Unconventional R.E.
Dispatches from the real estate front line
Bob Hale Discovers that some HAR-members are Realtors
Bob Hale, the CEO of the Houston Association of Realtors (HAR) surprised a group of directors at an HAR board of directors meeting with an unexpected question. At the end of the meeting he mentioned he was planning on upgrading his home and asked casually if anyone knew where he could find a good Realtor.
Insiders who were at the meeting state that the group laughed at what they thought was a joke until Mr. Hale repeated the question with sincerity. When one of the directors responded to Mr. Hale that HAR.com’s several-thousand person membership included many Realtors, Mr. Hale scoffed in disbelief, “Why would we have Realtors as members of my HAR.com? We do everything we can to make sure that people don’t have to deal with those annoying Realtors!”
Bob Hale reportedly asked his staff how many of the HAR.com members were Realtors and laughed incredulously when one of his 23 VP’s responded “All of them.” Mr. Hale reportedly retorted, “Come on Karen, why would why any Realtors pay us money so that we could snuff them out online? That’s just tomfoolery.”
When Mr. Hale then asked if they could just “get rid of those annoying Realtors from my HAR.com site” the board explained that HAR.com was actually more than just a customer-facing webpage and had a “backend” where Realtors paid dues in exchange for a professional association to protect their interests and support them. Mr. Hale and the board agreed to keep this backend in place for the current fiscal year with another unanimous vote.
"I didn’t have time to write a short letter, so I wrote a long one instead."
Obama calls for Realtors to go back to work
The latest report by the Congressional Budget Office has caught the President’s ire claiming that national unemployment rate would be reduced to 6% if Realtors would end their daily “social marketing” and “go back to work.” In a surprise televised address to the nation Thursday night, the President referenced this report and called for national unity and sacrifice. The President specifically called upon Realtors to give up their inside blogs, outside blogs, Twitter feeds, and “all other activities that require a profile picture” and spend those productive hours of the day working with clients who need to buy and sell homes.
Obama contended that if Realtors would go back to work, then the foreclosure glut in most cities could also be solved and property values restored. In a rare gesture, the President looked directly into the camera made a direct plea to all the licensed real estate agents in the country: “Your President asks you to consider that every post that could possibly be written by Realtors, about Realtors and social media has already been written many times over. It is a time for healing and a time to move on. It is time for… the country… to move on.”
In an unprecedented move, an NAR spokesman was selected to give the follow-on address normally reserved for the Republican Majority Leader, “The 1.1 million members of the National Association of Realtors are prepared to abandon their online profiles, get out of their pajamas, and return to work once Congress passes the “We don’t need anymore competition in Real Estate Act” which bars banks, any profitable corporation, and all companies from Silicon Valley or Seattle from entering and competing in the real estate industry. Until then,” the spokesman said, “the President and the country will just have to deal with more tweets and blog posts about what agents are eating at the moment, where they have become notional mayors, and yes more social media posts from Realtors about Realtors doing social media.”
Agent responses have been mixed. ”My social media guru consultant tells me that I need to spend four years focusing on tweeting and blogging before I can expect to see any business from it” one Cleveland agent stated, “it has only be 2.5 years… what does the President expect? My guru tells me branding success does not happen overnight.”
Pundits are wondering if President Obama will have his Reagan moment and break the Realtor “social media in lieu of work” stoppage by executive order. While some skeptics believe Obama’s interest is personal: that he is anticipating needing a new home in a couple years and worried that there will not be any working agents available to help him. ”I’ll be damned if I have to use Redfin!” The President reportedly yelled in a heated Oval Office discussion, “I am the President of the United States, by God, and I will be damned if I have to use some minimum-wage Redfin agent who asks me to borrow gas money. I am the President of the United States!!!”
Whether the impetus for the President’s call to action was his anxiety over being left to work with Redfin, or if it was due to Realtors clogging his twitter stream with Foursquare check-ins and automated listing alerts, as some insiders report, the President has decided to put the full weight of the Presidency behind getting agents back to work. Time will tell how it plays out.
"Design twice and code once."
~ As part of my recent interest in web usability and design.
RETS gains momentum, MLS’s respond with a new data standard: Powerpoint
The lower Southeast Boise Association of Realtors (SBAR) adopted a new MLS data standard in view of the growing threat of the RETS data standard. MLS boards foresee RETS adoption as allowing the “snake in the door” leading towards data standardization and consumer access to valuable home listings information.
“We are here to serve the 94 members who make a living selling real estate in the lower part of southeast Boise.” Board President Chet Sanders said in a press conference. ”What the other associations do, like the Upper Southeast Boise Association of Realtors, and what the 17 other MLS’s in the greater Boise area do, is none of our concern.” Mr. Sanders continued.
National Association of Realtors bylaws state that all local associations must share their data but leave it to the 900+ MLS’s nationwide to decide on the format of the data feed. SBAR’s newly announced data feed format is novel in its complexity. Here are some of the details:
- In an unprecedented move, SBAR has decided to release its listing feed as PowerPoint presentations (.PPT).
- In further effort to prevent real estate listing aggregators like Zillow.com and Trulia.com, the feed only includes every third word of the property description.
- Pictures of the homes are turned 110 degrees to the left for odd street numbers and 87 degrees to the right for even street numbers.
- Of importance, the PowerPoint slides are not offered in digital format. They can only be received on 11x17 paper printed in black and white in size 7 Arial Narrow font.
- Finally, the paper is cut into triangles as a prevent “aggregators from using those word scanners to ‘computerize’ our listings.” according to Mr. Sanders. “If Zillow wants our data, they can drive to our 48,000 square foot office in the penthouse sweet of the Lower Southeast Boise business district and pick it up… after they pay the standard $300 processing fee. We are not set up to take credit cards yet and we don’t do cash from outsiders. Certified bank checks only.”
The MLS’s new data feed format is widely expected to inspire other MLS’s to create their own proprietary standards. However, SBAR took the added precaution to ensure that no other MLS share their data standard (making it easier for aggregators) by filing for trademark protection under Federal Law.
RTB has the wrong focus
I recently discovered the “Raise the Bar” podcast by Michael McClure and his partner Todd Waller. I recommend it to anyone interested in real estate industry issues that affect the everyday real estate agent.
The core message of the broadcast is a movement to Raise the Bar (RTB) for real estate agents to increase the holistic professionalism of the industry. How? By cleansing the industry of its bottom feeders through much higher licensing and license renewal standards like requiring a bachelor’s degree to practice real estate.
The problem is real. The effort is admirable. The solution is wrong.
The RTB movement is not going to accomplish it’s goals by trying to improve or eliminate the lowest-common denominator. Those at the bottom of the pile when it comes to professionalism, ethics, and class are not there by accident. It takes conscious thought and effort to intentionally ignore calls from other agents wanting to show and help your listed homes. It takes true gumption to look someone in the eye, smile, and encourage them to buy that house with foundation issues because “if you are interested in it with these problems, so will someone else when you are ready to sell!”
Leadership science tells us that the best way to stop a behavior is through fear of adverse consequences. The Army has known this since sticks and stones. Think of a drill sergeant chewing into a private for being late to a formation, or the threat of a firing squad for abandoning your post. We could use the fear of losing your license or livelihood through increasing minimal required standards but that does not achieve the goal - a higher “average” level of professionalism and performance of agents.
That same leadership science tells us that the best way to encourage behavior is not through fear of consequences but through the promise of good things. It is the “carrot” that causes people surpass standards and even go beyond.
So what to do?
This is not my cause as I am a believer in letting the markets and competition sort it out for itself. However, if RTB wants to have a role in this economic Darwinism, here is what they should do:
- Focus your efforts on changes that are grounded in basic human nature which means switching focus away from raising the “low bar” through higher entrance and retention standards.
- Instead, focus on ways to raise the “high bar” for the great mass in the middle. These are agents are hard working, ethical, and love the business of real estate. They care. They care about more than just the money. They care about “how” the job is done. They care about what their peers think of them.
- The best way to do this is leadership by example. You have your own brokerage so raise the “high bar” by example and tell us what happens. I don’t know anyone who starts a brokerage hoping for it to be a clearinghouse for the lame and unprofessional. As the founder and owner of two former brokerages, I could learn from you personally on how you balance the complex competing forces that a brokerage new to a market faces. It is much easier to set above-average standards and requirements when you have significant market share in a market. It is much harder when you need the agents more than they need you.
I think this RTB effort could be significantly helpful to the brokers out there who want to have that top-tier, highly-professional outfit but don’t know how to get there. As a former broker who has scars from the brokerage business, I personally would appreciate to see how that can be done from scratch.
Good luck and go get it!
We took the long way
Remember a site called Zolve? That’s us! We’re still here :) We launched our real estate referral network back in 2007, changed it to a new platform in 2008 and have been working hard on the most important piece of the pie since then.
It hasn’t gone as planned. The plan was to launch our real estate network full of free tools for agents and build up a wide and deep network of agents across the country. Then in six months we would launch our customer-facing real estate information site and with a network of agents would have no problem building up the valuable content needed to make it successful.
As many business plans go (especially when it comes to web development) it didn’t work out that way. Our real estate network grew pretty well but it took so much longer than I anticipated to get it right, but that is nothing compared to building our customer-facing information site. Between complete concept rewrites, design overhauls, and running out of money here and there, it has taken 2 years longer than I thought it would.
Funny how life works but I am glad it happened this way. Unbeknownst to me for all this time, time has been on our side. We have a brand for this customer-facing site and a plan that is several leagues better than our initial concepts. It does not even compare. It is a product that I can be completely proud of without reservations. YourPlace.com is a business that will help agents truly connect with potential clients on an authentic level by giving them a platform to demonstrate their local skills and experience. To spend their time rather than their money.
It is a site that I will use personally to grow my agent business in The Woodlands, Texas. As obvious as that may sound, this is a milestone for me. Give us a couple months and you’ll see what I am talking about.
Who we are & what we do
This is the Blog of YourPlace.com (coming soon) a site about the Places where we live and work. We are real estate people online and off so let's talk real estate.
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