January 2010

Tax Credits Explained

Republic Title put together this handy postcard to easily explain the options and program details around the First Time Home Buyer’s tax credit and the new program that permits home owners with 5 years of occupancy in the past 8 a chance to get some tax credits for a new home as well.

More good news was reported yesterday about the Dallas housing market.  It turns out that Dallas, along with San Diego and San Francisco are the only three areas in the country where housing prices rose in the last couple of months.  In Dallas we saw a 1.2 percent rise in the values in November 09.  This coupled with the fact that the Fed is expected to keep interest rates low will doubly help the homeowner.

Right now, if you are thinking of getting a home, or changing your home, now might just be the best time ever, ever.  I know that sounds a bit like more real estate puffery, but if you look at the situation of coming out of the turmoil, at least here in Dallas, and prices going up with interest rates saying the same.  Whoo doggie, it is the right time to buy.  And that is the pitch.  Give us a call and let us help you buy the best home for your dollar so that when you go to sell your equity has increased because of increasing values.  It is that simple.  Now.

Week Two of 90 Days

I am blogging over on Active Rain about a 90 day program to set up systems and build structure around a real estate firm that uses all the latest technology to give our clients and prospects their best experience in buying, selling or investing property.  In the first 10 days I made it very personal and that stopped yesterday.  We have defined what the site is truly about. It is about building the best real estate agency serving the discriminating tastes of our clients, period.  The overall structure is dictated by the Sanford System.  We are studying the best of breed for their best practices and making them our own

The blog comes out every day.  I will wrap the weeks activities here.  Moving forward we will accept and in fact appreciate your feedback and suggestions.  We want to listen to everyone and determine how we can best serve the needs of the good people of Dallas and surrounding areas.  Going forward the blog’s images will be of our listings and will link to the listings on our EXIT Realty Metro Dallas website.  Our corporate site is going through another makeover to function better for our clients and prospects.  A lead generation tool will be put on the home page.  We will change our opening video several times a month to reflect what we are doing.  And we will assess what links and content best serves you over the next week as we rework the site.

Do have a wonderful weekend.  Our office has several open houses this weekend. Call us for a listing.

Starting Over in 90 Days with Walter Sanford

I started to blog on Active Rain this week about my daily experiences learning the Walter Sanford system If I Could Start Over Again.  It is a system for developing the best of class real estate skills.  It is my intention to continue to learn on a daily basis all the best practices in real estate communications, marketing and strategies and share that with you here.

This is the beginning of my fourth career, but in all reality, it is just a continuation of my previous careers in Marketing.  I first worked as a writer, then a commercial photographer and on to Video marketing on the web.  Real Estate and families and communities have always been a passion of mine.  I think there is nothing more important than your home, family and community.  I am thrilled to be focusing all my time on this one area of business.

I will share in the blog the day to day progress.  I will share here on a more occasional basis what I am gleaning from the process and how looking at real estate marketing as a story of home and not just a list of house and property facts is better for the marketing of the home.

DAY TWO-Starting Over

An oldie but a goodie here, a family diner serving people the old fashion way. I love the homemade feel of their sinage.  These are the kind of places that exist in every community.  Places where people are proud of their home and their business and their community.  Here I am at Day Two.  Last night I took notes on what I had accomplished in Day One and what I had to do for today.  I will include this information below under the title TALE OF THE TAPE.  This is a sports metaphor when I was also thinking, WHAT HAVE I DONE FOR YOU LATELY? as a title.  The point is I believe you do have to measure and assess, so I added it way below.  It is a listing of what was done and some comments.

Todays tasks include having a conference call about this house on Van Dyke.  We have an offer and need to make some adjustments for our counter offer to be delivered by Friday.  I so appreciate the folks who reached out with some support, it was nice to hear.  I do realize that any system you study is that a system, a framework from which you hang your own shingle.  Your personality will influence your application of the system.

Today is about a conference call we will have with the sellers of this property.  We have an offer and will counter back with some of our own language by Friday at 8PM.  Turns our Real Estate has deadlines and finish lines.  I like that.  The on time thing and be prepared aspect of the industry play into my style and experience.  I have a list of some 20 of the top producing Agents in the Dallas Area.  These names were given to me by a number of people that I asked.  I think I will focus on those who are the most successful, and those working in the same areas I would like to work.  I am excited to share my thoughts on the way you can communicate the story about real estate with people who have been working very well in a differing style.   We are all learning ways in which to communicate to our clients more broadly and more evenly using various forms of technology.  I really don’t think it is about reach and frequency. I think it is about benefit and value, with a little bit of humor that is important.  Providing value and an insight into behavior is instructive.  Learning how to harnass what we see is a technique that can be built it seems by modeling.  So today I will set up more lunch or coffee dates.

Real Estate is about square footage and rooms and bathrooms and land and the community it sits on.  All of this is vital information to have and a way in which we can measure our real estate from someone else’s.  This is how we have always sold it, but when you think about it, your favorite house you remember the stories that flavored the home.  The meals you had in the dining room, the school you went to, your neighborhood friends.  This is some of what we think about when we think home.  It is my feeling part of that should be put into the marketing of a home.  By sharing more of the community story you can actually tell more of why a house is worth what you are asking.  It is based on the land in which it sits and the neighborhood in which the families live.  During these next 89 days I will begin to load these stories onto our website Truth and Service.  Thanks for listening and responding.

TALE OF THE TAPE

On Jan 6, 2010 I began a 90 day journey through Walt Sanford’s book, IF I COULD START OVER AGAIN.  Below here will be the accounting of what was accomplished on the day before.  I can’t do this during the day, because I am still working on it.
Day One.  I completed all exercises.  I have been in the office before and had it all set up, I am familiar with all the procedures because I am helping to establish the systems for the company.  Everyone already knows me from this first year as Marketing Partner with Brian.  They all know I want to succeed and help them succeed.  I have been demonstrating that through the growth of our four websites this last year.
As Director of Marketing I am responsible for the lead generation, tracking, implementation and followthrough with our MLS.  I am learning as I grow and this month the growth will be exponential.
Right now our office doesn’t have office meetings.  We will institute at least one this month.  Will arrange it when Brian returns to town.  My broker, Andy Anderson, and  I discussed what areas I should be farming.  At this point I am going to further focus on Old Town then North, Lake Highlands, Highland Park, University Park, Preston Hollow, Plano, The Heicht School District.  I will focus on this too broad a reach for the time being and focus our lead generation in this area.  I want to generate quality leads in those areas where our unique skills would be most understood, appreciated and valuable to the client well beyond its cost.

Sphere’s of Influence and Mining the Minds.
My starting list inclused,
Ebby Holliday, Ray Gerber-Ebby_Preston Hallow, Alicia Trevino-M Streets, Juanita Couch, Oak Cliffs, Ken Lampston, M Streets, Cindy O’Gorman, North Dallas, David Bush Lakewood, Jeff Band, Remas, Fourrtown, Vince Arcurri, Bob Brown, Rober Kowasaki, Tami Bonnel, Bob McKinnon, Jeff Lobb, Mark Healy Lisa Winn Wendy Agent friend Jeannette Krom Paul Palandjian and a bunch of other people.  While I haven’t made a lunch appointment for tomorrow.  I will begin to meet all of these people as quickly as possible.  I will add them to my blog and discuss things I have learned from them with my audience (listen to me, an audience).

DAY ONE_Starting Over

I am a recently new licensed agent.  For the last 28 years I have worked in marketing.  I began my career out of college writing advertising copy for an agency in Chicago. “A cornflake is a cornflake is a cornflake”. I once wrote for Kellogg’s.  I also wrote for newspapers and magazines and was published in Notable American Poets, 1975, ah, the heady days of youth.  It was in my mid-20’s I became more interested in the visual aspects of communication.  You know, a picture can tell a thousand words kind of thing.  I was fascinated by the “decisive moment”.  The idea of being there and capturing for others to see later was a passion.  It still is.

I worked as a commercial photographer for Fortune 100 companies and national magazines for 20 years.  My pictures graced billboards, and magazine covers.  They captured the CEO as well as the regular Joe for Business throughout the United States.  I help raise awareness and financial support for philanthropies like The Julie Fund, the Mesothelioma programs affiliated with Harvard Medical Schools and their teaching hospitals in Boston, MA.  After a while the story needed more than what a photo was able to deliver.  Fortunately non-linear digital editing of video images revolutionized web marketing at the beginning of this century.  I have been involved with this since the beginning.  My work has always centered around family, community and testimonial stories.

I often describe this work as the difference between Advertising, Public Relations and Engaged Marketing.  Advertising is when you say you are a good date.  Public Relations is when you mom says you are a good date, and Engaged Marketing is when your date says you are a great date.  This is what YourStorysRealty is all about.  I want to hear your story.  I want to know why this home is so important to you.  I want to hear your stories of the benefits and values.  These are the stories I want to capture and communicate.

I am going to follow Walter Sanford’s 90 day work plan entitled If I Could Start Over Again.  I am going to blog about my process every day.  At this point in my career I don’t want to reinvent the wheel.  I want to use the skills and accumulated knowledge of successful practitioners and bring my unique skill set to the task.  I like systems.  I think too often we do not pay attention to the tasks of each day that can build the success of our weeks and our career.

Today I have to settle into my office, to communicate to all here that I am here to learn and to help.  I have already spoken with my broker about this plan and how I want ti learn and serve at the same time. To share in my experience, both the ups and the downs.  It was easy for me to be both overwhelmed and super excited at the same time.  I am keeping my eye on what I call, “the tail of the tape”.  Each day must be measured by what I have done to do the daily tasks related to our profession to build long term success.

One of the challenges is sorting out the short and long term goals.  I need to build a sphere of influence and define my target areas at the same time I really want to first focus on generating activity to will lead to cash as quickly as possible.  In this world we get paid when we produce, so the question I ask myself at the end of each day will be, “What have I done for your lately”  I need to have that answer and I want to measure my success with each task knowing that the tasks will lead to the goals.

This blog will be both open and fluid.  I want to be honest and open.  I am hoping you participate and share some of your wisdom.  Here’s to our goals and our defining success using the systems readlly available to us.