"Think Different"

Do you remember the old Apple advertising campaign "Think Different"? Maybe you'll remember when you see it...




Does this bring back any memories for you? It certainly does for me.

I remember a time when I felt that I could really make a difference in the world. And so it was with high hopes, high energy and a shipload of hope, I entered the workforce. But, somewhere along the way, I got sidetracked. Did you?

Well it's not too late...



What do you think? Are you ready to begin again? Are you ready to make a difference? Are you ready to become the person you were meant to be?

Join me!

A New Way To Look At Marketing

I thought I'd start this week with a brief video I discovered on the web. It describes the way Coors does marketing. The message here is that you should look for ... well ... you'll just have to watch the 3 minute video ;)




We need to really look after our clients. Because clients are demanding, knowledgeable and increasingly sophisticated. How are you looking at the market's unarticulated needs and unconscious behaviors? Are you looking?

Let me know what you think.

What's A Good "Buyer's Agent"?

As an MLS professional, I have the privilege of working with many brokers and agents in the Silicon Valley. The real estate professional's ideal situation is one in which they have a listing (that is, they represent the seller) and they can also represent a buyer who wants that same house. This "double-ending" practice can cause potential conflicts of interest. While CAR has forms which agents must complete to disclose this type of transaction, a buyer may not understand what this means.

With that caveat, as a buyer I'd like to list a few things that I would request of an agent representing me.

First and foremost, this is not a "deal". I don't buy houses for a living so I'm probably not experienced in this type of transaction. This is one of the most important personal and financial decisions I can make. If you're more interested in "closing escrow" than in representing me, then you should take the opportunity to bring in partner who can assist me.

As a buyer's agent I'm looking for you to oversee:
• create a comparative market analysis for my potential new home
• explain to me the market conditions and the neighborhood conditions
• all deadlines in the contract
• all inspections, including home and pest inspections
• the appraisals (and be able to discuss with me the reasons for the valuation)

Additionally, I want you to help me with:
• identifying my needs in a new home. (In fact, if you have a method for doing that, you'd get bonus points!)
• scheduling property showings
• get me the latest new listings to me electronically: via email, text message and cell phone.
• getting additional listing information from listing agents (e.g., seller's disclosures)

You should also:
• help me find the right mortgage company
• sit with me and the mortgage broker to explain the mortgage commitments
• prepare a Comparative Market Analysis (CMA)
• explain to me in plain terms, what a CMA is, why you selected the properties in the report and how this affects the offer WE will make)
• review home inspection reports with me
• assisting me in presenting repair lists for sellers
• negotiate for me on all of these issues.

I know this is a lot of activity, but I'm paying for this experience.

For agents out there, it will be interesting to hear your opinion. For consumers, I'd definitely like your opinion.

Raising the Bar

I have the great fortune to be able to work with many real estate professionals. My job is to reach out and support them from an MLS perspective. In the past, that meant explaining how to use our particular flavor of a search engine software. However, my passion is to provide them with the tools, techniques and education to become better practitioners - people who can connect to their clients and are willing to "do what is right" even when it sometimes is not as profitable for themselves.

To "do what is right" may take a lot of soul searching. In the February 9th issue of Inman News, Kris Berg, broker-owner of San Diego Castles Realty, wrote an article: "The Weakest Link in Real Estate". In that article, she identifies the weakest link: the weakest, least competent agent." For now, I'd like to quote from Kris' article:

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Sure, as real estate agents we are regulated. We are tested, we are licensed, and we are thumb-printed. Now in California, our license numbers must appear on all of our "first point of contact" marketing materials as a nod to the concept of consumer protection, but not until June. (I guess it takes time to implement such bold, sweeping changes.) And then we are set free to roam the earth and do whatever we please in whatever way we might wish under the banner ad of delivering the American dream.

So far so good, but this is where everything becomes backwards. The familiar employer-employee relationship is replaced with an industry of anarchy. Brokers may control the boardroom, but the licensees are calling the shots. The 1099 system turns the food chain on its head. Agents have been compared to plankton feeding a sea of bigger fish -- brokers, technology companies, and a long list of settlement and other service providers -- but agents are really the hunters and gatherers (or as some might call us, the predators) upon which an entire industry relies for their share of the spoils. And it is ultimately the licensees who are making this bed in which we all must lie.

The traditional brokerages are partly to blame, certainly. We are entrenched in a backwards system of agents interviewing and hiring their "employers," and the agent's choices are limitless. The brokerages make money because of the work that their agents do, and the temptation is simply too great to strip-mine a licensed populace in the pursuit of a few, shiny diamonds. Yet it is ultimately the work of each agent that reflects on every other agent and on the entire industry.

I have spent many hours on the "higher barriers to entry" bandwagon, and rest assured that I am still occupying my seat. Argue that the free market will weed out the less adept, but I seem to recall having heard that argument before. Oh yes, the banking system. And Wall Street.

It's much more than just an issue of licensing standards. Once crowned "licensee," no minimum standards exist for job performance. There are no annual reviews, no measures for excellence other than the production board, and few consequences for bad behavior. I run a small brokerage, but I am not a corporate muckety-muck. I am first and foremost a working agent, the first point of contact, and the things I see daily from my vantage point beneath the rhetoric and on the ground continue to amaze. I see many stellar agents who hold themselves to the highest standards even while their brokers don't, but we are all only as strong as the weakest. Tough times bring out not only the best but the worst in people, and I am seeing more of the worst lately, ranging from gray-area ethical breaches to huge storm clouds of malpractice and incompetence.

Common sense can't be regulated, of course, and ethics, being subjective, can't truly be prescribed in check-list form. Laziness is not a crime, and excellence will always be measured on a sliding scale of consumer expectations. But by leaving 3 million little businesses largely unmanaged, unchecked and unaccountable, we continue a dangerous precedent.

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Kris' article hints at the heart of how to improve the real estate industry:

• To train every agent to be their own CEO
• To demand that every agent's business activities be transparent, like a company's financial statements
• To require brokers to manage and hold their agents accountable for their activities.

This is a tall order. But a wonderful opportunity. We live in a time when people are looking for leadership and leaders who are willing to model the example of transparency and accountability.

Are you ready for this challenge?