At the end of March, I was fortunate to be asked to be a guest on a national radio show called The Takeaway. There is an accompanying blog post here and you can listen to the 8 minute radio interview from there. As fun as it might be to be a part of a radio show, I wouldn’t have done this if not for the basic premise that differed from much of what we hear from the media.

The premise here was that the market is shifting — for the better. The interview came because of another blog post I wrote that was picked up in the research of a national reporter showing something different than what we hear from most “media” sources. Basically, some professional insight backed up with statistics that shows something different than the gloom and doom we hear which is partially fueling the perception problems many of us are seeing in the market today.

What I’m really trying to say is that we are our local experts and when we take the time to articulate the information and experience that we have, we can make a difference and with the mindset of many buyers today, we need all the help we can give to each other! We are the professionals in our market and we need to actively participate in the dialogue lest we spend our time complaining rather than helping the cause.

There are lots of ways us Realtors can do this; Continue reading this post

I don’t make New Year’s resolutions – at least not in the traditional sense that many of us think of. Instead, I find it more productive to set goals. Some are general, some specific. For example, it wouldn’t be wise to set a resolution to get more closings in 2009. That’s not going to actually help me achieve more closings that I actually seek.

Instead, I look back to see what I might have done wrong in the past and resolve to improve. For me, this would be that I don’t think that I seized on many of the opportunities to turn leads into clients and clients into closings. Considering the real estate climate last year and the likelihood that it will continue well in to 2009 or longer, I consider making the most out of each and every opportunity the highest priority for 2009.

In other words, conversion.

For many, 2008 was a transitional year while others laid the foundation for a successful career for years to come. Wherever you may be in your career, it’s time to put 2008 behind us and be prepared to seize all opportunities that present themselves to us in the upcoming year. To do this successfully, we need to be prepared. Continue reading this post

When my neighbor gives me the phone number of his brother who is moving to Atlanta, I have something that I don’t have when I’m trying to convert an internet lead into a client.

My neighbor knows me and though I may not have ever spoken to his brother, I come equipped with some degree of trust in his eyes. I know his brother. His brother trusts me enough to refer him to me. The first two requirements needed to be successful in selling real estate have been met.

I have generated a lead and I have some level of value and trust already built in even before the first words are spoken to this new client.

Internet leads are very different. With an internet lead, I have the first requirement that I will need to be successful in that the lead is there, but, that is where it ends.

In fact, internet leads might be thought of as slightly on the negative side of trust on a scale compared to a referral lead from a friend or neighbor. To convert them, we need to be polished in our phone skills. We are already fighting against the idea that we will be calling someone who might see us as salespeople and that’s a battle best fought if we are concise, polite, helpful and knowledgeable on the phone.

But where phone skills can really come into play is Continue reading this post

I recently read an article at the National Bureau of Economic Research (NBER) which attempted to link foreclosures and home values. The statistics cited in the article concluded that foreclosures are not affecting home values very much and that there are only a dozen or so states with enough foreclosures to induce price drops of 6 percent or more.

The article made it seem as if this was an insignificant number. I disagree that a 6 percent drop in prices in a dozen states due to foreclosures is insignificant, but, I do agree with the premise of the article to a degree – I was unable to find any real loss of value on the whole that was directly related to foreclosures.

I’m also always skeptical of “national” studies in which home values are cited because they are almost always off. As an example, I recently read an article in Forbes which ranked the most expensive ZIP codes around the country. I found the ZIP code here in Atlanta that was in the report to be off by about 30% according to my local MLS – I’m sure it’s more accurate than their numbers. With that in mind, I thought it might be worthwhile to look at a local level and see if I could determine if foreclosures are affecting local home values. I was unable to see that there was a discernable price drop, be it direct or indirect, of home values due to foreclosures.

The methodology I used was to take an area of Atlanta and looked at sales data quarter by quarter with and then without the foreclosures as a baseline from Q1 and Q2 of 2007 and 2008. There was no discernable difference in home values, but, there really weren’t enough closed foreclosures to make much of a difference anyway. That said, what I did find, did not support the idea that foreclosures are bringing down the rest of the neighborhood. So, the next thing that I did was Continue reading this post

I had a conversation with a new client for about 20 minutes on the phone the other night and about half way through he revealed to me that he has been looking at houses for the last 6 months, but, could not understand why real estate agents would stop contacting him after showing several homes.

Three agents had the opportunity to sell this buyer a home and would have, except they did not want to show him more than 10 houses to make it happen.

Perplexed? Amazed?

Really, I’m still not sure what I feel after having this conversation, but, one thing I did know was that I was going to find him a home and close the transaction. In a time where many real estate professionals are struggling to make ends meet, I simply cannot understand the mentality that many agents have.

Maybe it’s the water that we can drink at the cooler in the office or maybe many agents are simply demoralized after looking at their shrinking bank accounts and rising credit card balances. Either way, once we get an opportunity to work with a pre-qualified buyer who will buy a home, we need to make it happen.

Maybe the difference for some agents and teams who are successful today is that they seize the opportunity when presented while others just want things to fall in their lap – unwilling to work hard enough to make a deal happen.

If I could just offer a simple recommendation in what is generally a tough real estate market: seize every opportunity presented. Do whatever it takes. Continue reading this post

Last week we kicked off the Lives of the Realtors series. So far we have heard from two amazing individuals, Ryan Ward and Mitch Ribak.

Later this week we will be publishing the past life of Phoenix Real Estate Guy, Jay Thompson.

Jay has had an interesting background prior to becoming a successful Realtor and one of the country’s top bloggers.

We will also be launching a new series about Realtors – A Day in the Life.
In the new series we will ask Realtors to talk about their current day to day practices, business philosophies, work habits, office set up and other daily items that make up a Realtors’ life.

Stay tuned, better yet, subscribe to the HomeGain Real Estate Blog.

Louis Cammarosano

Continue reading this post