At the premier of this exclusive real estate event, HomeGain Nation 2009 in San Francisco, Louis Cammarosano kicks off the event with a pertinent and positive keynote speech.

In this video of the Keynote, Cammarosano welcomes all participants and sets the tone of the day by describing the meaning of “HomeGain Nation” and the value it has for all Realtors, bloggers and real estate professionals within its community.

Cammarosano recognizes the hundreds of agents who have been successful with HomeGain’s online marketing programs — AgentEvaluator® Club members, BuyerLink members and AgentView members. In addition, he thanks all HomeGain advocates for their continued support and partnership.

Keep checking back as we will be adding more videos!

Watch more HomeGain Nation videos on the HomeGain Real Estate Blog Page

Also see more HomeGain Nation real estate videos on the HomeGain YouTube channel, on the HomeGain Nation Blog and in the HomeGain Media Center.

It’s a typical scenario: you get an email from a couple wanting to see a home. Adrenaline surges as a closing check flits across your mind. You eagerly set up an appointment, drive across town, show the property at the appointed hour then set up another appointment to show them more homes on the weekend.

Friday comes and you get an email with 17 MLS numbers they’d like to see. A small gnawing feeling starts working at corner of your stomach as you realize you need to do some educating. You dive into the list and quickly discover that 14 of them are short sales that can be shown by appointment only. That uncomfortable feeling in your tummy is expanding into a minor digestive disorder as you get ready to start making the calls to set up the appointments.

I could go on with scenarios all too common for too many REALTORS® … ending with the unreturned calls, failure to respond to emails and finally the devastating realization that the clients you’ve been carting around for the past three months have just purchased a home from another agent at an open house.

You’ve just been managed.

From the first moment you come in contact with a prospective client, they have expectations. In many cases, these expectations are not based on reality: they’ve been garnered from conversations with their friends, reading posts on sites like HomeGain, Zillow and Trulia and by watching HGTV. Often, their expectations are way out of alignment with reality. It’s up to you to manage their expectations and direct them forward in a positive manner. You’d think it would be easy, yet statistics state that by the time a buyer gets to you, they’ve already been in contact with numerous other Realtors. How do you get this food chain to stop with you?

Bottom line: if you don’t mange your buyers, they will manage you. Right out of business.

In reality, I’ve discovered that most buyers want to be “managed.” Used in the right context, the word “manage” is a good thing. Continue reading this post

This video features Brian Kinkade of Cherry Creek Professionals Realty who presented at the August 2009 HomeGain Nation Live Real Estate Forum in San Francisco.

Brian focuses on the value proposition of HomeGain’s online marketing system, AgentView — Internet exposure, blogging and home listings — all of which are key marketing components to REALTORS’ success.

Learn why these are important and how to effectively implement them into your business.

Get ready to take some notes because this experienced REALTOR packs in a lot of powerful information about marketing that you may never have heard!

Watch the AgentView session video: “Exposure, Blog, Listings”

Keep checking back as we will be adding more videos!

Watch more session videos

Also see more HomeGain Nation real estate videos on the HomeGain YouTube channel, on the HomeGain Nation Blog. and in the HomeGain Media Center. Continue reading this post

Two leaders in the real estate industry, Louis Cammarosano, General Manager at HomeGain and Sami Inkinen, Co-Founder & CEO at Trulia, met at Inman Real Estate Connect San Francisco 2009 to debate the best way to create value online.

Cammarosano pointed that HomeGain has a central focus on the agent and spoke of the HomeGain model that has content and platforms designed to connect buyers and sellers to real estate agents.

Trulia’s Inkinen, suggested that Trulia may have more of a central focus on consumers.

Listen to Louis Cammarosano and Sami Inkinen duel their sides about home listings, leads and vision:

What’s the Ideal Online Real Estate Business Model?

In the last few weeks, we’ve witnessed several public figures just simply lose their cool, then apologize and/or try to justify their outbursts.

Which brings me to working a real estate transaction, which by its very nature is a very complicated and complex process wrought with many potential pitfalls. Add human emotion, and you sometimes have the makings of a tense situation that can get out of hand quickly if not in check.

I’m reminded of a phrase I heard some years back which stuck with me: ”Whomever makes you mad (or you let make your made) -– owns you!”

This doesn’t mean you should let people take advantage of you, or harm you in any way, but what it does mean is that by keeping your cool in trying circumstances when it is just as easy blow your top -– may in fact give you the upper hand, or at the very least, allow you to re-group and handle the situation with positive results.

Obviously some real estate transactions are more challenging than other.  I’ve found that keeping cool under pressure, thinking rationally and coming to reasonable and fair terms with a “win-win” solution for all the parties more often than not results in completed transactions, smooth settlements and happy clients.

The late Jazz great Dinah Washington recorded a song sometime in the early 1960’s “Relax, Max” that’s been popularized recently as the background music for a TV commercial for a hotel chain (you should recognize it after the first few bars of the song).  Dinah also recorded a hit record “What a Difference a Day Makes”.

Perhaps she was trying to tell us to relax or sleep on it. Either way, good advice!

It’s been a pretty busy time here at Tropical Realty in Melbourne Florida since we got back from the HomeGain Nation Conference. Business is going great and my Realtors® are busy as always.  Our system of creating all our leads for our agents is a true win in every aspect of my business.

However, there is a down side to this and if you don’t protect yourself while you build your team, it could cost you thousands of dollars!

So what am I talking about?

I’m talking about having a written agreement between you and your agents to ensure that you, the team leader or brokerage, own the leads.

This past week we dealt with a real estate Agent who left our office to take a full time job as an assistant for a broker. She did everything correctly by coming to me and letting me know she was leaving because she couldn’t afford to be a Realtor anymore.  She was one of our less successful Realtors who had a lot of potential, but never really put the effort needed into becoming successful.  I did like her and feel bad for her though so I kept her leads flowing (big mistake).

So lesson one is to never let your emotions guide your business.

It’s very important that you take all emotion out of any negotiation and run your business as a business.  Be strong and cut leads off from Agents if they don’t produce.  End of story. Continue reading this post