Greg Swann's Blog

Looking for a reason to buy real estate? How about free ice cream?

Greg Swann (BloodhoundBlog.com) — Sat, 26 Sep 2009 08:59:40 -0700

When I was a kid, my Uncle Jack, my mother’s oldest brother, told me a story I’ve never forgotten. He was at a little county fair way out in corn country. Nothing special, just beauty contests for hogs, cheesy little rides and sticky, sugared confections.

Late in the day, the ice cream vendor decided to pack it in, announcing that he was giving away what was left of his inventory. People elbowed their way to the front of the crowd, so eager were they to get something for nothing. They walked away with the ice cream piled into their bare hands, rushing off to their cars, leaving a trail of melted drips behind them.

The lesson I took from my uncle’s story was that those folks didn’t really want ice cream. They were willing to get themselves dirty, and to get their vehicles dirty, just to have something for free. Most of them probably didn’t even eat the ice cream, and they certainly couldn’t have enjoyed it. Imagine trying to inhale a glutton’s quantity of chocolate-fudge-swirl before it melts all over your clothes.

Could that be what’s going on right now with the $8,000 first-time home-buyer’s tax credit? I happen to be carrying three listings that are undeniably “investor’s specials” — which means they’re a good buy, but they need a lot of work. Even so, my phone is ringing off the hook with agents trying to sell those houses to owner-occupants — folks with very little cash trying to get an FHA loan so they can buy a house, thus to get $8,000 in “free” money.

Do those buyers really want homes, or do they just want that free money? What will happen to the properties when the $8,000 is spent? Should we dial the clock back to 2006 to see if anything looks familiar?

Meanwhile, the National Association of Realtors is campaigning for even more “free” money to bribe even more otherwise-unmotivated buyers. The only thing that could make the deal sweeter would be a double hand-full of “free” ice cream.

Spread the word: Click here for a printer-ready version of this column.

Or: Steal this book: I’ve written over 200 of these real estate columns. They are consistently one of the most popular features on our blogs. Many of them are dated and/or entirely Phoenixocentric. But many others are timeless and generic. If you want to use any of my columns on your weblog or web site, feel free. Three rules: Don’t change my text, credit me as the author and give me a link back to http://www.bloodhoundrealty.com/ with appropriate anchor text. Something like this, perhaps:

<a href="http://www.bloodhoundrealty.com/" target="_blank">
Phoenix Realtor Greg Swann</a> suggested I share this with you:

Am I link-baiting? You bet. The quid pro quo is free content for your site that pulls eyeballs and excites interest.

Making the Scene: How to create new public Scenius scenes

Greg Swann (BloodhoundBlog.com) — Sun, 15 Feb 2009 20:11:24 -0800

I’ve written a ton about Scenius scenes, but, until lately, we’ve kept the scene creation praxis fairly close to our vests. I had documented the process very early for the folks who were involved in the original discussion of the Scenius idea, then shared that video how-to with other folks by email.

But we’re doing things differently than we were last November. And I took up the topic of scene creation in public in Seattle both Thursday and Friday. On Friday, I promised to cook up newer, better documentation by Monday.

I’m a day early. Click on this link to be swept off to a comprehensive site on how — and why — to create a public Scenius.net scene.

The site features three videos, including a link to the one made by Jim Reppond at Friday’s presentation.

There are also links to some of the pages mentioned in the first video, which is intended to be the canonical scene creation reference, as well as links to BloodhoundBlog posts on the how and why of Scenius scenes.

Let me know when you create a new public scene and I will add it to the index at Scenius.net.

How Big Is the Sub-Prime Mortgage Market? Not very big at all

Greg Swann (BloodhoundBlog.com) — Fri, 10 Aug 2007 18:56:45 -0700

Cited by BusinessWeek Online, a very eye-opening analysis of the sub-prime mess from National Review Online:

I’ve thought a lot about Rain Man over the past few months as I’ve been following the press coverage of the sub-prime mortgage crisis. The story’s been on the front page of the Wall Street Journal nearly every day. Pretty much every show on CNBC — except Kudlow & Co.and one or two others — has been obsessed with the topic. Yet no one seems to be asking the Rain Man question: “How big is the sub-prime mortgage market?”

And the answer, as Ben Stein makes clear, is not very big at all.

Currently there are about 44 million mortgages in the U.S., and less than 14 percent of them are sub-prime. And only about 13 percent of those are late on payments, with the majority of late payers working through their problems with the banks.

So, all in all, when you work through the details and get down to the number that really matters, only about 0.6 percent of U.S. mortgages are currently in foreclosure. That’s up a hair from roughly 0.5 percent last year. That’s it.

More at BloodhoundBlog...

My victim, er, protege: Teri Lussier

Greg Swann (BloodhoundBlog.com) — Fri, 16 Mar 2007 22:10:01 -0700

Introducing Teri Lussier, my Project Blogger protege

Dayton, Ohio, is the life-long home and territory of Teri Lussier, the newly-minted Realtor become newly-minted real estate weblogger who is Greg Swann’s co-contestant in Active Rain’s Project Blogger.

The Math of Real Estate Sales...

Greg Swann (BloodhoundBlog.com) — Sat, 24 Feb 2007 22:23:51 -0800

I got my real estate license in May of 2001. It took a lot of time to study for it, a lot of work. I spent months agonizing about the license exam, particularly the math part of the test.

This turned out to be unnecessary for the test. And it has turned out to be much more than necessary for the real-life job of being a real estate agent.

Consider this math problem, which was one of dozens I tackled prior to taking the test:

Dave and Sandy buy a four-plex apartment building as an investment. The purchase price is $385,000, of which $78,000 is attributable to the land. For tax purposes, they take a straight-line depreciation on the building over 27-1/2 years. Of course, the property actually appreciates in value by four percent a year. Assuming they make no property-improvements, when they sell the property seven years later, what are the tax consequences?

I can do that problem. It's just straight plug-and-chug calculator math. To actually come up with an answer would take a while, and I'd want to check my numbers three times -- at least. But this is a doable problem, and people have to solve this kind of problem every day.

What's ironic is this: After doing dozens of math problems this complex, this is the math problem I got on the Arizona State real estate license examination:

Starting at the northwest corner of Section 3, proceed in a southwesterly direction to the northeast corner of Section 8. From there proceed east 2 miles to the northeast corner of Section 10. Procced from there in a northwesterly direction to the point of origin. What is the total acreage of the parcel described?

That sounds complicated, but it's actully very simple. What we have is half of Section 4 plus half of Section 3. There are 640 acres in a section, so the pink half of Section 4 is 320 acres. The blue half of Section 3 is also 320 acres. Add them both together and we get 640 acres.

People fail this test. Lots and lots of people fail this test. I don't want to speak ill of my fellow real estate agents, but my advice to anyone buying or selling a house is this: Double-check the math.

But there is an area of mathematics where real estate salespeople are and must be math wizards. What is that area? Figuring out their commissions...

It's a simple enough problem, right? The commission on the sale of a house is usually six percent. Everybody knows that.

But wait. There's more. If the house was sold by someone other than the person who listed it for sale, the commission is split 50-50. So the salesperson gets three percent, right?

Not quite. To be a real estate salesperson in Arizona, you are obliged to align yourself with a real estate broker, a designation taking a different license. Theonly people who can receive commisions for real estate sales or leasing are the brokers. The brokers pay the salespeople, and if a salesperson so much as touches a dollar that did not emerge from his broker's pocket, he could lose his license.

So what do you suppose the broker does between the time he receives the commission from the sale of the house and the time he passes it along to the salesperson? That's right, he keeps some of it.

There are office fees, of course; gotta keep the rain out. And desk fees, unless you want to stand around like a flamingo. There are franchise fees so you can use that nifty logo. Fees for copies, faxes, phone calls. Fees for business cards and signage. Fees to tap into that pool of unassigned leads. Then there are transaction fees, errors and omissions insurance fees, recordation fees.

And it's not just the broker. MLS wants their cut, too, along with the Board of Realtors in every town you set foot in.

And don't forget the money spent out-of-pocket to sell the house: gas, entertainment costs, advertising.

The real estate agent is the last person in a long line of people getting fed on the sale of a house. The math involved in figuring his ultimate commission is half mystery, half myth. If he's lucky, he'll get as much as fifty percent of fifty percent of six percent of the sales price of the house. That comes down to one-and-one-half percent. That's $1,500 on a hundred-thousand dollar house. It's $600 on a forty-thousand dollar condominium.

Find the prospects. Establish rapport. Investigate their needs. Take them around to see six or sixteen properties. Finally settle on one and close. Spend three hours writing a nine page purchase contract. Submit the offer. Go over the counter-offer. Submit the counter-counter-offer. Hammer away until you make a deal. Hand-hold, hector and hustle documents around for six weeks. And when it's all over, pick up a pay-check for $1,500. Or $600. Or nothing, if the deal falls through.

Now here is a math problem: How does anyone make a living at this?

Volume.

It's true. What starts as fifty percent of fifty percent of six percent can turn into one hundred percent of ninety percent of six percent -- if you sell your own listings and keep those fees and costs down. And the houses can sell for a lot more.

This is a true mathematical fact: Of every 100 new real estate licensees, 85 will be out of the business within a year.

But for every thousand real estates agents sweating over a $1,500 commission, there are one or two who live on the top of a mountain.

And this is the final math problem: How many mountaintop homes do you have to own to live on top of a mountain?

The answer: One.

I can count that high...

The Blogfather Part II: I could have blogged all night . . .

Greg Swann (BloodhoundBlog.com) — Fri, 23 Feb 2007 15:46:44 -0800

The folks at ActiveRain are putting together a contest. It’s Pygmalion for webloggers, wherein experienced real estate webloggers take eager young blogging caterpillars into their tutelage, and, Henry Higgins-like, bring forth beautiful blogging butterflies in a few months’ time. The winning pair of bloggers will split $5,000 amongst their favorite charities.

(I predict my favorite charity will turn out to have something to do with stray animals.)

In any case, I’m looking for a patsy, er pigeon, er victim, er volunteer — I’m looking for a volunteer to learn the art and science of real estate weblogging with me as your tutor, er mentor, er insufferable bastard.

To disclaim is to disclose: I am not the gentlest teacher in the world. But I know alot about weblogging, and I can teach you as much as can be taught about this art, this praxis, this obsession.

If you are at or very near the stage of being a total wannablogger with a will to make the leap to something that can blow kisses at true greatness, you’re my ideal candidate. I love you best in Phoenix, but if you’re not here, you’re just not here.

If you want to learn to do real estate weblogging wisely and well, with style, with grace, with humor and panache — I’m your volunteer.

But: I really, really like to win. So: Write to me and tell me why I should pick you asmy co-competitor…

BloodhoundBlog week in review: Podcasting a wider net . . .

Greg Swann (BloodhoundBlog.com) — Sun, 11 Feb 2007 20:24:18 -0800

Years ago, long before I met Cathleen the Leggy Blonde and came to be so joyously entwined if not actually entombed in matrimonial and connubial bliss, I wrote an essay about personal ads at the dawn of the age of five-hundred-channel television. But now, in the blink of a decade, we are on the verge of five-hundred-thousand-channel television, a net.wise video niche for every conceivable itch.

That goes for BloodhoundBlog, too, by inches and hours, in fits and starts. By tomorrow, we will have published ten audio and video podcasts in the few scant weeks since the start of the year. And there are many, many more to come. On top of everything else we might do, mega-producing Realtor Russell Shaw has committed to doing a complete step-by-step mega-production course in podcast form. You’ll be able to download his hard-won advice and review it until Russell’s expertise becomes your own.

Our podcasting prowess made news twice this week. First, Kris Berg posted a forty-five minute podcast with Redfin.com CEO Glenn Kelman, asking him the kinds of tough questions only a seasoned real estate professional would know to ask.

Our Redfin coverage was robust and then some. I wrote a companion piece to Kris’ interview, and her husband, San Diego Realtor Steve Berg posted a great list of follow-up questions for Kelman. The next day, I wondered What if Redfin gave a PR offensive and nobody came? And Redfin.com ended up winning this week’s Cheez Whiz Prize: Redfin.com’s CEO Glenn Kelman: “What if the parasites had to eat the parasites?”

Our second bit of podcasting news came from recordings of Dustin Luther’s Real Estate Weblogging Seminar. The original recordings for these podcasts were made by Rudy Bachraty of the Sellsius Real Estate Weblog. Dustin is best known as the founder of Rain City Guide, although he works as a technology evangelist for Move, Inc. Rudy’s initial recordings suffered from some quality issues, but BloodhoundBlog’s intrepid audio engineer Allen Butler (himself a top-producing Realtor) was able to scrub the audio to bring Dustin’s voice forward.

So far, Part I and Part II of Dustin’s seminar have been posted. Part III will appear on BloodhoundBlog tomorrow.

Brian Brady posted a brief summary of the seminar, then followed this up with a fuller detailing: “So, you wanna be a real estate blogger?”. This week Brian also blessed us with an introduction to a charitable real estate affiliate program and the first of two posts on elusive profitability in real estate brokerages.

Our newest contributor, Phoenix-based Realtor Allen Butler, not only worked to clean up both the Dustin Luther and Glenn Kelman podcasts, he also graced us with two articles: Podcast Audio and DOM Trickery.

Never one to be outdone, Kris Berg also weighed in with three other articles: The Sporting Life - Random Musings, Getting the “L” Out - A Stump Speech and a reflection on Zillow.com’s quarterly report: Lucky or Consistent(ly Bad)?

Investment maven Jeff Brown brought us Real Estate Investing Is A Lot Like Pitching — Timing, Helpless In San Diego — Or Any Place Like It — Get Outa Dodge Now and Small But Helpful Tip — Practical Use Of After-Tax Analysis. Our other investment guru, Michael Cook, posted three articles of his own: Beginners Landlord Tips, To Partner or Not to Partner, That is the Question and Value Investing 101. Between the two of them, BloodhoundBlog is becoming must-reading on the subject of real estate investing.

Jeff Turner continues to explore the intricate wrinkles in the Realtor/client relationship, bringing a much needed consumer perspective to the debate. This week’s contributions: “Well, you can’t talk…” and Yes, Consumers Do Need To Understand You.

And: You know what? There’s more — a lot more. Drop by and see for yourself. But while we love to have you stopping in for a visit now and then, where we really belong is in your RSS feed-reader. If you make your living in real estate, we’ll feed you the ideas you need to feed your bottom-line. Not only that, we’ll feed you workout-length podcasts to help you keep your mind and body in perfect tune.

We’re headed for five-hundred-thousand-channels of content-rich bandwidth, never doubt it. BloodhoundBlog’s goal is to be top dog in real estate news and commentary — in prose, in audio and in video. And there is always something to howl about…

Glenn Kelman on Redfin.com's move into Southern California: "I've never had to think so hard in an interview in my life"

Greg Swann (BloodhoundBlog.com) — Thu, 08 Feb 2007 12:48:32 -0800

Extracted from BloodhoundBlog:

Here's the newspaper news, and we'll come back to it in due course: Redfin.com today opens three new offices in Southern California: Los Angeles, Orange County and San Diego. The company has expanded its web site to include listings from nine Southern California MLS systems.

Here's the real news, which emerges from a forty-five-minute podcast interview made by BloodhoundBlog contributor and San Diego-based Realtor Kris Berg with Redfin.com CEO Glenn Kelman: Redfin.com is not profitable at present and may never achieve a reliable state of profitability. Most notably, Kelman's willingness to reverse himself on unpopular but cost-saving policies may ultimately doom the company, at least in its present configuration as a discount brokerage.

The immediate problem is simply the payroll. As Kelman says in the interview:

What investors worry about with Redfin is the margin in the model. So today we generate about a 50% margin out of real estate operations. So for every dollar we make, we have to pay fifty cents to one of our agents. And we have to pay our agents more than we initially thought, just because we wanted to to get good people.

Redfin's agents are salaried employees, not the more typical independent contractor paid on some sort of commission sales plan.

Continues at BloodhoundBlog:

BloodhoundBlog week in review: Nothing exceeds like INTx . . .

Greg Swann (BloodhoundBlog.com) — Mon, 05 Feb 2007 00:51:01 -0800

Surely BloodhoundBlog is not the nerdliest joint on the RE.net, but we’ve still got a lot of arrows in our quiver — er, pocket protector.

For a start, I pinned the tail on Redfin, arguing that nerdy INTx geeks are in fact their target market. (Sing along: “I’m fluent in JavaScript as well as Klingon.”) Kris Berg snagged an interview with Redfin CEO Glenn Kelman, himself a palpably INTx specimen. We have to sit on her podcast until Thursday, but Kelman’s confirmation that the brokerage target markets techno-geeks is not an embargoed tidbit.

Kris had a great Redfin post of her own as did husband Steve Berg at The San Diego Home Blog.

And: I did geek-seeking missile duty by awarding the first Cheez Whiz Prize to a dead-pool destined circle jerk called my-currency.com. What did the starving mathematicians say when they stumbled onto a can of beans? “First we will postulate a can-opener…”

But just to establish my own hopeless geek bona fides, this week I became the first hopeless geek to write a song about real estate weblogging. “Cathy’s Clown” indeed!

But, Dave, I’m just a wave. I ain’t the water. So here’s what else has been going on in the BloodhoundBlog pond:

Investor Michael Cook took us along on his trip to Greensboro, NC, advising us thatTime Really is Money and asking What makes a good investment? He follows up by naming some Watchouts for New Market Investing and then invites us to considerBank Relationships vs. Mortgage Brokers.

In Googling for Pizza Kris Berg takes us on a very straightforward roundabout route through the SEO benefits of real estate weblogging.

Also on the theme of weblogging, Jeff Brown argues against the practice of allowing anonymous comments in It’s Time To Take The Lead — Let’s Turn The Lights On Now. Anonymous commenters are still permitted at BloodhoundBlog, but we’ve had to put everyone on a very short leash to avoid flaming, obscenity, etc. It’s common for people to argue that policing comments is “censorship.” This is incorrect. Censorship is something that is done by governments. The issue here is the right of private property owners to maintain the quality of life they desire on their own property. Each one of us retains the perfect right to behave however we want on our own property or on public property. But pseudonymous cretins have no right to behave badly on our property, at our expense. Civilization is not a suicide pact.

But don’t get the idea that we didn’t talk about real estate. Jeff also reminds us thatThe Retirement Clock Is Counting Down, and he tells us all about something he almost never does: Attending The Closing.

Brian Brady led off the week with A Selfish Case for National Originator Licensing. Brian was also observed Peeking into Bernanke’s Crystal Ball.

Jeff Turner, who apparently cannot hit the ball unless it’s out of the park, weighed in with Transparency And The Wizard Of Oz.

We had another Russell Shaw podcast Exploring the mind of a mega-producer. Best news: Interviewer Tim Harris promises us six more podcasts with top-producing Realtors.

We’re not all Realtors, but we have a lot of Realtors writing here. Russell Shaw might be the most conservative, and it’s arguable that I am the most radical — although that honor could easily go to Doug Quance. But we are all of us interested in reforms that will make the real estate industry more transparent, more efficient, and, one may hope, better respected.

Even so, we are insiders, and we cannot but see the real estate business as insiders. I went on a mild tear over a particularly difficult transaction I had close this week: Overcharging? A dedicated Realtor is a bargain. In the ensuing discussion, I amended this: Whatever it takes: A determined Realtor is a bargain.

Michael Cook riposted from an investor’s and consumer’s point of view with A Different Perspective on the Value of Realtors and If there is no Realtor monopoly — then what explains the commission structure?

I followed up with a fuller rendering of the story of my difficult transaction in A line in the sand: Gaius Popillius Laenas and getting the real estate transaction closed against all opposition. And, taking account of all of this and then some, long-ball hitter Jeff Turner followed up with Let Ideas Kill Themselves.

The posts themselves are interesting, of course, but so are the extended commentary threads. We have our geeky INTx side, but we are a range of personalities. The simple fact is, some of the most interesting real estate discussions on the RE.net take place every week on BloodhoundBlog. Give us your thoughtful attention and we’ll repay it with ours…

BloodhoundBlog week in review...

Greg Swann (BloodhoundBlog.com) — Sun, 28 Jan 2007 19:00:12 -0800

BloodhoundBlog week in review . . .

By: Greg Swann

January 28th, 2007

Category: Blogging, Disintermediation, Real Estate, Marketing

We had quite a week at BloodhoundBlog. If you haven’t had a chance to stay abreast of the trail we’re running, here’s a summary of the week’s most significant weblog entries.

We added three new contributors this week, starting with real estate investor Michael Cook, who brought us The Right Time to Buy: An Investor Perspective, Out of State Investing: All Sizzle, no Steak and A Different View of Diversification.

Our second new arrival, Jeff Turner, is an entrepreneur producing video tour commercials for listing agents. His inaugural post was Lessons Learned While Watching American Idol, followed by a post exploring issues facing Realtors in the age of Realty.bots like Zillow.com: Disintermediation? Not For Me. Not Yet.

Our third new contributor is Norma Newgent, a Realtor working out of Tampa Bay, Florida. Her first post to BloodhoundBlog is Pack Up Your Toys and Go Home.

But don’t get the idea that our tricks are all a matter of new dogs. Every member of the pack did exemplary work this week.

As her reward for having won the Carnival of Real Estate, Kris Berg is honorary Queen of the Pack. With typically regal comical rigor (try saying that out loud), she brings us A New Agent Guide to Getting the Listing… and Getting Over It.

Jeff Brown is completely disgusted with blog carnivals, but that doesn’t stop him from producing first-rate investment advice. This week, he brought forth Your Retirement — A Few Questions, Is There Any Diversifying Alternative To Real Estate Investing? and Ben Stein Says Real Estate Is Easily Inferior To The DOW.

Dan Green presents an object lesson in the destructive consequences of seemingly harmless weblogging practices: Anonymous Posters Can Be A Destructive Influence, or How Communication Is The Difference Between Good PR and Bad PR.

Doug Quance is on a tear: It’s High-Time To Do Away With Referral Fees! Kris Berg weighs in with her own thoughts on the subject from The San Diego Home Blog.

Brian Brady posted another of his excellent interviews, this one with The X Broker, Jeff Corbett. Brian also brought us Mortgage Origination Is A Contact Sport.

Mega-producing Realtor Russell Shaw was interviewed by Greg Swann and Cathleen Collins, yielding a series of podcasts (Parts I, II and III). The discussion is wide-ranging, but the essential points are these: Any committed real estate professional can achieve phenomenal success, despite the prevailing failure rate. And: Neither the DOJ nor the Realty.bots can supplant the results produced by plain old shoe-leather, face-to-face, belly-to-belly prospecting.

As some final notes, Brian Brady and Greg Swann turned a phone call into a podcast on real estate weblogging, BloodhoundBlog web programmer Cameron Swann threatens to amount to something, producing a real-time mirror for other weblogs and web sites of the potentially canonical list of real estate weblogs, andBloodhoundBlog will be hosting the February 5th Carnival of Real Estate.

Whither the RE.net? That’s a good question. We’re hounds on the trail, trying to makes sense of the scents we catch. But unlike any other form of real estate media, we are working real estate professionals writing to and for working real estate professionals. Wherever the RE.net gets, we’ll be there with it, with original reporting, commentary and podcasts. We’re delighted to have you along on the hunt…

Technorati Tags: blogging, disintermediation, real estate, real estate marketing

What Isaac Newton knew about mortgage lending

Greg Swann (BloodhoundBlog.com) — Mon, 08 Jan 2007 10:45:52 -0800

This is an extract from a BloodhoundBlog post by Chicago-area Mortgage Planner Dan Green:

I recently wrote about sub-prime loans for the first time in a long while because the sector should start taking more headlines in the papers.

I'd hate for you to be unready for it, of course. Sub-prime loans are a big part of mortgage lending.

"Sub-prime" is a broad-sweeping term for the large percentage of loans that won't get bought by the quasi-government agencies Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac. The opposite of "sub-prime" is "conforming", as in: these loans conform to the guidelines set forth by Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac to be eligible for purchase.

Typically, the credit profile of a sub-prime borrower includes one or more of the following characteristics:

Low credit scores

History of derogatory credit (i.e. bankruptcy, foreclosure)

Currently delinquent on their home loan

Lack of credit history or credit depth

Low asset levels

Low income levels or non-verifiable income levels

High loan-to-value combined with low income versus debt

Contains "random" circumstance that introduces risk

Just because a person exhibits one or more of these traits, however, doesn't mean that he is automatically a sub-prime borrower. This set of guidelines is very general.

Even though "sub-prime" has negative connotation to it, sub-prime loans serve a very important purpose. Sub-prime loans provide home financing to people who otherwise would not be approved for a loan at all. Remember: they don't conform to the government guidelines!

Recently, sub-prime lenders have fallen into a world of hurt because the default risk that is inherent in every sub-prime loan is being realized with alarming frequency. Lest you think these defaults are surprising the markets, this is a problem two years in the making and industry insiders know it.

(continue reading at BloodhoundBlog...)

-- Dan Green, BloodhoundBlog

Think globally, blog locally: If you want local leads from your real estate weblog, pursue local interests...

Greg Swann (BloodhoundBlog.com) — Sat, 06 Jan 2007 20:32:09 -0800

BloodhoundBlog tends very strongly to cover news and views of interest to real estate professionals nationwide. And — guess what? — our audience, by an overwhelming majority, consists of real estate professionals nationwide.

Here’s the bad news: If you have a real estate weblog, the chances are excellent that your objective is to attract interest from buyers and sellers in your local market. But — guess what? — your audience, by an overwhelming majority, very probably consists of real estate professionals nationwide.

Why should this be so?

There are three reasons:

First, the permanent audience for real estate weblogs consists of real estate professionals all over the country — all over the Anglosphere, really, those countries most strongly influenced by the English language, its customs and traditions.

Second, to the extent that consumers are finding your real estate weblog by long tail search terms, they are evanescent — fleeting. For one thing, their interest in buying or selling a home has a limited time window; when they’re done, most of them are done for a long while. And, for another, they’re flitting in and out from Google just as you do, when you’re searching from something on-line.

But third, and most importantly, you don’t have a local audience because you are not cultivating a local audience.

This year portends to be the Year of the Locality in real estate weblogs. Active Rain is starting a new site call Localism.com, which is to be devoted to engendering very high long tail organic search engine rankings for locality and neighborhood-level keywords. MyHouseKey.org, to debut this week, is pursuing the same strategy.

These are not awful ideas, but they’re not great, either. As with your current conundrum, a long tail searcher is apt to be ephemeral, landing on and lasting at your weblog only an instant.

The better plan, I think, is to get local consumers to come and stay, to come and come back, to favorite your weblog, to — O, holy of holies! — blogroll your real estate weblog.

I have two ideas on how to do this, one great and one insanely great. I’ll share the great one, but my plan is to hoard the insanely great notion until I can implement it myself. That fact is, I thought of both of these ideas last Summer, and it did not occur to me to blog about either until Brian Brady’s weblogging salon yesterday.

Indeed: Duh!

[continue reading at BloodhoundBlog]