I annoyed a whole lotta folks on Bloodhound Blog. I told everyone that the parents were a better demographic than the kids and the RE.net cried heresy! Apparently, Web 2.0 agents have adopted the mantra of the very demographic I suggest they target;

Never trust anyone over 30.

That’s good advice for cell phone companies. If you’re in the real estate or lending business, you might focus your marketing efforts on the cash-heavy, real estate lovin’ Baby Boomers. Now I’m not suggesting you ignore the Gen X and Millennial demographics, I’m telling you they may not be worth your hard-earned marketing dollars until 2015. Ironically, Millenials may very well Twitter through their 20s, having conversations with agents, and turn to their parents for advice when it comes time to make the big home purchase. A Boomer-focused marketing strategy then could have double-barreled results.

Those darned Boomers influence EVERYBODY, don’t they?

I say, “if you you can’t beat ‘em, join ‘em” and it would appear that most online marketers (including Web 2.0 real estate agents) are doing the exact opposite.

I promised to talk about ways to target the Baby Boomers, in a series, and wanted to invite the HomeGain Nation to join in on the conversation before I return to the series on Bloodhound Blog. In Part Two, I reveal that there are actually TWO demographic groups among the Baby Boomer generation: one is pretty well off and one is filled with angst. You can profit from both of them but you better treat them differently. The cool part is that all Baby Boomers LOVE real estate, regardless of their sub-demographic. Continue reading this post

The market in Columbus is definitely a buyers market just like everywhere else but we are not in the depths of despair like many areas of the country. Columbus has a lot of positive economic pressure which is sustaining the housing market including the growth of Fort Benning, AFLAC, and Cessna, and the location of the Kia Plant near Columbus drawing spin off businesses to the area. This coupled with the low interest rates has kept the Columbus Georgia Real Estate market fairly strong.

All that said, we have had a 19% decline in total volume of sales in the Columbus MLS compared to 2007 and a 38% decline as compared to 2006. Housing starts are at about 50% of the 10 year average so builders are pulling in to wait on the homes sales to make their cycle. One benefit of the cycle has been that builders are re-evaluating their costs and producing homes at a lower cost per foot than in the past. They are also willing to give buyers incentives to move inventory that is completed but not sold. Continue reading this post

Here are my impressions of three different “Real Estate 2.0” conferences I attended this year (also see my chart below):

Content

Inman Real Estate Connect, July 2008 – Traditional industry leaders meet Real Estate 2.0 with Brad Inman. Well positioned in both worlds to balance the twain.

REBarCamp, July 2008 – “Wisdom of Crowds” perspective. Topics tend to diverge suddenly when others take the floor.

RETechSouth, March 2008 – Exclusively Real Estate 2.0, a blogger meet and greet. Best idea generating discussions went over newbie heads.

Moderation

Inman Real Estate Connect – Well versed in Web 2.0 and can understand where the conversations need to be headed. I generally don’t like moderators who ask too specific questions, panelists want to discuss issues they understand without waiting for the question.

REBarCamp – Although I only participated in two discussions, the “one (amateur) moderator” format makes it hard to control the convo. The standard “Talking Heads” panel method does insure consistent focus on the topic at hand.

RETechSouth – Due to smaller size of conference (120 or so) the dialogue between the audience and Talking Heads provided its own form of moderation. Vibrant discussions as audience members stood in on panel. Continue reading this post

I had a great conversation today with a past executive officer of FAR and now part of NAR. He came to my office to check out our 100MPH Marketing Software and System and our eHomes Realty Network. He will be signing up his Brokerage to take advantage of our tools. Anyway, after I did my demo, we started talking about the Internet and what NAR is doing with regards to the Internet. It was a great conversation and I really can’t talk about most of what was said as I don’t have permission to do that.

However, since I started my soft marketing of my software and membership company, I have talked with many major players in our industry. They all have one thing in common…they don’t know anything about the Internet.

Here is what they are thinking at the National level. They are hearing that the more information you have on your website, the more chance you have of getting a customer. Our conversation was a lot more detailed of course, but this interesting to me. They believe they should be gearing up on a national level to offer a ton of products for real estate agents to put on their websites.

Unfortunately it appears that they are hearing what they should be doing from the wrong people…in my opinion of course!

So I asked him what he thought the purpose of a Realtors website should be. He answered the same answer I hear from so many. He said, “to provide as much information as possible”. I told him, that is what most agents think, which is why 99% or more don’t make any money from their websites.

I told him that the real purpose of a website, like any marketing, is to get leads and turn them into customers.

He was a little shocked by my answer Continue reading this post

It seems that any substantive discussion these days about real estate is focused on one subject: Marketing.

How does one get attention and the right kind? Well, you can blog, Twitter, Facebook, join social networks, use LinkedIn, buy leads, post your listings everywhere, participate in Trulia Voices, optimize your blog or web site for SEO, buy EZ ads on Zillow, subscribe to HomeGain’s AgentEvaluator, Buyerlink or AgentView, engage in pay per click on Google or Yahoo, use lead “capture” or not etc. The marketing debate rages on the blogs and on the panels at the major conferences.

While marketing is important, it seems to have reached the point of an obsession with a diminishing return. Continue reading this post

On Friday at Inman Connect, the blog Agent Genius took the Inman Innovator Award in the blog category.
Agent Genius pulls together a great group of bloggers.

Check it out here.

Congratulations to Agent Genius on an award well deserved! Continue reading this post