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featured post: Is your ActiveRain blog in violation of the Realtor Code of Ethics? - 02/10/08 09:54 PM
...Mine is, but it won't be by the time you read this.
I attended Professional Standards/Code of Ethics Training this week provided by the Michigan Association of Realtors. Our trainer, Bruce Aydt, went over changes in the COE, and this is one that actually was put in January of 2007, yet is not at all well known.
Standard of Practice 12-9REALTOR® firm websites shall disclose the firm’s name and state(s) of licensure in a reasonable and readily apparent manner.Websites of Realtors® and non-member licensees affiliated with a Realtor® firm shall disclose the firm's name and that Realtor®'s or non-member licensee's state(s) of licensure … (197 comments)
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featured post: The Little Blog That Could... - 10/29/07 09:49 PM
For the last 18 months, maybe longer, a significant part of my job has been to disappoint people. I get to deliver messages that nobody wants to hear:
“Your home is not worth what you paid for it.”“You owe the bank more than your house is worth.”“Your neighbors got more last year than you will get this year.”“Buyers want PERFECT.”“Certain ’shortcomings’ will get you almost no showings.” (Location, location, location. Condition, condition, condition. Price, price, price. Marketing, marketing, marketing.)“I don’t know when…” It’s been rough. Honestly, I really don’t enjoy that part of the job. I don’t think anybody would.
It … (43 comments)
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featured post: Let's Face it Folks, It is time to PAY Activerain - 09/28/07 03:43 PM
I have been talking about how this thing we know as ActiveRain will be monetized since the day I landed here in August of 2006. Given the whole "situation" with Move.com, it looks like everyone is thinking about it now. AR's owners (am I the only one who wonders WHO they all are???) deserve to make some money for what they are doing here. No matter who they chose to buy them out, my guess is that many of us will not be pleased. That is just logical.
So it is time for those of you who want this network to stay … (139 comments)
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featured post: They just don't get it! - 05/25/07 07:12 AM
A few weeks ago another Realtor in the Birmingham MI real estate market referred to me derogatorily as a “blogger”, somehow implying that blogging is not something that a real estate agent does to sell homes. Oh, how wrong he is. And I am OK that he does not know better. Another victim of “Old School” thinking that traps many agents into using ineffective marketing tools. Great for me.
Yes, I write about real estate on miOaklandCounty.com and on ActiveRain. Is that a bad thing? I write about the local market, a bit about our business practices, and I closely track … (66 comments)
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featured post: Sell-Lord Lesson: Peeing Dogs Do Not Sell Homes - 04/07/07 10:33 AM
Yesterday I had one of my top 10 most memorable showings. This is a list that you don’t want to be on as most of those showings tend to be memorable for bad reasons, like finding people asleep in beds when you think the house is empty. That is always good for a fright.
My Metro Detroit market is currently swarming with sellers who, because they can't sell, are considering leasing and becoming landlords. Since there are so many of them out there, I think they deserve a name and I am dubbing them Sell-Lords. Most would rather be sellers but they … (51 comments)
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featured post: Just Say No! 10 Things You Can't Do If You Want to SELL Your Michigan Home - 03/30/07 04:08 AM
10. Try to sell "By Owner." Sorry, I am not just saying this because my livelihood is in selling homes. If you want to sell your home, you need to be where the buyers are. Since about 90% of sales in Metro Detroit involve real estate agents, that is clearly where the buyers are. Additionally, many of the small 10% of non-Realtor transactions are between family members and known parties, making the odds for selling on your own even lower. Transferees coming in to this market always work with a Realtor.
9. Defer maintenence items. If something is broken, FIX IT. … (42 comments)
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featured post: Dang, Nobody Saw it! - 02/24/07 09:14 PM
I spend too much time thinking. Maybe nobody else even cares about this. Today I am trying to wrap my brain around figuring out when to post to get read. There is obviously a lot out there on AR now. Posting on a Friday night didn't work out too well for me yesterday. I guess the rest of you all still have social lives, or no three year olds at home. Sunday night also seems to have been a slow starter for me.
I figure we are all social animals. If you post here, you probably want someone else to read it, … (71 comments)
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featured post: Help Me Escape the Icy Michigan Weather: Join the January Blog Tour! - 01/16/07 05:13 PM
I've been seeing an "explosion" in the real estate blog world in the last few months with new bloggers springing up everywhere. Even seasoned bloggers are adding new blogs or switching platforms and domains. I am hoping we will see some of these newer blogs on the tour this month, in addition to those who've been around a bit longer.
For the last few months, we've run blog tours of ActiveRainer's 'other blogs,' or the blogs they maintain outside of ActiveRain. Some of us, it seems, are crazy enough to maintain 2 (or more!) real estate blogs. My other blog, for … (60 comments)
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featured post: Sellers: You Need a Home Warranty (and It Might Not Cost You a Dime) - 01/14/07 04:26 PM
First let me say that I am a born skeptic, and I am frugal. I NEVER buy the extended warranty when I buy a new appliance or other major purchase. In my mind I think that extended warranties are a scam and I would like to assume that the product that I am buying is well enough made that it should last for 3 years or so without me needing an expensive service call or a warranty to pay for the service call. Heck, I have a refrigerator in my basement that I think is about 15 years old and it … (37 comments)
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featured post: The Tribe Has Spoken: Carnival of ActiveRain's Memorable Posts of 2006 - 01/03/07 05:41 PM
First, let me start off by thanking everyone who participated in the Carnival, either by nominating someone or by voting. You gave us all a bunch of great posts to revisit, all 'winners' in their own right. There were 49 posts nominated, and the Rainers whittled the list down to 11 of their favorites. A three way tie for 8th caused us to expand this list from 10 to 11.
No one can accuse us of being a shallow or insensitive group. When I look at all of the top 11, I see compassion and passion, both about our profession and about our concern for others. If … (40 comments)
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featured post: Memorable Posts of 2006: Carnival of ActiveRain (Go VOTE!) - 01/01/07 08:37 AM
OK, folks, a few thoughts before we get started with the real fun. When I had this idea, I was hoping we would come up with the memorable posts of 2006. For each of us, that will be something different. By memorable, I did not necessarily mean best or most popular or anything like that. I meant posts that touched you or impacted this community in a meaningful way. Maybe that distinction is difficult. And maybe I did not articulate it clearly in my original post. But I do think that we came up with a fantastic selection of memorable posts, … (56 comments)
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featured post: THIS is Cooperation! - 12/29/06 08:00 AM
Last month something very interesting happened in the Birmingham/Bloomfield real estate market. It may not sound like something groundbreaking to most of you, but to me it was a BIG thing.
My friend Sara Lipnitz, who is an agent in my office, called together some of the top producing agents in other offices around town to jointly hold a broker open together. She had a theme in mind, and the Home and Holiday Boutique Day was born. We had vendors in each of our listings so that agents and the public could do some pre-Christmas shopping while seeing 10 beautiful homes. The … (40 comments)
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featured post: Help! My New Listing Has a Fish n' Flush! - 12/26/06 08:49 PM
Usually, I have no problem. Most of my clients have outstanding taste, and they either have used the services of a professional decorator or they could come pretty close to being one. But sometimes I get "one of those".I admit, I am at a loss. My new clients have a decorating issue that I just don't know how to address. I can't find the words to tell them "that has got to go." Usually, I am fairly plain spoken, even with people that I am just meeting for the first time. My personal feeling is that if I don't tell them … (104 comments)
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featured post: Is Santa Bringing Home Buyers to Michigan This Christmas? - 12/23/06 05:29 PM
Overheard in my office more than once in the last two weeks, “Ever since the elections, it’s been like a Spring market.” The elections they are referring to are our Michigan gubernatorial elections in which the incumbent, Jennifer “She Can’t Run For President Because She Was Born in Canada” Granholm, easily defeated her Republican challenger, Dick “George Bush’s Amway Rep” Devos. We had an idea of how Dick could occupy his time for the next few years, but he has not called us to let us know if he is taking us up on it. Back to that Spring market thing…
… (88 comments)
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featured post: Be a Blog Tourist! The December Blog Tour is Leaving the Port - 12/13/06 05:16 PM
For the last two months, we've run blog tours of ActiveRainer's 'other blogs,' or the blogs they maintain outside of ActiveRain. Some of us, it seems, are crazy enough to maintain 2 (or more!) real estate blogs. My other blog, for example, is mioaklandcounty.com.
So, here is the invitation. The December Blog Tour is now officially underway.
Here are 3 posts you can look back on if you are curious about what has taken place in the past. But, really, its quite simple.
Here is how it works:
Put a link in the comments here with your 'other' blog's URL. If you have a post … (79 comments)
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featured post: Call 9-1-1! I Can't Find Your Agent! - 11/26/06 11:24 AM
Dear Mr & Mrs. Seller,
I've noticed something funny lately. I happened to Google a couple of local agents' names. I was really surprised that NOTHING came up. I mean NOTHING! Not one lousy link. Not even one from their broker's site.
Shhhhhhh. Don't tell them please. They are my competitors. I don't really want you to find them, if they don't want to be found. OK, OK, I don't mind if you find them, but here is my thought for the day:
If you can't find any trace of your Realtor on Google, do you think your agent has a strong … (69 comments)
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featured post: These Listings are in the Bank - 11/11/06 05:26 AM
Metro Detroit holds the dubious distinction of being a leader in the number of foreclosed upon homes. Dmitry, my husband, tracks foreclosures very closely for his investor clients and for our own real estate investments. He's managed to find some great deals through his research.
We are primarily listing agents. We love buyers, but seem to end up with more sellers, and we always have. We've got a very good reputation for getting homes sold for our clients, so that has perpetuated itself into more listings.
Dmitry saw an opportunity for us to use our listing skills in conjunction with his knowledge … (37 comments)
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featured post: Staging Your Blog - 11/11/06 04:20 AM
(With apologies to the professional stagers out there. I will never be a threat to staging anything better than you!)
Not long ago Matt Heaton left a comment on Merton and Ambrose's blog after Jay asked how he might get a gold star. Matt's reply is worth taking a look at, but this sentence stuck in my mind:
"I will admit how a post looks and whether it is free from spelling mistakes can make a huge difference".
Then today, janeAnne Narrin posed a question on her blog about how people are finding images to illustrate their blogs. A good question, and … (67 comments)
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featured post: Carnival of ActiveRain: Off Topic/Humor - 11/04/06 04:36 AM
Last night the Tomato completed deliberations over the Off Topic/Humor Category for the Carnival of ActiveRain. Like the rest of the hosting panel, The Tomato was faced with a difficult decision and some very fine reading material. So, without further ado, fresh from the Tomato's vine...(drum roll please...)
The winner is Linda Davis for The Good Old Days, Linda's reminiscence about high interest rates (illustrated by short skirts), long gas lines and agents prequalifying buyers certainly inspired a lot of commentary. From what I gather, most of the agents who lived through the "Good Old Days" are glad that they are over.Congratulations … (22 comments)
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featured post: Mapping Shmapping--Here is a Mapping Tool We Can All Use - 10/17/06 10:08 AM
A few months ago we organized a tour of SKBK Sotheby’s Beverly Hills listings. It was a big success. One of the things that we did was map out all the listings for our web site and flyers. At the time, the maps were a bit of a pain to do well without buying mapping software.
Today I came across a new mapping tool that I think will solve this problem. We are organizing a tour of In Town Birmingham homes and mapVine will be put to use to map the tour. mapVine has only been out for a few days, … (29 comments)
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Maureen Francis & Dmitry Koublitsky, SKBK Sotheby's - Metro Detroit
Birmingham,
MI
More about me…
SKBK Sotheby's International Realty
Address: 348 E. Maple, Birmingham, MI, 48009
Office Phone: (248) 644-7000
Cell Phone: (248) 430-4450
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