John Ziemba's Blog

Palatine Office Space Deal

John Ziemba (Keller Williams Team Realty) — Fri, 23 Mar 2012 08:16:51 -0700

Looking for office space in Palatine? We have a great deal. At only $10 a sq ft this 2400 square foot office space is renting for $2000 a month. The property has 3 private offices, 1 tandem office, a meeting area, kitchen area and a full 1200 square foot basement (included in the total square footage). Property also has 2 car garage located on the property that can be used to keep your car free from snow or storage. Now is the time to lock in a low rental rate for a long term lease. Easily accessibile as the property is located just north of Quentin and Northwest Highway. If you would like a full list of Palatine Office Properties please give us a call.

Considereing a move call:

John Ziemba

Realtor

KW Commercial

847-217-0480

1695 Cloverdale, Highland Park, IL 60035 Short Sale

John Ziemba (Keller Williams Team Realty) — Mon, 19 Mar 2012 11:54:21 -0700

Great opportunity to own this Short Sale in Highland Park, IL. Property is listed for $450,000. Now is the chance to take advantage of the down market. Lender is loosing over $270,000 as current listing price. Home is very unique and includes a pool. Click to the picture below to see the full details and info. For more information you can call

John Ziemba

Realtor

Keller Williams Team Realty

847-217-0480

If this home doesn't fit your needs feel free to check out more Highland Park Homes or do your own search and find all the short sales, foreclosures and traditional homes in the Chicagoland area by visiting the most powerful home search engine by visiting this live link -> http://www.whitetiere.com/search/

Fix the leaks? Are you ready for 2012?

John Ziemba (Keller Williams Team Realty) — Thu, 22 Dec 2011 12:41:32 -0800

As 2011 comes to an end, if you are in real estate, I am sure you have been bombarded with business planning classes & webinars. If you have taken the time and done a business plan you probably have some numbers written down like you need 40 appointments, 37 listings, 200 phone calls you have to make. I believe its important to have numbers and goals for your business. However, I think most business plans fail to look at an agent's existing business and find the leaks. So before you invest $100s or $1000s in the latest and greatest item thats going to get you 21 listings in Janurary. Take an honest look at your business and find out what you are not doing or doing poorly. Fix the leaks before trying to increase the flow.

Happy Hollidays to All,

John

Is Syndication A Benefit to the Listing Agent?

John Ziemba (Keller Williams Team Realty) — Sun, 20 Nov 2011 02:10:52 -0800

After hearing all the fuss about Edina Realty's decision to pull all their listings from third party syndication sites, I decided to take a listing Google the address and see what the likely hood that a listing agent would get a lead or inquiry from an online property listings.

Here is what I found.

I performed a Google Search on the Address 715 Yeoman St. in Waukegan IL. I searched for: 715 Yeoman St, Waukegan, IL.

The first page results were the following:

1. Google Maps Listing of the Property Address.

2. Redfin's website.

3. Trulia's Property Listing

4. Zillow's Property Listing

5. My Personal Website JohnZiemba.com

6. KW.com, Keller Williams Realty International's Property Listing Website

7. Estately.com

8. Movoto.com

9. Realtor.com

10. Sawbuck.com

11. Yahoo Real Estate

So with these results what would be the likely hood someone would be able to contact the listing agent about the particular listings. With Google Maps, nothing happening there.

The second result Redfin is a local brokerage getting data from our MLS IDX feeds. In addition, results #7 Estately, #8 Movoto & #10 Sawbuck are also using MLS IDX feeds meaning they are brokerages.

The listing display on the #3 result of Trulia makes it possible that someone could contact the listing agent about this property.

Both the #4 result Zillow & #11 Yahoo Real Estate (which is powered by Zillow), I don't see how anyone could ever contact the listing agent about those. I would also point out the price is wrong on Yahoo Real Estate. Keller Williams Realty International will not allow our listings to have any other agent advertised on the listing, this means if you were to do this with another brokerage listings the results may be different.

The #5 results would come to me personally (I am not the listing agent on the property) & the #6 result would go to the listing agent.

The leaves Realtor.com as the only result not spoken for yet. Our office has a package so that all our listings are enhanced. Any lead or inquiry would go directly to the listing agent. However with Realtor.com's recent announcement that they will be placing another agent's info on non-enhanced listings would most likely mean that someone else would get the inquiry.

In all honesty, looking at if from this perspective the downside may not be nearly as bad as some would think. The only real opportunity for getting a lead would be from the Trulia exposure.

One might argue that a consumer would go to one of these websites and since they did not see a listing might choose to buy another property. I would argue that once an consumer contacts an agent, their property search would most likely be controlled from the agent sending the consumer listings directly from the MLS database or through an IDX website.

I know some of the airlines have recently done this by not advertising their airfares on the airfare portal sites. I am not sure exactly how it's working for them but I do know Southwest Airlines has made their website a destination and some would argue that Edina Realty has done the same in their area.

What are your thoughts?

As always thanks for reading,

John

John Ziemba

Realtor

Keller Williams Team Realty

847-217-0480

St Zachary School Des Plaines IL

John Ziemba (Keller Williams Team Realty) — Fri, 11 Nov 2011 01:27:21 -0800

St. Zachary is a Catholic Parish and School located in Des Plaines IL. The address for Saint Zachary's 567 W. Algonquin Rd in Des Plaines. The Parish is located just North and Adjacent to Friendship Jr. High School. The school is on the corner of Algonquin Rd & Elizabeth Lane. The phone number for St. Zachary's is (847) 956-7020. St. Zach's students are able to ride the same public bus as the students who go to Friendship Jr. High. Friendship Jr. High services students in parts of Des Plaines and parts of Mt. Prospect. For more information you can visit their offical website at www.saintzachary.org. Every year St. Zach's has an Augustfest event which is a fundraiser carnival event and casio nights are also held at the parish.

Northwest Suburban Chicagoland Commercial Real Estate Market Update

John Ziemba (Keller Williams Team Realty) — Mon, 07 Nov 2011 19:50:54 -0800

Here is the Commercial Real Estate Update for the Northwest Suburbs of Chicago.

Last 14 days
19 New Listings
9 Listings went to contingent or pending
3 Listings were leased
5 Closed

Currently there are 643 Active Listings & in the Last 12 months a total of 106 listings were either leased or sold.

There were 49 properties that sold, 19 were dual agent
There were 57 properties that were leased and 24 were dual agent

Only 1 in 6 listed properties will sell or be leased if the current market trends continue. Do you have a property you need to sell or lease? Let me provide a property specific marketing plan and help you with your situation. A

Looking to take advantage of the market, visit www.WhiteTieCommercial.com to search for commercial properties.

Best Wishes,

John

John Ziemba

Realtor

KW Commercial

847-217-0480

Does Schaumburg IL Have a Real Estate Transfer Tax?

John Ziemba (Keller Williams Team Realty) — Fri, 23 Sep 2011 20:54:34 -0700

Schaumburg Tansfer Tax: $1 per $1000 of sales price

Who Typically Pays: Seller

Like many municipalites the Village of Schaumburg has imposed a real estate transfer tax. Schaumburg charges $1 per $1000 of purchase price. For example on a $300,000 home the transfer tax would be $300. In Schaumburg this is commonly a fee paid by the seller.

It should be noted that on certain types of transaction the buyer may end up paying the transfer tax. Please check with your attorney or real estate agent to make sure if you are a buyer you are not expected to pay.

For more information you may contact Village of Schaumburg via phone at 847-923-4539.

Your attorney should give you a form that is filled out and you may need to go to the Village to pick up the transfer the Village Hall is located at: 101 Schaumburg Court, Schaumburg, IL 60193-1899 and here is there general phone number 847.895.4500 and fax 847.895.7806.

View Larger Map

Any questions please do not hesitate to contact me for help.

John Ziemba

847-217-0480

Learn more about Schaumburg Real Estate or start your search for Homes of Sale in Schaumburg IL

Is It Really Cheaper To Rent or Buy in Schaumburg, IL?

John Ziemba (Keller Williams Team Realty) — Thu, 18 Aug 2011 13:18:45 -0700

Recently there has been a lot of talk and articles written that it is cheaper to buy rather than rent. I decided to due an anlysis to find out if this still holds true in Schaumburg, IL. I searched the MLS and found 5 properties that were condo or townhome properties that were labeled for rent or sale.

For my assumptions I assumed financing with an FHA Mortgage that requires 3.5% down. I assumed the mortgage rate would be 4.75% on a 30 year fixed mortage. Current market conditions may make the actual interest rate lower and some of the properties may not qualify for an FHA mortgage but these figures were used to compare all properties as equal as possible.

The monthly obligations accounts for the mortgage principal and interest, monthly association fees, real estate taxes and a mortgage insurance premimum required on all FHA mortgages of 1.15%.

Here are how the numbers compare:

Street #	Street Name	Unit	Beds	Baths	Asking Price	Down Payment 3.5%	Monthly Obiligations	Rental Amount
218	Nauset	218	2	1	99900	3497	1082	1125
1023	Boston Harbor	0	2	1	119900	4197	1255	1300
1919	Prairie	107	2	2	119900	4197	1354	1095
2789	Glasgow	Z1	2	2	150000	5250	1204	1300
1416	SEVEN PINES	A1	3	2	192900	6751	1650	1600

Looking strictly at the numbers there is clearly no trend to draw a conclusion.

A couple of variables to look at when choosing a specific property are the real estate taxes and assocation fees. The real estate taxes can vary from property to property. Also the property may have lost the homeowner's exemption which acts as a discount on the property tax bill. All the properties listed above belong to a homeowner's association which charges a monthly fee for taking care of the common area. In addition, to real estate taxes, assocation fees will be different from association to association. Some may even cover utilites like the water, natural gas and garbage removal.

So if you are considering purchasing a home in Schaumburg, I think you need to take a look at all your options and understand the difference in cost between renting and owning. I always believe the best time to buy a home is when it makes sense for YOU to do it. If I can be of any help, please do not hesitate to contact me.

You can start searching for homes for sale in Schaumburg IL now

Start looking for homes for rent in Schaumburg

Thanks for taking the time and reading this post,

John

Become a Chicagoland Market Insider

John Ziemba (Keller Williams Team Realty) — Sat, 23 Jul 2011 11:59:31 -0700

Moving to the Chicagoland area? Need information about schools? Looking for crime stats?

Find out all the stff you want to know become and Chicagoland Market Insider

and visit http://www.whitetiere.com/mimarket/zip/60173/

Find Out The Market Stats for the Area	Learn Real Estate Insider Tips

Find Out Crime Stats	Get Information About Schools

What Did Your Neighbor's House Sell For?	Find Out The Difference In Asking VS Selling Price

Learn About How Much Inventory Is Available	Understand The % Make Up Of Properties

Find the Local Amentites, Resturants, Shopping & Entertainment	Compare Two Communites

Information provided by John Ziemba Keller Williams Team Realty 847-217-0480

Schaumburg Elementary School Reports

John Ziemba (Keller Williams Team Realty) — Fri, 22 Jul 2011 11:52:49 -0700

Schaumburg is served by 2 elementary school districts. School District 54 primary serves the residents of Schaumburg. District 15 Serves the very Northern parts of Schaumburg near Algonquin Rd.

View the latest school information, reports and ratings. Click the picture below. You will find all the information about school district 54. Here is a link for information about Schaumburg School District 15.

Moving to Schaumburg? Learn about the community visit any one of the links below to get access to our Market Insider reports.

Find Out The Market Stats for Area	Learn Real Estate Insider Tips

Find Out Crime Stats	Get Information About Schools

What Did Your Neighbor's House Sell For?	Find Out The Difference In Asking VS Selling Price

Compare Two Communities

Learn About How Much Inventory Is Available	Understand The % Make Up Of Properties.

Find the Local Amenities, Restaurants, Shopping, Entertainment & Recreation

Northwest Suburban Chicagoland Mult-Family Update

John Ziemba (Keller Williams Team Realty) — Mon, 27 Jun 2011 08:13:27 -0700

How hot is the Multi-Family housing market? I guess it depends on who you ask. Taking a look at the Northwest Suburban Chicagoland area, there are some mixed signs.

According to the Midwest Real Estate Data MLS system there have been 22 Closed sales on listings with more than 5 units. Prices have ranged from $171,100 to $1,050,000. (Note: There was 1 sale for an unfinished 60 unit condo building which I have left out of this analysis because it is not in character with the rest of the properties.)

Of the 22 sale 11 were sold as a short sale or bank owned foreclosure. Typically multi-family units have been shielded from large price swings. In this area, we are seeing large price swings on buildings with high occupancy and poor fundamentals. While rents have remained strong in the area, actual inventory has grown as far as individual available for rent. With many individual property owners unwilling or unable to sell their properties, they have decided to enter them into the rental market.

In addition, many of the properties that are in trouble today were bought with bad fundamentals in areas that simply didn't make sense. Many would be condo converters purchased properties as inflated prices with hopes to be able to convert and sell the condos and make a profit. When the market shifted they were left with negative performing properties that required significant monthly cash calls. Most arm chair condo flippers were not able to weather this storm.

The clearest example for this is the property at 10033 Linda in Des Plaines. In 2003, the building sold for $585,000 in August of 2010 the property sold for $171,000. It should be noted that the complex that this property is in has been struggling with many issues including a several hundred thousand dollar gas bill.

The average price per unit is $63,320, the average price per building $391,426 and the median price per building is between $306,000-330,000 (there were an even number of properties).

On the market now:

Currently there are 73 units on the market (3+ years of inventory at last 12 months sales rate) ranging in price from $329,000 to $1,250,000. The average price unit of active listings is $86,094, average price per building $540,157 and the median price being $499,000. The biggest take away may be the 26% price difference from the average unit sold to the average unit asking price.

Looking to buy?

For an established full occupied building one might expect to find a slightly higher than a 7% cap rate. For a condo bust project you may be able to find quite a deal now.

Let's sit down and talk about the opportunities,

I'm John Ziemba, Nice to Meet You

847-217-0480

Northwest Suburban Area Defined: As shown in the map below the Northwest Suburban Chicagoland area is defined at the cities, Inverness, Palatine, Rolling Meadows, Hoffman Estates, Schaumburg, Elk Grove Village, Arlington Heights, Mt. Prospect, Des Plaines, Park Ridge, Rosemont, Niles, Prospect Heights and Wheeling. All data provided by Midwest Real Estate Data and accurate as of the post date.

150 Leads in 2 weeks, I think I broke the bank.

John Ziemba (Keller Williams Team Realty) — Sat, 25 Jun 2011 08:38:47 -0700

In the last two weeks, I have found some great opportunities using Craigslist. I have been using it to attract buyers to my website for several months and have been getting a decent amount of registrations. This week I posted 20 ads similar to this:

From these type of ads I generate 9 buyer leads. I posted these ads all on Monday morning. While these results are good, I ran some other ads for renters and I could not ignore the overwhelming results from them. Over the last 2 weeks I posted a handful of the following ads and have generated over 150 leads from an ad similar to this.

I put a live link in this ad and linked it to JotForm, a free service (until you get a certain level), that is easy to use.

Now I understand depending on where you are at, rentals make not make business sense. In my area Suburban Chicagoland, each rental would bring in about $500 (Low Margin, High Volume). But let's think bigger picture, I would think that the people who may be renting now, might be buyers within several years. Now the challenge is to figure out how to handle and convert the high volume of leads that I have had coming in (over 20 a day).

Ps. If you put your phone number on the ad, you will get phone calls. I couldn't handle the volume coming in so I took it off.

Good Luck to all of you,

John

John Ziemba

Realtor

Keller Williams Team Realty & KW Commercial

847-217-0480

Realtor at JohnZiemba dot com

Do I really need a Wordpress website?

John Ziemba (Keller Williams Team Realty) — Thu, 02 Jun 2011 23:20:08 -0700

After a recent #retechchat on twitter. Drew Meyers, wrote a post inspired by from a comment that I had made. I noticed that a majority of the top producers in my area and even my company are not using Wordpress as their main website. In Drew's post he explained why agent's should consider using wordpress as an option for their website. While I think Drew brings up some very valid points, I think there are several issues agents need to consider.

Do you blog? If you don't do this on a regular basis then there really is no reason to switch from your current website. If you are one of the 90% of agents who don't actively blog, try it on a free forum before investing in a Wordpress website. You may want to try it on free service such as wordpress.com or activerain.com At this time there is not a magic plug-in that will blog for you (there are services that will blog for you).

What is your website currently doing? If the answer is nothing don't think a Wordpress site is going to do anything more. While Wordpress is setup for about 70% of what google is looking for according to Drew, SEO is not an overnight game. I have been able to get placed at the top of the search engines by smart website design, linking and content. So unless you plan on creating this for your website just having a Wordpress site is the solution. Make sure to answer the question, how are people going to find my site, before choosing any new website.

What IDX do you want to use? There are many idx solutions, some better than others. There are only a few WP friendly IDXs, you need to make sure they are available for your MLS. Keep in mind that in my research WP friendly IDXs seem to cost more than non-wp IDXs.

How much money do you have? From my experience you are looking at $500 to $1000 for wordpress site setup. There are plenty out of the box, template non-wp websites for a lot less. This does not mean you shouldn't have one but please understand that there is a significant cost to get started. In my opinion and based on my experience WP is more difficult than your average template website. If you are not of above average tech ability, I want to caution you about using WP. I would also highly encourage you to hirer someone to do the initial setup.

Do you know how to manage your site? With WP adding videos, blogs and pages is a little more complicated than a normal typical template site. In order to have a high level of SEO you will need to continually add content to your site, make sure you know how to do this.

Do you have a game plan? As I previously said, if you have website that is doing nothing does that mean you are doing nothing? Get a game plan and create content that is relevant to your market and is beneficial to your potential clients.

Analyzing my business I am not sure I can justify the need for a WP website. I suggest you ask yourself these questions if you are considering a new website.

These are my thoughts, I would love to hear what you think.

Best Wishes,

John Ziemba
Realtor
847-217-0480

How distressed is the Chicagoland Market?

John Ziemba (Keller Williams Team Realty) — Tue, 31 May 2011 10:06:11 -0700

I have analyzed the stats from the MLS Midwest Real Estate Data and have found the following. There has been 27970 closings of Single Family, Attached Single Family (Condo, Townhome &; 1/2 Duplex) and 2-4 unit Multi-Family Units. Of those 13245 were marked as foreclosures or short sales. This means that over 47% of the sold properties were distressed.

For the Northwest Suburban Market I have posted the stats below. I will go into some more detailed anaylsis tomorrow on this.

All properties

Distressed Properties

Start searching for homes today at http://www.WhiteTieRE.com

View, Save & Receive Daily Listing Alerts. It's Easy.

I am always here to help,

John Ziemba

Realtor@JohnZiemba.com

847-217-0480

Check Out Schaumburg IL Homes for Sale Today

Single Family Homes for Sale in Schaumburg IL

John Ziemba (Keller Williams Team Realty) — Mon, 30 May 2011 14:06:02 -0700

Looking for a Single Family Home in Schaumburg IL. As of May 30th, 2011, there are currently 199 single family homes for sale in Schaumburg. If you looking to search for Single Family Homes in Schaumburg for Sale visit http://www.WhiteTieRE.com. With the recent downturn in the housing market there are some great opportunites in the area. You can find short sales & foreclosures in area. You can also search for homes townhomes and condos in near by areas such as Mt. Prospect, Elk Grove, Rolling Meadows, Palatine, Arlington Heights. Stop by today and start to search its easy. You can also view results on a map. Now is the time to buy. Start your looking today for you new home

I am here to help,

John Ziemba

847-217-0480

Start Searching for Single Family Homes for Sale in Schaumburg IL

Chicagoland & Northwest Suburban Short Sales Update as of 5/26/2011

John Ziemba (Keller Williams Team Realty) — Fri, 27 May 2011 00:28:36 -0700

Wondering if short sales ever close?

Here are some interesting stats for the entire Chicagoland area from the Midwest Real Estate Data MLS. As you can see short sales repersent 22.01% of the entire active listings for residential properties but are only 13.46% of the closed transactions.

Entire Chicagoland Market

	Total	Single Family	Attached Single Family (Condo & Townhome)	2-4 Units
Total Active Listings	96,577	56,887	33,938	5,753

Short Sale Active Listings	21,252	12,066	7,238	1,848
% of Short Sale Active Listings	22.01%	21.21%	21.33%	32.12%

Total Closed Listings	27,214	16,725	8,551	1,938

Short Sale Closed Listings	3,664	2,178	1,145	341
% of Short Sale Closed Listings	13.46%	13.02%	13.39%	17.60%

Stats as of 5/26/2011 from MRED, LLC

Northwest Suburban Chicagoland Short Sale Update

Looking Deeper into the stats here are the stats for the Northwest Suburban Chicagoland Market. The Northwest Suburban Chicagoland is defined by MRED as Buffalo Grove, Wheeling, Prospect Heights, Mount Prospect, Des Plaines, Park Ridge, Rosemont, Elk Grove Village, Arlington Heights, Rolling Meadows, Palatine, Inverness, Niles, Hoffman Estates, Schaumburg.

	Total	Single Family	Attached Single Family (Condo & Townhome)	2-4 Units
Total Active Listings	7,249	3,262	3,956	31

Short Sale Active Listings	1,739	576	1,158	5
% of Short Sale Active Listings	23.99%	17.66%	29.27%	16.13%

Total Closed Listings	2,071	990	1,075	6

Short Sale Closed Listings	286	129	156	1
% of Short Sale Closed Listings	13.81%	13.03%	14.51%	16.67%

Number of Contingent Short Sales	516	200	315	1
% of Short Sales Under Contract	29.67%	34.72%	27.20%	20.00%

In the Northwest Suburban Market the number of short sales is almost 24% and 13.81% of closed transactions. Also important to note that almost 30% of active listings are under contract and awaiting a contingency. Very Important to note that almost 30% of condo listings are short sales.

How Long Do Schaumburg Short Sales Take To Close?

John Ziemba (Keller Williams Team Realty) — Wed, 25 May 2011 11:55:57 -0700

Search for Schaumburg Single Family Home Short Sale & Foreclosures

Search for Schaumburg Townhome & Condo Short Sale & Foreclosures

Are you considering purchasing a home that maybe a short sale in Schaumburg? Are you wondering if I put an offer on a Schaumburg Short Sale how long will I have to wait?

I have been asked this question many times and I am not sure I have a concrete answer. The success of short sales in largely dependent on who is negotiating the short sale. Typically, when a buyer puts a contract on a home, the seller chooses who negotiates the short sale. In my experience it is usually an attorney who negotiates the short sale with the bank. With the amount of short sales that have flooded the market over the last few years some agents have started to negotiate with the banks in an attempt to close the transactions. With my experience it is my opinion that many of the people who are negotiating the short sales often are not doing a good job. Having personally negotiated short sales, I can tell you that there are several typical road blocks that come up in every transaction. Here are my top 2 that can be directly influenced by the negotiator

1. Paperwork, sellers have to submit all the paperwork to the bank. If the file isn't complete the short sale processing will stop. The person negotiating the short sale should be calling the bank twice a week to confirm all the paperwork is completed.

2. Banks have deadlines that have to be met. If you don't have have the paperwork in by certain dates, this will cause the file to go dormant and not be processed by the bank.

If these two hurdles are overcome, I believe a bank will give an answer within 90 days. Having said this there are cases where they do take longer, due to the banks inability to process the transaction. One option a buyer may consider is hiring their own negotiation company to perform the negotiation. This is rare and may cost some money to do this but if you are getting that great of a deal it might be worth it. The biggest problem for buyers is they never know where the short sale is in the process. If the buyer's agent calls the listing agent, the standard answer is we are waiting on a response.

If your short sale is not resolved in 90 days, as a buyer, you have a tough decision to make and may not have all the facts.

Search for Homes for sale in Schaumburg IL and the surrounding areas.

Please do not hesitate to contact me if you have any questions about buying or selling a home in the Schaumburg Area.

John Ziemba

Realtor

Keller Williams Team Realty

847-217-0480

ReTechChat Monday's at 8pm Cst

John Ziemba (Keller Williams Team Realty) — Mon, 09 May 2011 21:40:29 -0700

In tonight's conversation on ReTechChat we were debating the effectiveness of activerain versus wordpress for blogging. I had state as many others that activerain has much better seo out of the box for long tail search terms. Feel free to tweet with us every Monday night on twitter and use the #retechchat hashtag. Look forward to seeing you there.

Best Wishes,

John Ziemba

Are you smarter than the "Expert"?

John Ziemba (Keller Williams Team Realty) — Fri, 11 Mar 2011 08:50:13 -0800

I recently read Rob Hahn's latest blog post, Keller Williams’ New E-Edge Program and Strategic Fit, in which he analyzes Keller Williams and their newest eEdge Technology Platform. Now, I don't know Rob personally, but from his education and experience he seems to be a really smart guy. I read his blog regularly and always seem to question his analysis of the issue he talks about. He brings up some very interesting points but like his old blog picture used to show he can be considered the grim reaper of the real estate industry. He always talks about the what if scenarios and worst case situations, at least that is how I would characterize his blog.

I take issue with this particular blog because of how he characterizes Keller Williams. As an associate who has worked for KW for the last 4 years in 2 different offices, I believe I have a better understanding of the company than he does. I feel that certain assumptions he makes based on his "research" are simply just wrong.

Here is a quote from his blog post and a previous article he wrote about a KW office.

"As we will see, the KWRI model – of which KW Premier is an example – is built around achieving and maintaining Cost Leadership, while offering a product to the general agent population that is comparable to that offered by competing brokerages. Almost all of its systems are inter-related, and that system is what provides it with the competitive advantage of Cost. (Emphasis added)"

I agree with this characterization and view of the company. In the next paragraph he says the following.

"Everything in the Keller Williams system, as I understand it, is built around the cost leadership vector of competition. For example, the profit-sharing up to seven levels of down-line revenues incentivized the agents themselves to recruit new agents into Keller Williams, minimizing the need for costly recruiting and retention efforts. The freedom that Keller Williams emphasized in all of its literature and marketing to agents also meant that the average brokerage (or “market center”) did not have to provide costly technology tools and the like. Each agent was free to buy and use whatever she deemed fit."

I think Rob misses the point and the value proposition of Keller Williams. I believe the best way to explain Keller Williams is to say Keller Williams is the foundation of your house. KW provides the tools & training to build a successful business. Thinking of it like a house again, you get to choose the materials you use, how you want to design your house and what you want it to look like.

To suggest that KW does not provide costly "technology tools" I don't feel is accurate. For many years KW has had a monthly eAgentC fee for $10 a month. This fee was created to provide technology services to help agents be more productive. Below is a description of the eAgentC mission.

-------

eAgentC Mission:

Protect and develop our Associates' fiduciary position in the electronic world
Provide relevant technology research, training, and consulting for Keller Williams Associates
Advance our Associates' industry leading position through targeted Internet tool development
Pool our resources to bring associates better ROI than what they could get individually

The vision for eAgentC’s initiatives is directed by Keller Williams Realty’s ATC (Associate Technology Council). The ATC represents the voice of the agent in the development of technology tools.

------------

Kelller Williams Agent's websites receive more traffic than any other brand (ok, I don't have the official stats for this one but it has been said by various "official" people in the company). As far as I know KW is the only major franchise that gives their agents a full functioning and customizable website with full idx (feel free to correct me on this). The other competitors give an agent a web page and not a full website.

This is where I think Rob is really misguided, as with the eAgentC technology platform, the eEdge platform was voted on by the Associate Leadership Council (ALC) which act as the board of directors for every office. The ALCs were given a presentation and eEdge was explained. Over 98% of the offices voted yes to have eEdge.

Rob also makes some other assumptions about recruiting and strategy that I do not agree with. Rob's assumption that KW does not recruit as much as other franchises is wrong. KW has a full time non-selling office manager (Team Leader) whose primary responsibility is to recruit. I think the difference is all the recruiting is done locally vs. nationally and KW does not have a franchise department.

Rob's assumption that this is a change in strategy, I don't see it that way at all. KW has been trying to do this for years and that is why the eAgentC program was started. At that time the company looked into making it's own contact management system but, decided to partner with Top Producer and create marketing material for the program. The program worked reasonably well until the guy that was the liaison, quit and started his own company MyRedTools. KW's value proposition has always been about the agent and I believe it is widely considered the first agent centric organization. People do business with me because of their relationship that have with me, not because of the company I work for. Most of the people I do business with never heard of Keller Williams, (I am in Suburban Chicago) and I never find that to be a problem.

Additionally, the $180 extra a year for the services provided is relatively minimal for anyone who is actually selling real estate. If it is that much of struggle, I might suggest an agent should consider another career. The eEdge fee is mandatory, while all aspects of the product will not be mandatory, all the agents transactions will be run through this system and in order to get paid, so every agent will have to use it.

So, in closing I think I have a better understand of the company and the product than the "expert" Rob Hahn. Does that make me smarter than the expert? In this case, I vote Yes, I believe KW was Notorious Rob-bed.

These are my thoughts and I would love to hear yours. Until next time, remember this time.

I am John Ziemba, enjoying my glass of Kool Aid

Cook County Foreclosures Homes List

John Ziemba (Keller Williams Team Realty) — Fri, 26 Nov 2010 02:35:18 -0800

Cook County is located in Northeastern Illinois and has a population of over 5,000,000 and represents over 43% of the population of IL. The City of Chicago is located within Cook County and the population is larger then 29 states. There are many great opportunity with foreclosures in Cook County. Cook County has received national attention several times due to their sheriff making sure the banks are going through the correct process with evictions. If you are interested in purchasing one of the many Cook County foreclosures then vist my page and see a Cook County Foreclosre List There may be some opportunities to purchase foreclosures and discounted prices and some may even have special financing opportunities. Cook County foreclosure homes are available through the 130 communities within the county. If you would like a Cook County foreclosure list emailed to you please do not hesitate to contact me and you can receive the latest foreclosure properties emailed to you.

Please contact me if you are interested in purchasing a distressed properties. There may be plenty of opportunities in your area. I can help you evaluate.

Thanks,

John Ziemba

847-217-0489

Realtor@JohnZiemba.com

SEO & Internet Marketing for Commercial Real Estate

John Ziemba (Keller Williams Team Realty) — Tue, 23 Nov 2010 15:19:14 -0800

SEO & Internet Marketing for Commercial Real Estate

After a recent wall post on facebook in which I demonstrated my ability to gain top SEO ranking for specific terms, I received a message from a fellow Commercial Real Estate Broker asking me what the best resource is to learn how to use the tools to gain a high SEO rank. I think this was a excellent question, however, I was stumped by my inability to be able to give an answer off the top of my head. For people that know me, they know I am never at a loss for words . I have spent hundreds of hours, reading across various posts, websites and attending classes to learn everything I know. As commercial real estate "evolves" or at least starts to copy trends in residential real estate, here are some opportunities to learn more about SEO and Internet Marketing.

There are many good resources out there so I will pick a few of my favorite:

Social the Book, free e-book available at socialthebook.com, written by Ben Kinney & Jay Papasan this is a great resource for being able to understand social medial and internet marketing.

Check out GaryVaynerchuk.com, this is a great resource to learn about and see someone who is using social media to the fullest in an industry that is not real estate.

For the latest how to videos, webinar and blog posts about social media in real estate check out TechSavvyAgent on facebook, yes this means you have to have to be on facebook. I know for many commercial real estate brokers, they are a little shy when it comes to social media but give it a chance before you talk about it.

If you are on LinkedIn, and if you are not you should be, check out the Technology for Commercial Real Estate Group, you will find the top connected CRE folks posting questions and commenting on different technology issues within commercial real estate.

I also suggest taking a course and gaining a certification like e-Pro, this was the first course I took to learn about technology in real estate and they have just redesigned it to make the content all new. This is a great opportunity to learn about technology in real estate. For people who want to dominate their market I am suggesting taking the IMSD course taught by the previously mentioned Ben Kinney.

If you are looking for a specific resource on SEO, check out a book, that's right a good old fashioned book, look for Search Engine Optimization: An Hour A Day, this is a great book to use to get started and learn about SEO.

In addition if you are not a member of ActiveRain.com, with almost 200,000 professionals on the "rain" this is a great forum to post questions and search for answers from people actually working in the "field".

I hope this gives the Commercial Real Estate Professional, a good place to start.

Make it a great day,

John Ziemba
my blog www.WhiteTieRealEstate.com
my website www.WhiteTieCommercial.com
Become a fan facebook.com/WhiteTieCommercial
email me JohnZ@kw.com
or pick up the phone and call 847-217-0480

Does Commercial Real Estate Need an IDX?

John Ziemba (Keller Williams Team Realty) — Fri, 12 Nov 2010 17:53:34 -0800

Does commercial real estate need an idx? I think so. I'll first start out defining what I consider to be an IDX, an IDX is the ability to show all the listings including other broker's listings on your website. Today's consumer is online and has access to more information than they have ever before. In the commercial real estate world there has not been a push to centralize all the listings and offer consumers a one stop shop to look at listings. For a consumer looking for commercial property, there are a few places to look and they often don't give then consumer what they are looking for, listings.

Let me explain what I mean by this. One of the most likely places a consumer is to look is on Craigslist, looking at this database of properties it is very incomplete and only offers a very small amount of properties with limited information on the specific property. I understand some commercial brokers have gone out and used html templates or services like Postlets, but by in large this is the exception, not the norm.

Moving on the next solution, a consumer might go to Google and type in "City Commercial Real Estate", the consumer might find some of the more local companies or possible a link to a Loopnet Listing. Let's analyze both, so the consumer clicks on John Smith Commercial Real Estate or even Big Name Company Commercial Real Estate and then goes to look for properties on their specific sites. The consumer will most likely only find a limited number of listings on each particular site, limited to the company's own listing inventory. If the company does not have a large inventory of that particular property and let's face it not all companies are going to have a large amount of inventory for each property type, the consumer is not finding what they are looking for. What if a company is a member of a local commercial MLS (multiple listing service) or CIE (commercial information exchange), by in large the MLSs only display a fraction of the data because most commercial real estate brokers are not members of the National Association of Realtors® and do not have access. With a CIE, participation is dependent upon the local movement and most of them are not offering any type of IDX solution.

Ok, now the consumer does not like those results and they have ended up on the Loopnet, site or for a lesser extent the CoStar Showcase site, so now there're cooking right? Wrong they start an account on Loopnet, log in, only to get a pop up asking them to be a premium member, as a basic member they only have access to only a small portion of the actual listings. With CoStar it is even worse the consumer really only gets to see the few "Showcase Enhanced" broker listings. From all the brokers I talk with the success with CoStar's Showcase service is nonexistent and with Loopnet it is a tossup with respect to lead generation.

In addition the next option for a consumer to find commercial properties is a consumer facing site like CommercialSource and there are many others. While this offers a way for consumers to search commercial real estate listings available, the listing inventory is incomplete at best and does nothing for a broker to further their ability to identify their value proposition.

Ok, so now why would a commercial IDX work? Frankly, I think it would change commercial real estate. Here is why, SEO now becomes important. With a properly designed website, a consumer would search for City Name Commercial Real Estate and then your site could be one of the top ranked sites. The consumer then clicks on your site is able to view "all" (a good amount) the listings in a specific area and for their specific property type. In addition, it now makes your site more valuable and useful to the consumer because it is a resource hub and in turn creates true lead generation from the internet.

The 2 biggest challenges I get from other brokers about the success of a commercial IDX are: commercial real estate consumers are not online and the big companies will not let you have their data for their listings. I believe both of these items to be false, similar to old wives tales. The big companies are already giving their data to Loopnet and CoStar. In the case of Loopnet they are most likely even paying to have their properties as a premium listing so that the general public and basic members can see them. With CoStar they are giving the information to CoStar and then buying it back with access to their comps service and the other CoStar services like property advisor & tenant. Hello, people where do you think they get the tenant data that they sell to the other brokers to help the "find clients". To me it is obvious that the brokers are not afraid to give their data away.

Commercial Real Estate Consumers are not online, right? Just ask the secretary of the Doctor who is doing the Doctor's search for new space. Having listed medical space the actual end user never calls me it is always the practice manager or receptionist and they usually tell me something like this, the Doctor asked me to find them a new space for their practice. Ok, maybe that example is juvenile and doesn't pertain to YOUR type of business, look at both the success of both Craigslist and Loopnet, which has over 4 million members and tell me the consumers are not online. Do you hear their cash register ringing?

Just my thoughts,

John Ziemba, White Tie Commercial

Schaumburg Homes for Sale

John Ziemba (Keller Williams Team Realty) — Wed, 03 Nov 2010 18:53:09 -0700

I have just built a new website to give consumers more information about Schaumburg. My new website www.Schaumburg-Homes-For-Sale.info also provides information about schools, restaurants and general community information. You can perform a search for Schaumburg homes for sale now and we will continually be adding new content and information about Schaumburg.

If you are not from the Chicagoland area, Schaumburg is located about 30 northwest of downtown Chicago. Schaumburg features the #1 tourist attraction in IL, Woodfield Mall and is home to the Motorola Corporation. In addition to Woodfield Mall, there are plenty of shopping opportunites including IKEA and Legoland. Schaumburg also features a minor league baseball team the Schaumburg Flyers. The population is around 75000 and is home to the 2000 First Place Boys IHSA Basketball Team.

We will be incorportating a news feed so all the current news will be on the website. Also look forward to finding all the information about the local eateries. I hope you will visit the site and bookmark and return to find the latest up to date information. Please visit our site and search for Schaumburg homes for sale.

If you have any real estate questions, please do not hesitate to contact me.

Best Wishes,

John Ziemba
Realtor
Keller Williams Team Realty

Phone or Text: 847-217-0480
Email: Realtor@JohnZiemba.com

9 Questions for the Real Estate Tech Gods

John Ziemba (Keller Williams Team Realty) — Thu, 28 Oct 2010 10:49:18 -0700

Hey guys,

I wrote this post in an effort to organize some of my thoughts and continue to grow my online profile. I wrote the questions in 1st person and I hope it will make everyone take a look at what they are doing.

1. How much difference does a good IDX make. I have posted the question what makes a "good idx", but idx can go from about $10 a month to over $1000 depending on the solution. What factors should I take into consideration when looking for one?. If I don't have a lot of traffic to my website does it really matter (I have heard the closed to unique visitor is about 600 to 1).

2. How do I choose the proper keywords for my website. Should I forget about my town real estate?

3. How do I choose the right long tail keywords for my site.

4. What is the best way to manage the urls on my site. If I work in a large area and serve many areas should I be using www.mysite.com/townnamehere or am I better using www.townnamehere.mysite.com

5. Is anyone looking for commercial real estate online, looking at adwords phrases the numbers make it seem like no one exisits.

6. What is the best way to syndicate my blog to mulitple places. I have heard and think I have even subsribed to ping.fm is this the best way to do it? I have accounts on wordpress, realtor.com, activerain, tumblr and a few others.

7. QR codes, if I decided to use them on a sign can someone scan this without getting out of their car. We get a lot of snow here and our signs are usually perpindicular to the street. I have posted this question several times and never really have recieved an answer or solution to this.

8. Video, yes I know youtube is the #2 search engine, but I don't think my clients are going there and searching homes in my town and watching the videos. I think the best use of video is a little of the house, and some of the neighboorhood niether video should be over 2 minutes unless I get people to my specific website it seems like some of the major portals are not that video friendly. (ps. I had video since 2007)

9. Mobile, I know that this is coming on like a big sunami but what is it that I really need to be doing with it. Do I need a fully functioning website with home search or should I invest in an app? Should I have both. Most of the solutions I have seen only have home info, not much other content was on these apps. What type of results are the people having that are doing this. I have talked to some very serious hitters and they are not doing anything with this.

I look forward to your responses,

John Ziemba

Is Tech Savvy Agent Scared of John Ziemba?

John Ziemba (Keller Williams Team Realty) — Sun, 24 Oct 2010 21:46:36 -0700

I want to start off by saying there is not a finer resource for the latest real estate technology information on the internet than TechSavvyAgent. With his goal to have over 10,000 fans on his facebook page facebook.com/techsavvyagent by the NAR convention coming up here in 2 weeks, I highly suggest you become a fan. Chris Smith has continually put out quality content on his blog and I just finished listening to his interview with Jonathan Rivera of The Official Real Estate Referral Group, facebook.com/RealEstateReferralGroup.

Recently, I have been trying to hunt him down and interview him for his website. Wait, why would I want to interview him for his website? Well truth is, as an agent who has worked with about 300 other real estate agents, I find there are not too many who have an online strategy. One of TSA's latest post criticized agents on their use of the back of their business card; if agents are not doing a good job on their business card's, then I will say this out loud: most don't have a clue on what to do with internet marketing.

I know Chris is a busy guy with all of his commitments, but he has not been overly receptive to the idea. We have exchanged a few messages via facebook and I started to wonder why has he not jumped on this opportunity. I offered to do this for his website with no gain to me. What does he have to loose? I mean if he doesn't like the video it could always end up on the cutting room floor. I honestly think this might be one of the most important subjects for him to talk about. With a Realtor population of over 1,000,000 and less then 10,000 fans on the faceboook page, this could be the interview that gives him exposure to the "average agent". Maybe he's just scared of me, I'm not that overwhelming physically but maybe I could be considered intellectually overwhelming (at least in my own mind).

So Chris, I know you can hear me knocking at your door, knock, knock. Let's set up a time for this and get it done. We can do this via Skype or Webcam show. Let me know, I'll be waiting.