Today’s successful mega-producers are generating plenty of business, but unlike the customers of yesterday, today’s real estate customer is beginning online. According to the latest figures, in excess of 90% (94%) are beginning their search online. In my last installment, I explained how successful agents today are going way “upstream” to capture their business — before the customer has had the opportunity to be attracted by old-school marketing techniques. If you haven’t read it yet, you owe it to yourself to start there.

We are all under the gun every day in real estate sales.  Most of us get up every morning unemployed.  We need to go out and find a person to buy and sell with everyday.  How do we “pressure proof” our business?  We must put ourselves in the position where we are always winning.  When we are on a listing appointment, and we are struggling with the seller, we must believe they will sign the listing before we leave.  We must know during our prospecting block that we will turn up a new listing or new buyer every day.  Let me share with you a few ideas to make your business “pressure proof” and successful daily. 1.      Trust Your Skills and Abilities We all go through droughts or slumps in our business.  I s

In my last post I discussed the difference between yesterday’s pull marketing and today’s push marketing. I explained how pull marketing is reactive — “If you build it they will come.” Push marketing, on the other hand, is pro-active — “If you build it they won’t come so you have to go get them.” (Click to view previous blog post.) Many agents today have experienced that very phenomenon: doing lots of advertising and getting little if no results.

Before we launch into this segment, let’s recap the last installment. In it I was discussing how in the 1960s and 70s, our industry was in a Broker-centric Era. The brokers had all the power. Customers had very little access to listing inventory except through them. Agents had no business except through them. Modern real estate brokerage was in its infancy. By controlling the inventory, broker-owners were able to build real estate dynasties. It was common place to see multiple office operations with teams of agents, and it was during this climate that companies like Century 21, Coldwell Banker, ERA, and other similar broker-centric companies became huge empires.

This is the best time to buy, the cost of properties are down, the interest is low this is the best of all worlds. I see great  Opportunities and this article shins a glimmer of hope on this.

Bonnie Ankle; Event Manager - Luxury Home Council

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB120886732384734503.html?mod=hpp_us_whats_news

When CNN’s Pulse on America program featured us two years ago, they were investigating an interesting phenomenon in our industry. Click to view video. It seems that today there are two real estate worlds coexisting simultaneously. Like in the movie The Matrix, there was the “perceived” world and then there was the “real” world. In our industry there is much the same today. Those agents who are practicing real estate this new way, are doing quite well — many better than ever. But those who are hanging onto the old-school real estate model are finding themselves working harder and harder and making less and less money.

Salespeople love referrals. They’re the sincerest form of compliment and a remarkably cost-effective route to new business. The idea of attracting referrals is so popular that sales trainers who bill themselves as referral gurus make fortunes promoting magical systems that supposedly deliver more referrals than an agent can handle, all in return for tuition at a three-day seminar. What they talk about for three days is a mystery to me.  Referrals are really pretty simple stuff.  A lot of it you can only acquire through perfect practice of your scripts, over and over, of referral-generating and referral-cultivation tactics.  

Referral Truths and Consequences

Myth #1 - Your Total Liabilities must be more than your Total Debt - essentially bankrupt.  WRONG ... A short-sale deals with cash-flow and the bank will make you prove that your INCOME is less than your EXPENSES.  The bank is not checking to see how much savings you have or your 401(k) balance.

The term that the bank uses is INSOLVENT - as an accountant I can see how this would make one think assets and liabilities - a better term to use is ILLIQUID.

The course from RealtyU is very enlightening and a great value too. 

Can you explain to a distressed homeowner what their options are before they get to a point of receiving the notice of foreclosure sale? 

It seems not an evening goes by nowadays without a TV interview showing an anxious homeowner sharing the confusion they experienced about the mortgage rate and terms at the time they bought the house that's now upside-down. Three to five years later, when the rates have adjusted, higher mortgage payments have become a reality and the specter of foreclosure looms on the horizon,  it's not a stretch to imagine many distressed homeowners similarly confused about their options.