From the Department of Homeland Stupidity comes the newly formed Department of Bailouts.  Is there now a sufficient level of converting the United States into a socialist economy for the New Regime President (aka, Treasury Secretary Paulson) to feel that his work is done?

But the above isn’t my special area of expertise.  Showing fellow agents how to have a truly successful business is what I am known for.  And I find it funny (odd?) when I read something that directly contradicts what I know to be true on that particular subject.  It certainly isn’t the first time I’ve seen, "getting listings is no longer the best way to go" - just the first time I’ve seen it from someone I respect as much as I respect Brian Brady.  He wrote:

Thirty years ago, the mantra “listers last” was all important advice to a new real estate agent.  Today, inventory has been democratized through the IDX search on a website.   Open houses then, are a good time to work on your SEO.  A REALTOR who controls the SERPS rather than the inventory should profit best from this buyer-centric market.

Okay, fine.  But can anyone name even four or five TOP AGENTS who have buyer based businesses?  I personally know a couple of them.  But I don’t know of any top agent who has had a buyer based (as opposed to a listings based) business who did it for 3 - 4 consecutive years.  Can an agent attract buyers via the internet?  Absolutely.  Can it be done at a level so great that the lead agent (rainmaker) hires many many many buyer agents to handle the load?  Again, the answer is a confirmed yes.  However, the web traffic - at that level - isn’t normally achieved through SEO but pay per click.  All of the huge buyer based operations I know of in the U.S. use PPC to attract the traffic.  Not saying SEO doesn’t enter into it but the bulk of it is PPC.

How many of them have done it or will be able to maintain their performance level for even three years?  I can’t say, as it (at least to my knowledge) hasn’t ever been done for that long.  Which is my main point.  Almost all top agents have a listings based business.  I am not saying this because I have a listings based business, I am saying it because that is what I found when I went looking at the profiles and the patterns of top agents.  What I observed is what caused me to decide to take the path I took - become a lister.  I have never seen any confirmed data (vs opinions)that contradicts that.

There is nothing I am writing here that suggests that selling homes to buyers (as we need at least one for every listing!) is bad or should not be done.  Oddly, by accident, I am one of the leading buyer side agents (based on number of sales) in the Phoenix market.  I discovered that odd fact a little over a year ago.  I had been working for years to find out what the "top buyer agents" were doing so I could start doing it too.  Once I realized that I wasn’t way behind everyone else but ahead of most everyone I stopped trying to "discover" what I must already know.  Our buyer sides came about as a result of marketing our listings.  Period.  Just doing the things that should be done to properly market a listing produced buyer deals.  Lots of them.

An interesting post I came across about a month ago was over at the always-worth-reading, Notorious R.O.B.  There was a discussion regarding possible violation of a listing agent’s fiduciary duty to have their listings on Zillow, Trulia, etc.  Seems several different lawyers were of the opinion that it could possibly violate a listing agent’s duty to his seller.  I disagree.  Completely.  From my comments to that post on Rob Hahn’s site:

There will always be plaintiffs and lawyers litigating for various reasons. I can not say any lawsuit over which websites a listing was posted on should not occur. I can say that any lawsuit brought for those reasons is without merit. It would have be based on the (erroneous) premise that inquiries from those various sites actually directly helped or caused a home to sell.

The top national site for traffic is Realtor.com. I currently pay about $4,000 a year to “enhance” my listings. There was a time that every 20 leads from Realtor.com equaled a closed escrow on *a* home. Seldom the one they inquired about. Now, the *only* reason I am on Realtor.com is to be able to say to our sellers that “we feature your home on Realtor.com”. That is the ONLY reason. In the past four years, I have never sold a listing because it was on Realtor.com, Trulia, Zillow or any of the other sites. I have sold homes to buyers because we received an email lead because we have a lot of listings on those sites. Big difference.

If you are wanting buyer leads those sites may or may not be good. If you want to “impress” your sellers, they can be very good. If you want to actually sell that house I don’t see that they make *any* difference.

All of my listings are on all of the important sites.  We do receive some inquiries from nearly all of them and some of those inquiries can become actual leads where we make a sale.  I’m not convinced that today’s "internet lead" is much different than the "ad call" of twenty-five years ago.  The best data I had at the time was it took about 400 calls (on the average) regarding a particular home to physically sell that home to that buyer.  If you only have a few listings and sometimes sell one it can seem like it does not take that many.  Get a few thousand and keep track of them and you see a different picture.  If this were not true I suspect that most of us would be out of a job - as most sellers could just run an ad (or today, get "internet leads") and sell their own home.

My main points in this post are:

1. Listings were, are and will continue to be the very best method of having a stable real estate practice.

2. There are huge amounts of fantastic nonsense available from lots of different places regarding what is necessary to sell homes.

3.  People who can’t see clearly will continue to disagree with point # 1 and therefore continue to attempt to sell the nonsense mentioned in point # 2 as essential.

Nonsense.

This post is in response to my last one.  I had no idea it would be so well received.   Having surveyed only myself, to me it was a post I tossed off.  This post consists of the responses to the questions and points raised.

I want an iRuss also! A mini iPod crammed full of Russell Shaw podcasts and videos… You know, there could be some $$ that idea…

Go to this page and load yours up.  Scroll down to the lower half for the audio and video content.

sometimes as we are at the appointment, we learn about things that cause us to NOT take the listing. Honestly, it is more us not TAKING it than us not GETTING it. My business plan does not allow me to take a listing that is overpriced or in a condition (physically/financially/emotionally … ) where I do not think that I can do the BEST by my seller clients.

I believe the information here is the most important, most vital, high impact information there is for stable success.  Here is one of the sample emails I send out every month to invite agents in the Phoenix area to one of the talks that I give every month.  There are four different talks that I give and at the end of the 4th month I start over with talk number one.  Since April of last year I have given one of these talks to over 1,200 agents, at about 15 agents at a time (that is a lot of talks:-)

1. Did you discover new reasons to turn down a new listing?

2. Was there an area harboring more than their share of unsold listings?

3. Was there a pattern showing numbers of bedrooms/bathrooms (or other physical attributes or lack thereof) being shunned by buyers?

4. Was there a particular (and discernible) seller mindset hindering the sales process?

5. Was there an area/neighborhood which was, for some reason, consistently listed over market value?

We don’t have new reasons to turn down a listing.  We have the same reasons we have always had: bad seller or a bad price.  If the seller exhibits a majority of  the 12 characteristics covered here I don’t want their business at any price.  Even if a “nice” person, it is necessary for them to price the house at or below the water line.  Once we can see we are fishing with our bait out of water we must get the price lower.  Sellers who can’t or won’t reduce have a listing that isn’t going to sell.  Therefore, they cancel or we do.  There is always some price point at which it would sell, in any market.  If they are really serious, we can and will find that point.

I often hear remarks from agents like, “the bank sold that house really cheap - 30% below market value”.  I don’t agree with that kind of statement.  If various banks are the only sellers selling in an area and they are selling all of their houses at a perceived “below market” sales price - perhaps that IS the market for that product in that area.  A good price fixes any of the various bad conditions.  There is no good reason to take (or keep) a listing that isn’t going to sell.

Speaking of keeping records, what does a Millionaire Real Estate Agent use to do just that?

We use Agent Office for our transactions, ACT for all of our names and addresses, etc., and Excel to keep the production numbers. 

Pricing is a crap shoot and we don’t get the list price until it hits the market and that’s well into the process. Sometimes they’re priced well right off the bat, sometimes they’re not. If they don’t sell, the bank keeps lowering the prices until they do, so that’s not such a big deal.

Correct, pricing IS a crap shoot.  This is true in both a rising and in a declining market.  In a stable or slowly rising market (like we used to have before 2005 when we could use “comps”) we all pretty much knew how to price a property.  Now we really are guessing.  Sometimes pretty good guessing and it seems currently to be as much an art as a science.  That will only be true until the market stabilizes and then it will only be the super high end and unique homes that it will still be an art to correctly price.  Now it is most homes in our area.

And from this jewel, this:

Whatever it is, people are on edge. Have you noticed?

Yes, I have.  Many people in our industry have been very very stressed.  Everyone has stress points. Everyone.   No matter how easily any given person confronts and handles situations that make others marvel at their ability, that person has something they don’t easily confront.  That thing or situation is then capable of causing them stress. They are transmitting those feelings to pretty much everyone they come into contact with and those people in turn are passing that energy along to others, etc.  People are calm and relaxed when they feel they can confidently predict what is going to occur - what is about to happen.  When their prediction goes out there goes their certainty.  Once certainty is gone it doesn’t take much to then feel stressed. 

What is “stress” but too much environment pushing against the person than there is of the person to push back?  When there is enough of “I” (you) there to push back at whatever is pushing - no problem.  A big cut in income alone is usually enough to cause most to be on edge nonstop.  When a person feels out of control of a situation the very best thing they can do is to deal exclusively in certainties.  What do you know is true?  What is for sure?  Concentrate on those things.  Look around and find other things and ideas that you are certain are true.  When you see something you are not certain of - recognize that fact.  Don’t pretend to know things you don’t know - if you aren’t certain (based on direct observation) know that you don’t know it.  That not knowing is - in itself - a form of certainty.

When you are not feeling “up” recognize that fact.  There are things you experience in your life that bring you up.  Take a walk, call a friend, eat something you like, buy some new shoes, whatever gives you a “lift”. What are those activities for you?  Make a list (lists?) of them.  Really.  Write down fun stuff you like doing.  Things that are simply fun and make you happy.  If possible, make it a point to do some of those things every day.  You want something that will help you have a better business?  Get in a good mood and then make your business decisions.

This is something I have wanted to have for a couple of years.  Finally it is something that is "done".  Done is a relative word, as I will continue to add news posts to that page.  But at long last, all of the relevant posts and relevant audio and video (relevant to getting and getting rid of listings) is all accessible on ONE page.

It took me several hours of pecking around to find them all (as I knew it would) but now anybody landing here can have full access to that material.  I won’t be surprised if I wind up sending more traffic to Bloodhound having left than I did while I was an active contributor there.

This is my first "official" post on this blog.  Welcome!