Superbowl Prediction

NE Pats -- 38

NY Giants -- 17

Small Might Not Be Beautiful, But It Might Be Effective

Well, it’s been a great start here at Bonzai. My staff (me and a yorkie named Puck) celebrated last night with meatloaf, carrots and English peas. This morning I started thinking about all the wonderful opportunities the internet presents. Not only is it a great place for a small player to get a message out, it’s a great meeting place, a place to develop friendships and business relationships.

I love diversity and the internet is chockfull of diversity. Although the internet is not the total answer for business and friendship, it’s a great tool to widen the spheres of each. I mean, I still meet my pal George at Starbucks to hear the latest and swap business ideas, and I keep in touch with local friends and associates – the old eye-to-eye, belly-to-belly, garlic breath-to-garlic breath thing. Nothing will take the place of flesh and tangible.

Perhaps you can tell by the name of this blog I’ve been thinking about small in a big world lately. I first started reading about and thinking about this through the writings of E.F. Schumacher, Small Is Beautiful. Well, I don’t know how beautiful it is, but it’s a concept of interest. The only problem I’ve had with a lot of the talk about small is the concurrent demonization of BIG. I would like to state I’m not against BIG.

Big is fine. Big has resources available. Big has marketing clout. Big has IT departments. Big has many departments. Yet, today’s gizmos and virtual assistance present a creative opportunity for those who like small to play along and compete. One of the aspects of the internet that truly fascinates me is the networks that can be created to simulate the advantages of big. It remains to be seen if it can actually match the advantages of big.

My sensibilities are sparked by the loosely aligned rag-tag, barefooted, irreverent, small players competing with big, organized resource-rich big players. Internet guerilla warfare! Well, that might be a bit dramatic, but networks, I believe, will be powerful alliances to give the individual players some of the advantages of big.

Real Estate in A Brave New World

I know it's been written about many times lately, but to begin this journey let me declare my position on the changing real estate industry and what I see as a budding baby boomer bonanza (say that fast three times).

Call me Pollyannaish, call me Panglossian, call me a cheerleader or a died-in-the-wool fool sporting rose-colored glasses, but I foresee a brave new world in real estate, and in this one, no Soma is required and freedom of information will break you or make you. All that’s required is to pay attention, get wired to the internet, use the best of the old practices, work hard and gain the knowledge necessary to be a bona fide expert who possesses the service skills of a top-notch waitress at a Texas roadhouse.

Not only do I think there’s an oncoming demand in the real estate market from elevator riders waiting to get to the bottom for bargain basement prices, an immediate mini-boom, I think there’s another flourish of buying that could go on for quite some time – baby boomers.

Despite the rhetoric from politicians who claim we’re on the edge of ruin, there’s a lot of wealth in this country, and it’s congregated in metropolitan areas that have outgrown, or never had, an appeal for comfort, hominess and quality of living. Baby boomers (BB) will have second thoughts about retiring in areas where road rage and pollution are the nicest things you can say about them. These places are where the money’s at, but now a large chunk of it’s in the banking accounts of BBs and will transfer anywhere their hearts desire – North Carolina, Georgia, Utah, Colorado, Tennessee, Nevada.

Many of these BB buyers will want to live in places where they can golf and shop and exercise, walk the streets and smile rather than snarl, join clubs, start a mini second career doing something they love in communities where everyone knows their names and don’t give a fig what they’re worth on a financial sheet – the easy, slow, entertaining, friendly life. I’m talking myself into early retirement, here.

These BB buyers are already net-addicted and I receive emails each day from them asking me about the area, home prices, things to do, etc. – they’re gathering information and making plans. They aren’t in a hurry and they want good, reliable, spam-free information. This has been written about many times – but what many agents don’t realize is that it’s here, now. No one’s predicting the future anymore – they’re reporting. How many are ready?

Who better to service their needs, to be their wise guides, their comforting counsel, to make information gathering and analysis painless and useful, than the modern day, internet savvy, service-oriented, friendly and efficient local realtor?

Many agents will have to change their styles and mind-sets. The new challenge is simple yet very difficult to do. It’s difficult to do because there are no tricks involved. Today’s savvy buyers are hip to the weaknesses of the real estate industry, weary of sales pitches and hype, wary of tricks and gimmicks, unimpressed with big and showy and resistant to pressure.

Service and knowledge are not new gimmicks to trick prospects in yet another way, they are achieved, earned and ingrained. Agents will have to be real people, serious professionals who take pride in excellence and genuinely love working with real people. The Slick Ricks and Charming Carlitas will find it difficult to bluff and get by in this brave new world. The old Homers who mutter obscenities at the mention of computers will have a hard go of it. The lazy will wither, and the pompous will be a side show.

The steady, knowledgeable, connected, helpful and, yes, meek (but not too meek) will inherit this world.

Mike from Savannah

Update

We have exceeded our projected readership of eleven by 100%. Fabulous!

Meeting The Shortage of Real Estate Blogs

Since there’s a shortage of real estate blogs, I thought I’d do my part to help out. Seriously, though, this is an experiment to see if small can be heard. It’s more than an experiment; it’s what I love to do. However, I’ve grown weary of writing on OPBs (other people’s blogs).

Carey at Point2 said he would subscribe if I started a column, so I’m pretty sure I have one reader. That’s how small starts out, one or two here and there, then before you know it you have eleven! I’d be satisfied with eleven good readers.

Brendan King (I have to start throwing weighty names around to gain a little clout) sent me an email the other day in response to a blog I’d written concerning “social reputation” and pointed me toward an article he recently wrote on the same subject. I figure this blog is a good way to start managing my social reputation, so that at least eleven people know who I am and what I’m about.

As many have written about in recent years, the real estate industry (and all its tangential concerns) is quickly morphing, so that no one can imagine with clarity or certainty what it will look like in ten to fifteen years. If I read it right, though, the potential for small players to be exposed, heard and established is great – it’s possible, I believe.

Creating this blog is not about getting business - there are better ways to get business. You can click on the link to the left to read what Bonzai’s about. Since I love to read and write, there will be a big emphasis on information. If anyone knows of useful sites, technology or ideas, send them on and they will be linked on the sidebar in categories, and hopefully we can create a list of useful resources that are easy to retrieve.

On the sidebar, I would like, also, to create a real estate news category – the good, bad and ugly news.

There might be more, but for now that’s enough for my eleven readers. If the first subscriber will identify themselves I will do something nice for them (“nice” will be defined by me).

Mike from Savannah