose your credit hours. So this is a very stark contrast to that learning culture. Very different.

That’s it for now. I’m off to the trade show for the first time to see the wares and hear the pitches.

At the urging of one of my more advanced Tech Guru friends, I am attending SXSW Interactive this year. Matter of fact, I’m here now, at the Convention Center, killing time before my first round of workshops this afternoon. This is the Tech portion of the now three-part SXSW Festival. The Music and Film portions are the other two.

So, what can a Realtor learn by rubbing elbows with a bunch of geeks and techies at SXSW? A lot, I hope. The business of real estate is now very much a technology occupation. Yes, the “people aspect” and the relationships we build and maintain are still the most important factors, but technology now more than every provides the frameworks and tools that support those relationships, as well as the deal tasks that we perform.

So, even though I remain dubious about most “Social Networking” hype, this blog being the exception, I’ll start off by attending a workshop entitled “Social Media Marketing for your Business“, where hopefully I’ll “Learn solid strategies, how to measure success, and all the tools you need to succeed in the fastest growing marketing medium on the web”.

Yeah, whatever. I’ve still never received a lead from any social networking source other than this blog, but I nevertheless feel it would be a mistake to ignore this topic, especially knowing that my 17 year old daughter and her friends (the future generation of real estate customers) don’t even use email or talk on the phone anymore.

Later I’ll attend a course titled “What are Analytics – A Guide to Practical Data“and hopefully learn to make better sense of and interpret the massive amount of web traffic data produced by the visitors to our website and their behavior once here. I can see the stats and data for our web traffic in Google Analytics, but other than taking note of the number of unique visitors, time on site, search terms that bring people here, and the most popular content pages, I have no diea what to do with the gazillion other pieces of information that get captured ,or if it’s even importat.

I haven’t decided on the third and last workshop for today. Some of the courses have somewhat edgy names, such as “How to not be a *Bonehead* at SWSX”. I substituted the word “Bonehead” in favor of the actual, more offensive pejorative that was used. But I submit if one needs to attend a class on how to make sure you’re not a “Bonehead”, your attendance at said class already makes you one. I think kindergarten level manners will suffice, so no instruction is necessary for this attendee.

Anyway, more to come if anything interesting comes of these next 5 days.

I opened my Gmail account this morning to see a new Label called “Buzz” just under my Inbox label. Hmmm. I clicked it and read the “Welcome” letter, spent a few more minutes looking into it at the Google Buzz site, Read the Google Blog about Buzz, watched a video about it (see bottom of this post),  then I immediately removed it from my email interface by performing the following task:

Click: Settings -> Labels -> Hide (next to the Buzz Label). Now the “Buzz” label is not visible from my Gmail interface.

Sorry Google. My Gmail interface is a productivity tool. I have a lot of stuff to get done. I pay you an annual fee for the extra storage space I need. I don’t want a bunch of new crap inserted into my inbox which will no doubt slow me down, distract my thinking and reduce my productivity.

It is with great diligence that I put the Labels and Filtering options in Gmail to use in order to keep stuff out of my face that I don’t want or need to see immediately, or at all. I don’t need a new Google Buzz Box providing an endless stream of the social goings on and digital mussing of the people in my Gmail contact database, which is currently at 2700+ and growing daily. If I want to know what people are doing, and I have time to waste, I have other ways of accomplishing that, such as visiting Facebook or surfing blogs.

The advertised features of Google Buzz are:
No setup needed – Automatically follow the people you email and chat with the most in Gmail.
SC: Yeah, I noticed that, and turned it off immediately. No thanks.

Share publicly or privately – Publish your ideas to the world or just to your closest friends.
SC: I’m trying to catch up on email, not share my ideas with the world.

Inbox integration – Comments get sent right to your inbox so it’s easy to keep the conversation going.
SC: No! Leave my inbox alone. I work hard keeping it at “zero”.

See updates in real time – New posts and comments pop in as they happen. No refresh required.
SC: Oh Dear God No! Don’t you get it? I’m trying to work and get stuff done. Leave me alone.

Just the good stuff – Buzz recommends interesting posts and weeds out ones you’re likely to skip.
SC: No. Don’t recommend anything to me. Stop bothering me. Go away, I’m working.

Maybe this is a knee-jerk reaction and I’ll gradually become aware of ways that Google Buzz can be utilized while remaining segregated from the focus and attention I need to maintain when in my “Email Office”. I just don’t feel like I need more social networking stuff foisted upon me at this point in life. Enough already.

Email Efficiency – Not Letting Email Run Your Life
At present, I have a systematic and specific way that I deal with email. My routine is a result of reading about how others deal with high-volume email and adopting those various ideas and concepts. If you recognize some of these ideas, you’ll know they are not my inventions. I borrowed them all. If you constantly feel overwhelmed by email, and are guilty of letting things slip through the cracks because they fall off your radar, the following routine is what helps me stay on top of (or quickly dispense with) the 200-300 emails that come at me each day. Here’s what I do.

First, let’s start with the list of things that need to happen with an email you receive. The list is rather small actually, which should give comfort. There are only 5 things that can result from an email I receive:

1) Delete/Archive – this is the most common. These don’t even get read.
2) Reply Immediately – stuff like “got it”, or “thanks, see you then”, etc.
3) Reply later – will take longer than 1 minute, or requires research or some thinking first.
4) Forward – send to someone else to handle.
5) Create a To Do, or Task – Something needs to get done, like call a plumber, an appraiser, set an appointment, find something and send, etc.

That’s it. I defy you to send an email to me that won’t be handled in one of the above 5 ways. You can’t do it. There is nothing else I can do with an email outside that universe of 5 things. Knowing this helps construct the email management framework that Gmail so brilliantly enables and facilitates.

Use Labels: I have many different “Labels” (or Folders in Outlook terminology) into which I either manually move emails or, better yet, into which they are filtered automatically. The main productivity labels I use are “Reply”, “To Do”, Followup”, “Print” and “Call”. The benefit of Labels over Folders is that an email can have multiple labels assigned to it. For example, if I receive an attachment I need to sign and return, that would get tagged as “Print” and “To Do”.

So, if I haven’t deleted or responded immediately, or forwarded an email (usually to Sylvia to handle), it will instead be immediately moved out of my inbox and into one or more of the “Reply”, “To Do”, “Call”, or “Print” boxes. Each day, more than once a day, I clean out my inbox and take it, literally, to zero emails. This is version of Merlin Mann’s “Inbox Zero” concept, which borrows a lot from David Allens GTD – “Getting Things Done” concepts.

Next, I “process to zero”, when possible, the Label folders. That means I click on my Reply Label and start plucking those responses off one by one until I have none left. They get “unlabeled” as I go. Next I go through my “Call” label and make those phone calls. Same with the Print, To Do, and Task lists.

The Followup label can hold both received and sent emails. These are generally things awaiting response or outcome that I don’t want to forget about. For example, if I ask my roofer to go provide a bid on a house, I email him the info and then label the email as “Followup” so I won’t forget to check back with him in case I don’t hear back in a day or two. Once I do, I remove the Followup label.

Make sense? And yes, the labels get filled and clogged and I’m not always able to clear my Reply box in one sitting or get my To Do tasks done. Often it’s email triage, dealing with the more important or time sensitive matters first. It’s only during the slowest times that I can accomplish Zero status on all labels, but this system ensures that nothing is forgotten.

Use Filters – Gmail has powerful filtering capabilities that allow certain emails to be filtered automatically and moved to a Label without ever appearing in the Inbox. This is an amazing productivity tool and method of keeping non-urgent emails away from your eyeballs.

For example, I have a Label called “Facebook” and I have a Gmail filter that sends all emails from Facebook directly into the Facebook Label, thus skipping the inbox and not cluttering my productivity with Facebook junk. I never see these facebook emails until I make the decision to scan through them en masse. When I so choose, I will click the Facebook Label and go into “facebook mode” for 10 or 15 minutes, and dispense with the Facebook related stuff inside a specific time frame and within a specific mindset. Usually late at night during “off” hours, though not always. Then it’s back to work.

I have dozens of such filters. One catches all the Realtor newsletters and info that will never be urgent or require my immediate attention, but through which I like to scan and read every day or two so I can stay up to date on what’s going on in my industry. But I don’t need nor do I allow that news to interrupt my day by appearing in my inbox at random times.

Hopefully this helps explain my knee jerk reaction to Google Buzz showing up unannounced, without invitation, to my Inbox Party. I ask just two questions when I see something like Google Buzz:
1) Will it make more more productive and efficient, or will it waste my time?
2) Will it generate more leads? That is, will it help me connect and/or stay connected in a meaningful, non-intrusive way with past and future clients who I’d like to do future business with?

The answer to #1 is clear. It’s a new way to waste time.

The answer to #2 is “I don’t know yet”.

I’ll set aside time and look into it further down the road. For now, other, more geeky people can be the “early adopters” , make assessments and write about it. But Google Buzz seems to me at first glance just one more thing to nourish and foster what has become an ADHD society ever more immersed in digital media and ever more addicted to useless, instant tidbit information from people we don’t know, or barely know, or don’t care about, regarding stuff that doesn’t matter.

Below is a YouTube Video explaining what you can do with Google Buzz.

Sylvia and I have now migrated from desktop computers to full-time laptops. I was a bit worried about doing this, giving up nice big monitors for smaller laptop screens, but so far it’s working out really well and neither of us are noticing any impairment or difference in our ability to accomplish computer related tasks.

I purchased each of us a Dell Studio 1555. This model was well reviewed and I picked mine up at Costco for almost $300 less than the Dell online price. I wanted to buy and use mine for a while before getting the second one, just in case. After giving it a thorough test drive, the Studio 1555 performed like a champ, so I ordered the identical model for Sylvia, getting hers for free by cashing in Thank You Points that had accumulated through use of our CitiBank Visa. (My accidental discovery of the existence of this trove of almost 20,000 accumulated Thank You points would be a good topic for another day – bottom line, if you download all your credit card expenses straight into Quicken, still take a look at the actual paper statement at least every year or so).

Benefits of Laptop vs. Desktop

1) More work space on desk, less wires.

With the desktops, I had various cords and plugs, speaker wires, speakers, power cords, etc. running to a battery backup power center. It all took up a lot of space, used a lot of plugs and collected a lot of dust. With the laptop, I have one power cable plugged into the side of the laptop, and a usb plugged in for syncing/charging the iPhone. That’s it. The cordless usb mouse tops it off. No speakers, no monitor, no full size keyboard. I don’t even plug in the network cord because the wireless internet speed is plenty fast. Don’t even need the battery backup because with the larger 9 cell batteries, the laptops will run 8 hours unplugged. I feel more organized and less cramped at my workspace with the smaller form factor of the laptop, which provides a psychological benefit.

2) Quieter, no excess heat

The desktops use to do two things that really bugged me. First would be the groaning of the systems when they’d rev up for various unknown reasons at various times and run loud. Second would be the heat they put off, which made our office hot, especially in the summer, though not really a problem in the winter.

The laptops on the other hand go into sleep and then hibernation status when not used, make hardly any noise at all even during use, and produce no noticable heat, except a slight amount directly above the keyboards if used for a while. I will not miss that revved up groaning sound of the desktops. It was very annoying to me. I feel like I can think better without that sound droning in the back ground. I had even taken both desktops for evaluation, increased the memory, cleaned up the startup and background programs, and still was unable to stop the high rev sounds or get them to sleep and hibernate properly without freezing up, so the laptops are a much welcomed quiet replacement.

3) Everything in one place, and portable

With the desktops, I also had to have a laptop for travel and working outside the office. That represented additional computers to take care of and keep updated. Now one computer does it all for each of us. This afternoon when it was time to take my daughter to volleyball practice, I closed the lid on the laptop, unplugged the power cord, dropped it into my bag, and left. When I opened it later at Starbucks (where I work during daughter’s 2 hour volleyball practices twice a week), all my work was there, in 1 second, in the same browser windows as before, and I just had to log into the AT&T Wireless at Starbucks and continue where I left off. Before, I’d have to start over in the laptop browser, navigate to whatever I was working on and had saved online, then start again. This new functionality is a real time saver, especially since I work on the go so much.

4) Cheaper and easier to maintain and repair

Even though these systems are warrantied by Dell for 2 years, if I have any minor glitches or problems I’ll most likely head straight to Mr. Notebook on W 24th Street for a quick, free walk-in diagnosis. I’ve bought two laptops from these guys in the past and have had several repairs and upgrades performed on my three previous laptops. It’s like night and day compared to hauling a desktop computer into a Best Buy or elsewhere.

Aside from the physical effort difference of not having to unplug and disconnect the entire system first, I like having a local resource that specializes in Dell Laptops and can perform upgrades and repairs quickly for a fair price. It’s like having a trusted mechanic for your car who you always rely on.

What About Theft or Losing a Laptop?

The systems are password protected and backed up. There is nothing on my laptop that can’t be accessed and/or restored from any computer. But a laptop is easier to steal than a desktop, so this is something worth being aware of. It’s also easier to drop and break, for obvious reasons, though Sylvia doesn’t haul hers around as much as I do mine.

What Online Software and Tools does the Crossland Team use?

Almost everything we do now is web based. We are approaching the point where we almost have no desktop software to keep or maintain anymore. Here is a list of what Sylvia and I use for work and productivity.

Gmail and Google Calendar.

We migrated to these a couple of years ago now. I can’t imagine living without Google Calendar. It allows Sylvia and I to see and edit each other’s calendars, and have our calendars available anytime, anywhere through our iPhones.

Gmail, if used properly with labels and message filtering, is an extremely powerful productivity tool for those of us who have to deal with more email than we can handle. I’d no sooner go back to a desktop bound MS Outlook than I would drive clients around in a 1982 Olds Delta 88 with 8-track tapes. Gmail is also available real time, anytime, anywhere, on my iPhone when I’m not near a computer.

Google Docs

Google Docs still isn’t quite there yet for us, but I’m slowly starting to ease into it, migrating a few forms and docs at a time. I wanted to mention it as a tag along to Gmail and Google Calendar though. It still has some shortcomings but I think eventually it will supplant MS Office, which we rarely use because we don’t type and mail actual letters to anyone anymore, except in rare instances. Instead we email. Mostly we have boilerplate forms and docs that need to be printed out occassionally, and Google Docs can handle most of those as long as the formatting is kept simple.

Microsoft Live Sync

Sylvia and I keep our docs in two windows folders on our desktops, “Work Files” and “Real Estate”. If I’m at Starbucks and save a document, offer, etc., in a folder on my computer, it is instantly synced to Sylvia’s computer and available to her within seconds, and also synced to a backup computer. This is accomplished using the free Microsoft product Windows Live Sync (formerly FolderShare). So whether I’m in the office, out of the office, out of state, in a hotel across country, my folder directory always contains the current files I need (provided the laptop computer has been on and connected since last saved file, otherwise it will re-sync at next startup).This is much better than the old system we used, where a folder on one desktop computer would be used as a network file server.

Zip Forms Online

When we need to write a contract, that’s all handled in an online Realtor product, replacing the desktop version we use to use. The problem with the desktop version was it didn’t sync between computers, so an offer that needed to be edited on Sylvia’s computer was unavailable on mine, and vice versa. Now everything is in one location at Zip Forms Online, which is also a “free” product to Realtors, covered by our dues.

AllClients Contact Manager

We use a simple online contact management system called AllClients to keep track of our contacts and past clients. We recently migrated to this system, dumping the horrendously over priced, slow and bloated Top Producer. All Clients costs $21.95/mo and it’s simple to use and accessible from the iPhone. Top Producer was $80/mo, difficult to use and non-functional/useless from the iPhone. Good riddance Top Producer, hello AllClients. Now if I need to reach a client or contact, I can pull up the name and number from any computer anywhere, or my iPhone.

WordPress

Our website and Blog is run entirely on the free WordPress software. Gone are Front Page and DreamWeaver desktop software, which I used to build our websites in the old days. All I need is a web browser to edit and make changes to the website.

Fax to Email

We haven’t had a paper fax print off a fax machine in over 5 years. All faxes come directly into email as a pdf attachment, where we can view, delete, save or foward easily. This service is through Top Answer Communications. Fax to email, service for unlimited faxes and no per page fees (much better and cheaper than eFax)  is $9.95/mo.

That covers about 95% of what we use and do on a daily basis.

If you’ve been thinking of untangling that dustball of wiring under or beside your desk, and hauling that old desktop and monitor out of your office and replacing it with a simple, elegant laptop instead, I think it’s a move worth making. That, combined with some free or cheap online products, will make your work life more simple and hassle free.

Anyone who spends a lot of time looking for addresses knows that the GPS systems and various online mapping softwares have errors and omissions. Newer neighborhoods, even those 3 or 4 years old, often don’t appear in GPS systems. Google Maps often doesn’t have these addresses either. Or my favorite, the GPS systems show streets that don’t exists such as the one a block away from me which would send a driver right through someone’s house because the GPS thinks the street connects through to the next block. As Austin Realtors, we encounter this anomolies much more often than the average person, and we know that most mapping systems, though generally reliable, are not 100% trustworthy.

My own home address is messed up. Granada Oaks was platted in the early 1980s, Then the eighties real estate bust happened, the subdivision went into foreclosure with the Resolution Trust Corporation, was eventually purchased by a single individual in the late 1980s, then purchased by a developer in 2005. My street was named “Sisquoc” in the original plat. The builder and developer thought “Sisquoc” was too hard to say and spell, so it was changed through formal process with Travis County to “San Lucas”.

The result of this is whenever someone is going to have to find our house, such as guests, a UPS driver, repairmen, etc., I have to go through a certain “how to find my house script” when providing the address. It goes something like this:

“The street name is San Lucas, and that’s what it says on the street sign, but if you’re going to using a GPS or mapping software, you have to use the street name ‘Sisquoc’ because that was the original name before it was changed to San Lucas, and none of the GPS or mapping software have the updated name”

What a hassle. I get tired of saying all this. So the other day, I decided to use the “Report a Problem” link at the bottom right of the Google Maps page. I clicked it and send the following message:

Dear Google Maps,

The street name “Sisquoc” was changed to “San Lucas” by Travis County. I live on San Lucas. It’s always hard for people to find us because the address doesn’t come up in GPS or map systems. Please let me know what info you’d need to verify the correct street name and I will assist if needed. The name change is recorded at Travis County.

Of course I assumed this would disappear into a black hole and result in nothing. After all, there are not actual humans at Google who read things and respond, are there? Are they not like a Borg Mother Ship? A collective hive of workers, but nobody specifically or individually there to respond to an email from a peon like like me about a bad map address? This was my assumption.

So I was much surprised to receive the following reply from Google in less than 48 hours.

Hi Steve,

Your Google Maps problem report has been reviewed, and you were right! We’ll update the map within a month and email you when you can see the change.

OK, so this causes a paradigm shift for me. The above message appears to have been written by a real human. It looks like they actually read my email. And they used my name in addressing me. And they agree with my problem and are going to fix it! I’m just not sure what to make of this, but I’m happy about it. Especially since I pay nothing to use Google Maps, nor do you.

So, if Google Maps shows a street running through your house, or your street is not on the map, or is spelled wrong, etc., go to Google Maps, navigate to the position in question, and then click the Report a Problem link at the bottom right of your screen. Perhaps your result will be similar to mine and people will someday be able to find your house using your address.

This information is from the Real Estate Center at Texas A/M newsletter. Tells what we already know, but I think the stats are interesting.

Texas metros, led by number one Austin–Round Rock, claimed four of the top five spots and nine of the top 16 in the 2009 Milken Institute/Greenstreet Real Estate Partners Best-Performing Cities Index.

Also making the list were Killeen–Temple–Fort Hood (2), McAllen-Edinburg-Mission (4), Houston–Sugar Land–Baytown (5), San Antonio (11), Fort Worth–Arlington (12), Dallas-Plano-Irving (13), El Paso (14) and Corpus Christi (16).

Austin–Round Rock was the first metro to ever be ranked number one twice on the index, the last time being in 2000.

But it doesn’t stop there. Nine other Texas metros made the top 25 out of the 124 smallest metros that were studied.

Those were Midland (1), Longview (2), Tyler (4), Odessa (5), College Station–Bryan (14), Texarkana (17), Waco (18), Laredo (20) and Abilene (21).

Leaders in this year’s index, which ranks U.S. metros based on their ability to create and sustain jobs, are all metros that succeeded in avoiding the worst of economic declines driven by falling housing markets and job losses in manufacturing and global trade.

Regional economic factors also strongly influenced the rankings this year, with the oil and gas sector, technology and alternative energy providing stability among metros in Texas, North Carolina, Washington and Louisiana.

Another factor helping Texas metros move up in the rankings is the state’s favorable business climate and its ability to attract jobs and corporations away from higher-cost states.

One thing a lot of people may not realize is how business friendly Texas is compared to other states. This is why we enjoy the inbound migration of so many businesses fleeing places like California, where regulation and high taxes are increasingly burdensome to business owners and employers. So, while things are a bit sluggish overall in Texas and Austin, we are doing comparatively well compared to other regions.