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What Do You Want To Know About Real Estate?

By Joshua Pettus

Real Estate Agent with Home Grown Real Estate - Buy Sell Remodel Build

November 03, 2009 06:58 AM

Monday, August 24, 2009

What Do You Want To Know About Real Estate?
(The following entry was directed toward members of our community via our Facebook page. The next blog will include one question and my response.)

I've been thinking about my blog and how to make it better. For the past several months I have chattered away about various topics that I find interesting personally, however I haven't really made this a good place for feedback, comments, suggestions, or interaction. So, I pose a question to you all out there.

What Do You Want To Know About Real Estate?

Feel free to hit me with the hard questions. It can be about real estate law, contracts, negotiation, sales numbers, local trends, hot spots for real estate in our area... pretty much anything you want to learn. I'm open to it all. I'll try to take your questions and then turn them into blog entries. If I don't know the answer to some of them, I'll either make one up that sounds believable, or I'll find someone who knows. I'm interested to see where this takes us.

You can either submit your suggestions in the comments below this post, or you may email them to me, or you can even post them up on our Facebook page.

Thanks everyone for your participation.

Joshua B. Pettus
Home Grown Real Estate
President/Associate Broker
jbpettus@gmail.com
http://www.homegrownrealestate.net/

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Douglas Lovitt

Washington Management Company, Inc. - Mill Creek, WA

Ok Josh,

Let's test the waters with this one. I have been a broker/Branch manager for 16 years. Back in 1995 the Internet was just making an emergence and the real estate brokers at the time were trying to convince me that the Internet was not going to be much help to real estate. I refused to buy into that and heavily pursued an Internet presence. Glad I did. Now I am a bit older (47) but I'm still not so set in my ways that I am going to ignore the revolution I see happening in social media. It's still in its infancy, but it think in a few years that is going to be the standard of communications. What are your thoughts?

Nov 03, 2009 07:09 AM

Joshua Pettus

Home Grown Real Estate - Buy Sell Remodel Build - Florence, AL

Realtor, Florence, Alabama Real Estate

I think you're exactly right. Gone are the days of classified ads in newspapers and real estate magazines. NAR says that consumers are 10x more likely to use the internet than a newspaper to find properties. They also say that they are 32x more likely to use the internet than a home buyer magazine. I think that says VOLUMES about the power of the internet these days.

NOW, having said that... we can NEVER ignore the personal element of real estate sales. No internet search can include the intuition of a good agent who knows the market, and Google will never be able to form a lasting friendship of trust with a home buyer or seller. You've got to have BOTH internet savvy and superb personal skills to make it today.

Here's an example. This weekend I saw a letter that had arrived at my dad's house from an Amish man in Tennessee he had contacted about building some furniture for him. He has no internet access, of course. This man's only form of communication with my father was through a hand-written letter in pencil. I read the letter and was floored at the personal revelation this man's gesture had given me. In today's high-tech society, you, of course, need to be up to speed on the latest advances, but you should know that a handwritten letter to your client will impress them to no end. They WILL remember that.

So my answer to you is yes, the internet will be the standard of communications for real estate, but take time to be personal and you will do well.

Thanks for asking! Joshua

Nov 03, 2009 07:19 AM

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