Jennifer Allan, the Queen of Selling with Soul, has mentioned more than once that Facebook is just not her thing.  If you don't know Jennifer, you should subscribe to her blog, Sell with Soul, first then come back and read this post.  Selling with Soul is all about working with your SOI (Sphere of Influence) and really catering to them in a professional, friendly and, as Jennifer says, competent way.  It is NOT spamming, cold calling, gimmick driven real estate sales, but basically treating your clients as you would want to be treated yourself.  I think Jennifer has gotten a bad taste in her mouth by having possibly too many "friends" on Facebook to be able to have meaningful relationships with as well as become tired and bored of all of the Mafia Wars, Farmville and other inane updates.  (for full transparency, I have played all these games and actually enjoyed them, just not allowed them to spam my friends with my game updates).

I have come up with a Dos and Don'ts list of Selling with Soul on Facebook (or how to not piss your friends off) "friends" in this posts means your Facebook Friends,

DO

1. Use the comment or "like" button to let others know you are reading their status updates and agree, share their pain or just enjoyed it.  People love to know they are being read.
2. Do follow your friends updates to see what their interests and hobbies are, it is much easier to build a good solid foundation for a relationship with someone when you share a common denominator
3. Do use FB to alert you when it is their birthday (but Don't use FB to wish them a happy birthday, everyone does and it will get lost in the shuffle, give them a call instead)
4. Do post interesting info that you think your friends might find interesting and useful (but don't over-do it, FB is more about the interaction than just posting tons of links) This does NOT mean your listings (see Don'ts)
5. Do be yourself, flaws and all, it allows people to feel comfortable with you and build trust in you as a "real" person, not a marketing version of yourself
6. Use the "chat" feature to say hello to people you haven't spoken to in awhile
7. Create "groups" so that you can filter who you send certain updates to.  I.e. if you are having an open house, or there is a sale coming up, you might want to only update your local friends on this.  You can create as many groups as you want.  Do this early in your FB life, you will be glad you do.

DON'T

1. Use FB as a spam media to post your listings relentlessly.  If you have a nice one, you can, of course throw it in, but the quickest way to be unfollowed is to post nothing but real estate stuff over and over again.  Seriously.  FB is the most personal and relaxed social media and anything perceived as hard selling is taboo.
2. Allow the games like Mafia Wars, Farmville, etc. to post your updates.  You can still enjoy these, but honestly, noone else cares what level you reach, who you knocked off or what tree you harvested
3. Stalk people, or anything that could perceived as stalking - use the "if it quacks like a duck" test
4. Tag people in photos without their permission.  Not everyone likes to have pictures of them posted that they haven't seen before or like
5. Be upset if someone you send a friend request does not accept.  Some people keep their FB very private and some rarely use it so there are lots of reasons (not directed at you) which could explain their reasoning.  Let it go.
6. Get so addicted that you stop making personal contact (calls, direct emails) etc.  Facebook does not replace more personal contact with your Sphere, only enhances it.

7. Take it personally if someone interacts less than you'd expect or hope, as mentioned above, everyone has their own Facebook protocol

8. And finally, DON'T let irritatig posts and games keep you from FB.  If someone bugs you but you don't want to "unfriend" them, hover your mouse over the right side of their post on your wall and the "hide" button comes up and wahlah, they are hidden.  You can do the same for irritating games, etc. like Mafia Wars, etc.  When a new status from someone comes up, hover to get the "hide" as above, but choose application instead of friend.

Facebook can be as much or as little as you want it to be.  If used with care and mindfulness, you can learn more about your friends (both personal and professional) while introducing them to a deeper level of yourself, both of which can build better relationships.  This can build trust and deeper connections that can help build your SOI, one friend at a time.

cartoon by Tim Bolton

Fifteen years ago I moved to Germany, and all of my "stuff" fit onto one pallet, that is to say, 3'x3'x3'.  Life was simple and I only carried with my the necessities; my photos, books and a few special things.  Somehow, I lost my way and have collected what seems to be 15 pallets of "stuff".  Do I need 15? No!  Do I need just one, well, probably not, but I am guessing that the number is a lot closer to the lower end of the spectrum.  (I'm thinking the 80/20 rule is probably dead on here) This stuff actually stresses me out, both consciously and unconsciously.  We live on 2.5 acres with a home and a guest house, not a conducive atmosphere for keeping things simple and minimized.  But times, they are a chanin'.  In an effort to simplify our lives, we are moving back to the city (Coral Gables) so we can drive less and enjoy more.  This will mean a significantly smaller slice of geography and I welcome the motivation to downsize.

Back to the basics.  If I wear it keep it, if not, find it a new body.  If I use it keep it, if not, find it a new user.  If it brings me joy or peace, keep it, if not, find someone it does. Pare down, clear out, clean up.  When we move, I want to know what is in those boxes are the gems of life, nothing less.  That each one means something and will be used, cherished or enjoyed.

Our homes are an outward refelction of our internal selves, and too much clutter has led to a clutterd self.  I need to free that up and refreh, regain the balance and lightness of having less, but special.

This is going to take some work and it is daunting.  I have the boxes, I have the bags, but getting off my feet and starting has eluded me.  So I decided to write this blog as a testament to my intent to clean out this home and life, one box at a time until I am down to the right stuff, the good stuff, and then it won't be stuff, it will be our lives.

New Active Rain member Cheryl Ritchie asked me not too long ago what are the Real Estate marketing tools that I could not live without and I answered unequivocally "Our Blog and RealBird".  If I did nothing else, and had no other tools in the world to market our business and our listings, I  could still do an amazingly good job at marketing our firm and our listings with these two alone.  I would drop my designer website, I would drop Realtor.com featured listing status, I would drop open houses and just about everything other than our MLS dues in order to keep these two real estate marketing tools.  "Wow" I can hear you say, "how can one tool be all that?"  I am not going to go into why a blog is important, if you are on Active Rain, you know that, but I am going to tell you why RealBird is the Swiss Army Knife to Bear Grylls the Realtor.

We use RealBird for four CORE activities for our business

• to win us listings
• to promote those listings in a way that makes us look like we have a professional design and advertising firm for each of them
• to find us buyers
• to brand and promote our business

This is NOT a tutorial, but will give you an overview of what Realbird can do for you, your business and your listing clients if you aren't already using them.

Almost Every Link Below is a Real Life example of how I have used Realbird, they are worth clicking on to see the applications

Sellers want one thing, they want their house sold.  They understand that for their house to be sold, it has to be marketed well.  They know this means extensive Internet coverage but they are also proud of them homes and want them to look great in that marketing.  Before we even go to a listing presentation, we purchase the the domain for their street address.  At the listing presentation, we show them a few single websites we have for our other listings, and reassure them we already have the domain name for their address (also keeping any other agent from getting it, sneaky right?).  We show them on Google how when you google the address of one of our listings, how our single property websites on Realbird come up at the TOP of Page One on Google (with a PIC!).  No matter what they know about SEO, they know this is important.  Normally, that alone, seals the deal, they want a site for their home like our other listings and they want it number one on Google.  (yes, I know this is very lonnnnggggg tail, the address, but it is impressive to them, which wins the listing, Goal 1 accomplished).  If we REALLY wanted a listing, I might go to the extra effort to go by and take a few outside shots of the home, if accessible, and create a RealBird single listing site in DRAFT form and tell them all it is waiting for is the inside pictures (which I can take right then with my camera) and have it up and published by the end of the day if they want (closing the deal).

Promoting your listings on Realbird is extremely easy.  They have a listing promotion tool which is my FAVORITE tool in My Listing Swiss Army Knife.  This is what helps me create these beautiful single property websites.  Everything a potential buyer could want to know about a listing is accessible to them.  You have your basics, of course, such as pictures and descriptions, but you can also add custom media, chat, market stats, neighborhood info, video, Google maps with Street views where available and basically any other thing you can dream up to promote your listing. The expandability and function is limited only by your imagination.

Once the single property website is created, it's time to promote it and Realbird has made that easy as well.  They have codes to embed it in Active Rain and Localism, codes to drop it into Craigslist, Backpage and Kijiji, plus over 150 social bookmarking options via Add This and Ping.fm. such as Twitter, Deli.cio.us, Facebook, etc.  Oh yeah, they syndicate for you to all the biggies including Zillow and Trulia automatically so you don't have to worry about that!  They also provide you widget and slideshow codes which you can use to promote your listings on various blogs and websites.  They have also made additional promotion option through iPromote as easy as a click of a mouse.  Oh, need a non-branded Virtual tour for your MLS?  They've thought of that to.  As an add-on, you can get this for whicheverlistings you need.  Man are they good!

Realbird helps us find buyers in several ways, but the main three are through the amazing SEO of the single property websites, the Custom Search Engine and the aggregate listing map.  Consumers surfing the web come across our listings quickly and easily and not just by googling the address as mentioned above (because after all, how likely is that?) but the keywords used to describe our properties. Here I googled "Davie Horse Property For Sale" and our Realbird listing is in the top three.  Once on our single property listing site, they can easily view all of our other listings as Realbird puts a link to them right on each properly site (as well as to our most recent blog posts).  The SEO for these sites is, hands down, the best for both regular and longtail key words.

The second HUGE buyer tool they offer is the Property Seach Engine which pulls all the listings from Google Base.  The search engine can be loaded with certain search criteria (say location and price) and you can promote these links all over (blogs, Craigslist, Facebook, twitter, Market Reports etc.) and buyers searching the Internet will find you search engine results (and you).  These can be either links or embedeed. They will also see your own featured listings as a separate tab and can register if they choose.  If they find a listing they would like more info, they will contact YOU to see the property. I also use this when answering consumer questions on Zillow, Trulia, etc.  Another way to engage the consumer.

The third and very useful tool they offer is the Facebook Profile and Page search engine tools.  You can add the Search Engine mentioned above to either your Profile or you Page and the buyers don't even have to leave your Facebook page to search lisitngs.  Your own listings are featured in their own tab.

Realbird makes it very easy to cross market any traffic you get to your search engine, blog or single property site.  Your own featured listings are shown in the Cool Iris Photo Wall of the Facebook page and profile search add-ons.  They are highlighted as featured listings on the search engine site.  Your most recent listings and blog posts are shown as links on each single property website.  One of their sneaky and great features is if you look at the "Nearby Homes for Sale" button on the Google map on your Single Property Website, it takes them to the Search Engine, Genius! One of my favorite tools is the listing map.  Here we are able to show all of our listings on a single map which we promote everywhere.

Realbird has literally thought of everything a Real Estate agent needs to promote themselves and their listings and made it extremely efficient, powerful and impressive.  The service is completely expandable for your needs and budget.  You can sign up for free and use many of the services and tools for FREE, yes FREE!  Then, you can upgrade to Pro Account to have full use of the rest of the tools.  Some of the services (such as domain names and non-branded tours) are add-ons which you can add (or not) on a listing specific basis as needed.

If you have Facebook, My Blog Log and Twitter accounts, they also publish those links on each property site or search engine to push traffic to those social media sites.


I write this at my own peril, thinking I may sound like a Jim Jones, so don't just take my word for it.... other great Real Estate marketing professionals such as Katerina Gasset, Ashton Coleman, Donna Bigda and many many others are also avid fans as well (their links are Realbird love)

Single Property Listing Site with full professional Desinger look and high functionality

Search Engine site with unlimited promotion options

Facebook Searchtab

Listing Map

Coral Gables Active Listings - 465 (very similar to last month)
193 are "luxury listings" (ie over $1,500,000) (very similar to last month)
36 are short sales (very similar to last month)
4 are foreclosures (more than last month)
Median List Price - $1,199,000 (same as last month)

Coral Gables Pending Sales - 94 (very similar to last month)
17 are "luxury listings" (up from last month)
26 are short sales (a few less than last month)
18 are foreclosures (very similar to last month)

Coral Gables Closed Sales - 31 (up slightly from last month)
4 were "luxury listings" (fewer than last month)
4 were short sales (very similar to last month)
3 were foreclsoures (same as last month)
Average List Price - $694,742 (less than last month)
Average Sold Price - $618,981 (less than last month)
List price to Sold Price Ratio - 92%

Higest Closed Listing - $1,850,000 (lower than last month)

Lowest Closed Listing - $205,000 (a short sale)

What does this mean to you?

If you have a listing in the luxury market, there is stiff competition with over 1/3 (almost 1/2!) of all listings in Coral Gables in the top 10% of Miami-Dades' pricing ("luxury listings"). Listings in the upper price point are selling at a much slower rate than the lower price points and there is 1.5 years of inventory on the market (a sellers market is closer to 6 months, but still a good sign, we were up to three years several months ago). In order to be a viable listing, the price must be correct and the marketing top notch. Without both, listings are having a slow time moving. The GOOD sign is that properties are really moving, the inventory is down and the sales are up, so seller, things are looking up!

If you are on the hunt for a "bargain", they are out there, but they go quickly. Most foreclosures sell quickly and close to, or above list price. In order to have the best chance of snatching one of these deals up, work with an experienced Coral Gables Broker who is comfortable with foreclosures (like me, hint hint ;-). They will advise you as soon as a new property comes on the market or drops in price to be within your price range. They will also knows the special ins and outs of purchasing foreclosures. Properties are going faster than before, especially the well priced ones, now is the time to look before the market completely turns. Look at the market reports from earlier this year and you will see the trend in sales....

Check back next month for the Coral Gables October month in review!

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If you drive along Old Cutler in Coral Gables, starting around the Cocoplum circle heading South, you see quite a few communities tucked away on either side of Old Cutler.  Did you ever wonder what each one was?  Here is a map which will help you make sense of those hidden enclaves.  You will also see just how far south Coral Gables winds it's way down the Bay, many do not know quite how far South the southern border of Coral Gables is!

Here is the Map to help you visualize where they are:

Miami has many more historic homes and districts than many people are aware of.  Although first claimed by Spain in 1566, Miami first started to develop into a settled area in the 1800s by Henry Flagler and friends Julia Tuttle and William Brickell.  Most historic areas hug the coast for obvious reasons (prior to Flagler's railroad, the only way to reach Miami was by boat). 

Miami really saw prosperity and growth in the early 1900s as developers Merrick, Collins and Curtis built such communities as Coral Gables, Miami Beach and Miami Springs.  Dual disasters of a bursting real estate bubble followed by the great Hurricane of 1926 all but halted new development for many years until nearly the end of the Second World War.  By then, such great architects such as Walter De Garmo had long stopped designing homes, but many designs have stayed with us throughout the years.  

Many historic homes in Miami have recognizable features; Mediterranean, Moorish or Adobe designs; use of such unique building materials as coral rock, decorative (whole and broken) tile work and mosaics and Pecky Cypress Dade County Pine; arches, porticoes and arcades and more.  Since most of these homes were built before air conditioning, many have been retrofitted to accommodate central AC.  One thing you won't find are the hall closets most Northerners are used to (no need!)

The oldest existing house in Miami still situated in it's original position is located in Barnacle State Park, it was built in 1891.

Very few homes built before 1900 still exist, but one is currently for sale at 6801 Maynda St in Coral Gables.  Dating back to 1899, it is Coral Gables's oldest private home. 

If you love Historic Homes as much as we do, we are sure you will find something to tickle your fancy in Miami!

PS: Our sister company (Papillon ReDevelopment) is a Florida State Licensed and Insured General Contractor which specializes in historic renovations and additions, ask us for details and photos of our work!

Top Miami Neighborhoods where you can find historic homes for sale are:

Coral Gables

Coconut Grove

Miami Beach

Miami Shores

Morningside

Bay Point

Miami Beach