I’ll tell you why our MLS is competitive in one word: VOLUME.

Yesterday I checked the community of Euclid Ohio. There were 683 homes on the market. Rocky River has 240 homes for sale. Lakewood has 376; Cleveland Heights has 666. You get the point. There are a lot of available homes in NE Ohio.

If you are selling your home you will be asking the same question your Realtor® is asking—what can I do to make my listing stand out, and not be the house in the back of the room waving it’s chimney saying ‘pick me, pick me!’

I decided to use myself as an example. I have quite a few buyers at the moment and spend time culling the listings to set up showings.

Here is what I automatically eliminate:

1. Homes with no photos

(In fact, even if they have the primary/exterior photo, unless it’s unique, I skip it unless there are more.)

2. Homes with no room sizes and amenities listed

So it has four bedrooms. What are the sizes? Do they have wood floors, ceiling fans, carpet? If you don’t list it, I say NEXT because there will be, say, 100 others that DO list it.

3. Descriptions

Many Realtors® and brokers give descriptions on REOs and short sale properties, no matter what the listing price. That is as it should be. And in this day and age, if you don’t do that, then I can say…NEXT.

I think you get the idea!

Since almost all of my clients and close to what, 90% of all prospective home buyers are Continue reading this post

I once impressed a CEO in another line of work, distribution, by making a statement regarding a Wal-Mart account – “I don’t want to meet their needs, I want to astound them.”

I know, it sounds like I was kissing up, but I really meant it, it’s how I was trained early on—nothing special, just ingrained into my mental model of doing business.

It’s difficult to practice this over and over with online leads that you could easily dismiss as “not serious” or “just lookers”.

But the trick is to train the mind to visualize each email address as an embodiment—living, breathing people who you are meeting in theory, and, if all turns out well, face to face.

You’ll want to astound those who can make you successful, but first you’ll need to believe.

Having gone from 5% to 20% to, last year, 80% of my revenue coming from the internet, I’m a true believer. When email addresses turn into satisfied, happy clients receiving keys at a closing table often enough, you become a true believer. Continue reading this post

A decade ago, technology had very little to do with a Realtor’s® business. Today, however, technology is essential to an agent or broker’s success.

How does one go about choosing the right technology tools?

Without over-paying for the latest trendy gadget, below is a list of 10 devices that all 21st century real estate professionals should use. Based on feedback from HomeGain agents, these devices will help increase your business’ effectiveness, efficiency and competitiveness.

Top 10 Technology Tools for REALTORS®

1. Website

Website is one of the most important marketing tools an agent can have. It’s not just a way to tell potential homebuyers and sellers who you are and what you offer, but it essential for lead generation. How so? If you set up a form on our site, most likely on your home page, the more motivated consumers will provide you with their contact information. And voila, you have a new lead. Set up auto-responder emails to thank a person for visiting your site, give your contact info, and tell them a realistic amount of time when they should expect a return call or email from you. Continue reading this post

“Real estate compensation structures are wrought with problems, which could be effectively eliminated if the MLS-mandated offer of compensation were done away with.

Agent compensation is set by office policies that support a specific company’s fee philosophy and income. But the system doesn’t take into account how it affects consumers’ opinion of value received or how it can clash with other companies’ compensation policies.

These policies also contribute to uneducated agents blacklisting certain properties—either intentionally or unintentionally.

One major contributing factor to the compensation problem is that a buyer’s agent is paid according to the selling agent’s office policy. This totally disregards the buy-side agent’s office policy on compensation, the buyer’s contract with his agent and the seller’s best interests, which are to remove any barriers that may keep potential buyers from seeing their home.

One problematic result of the mandatory unilateral offer of compensation is the belief that the seller and his agent are the ones paying for the buyer agent’s fee. In reality, both the seller and buyer agents’ fees come from the negotiated sale price, and are deducted from the proceeds Continue reading this post