This has been a tumultuous year for me.  A lot has happened and a lot more is going to happen.  Yet, through it all, I have been supported by friends and family in ways I had not anticipated.  I have many things for which to be thankful; many friends for whom to be thankful. 

Chances are, so do you.  Take a moment, just a moment, in the busy hectic days ahead to sit back and reflect on them.  I think you'll be glad you did.

Enjoy the holiday!

It's my fault.  It's my grievous fault.

I have broken one of my own cardinal rules - Thou shalt be consistent in thy posting.

It has been almost 2 months since I last posted, and that is not acceptable.  It is not a valid excuse that I have been hit with a series of family health issues.  It is not a valid reason that I have been traveling back and forth to Virginia.  That does not matter.  What matters is I have not been consistent with my blog posts.

What should I have done?  Clearly, in the midst of a family crisis I am not advocating that you stop everything, put the family on hold, and devote an hour to writing a blog post.  Instead, should something happen that will prevent you from posting regularly, TELL YOUR AUDIENCE.  Not with a post that seems targeted to garner sympathy or to create undue drama; simply with an "I'm going to be busy for some time.  I'm not going to be as available as I want to be.  I will post as soon as I can" type message.

I failed to do that.  I'm sorry.

Anyway, enough of the rendng of the garments, here is a mini-post to help get me back on track:

Don't Forget the Personal Touch

 As wonderful as email, the Internet, and automatic notifications are, agents must never forget that nothing takes the place of meeting someone face to face.  Take this real life example:

Buyer Smith contacted Agent Jones by email.  Agent Jones responded via email and engaged Buyer Smith in a brief electronic dialog.  Agent Jones even went so far as to sign Buyer Smith up for automatic email notifications of new properties.  Then, Agent Jones sat back and waited for a property to come on the market that fit Buyer Smith's stated parameters.  Agent Jones never met Buyer Smith face to face, even though Buyer Smith lived locally.

Three weeks later, Agent Jones happened to overhear Agent Dough talking about having sold a home to Buyer Smith.  It seems that while Agent Jones was waiting for a house to come on the market that met what Buyer Smith had said were her "must haves," Buyer Smith had gone to an Open House Agent Dough had held and bought the house. 

Agent Jones did nothing "wrong."  He just relied too heavily on electronic communication, and forgot the power face to face contact has in establishing rapport with a Customer and increasing their loyalty.

All of the research shows that the "personal touch" is even MORE important in the electronic marketplace.   By the time an Internet consumer has asked to be introduced to an agent, they have passed the point where they are still concerned about their anonymity.  At this point they want a real person to talk to them, not a faceless email name.  No buyer will develop any sort of loyalty to an email address.  They will only bond with a person.

Continue to build your technological skills, but never forget the power of your face!

I got a call recently from one of our office managers.  It seems one of her agents took a call from a consumer warning us about one of our listings on Craig's List.  It seems when the consumer contacted the "owner" she got a reply indicating that the owner was out of state; however, if the consumer sent a $500 key deposit a key to the property would be sent overnight to the caller and the $500 returned when they sent the key back.

Needless to say, we do not put our listings on Craig's List and this was a total scam.

Fortunately, it wasnt a very good scam and the consumer saw through it right away.  We contacted Craig's List and had the ad removed.  They are cooperating, but it is extremely difficult to track all of our 6000+ listings for any that might be appropriated for a scam like this.

Whether or not you put your listings on Craig's List (or a site like it) it might be worth a look to see if any of your listings appear there anyway!

Last Friday morning, I was browsing through my company's web site (www.NewEnglandMoves.com) and I came across a listing that was particularly interesting to me.  The property description noted that there were deed restrictions because it was an historical property, so I emailed the listing agent (not an agent in my company) asking what those restrictions were.  It seemed like a straightforward enough request.

I got no response Friday.  Well that isn't 100% accurate; I got a response at 10 minutes to midnight Friday.  However, I was already in bed by then, so I didn't read the email until Saturday morning.  That was bad enough, but that was not the end.

The email contained a listing sheet for the house, and a note saying I could drop by the office to see the deed restrictions.  Now, I already had a listing sheet and my email specifically had asked for the deed restrictions.  The response told me nothing I did not already know.  So, I wrote back and asked for the restrictions again.

This time it only took 4 1/2 hours to receive a reply (better, but not nearly good enough for a Saturday).  The reply stated that the restrictions were "too big to email or fax" and if I wanted to know what they were, I had to come in to the office.

OK, I think you know where this is going.

The surest, fastest, most reliable way to alienate an online consumer is to refuse to give them the information they request.

How should this have been handled?  The agent should have answered my question - or picked out two or three of the restrictions and typed them into the email, indicating that there were more if I was interested - and offered to call me and go over them.  Perhaps ask if I was interested in historical properties in general; did I ever own one; do I own one now; what was it about this property that caught my eye; etc etc.

The key is to engage the consumer.  Answer their question, then ask one of your own that gives them a reason to continue the fledgling relationship.

ActiveRain is a great community.  It's a great place to network, make professional connections in real estate and affiliated businesses, pick up a few tips, and even get some serious advice.  However, it is potentially only part of your Internet Footprint.  In fact, it probably should be just one component of your overall footprint. 

What other components do you have?

Do you have a web site?  A blog in addition to your AR blog? How about a profile on LinkedIn? FaceBook? Ryze?  Have you created or joined a community on WebJam?  DelphiForums?  Do you belong to any non-real estate, non-business networks like CafeMom or Eons.com?  Do you belong to any niche networks like MiGente?

How broad is your Internet Footprint?

Obviously, there are hundreds or thousands of electronic social networks out there and you can't possibly join them all.  But outside of AR you probably could handle profiles on LinkedIn and FaceBook, for example, along with some sort of non-business, topic-oriented network focusing on some activity you personally enjoy.

Electronic social networking is not quite as time intensive as its personal counterpart, but it still does require some attention.  Dont neglect it.

So having said that, what other electronic networking do you do?

I read this article the other day.

It contains several points that we've been trying to make for months now.  Among them, if the price is right the property will sell!  The article looks in detail at a property which was priced correctly to generate so much buyer interest that they had multiple offers and ended up selling $10,000 over the asking price.

Buyers are still there, but they have more to choose from than before.  The three factors identified in the article are location, condition, and price.  Sound familiar?

Oh well, at least there is one reporter who took the time to point out that the real estate market still has its success stories.

Suppose when you get home from work tonight, you learn that your clothes dryer is broken.  What would you do?

Well, many of us would probably begin researching a new dryer online.  Perhaps going to GoodHousekeeping.com or ConsumerReports.com to learn a little, or perhaps straight to Sears.com or Lowes.com to begin to price them.  Let's say you've done that and have narrowed your search.  Some of us would order online, but others wouldn't feel comfortable spending several hundred dollars sight unseen.  So, you hop in your car and head to the store.

Once you are there, you narrow the selection down to these two dryers.

They look the same.  They are the same size, same capacity, same energy usage, same number of cycle options, same warranty, same shipping, same everything.  Except, one on the left costs $400 and the one on the right costs $700.  Which would you buy?

Most people would opt for the $400 model, since everything else is equal.  However, just as you are about to make your choice, the sales person says this:

"Allow me to demonstrate something that may affect your choice.  The dryer on the right, the one for $700, when the dry cycle is complete actually irons, folds, and puts away your clothes for you."  The buzzer goes off, the door opens and out pops perfectly ironed and folded clothes straight into a nearby dresser!  Now which one do you buy?

Think about it.  How many of you Gentle Readers drive a Mercedes Benz or BMW versus a Chevrolet Aveo?  Why?  The Aveo gets better gas mileage and you can buy a brand new Aveo every 6 months for what one Mercedes costs.  So, why don't we all drive Aveos?

Because we are consumers and most consumers are willing to pay extra to get extra.

But, consumers have to know they are getting extra, and the extra has to have value.  Once you learn the extra "value add" things you and your company do for your clients, your job is to make sure your consumers know all about them.

OK, by now I'm sure many of you are wondering what my point is here.  It is simply this:  If you never demonstrate to a consumer how you are different from your competition, why you are better, do not blame the consumer for making their choice based on price alone.

You can't sell what you don't buy.  I've repeated that phrase in front of real estate professionals all across New England.  In front of small groups and large, new agents and experienced, managers and owners, I've said it, repeated it, preached it.  But what does it mean?

You can't sell what you don't buy.

For a real estate sales professional, it means you will not be able to convince a consumer that you are the best person for them to hire unless you believe it yourself.  Let me caveat that.  We've all met someone who could look us in the eye, lie, and not flinch a bit.  Most of us are not like that.  Most of us are not sociopaths.  Most of us, when we lie, give ourselves away with small signs that others can, often unconsciously, pick up.  You've probably experienced this yourself.  Someone has told you something they didn't believe, and you knew, you just knew, they weren't telling the truth.  Well, real estate consumers are no different.  They will know if you are telling them you and your company are the best, but you don't believe it.

For a real estate manager it means a couple of things.  How many times have you returned from a company meeting having been charged with telling your agents something?  Perhaps news of a new program, a new initiative, some change in the way things are done, whatever.  Your job is to get the agents to buy in, but you don't believe the program or initiative or change is a good thing.  Ever have trouble convincing your agents to join in?  Of course you have.  You cant sell what you don't buy.

If you are trying to recruit an agent, it means you will not have much success getting them to believe your company and your office is the best place to work if you don't believe it yourself.  How can you convince a potential recruit they will make more money, improve their skills, take their career to the next level, etc if you don't believe it yourself?  Unless you are a very skilled liar, you will have enormous difficulty.

You cant sell what you don't buy.  But you will sell what you do buy... whether you want to or not.

So, what should you do?

When you are preparing to sell a house, what do you do?  You learn as much about it as you can.  You walk through, you tour it, you measure it, you ask the owner, you look it up in the MLS and public record.  In short, you learn about it.  When you are preparing to sell your company to a consumer on a listing appointment (or a recruiting interview), you should do the same.  You should take the time to learn as many of the advantages, programs, policies, deals, stats, success stories, etc about your company and those of your competitors as you can.  You won't be able to sell the advantages of your company to a consumer (or recruit) if you don't know about them.  If you are an agent, ask questions of your manager.  If you're a manager, ask your regional manager or your Home Office.

You can't sell what you don't buy.  And you can't buy what you don't know.

I just read this article on CNNMoney.  It talks about the "housing implosion" and how the Case/Shiller Home Price Index is predicting a continued price drop in 75 of the 100 markets in their list.  OK, sounds pretty bad and, in fact, being in the business we see some of the worst of it first hand.

But take a bit of a closer look at the table they present.  Notice the second column.  That number is the price appreciation experienced over the last 5 years.  Only 2 of them are negative and the vast majority are far higher than the last column - which is the predicted price change from '08 to '09.  In other words, even in markets where prices are predicted to drop most homeowners are better off than they were 5 years ago.

Take Philadelphia as an example.  The median home price is $200,000.  That represents a 50% increase from 5 years ago.  So, 5 years ago the median was $133,333.  Even if Case/Shiller is correct and prices drop 11.1% in 2009, that will make the median $177,800.  This is still 33% higher than 5 years ago.

Now, I am not trying to say there is no housing crisis.  We all know there is a huge amount of pain being experienced all across the country in this industry.  Look at Detroit, for example.  Not only did they lose 6.3% over the last 5 years, but they are predicted to lose another 8% in 2009.  There are plenty of examples like this, but not as many as the headline writers would lead us to believe.

My question is this: why isn't the headline "Median Price Up 33% In 6 Years!"?  Wait, I think I know.  That would not sell as many papers.

It seems the bad news concerning the housing and mortgage markets far outweighs the good.  However, the impression I get is that's mainly due to the coverage choices the various news sources make.  Bad news sells, so they report more bad news.

Finally, here is an articlefrom the Providence Journal that shows a bit of good news.  Granted, the price ranges discussed dont apply to most people, but at least the "feel" of the article is positive.