A blog about anything but real estate

Here's a blog about stuff. I will mention real estate because that's what I do for a living, but I'm tired of talking about real estate all the time. What about that Hillary? Chipper Jones is batting .429.

Here's an interesting post -- Bombast -- and I've done a little investigating, too. It appears that many of the top 50 bloggers write strictly about real estate sales and some are late on car payments. One is going through a divorce, it seems, and several have been seen at bars late at night in not too good condition.

What does this tell us? They are frauds! Yes, some the top real estate bloggers are staying on topic, having financial trouble and drinking too much. I won't name names though. That would be cheesy. I have to admit I write on topic sometimes, but I'm happily married and my car payments are up to date.

Having said that, I think it's a travesty that some bloggers, who will remain nameless, of course, don't write about more than statistics and how to get stubborn buyers to buy what they have to sell. Lately I've become so bored with these bloggers, I've actually started skipping over some of them. I've started looking for blogs about blackberries, or mud wrestling, anything but real estate.

Yes! I don't read all bloggers. I know, I know, I should read every blog and suffer through the ones I don't like, but I just can't anymore. Perhaps if they will start writing about Russian literature or Norse mythology, I'll return, but for now I'll have to skip them. I can't take anymore real estate talk.

2% Google

To expound on the discussion between Louis and myself (Louis is my one commenter -LOL -- don't you just love 2.0 reciprocity? ), doing what I will call "Google business" is vital to me for very good reasons. I'll go into the reasons in a second, but first I want to clarify some things.

Yes, agents can benefit from Homegain, word of mouth, traditional marketing, Facebook, LinkedIn, agent referrals, tap-dancing with a sandwich sign on main street and many other methods, but what will be the least expensive,  most efficient means of marketing that will bring in the most dollars?

If you are a listing agent, marketing through Zillow and Trulia and Frontdoor and Yahoo and Bowzer, Wowzer and Kaplooie will all be means to get business. One of the problems I have discussing marketing strategies is that most agents are thinking in terms of advertising listings. So I will think in those terms, too.

How many people visit my website and fill out a home search form, and how do they get to my site? Five to seven people a day sign up for a home search, either through IDX or the home search built into the my website. On my website they see listings, some mine, most of them other agent's listings. Where do they come from? Google. How many turn into transactions? About 2%. If we take the low number, 5, as the daily sign-ups, that's 1825 prospects, and 2% of that is 36.

What are the marketing costs? The cost of a website and the time it takes to fiddle with it and blog on it (don't get me wrong, the time and effort is substantial). If this year continues the way it's going, I should have 36 transactions directly through Google search. I will not get this many transactions through any other method that is not connected to Google search, at the same or lower marketing cost. 

That doesn't mean that I won't try Homegain and that I won't advertise listings on listing sites, or that I won't use traditional methods. It simply means that Google placement is vitally important and should be a major part of the transparent conversation so that agents can wage the war for productive placement. All of Google's weaknesses aside, finding a way to get direct exposure through Google for focused terms that produce transactions is my major concern.

Once I'm shown a better way for a small operator like myself with no national branding, I'll shift gears, and direction, in a second. If my pretty "face" on a cyber "book" will bring in the same amount of business, I'll smile like a possum eating briars and say -- Hi, I'm Mike from Savannah, will you be my friend?

Thinking myself out of business -- the lone real estate agent meets the future

Agents get leads from different marketing strategies, both offline and online, but where will most of the leads come from in five years? Looking ahead I'd have to say leads will come mainly from one source -- Google.

Unless something changes, Google has the lion's share of searchers. As more and more home buyers use Google to search for area information and sites where real estate listings can be found, it becomes obvious for listing agents and buyer agents that search placement is, and will be even moreso in the future, vital to success in the real estate business.

Before I go any further, I'll address opposition to this statement by saying that some agents will continue to be successful using marketing methods outside Google search, but I'm talking about the majority of agents working in the real estate business full time. I'm excluding the mega-agents who attract buyers and sellers through their star status and obviously superior abilities of attraction and promotion -- the majority of agents will not be stars. Plus, even the offline efforts that give an agent exposure might be eclipsed after someone gets online to begin searching -- an agent's name might appear in a magazine, or a billboard, or through the mail, or a flyer in a store, or on a "for sale" sign on the street, but when the buyer goes back to their computer to search, another agent who has mastered the art of placement will pop up and lead the buyer in a different direction. I predict the online presence will become more valid in the buyer's mind than offline presence as consumers learn to trust and depend on the net more and more.

I don't believe Zillow and Trulia will be major factors in lead generation. If they survive, they will be a draw for those curious about real estate in general, but searchers will be more sophisticated and agents will be smarter about SEO.

It's my opinion that the majority of agents will need to get good placement on Google in order to be successful. Google placement won't be the ONLY way to market, just the most effective way to market. I won't argue about other marketing strategies, and I will amend my proposition if it's proven to be incorrect. There wouldn't be so much effort expended on SEO if it wasn't the best way to market real estate services -- and even though other search engines exist, Google is king and it seems they will hold on to that position for quite some time.

With thousands of agents in most good sized areas, this presents a problem with limited positions for placement. Large real estate companies will most likely compete for the highest placement, although they have other means of marketing themselves through media sources. A few large companies, or association of companies, will most likely get smarter about branding asnd distinguish themselves from the pack. This battle of companies to get good placement will make it difficult for individual agents to get noticed. Agents will most likely feed off the branding of the large companies.

The individual agents who can get good Google placement will be a rare breed. It could happen that it is almost impossible for individual agents to get top placement, unless Google algorithms become even better at making fine distinctions and offer results that are really based on quality.

I know Google prides itself on quality results and has conquered the search engine field because its results are pertinent to the users needs. If they improve then individual agents might have a chance to be noticed, IF they are indeed the best local real estate sources a user could find. This will be difficult for Google to determine if "important links" is still the main criterion for top results -- the large companies will have more resources available to "appear" more important to Google.

So, how will individual agents be able to get top placement in five years? There are limited placement spots that are productive. Even if agents paid a large company for exposure through the large company's SEO efforts, you still have the same problem -- the large company could only provide productive exposure in a given area to a limited number of agents -- the rest would be lost among the many. If agents started bidding for the most productive spots, the costs of exposure would be expensive.

The Super Team/Super Company may be an answer whereby teams of ten within a company could share the Google placement for specific areas to all their advantage. Local within local, zeroing in to areas of business. The overall SEO would be managed by the Super Company positioning Super Teams for focused areas. It seems to me this is the best way to win the placement battle, through focus (again with the personalization and context). The only sad thing about this solution is that it would eliminate people like me. But looking at it objectively, it appears to be a viable strategy for a real estate company in the coming years, if it's true searchers are getting more sophisticated and zeroing in on specifics in an attempt to design their lifestyles.

Perhaps Zillow and Trulia would get placement for general results for looky-loos, but the Business 2.0 purpose of attracting true leads (transactions)through search engines would be served through specific results (condo in urban setting with view of park + city state condos). The Super Company would hire the experts necessary to get the placement which deemed best for ROI, not necessarily traffic. The teams would get leads which are zeroed in on their area of concern. This would be a great marketing tool to get listings once you can explain it in a way sellers understand.

Just more thoughts as I wait for an appointment. I'm making myself obsolete, but it's all about transpanency. :) I guess I could join a team -- nah, I'll just keep battling them all.

How to market inaccurate information

http://neworleansrealestateresources.com/new-orleans-real-estate-deal-zillow-says-176000-seller-asking-110000/

Google's fishing in an ocean, not a pond.

As a dyed-in-the-wool free marketer, I don't have a mindset that thinks certain businesses shouldn't be in existence. I might think a business model is flawed, but that's just an opinion and I support the business's right to run a flawed business. Do what you want to do within the law.

However, when it comes to business-to-business dealings, I make judgments about who I'll do business with. The whole Trulia/Zillow etc controversy, for me, comes down to this -- they do what they want to do and I do what I want to do. Some outsiders might characterize the recent crticism of Trulia as agents trying to protect their turf and lobbying for some type of fairness. I don't hear this. What I hear is agents saying they will begin deciding on business-to-business partnership, and if there is no partnership, then let competition take its course. 

Can Trulia be hurt by agents on the internet? It doesn't matter, really. Trulia has the option to go full speed and ignore the criticism -- maybe it'll hurt them, maybe it won't, but it will mean that agent support will most likely erode.

Bad press is never a good thing and many agents will continue to give Trulia bad press if they ignore the criticisms. I think that agents will begin to get internet smart and rather than an organized movement with some central control, agents will be spread out all over the net with myrid sites and points of influence. If it turns to warfare, it will be more like guerilla warfare, which is formidable. The collective power of agents spread out on sites across the net will be nothing to sneeze at, and I think the battle of SE placement waged in local markets by local players will overshadow Trulia's unfocused, scattershot efforts.

As I have said before, placement for good local terms is not always obvious to big companies ignorant of local areas. As I focus on Savannah and all it has to offer, the general terms are not as important as the focused terms.

But the main thing is that I think Trulia/Zillow etc are missing a good opportunity to do something special in real estate -- more than sell ads. How much longer will the public fascination for real estate last? Not long, I predict. In a few years, real estate will be as unsexy as it really is. Real estate is a practical matter. After you've seen all the homes of the rich and famous, where do you go? It's only SO interesting, then it's nothing. Prices stabilize, business goes on. It's no longer an election year topic -- all the bankruptcies go through the system -- ho-hum.

I don't see any long term fascination, no draw for traffic -- voyuers change their interests -- information can be retrieved easily everywhere -- what's going to draw traffic?

It's back to business and practical concerns that only service can address. If you don't have a service to provide, I believe you are toast. It's not like showing pictures of homes on a website is a real growth oriented business model where you can continuously develop diverse streams of income through innovation , or develop more ways to inflate interest (how many ways can you show a home? How many games can you think of like picking the prettiest bathroom?).

Trulia/Zillow etc could be developing ways to help agents provide innovative services, but I don't see that happening with a main purpose of building traffic and selling ads leading them astray. They ain't Google. They'll never attract enough traffic in real estate to make a living selling ads -- that's my opinion -- especially when the real estate hoopla dies down. Trying to emulate Google using vertical will fail due to the limits to traffic which is inherent in vertical.

A better image than horizontal/vertical is ocean/pond. Google fishes in an ocean, while Trulia/Zillow etc fishes in a pond. My advice is be a player in the service game or pack it up -- or not -- do what you want -- it's a free country.