Saratogian Real Estate

Are Saratoga Realtors behind the times in social media?

gmastrion — Mon, 28 Jun 2010 22:33:40 +0000

I have not been posting new articles for a few weeks, in part because we have a contract on 8 Granite Lake Drive, (more on that in a future post) but also because I’ve been tracking trends in real estate marketing and amassing research to give a good dissertation on how I see social media impacting the real estate business. Not being a real estate expert this was a time consuming bit of work. Writing a thoughtful, well-informed article takes time to do well, especially when it is not your area of expertise. Then, just today I came across this post on Mashable it’s an expose of all and much more than I could have hoped to explain about the use of social media in real estate. So I applaud Mashable and I applaud you in advance for taking the time to read the article, “How Real Estate Pros are Using Social Media for Real Results.” Props to Erica Swallow for putting forth such a great piece of reporting. Here’s the link: http://mashable.com/2010/06/28/real-estate-social-media/

If you’ve been following my efforts you’ll note that the Mashable article supports much of my activity. If you have an interest in learning about social media I suggest following Chris Brogan and reading his book Trust Agents.

My own results from my use of social media to help me market and sell 8 Granite Lake Drive have proved positive and (cross fingers) successful. We drove significant awareness, feet through the door, and more than one interested potential buyer. But it was not without the help of realtors. Realtors still have a lot to offer and if the Mashable article proves anything, it’s that when properly harnessed, social media can still give realtors the upper hand in moving properties. A few months back we signed with The Angiolini Group to list our place on the MLS. For a flat fee, Kathleen Angiolini will post your property on MLS and work with the buyers agent to make sure you have “good” buyers. The Angiolini Group also work with the computerized central showing service to help schedule appointments. The rest is up to you as the seller, to make sure the property is ready for showing and if you hold open houses, as we did, that means you’re there for the open house as well. You can get all the details from the Angiolini Group. It’s a good approach in these down times, it gives you access to MLS at a reasonable cost and The Angiolini Group provide a heck of a lot of service for the money. You pay the buyers agent 2.5%. So you’re saving about half the fee of a full cost broker. But you have to be ready, willing and able to put in the time. Sort of a one-two punch of new economic models powering the sale of a home. It has been, and continues to be a lot of work, but if you have the time and energy and patience, you can save yourself some money. If you decide to give it a try call the Angiolini Group and ask for Kathleen.

What do you look for when looking for a real estate broker or agent?

gmastrion — Thu, 20 May 2010 03:01:12 +0000

What do you look for when looking for a real estate broker or agent? It’s an interesting

Saratoga Rock

question. To help frame this discussion I did some research on-line. As a buyer or seller, you want and need someone with a deep track record of success, a person of integrity and dedication. Of course, just about every broker or agent will mostly fit this description, but as in any business, there are various levels of performance.

Consider this; you walk into a brokerage and most of them have so many agents that meeting and interviewing them all is near impossible. How then do you choose? The answer is you really don’t, it just sort of happens. Maybe, if you’re really working at it, you’ll meet a few agents from a few different brokerages and then you make your decision. Most people don’t. Maybe you’ve seen some advertising from a particular agent. Perhaps, if you’ve asked around, you’ve heard good things about that person, this is a great start. However, for every good recommendation you may also hear a less than satisfying story. The goal should be to stay objective and do your homework and not let any one data point influence you too much.

But what if you don’t know anyone? You walk through the door of the firm and you’re greeted by someone. Then what? You’re introduced to whomever happens to be available, or maybe it comes down to whose turn it is in the rotation. Or maybe they quickly size you up and one agent steps forward. Or you’ve spoken to someone on the phone and they’re expecting you. If you’re lucky, you meet the owner or manager of the firm and they assess your needs and match you up with an agent that fits the bill. To you though, it’s still not really clear what or who you’re getting unless you ask. Real estate can be a messy, emotional business and most of us just don’t want to deal with it. Maybe you’re the rare person and you’ve done some advance work and researched agents on-line and you’ve gotten a sense of who they are based on a little bio they might have on their website or blog. But how do you really know if they’re great at what they do?

In other businesses, if you’re hiring a salesperson, you look at their resume, years of experience, prior experience, and if you’re smart you ask about their close rate — how successful they are at sales — and they back it up with data and references. In baseball, we can look at batting averages and other stats to tell us about who we have in the game. In music we want real rock stars, people who deliver multiple hits over a period of years.
Most businesses don’t want to hire average, they want above average people that deliver above average performance. You want a rock star Realtor. Realtors should be very willing to post their stats and qualify themselves; some do, but most don’t. It would be empowering to see a display of close rates on websites — how many listings they take per year and how many they close, year over year. Add to this an analysis that shows the average dollar gap from initial asking price to the final sale price. And, how long on average the given agents’ listings were on the market before sold, or before the listing was pulled and why. I’d also like to be given a list of references. There is a simple gap in knowledge here that can be easily filled to everyone’s advantage, so why not do it?

If you were going for a job interview for a sales position your potential employer would be asking very similar questions. When hiring a broker to help us buy or sell a home we should be just as demanding. After all, you’re hiring this person to perform a specific task and you’ll have a very close relationship with them so you need to know you can trust them and that they are the best person for the job. Finding out by trial and error can be very damaging in terms of opportunity cost. It’s important for you and for them to set reasonable expectations for a successful and satisfying experience. This cannot happen without complete transparency from both parties.

Most brokers and agents have all this info available and you need do nothing more than ask, so ask. In this age of transparency in business, the real estate industry has some work to do to get caught up, and if other industries are an accurate bell weather, it can only help improve the performance of real estate professionals as a whole. The existing model is the old brick and mortar legacy that cloisters information and knowledge. The digital age, with its free distribution of information and knowledge is the path forward and has already greatly changed the real estate landscape. Savvy brokers today are learning how to turn this to their advantage and I see an emerging trend of sharing performance stats.

There is no reason today to have to dig for this information. Google is giving away all kinds of data and performance analysis, and like it or not, we’ve all come to expect this level of transparency. Trulia and Zillow provide real estate market information by region and point out national trends and it makes us all better and smarter. The same will be true of agent stats. For every broker/agent who has a bio blurb up on their website they should also list their stats, otherwise we are left to guess about how being active in the community and having a family and loving golf, let’s say, translates into being an effective realtor. It’s nice to have a sense of the person as a human being but we need more to work with when it comes to business decisions. Most people are good and the nicest are often great Realtors. So, if you’re good at what you do, why not put your results out front along with your personal interests and beliefs? It can only help you attract more customers.

My observations here are derived from looking at Realtor websites across the country from NYC, to Kentucky and California and Saratoga too. Given the trends in business today, I’ll go out on a limb and suggest that if the current real estate business model is going to remain viable, Realtors are going to need to get comfortable with a greater level of transparency and accessibility in all aspects of their business.

What do you think?

In Saratoga and across the country people are getting creative about selling their homes.

gmastrion — Mon, 03 May 2010 22:31:57 +0000

The use of social media, from Twitter Tweets, to blogs like this one in little ol’ Saratoga are gaining ground across the country and getting noticed. People all over are trying new and creative methods to help sell their homes, from wearing T-shirts promoting their property, to signs on the roofs of cars — read more via the link to AOL Housing Watch and you’ll see http://saratogianrealestate.com received a nice mention. http://www.housingwatch.com/2010/04/29/hardball-home-sales-what-works-now/.

We wrapped up three Sunday’s in a row of open house at 8 Granite Lake Drive in Greenfield and we are happy for the attention the property received.

Another creative idea I thought worth trying is roof shampoo. Unfortunately, the dude shampooing the roof did not help our cause (he will remain nameless, at least for now). He still has not returned to finish his work. He took a deposit 4 weeks ago for a job he said would take only two days. Well, here it is a month later and he’s still not done. We held three open houses with his equipment in the yard and the roof in various stages of treatment. Needless to say the roof became a topic of much discussion. All we wanted was for it to look its best, free of staining and dirt, only to have it look as if it were in need of some sort of special attention. Each week was another promise of completion, followed by disappointment. Am I really expected to pay for this level of service? And what of the opportunity cost? This is just another example of why many people feel “contractor” is a 4 letter word. It only takes a few bad apples to spoil the bushel.

Please check out the link to AOL Housing Watch, I think you’ll find the article interesting. Remember to keep 8 Granite Lake Drive on your go see list, it’s a really nice place to live with Peace, Privacy and Proximity to Saratoga.

Fox News and Trulia report on the value of real estate in college towns like Saratoga.

gmastrion — Tue, 27 Apr 2010 16:39:57 +0000

I came across this post on Trulia’s news update that I subscribe to and think it is worth passing on. Although they have a tremendous amount of great content on Trulia, this post in particular is very relevant to Saratoga. This post features Tara-Nicholle Nelson on Fox News discussing the hyper local nature of real estate, specifically in this case the value of real estate in college towns. I’ve never seen any local stats that show the increase in value and price stability of real estate in Saratoga thanks to the many colleges in our town, Skidmore being the largest. The Skidmore website certainly suggests the obvious benefits to both Skidmore and Saratoga of growing and flourishing together. Perhaps the Saratoga Economic Development Corporation would be a good source of this type of data. I had a look around their website and while they do have some interesting data on the number of higher education facilities in the greater capital region there is no data to support the Trulia/Fox news report. If anyone has any stats on this subject it would be great to make it public, it can be posted to the comment section here if you like. With all the attention being paid to Luther Forest these days it’s easy to forget the vast economic impact that all of our colleges and universities bring to this community. Here’s the link to the Trulia/Fox news piece: http://cli.gs/T98J74

Saratoga, Greenfield, Braim Road Shines in Honor Earth Day.

gmastrion — Tue, 27 Apr 2010 01:44:57 +0000

Sunday we did our annual Earth Day spring clean-up on Braim Road. Lots of neighbors along the road that have time show up and pitch in to rid the roadside of trash. It’s just amazing the things that turn up along the road. Among other things, this year we hauled out the usual assortment of beer bottles, a surprising number of which were those big quart size bottles. The fact that these are likely tossed out a car window gives you a pretty good idea of the drinking and driving that still goes on. Coors Light seems to be the drunk drivers brew of choice. This year we also turned up a box of magazines, car tires, skid cables (from a logging operation), small bent pieces of metal and wood scraps, countless cigarette butts, bottle tops, fast food packaging… a mixed bag of modern human “detritus.” From what I gather from other communities that have adopted roadsides in Saratoga, this is the average sort of haul. We have to thank the Town of Greenfield for providing the bags, safety vests and cones and, of course, for picking up the piles we leave along the road.

Braim Road clean-up

It’s shameful that people are so lazy and disrespectful. Braim Road is a beautiful, twisting path through the woods dotted with streams and ponds, waterfalls and an amazing assortment of wildlife. Because we have so much gorgeous woodlands here, and it’s timber country, we also have old logging roads. As a result, there are still a few places along the road where people who wish to illegally dump their waste can find a place to pull into the woods and leave their unpleasant mark.

Spring clean-up on Braim Road is an annual event we all look forward too, not because we like picking up other peoples trash but because we love Braim Road, and we like seeing each other. In fact, when we have time we’ll organize an impromptu barbecue when we’re done and spend the rest of the afternoon enjoying each other’s company while the kids run around and play.

Granite Lake Drive is a cul-de-sac along Braim Road. Set back off Braim Road, the cul-de-sac offers an extra measure of peace and privacy but with neighbors too. Each of the 6 houses on Granite Lake Drive has approximately 5+ acres of land, just enough, but not too much, to feel isolated. 8 Granite Lake Drive is a rare opportunity to join the great little community that is Braim Road — peace, privacy and proximity to Saratoga. We’ll be holding an open house on Sunday, May 2 from 1-3. Stop by and check it out, but please leave your trash at home.

Saratoga, 8 Granite Lake Drive images now available on Flickr

gmastrion — Thu, 22 Apr 2010 12:35:25 +0000

Saratoga now you can see 8 Granite Lake Drive images on Flickr

Go here to see images of 8 Granite Lake Drive, Greenfield, Saratoga http://www.flickr.com/photos/gmastrion/

Social media like this blog and Flickr create unique opportunities for sellers to connect their properties with buyers, brokers and agents without the limits and expense of traditional forms of media. We’re using social media extensively to help us reach potential buyers for 8 Granite Lake Drive. Social media is alive, not static, it requires care and feeding and a hub and spoke strategy to reach across the digital realm to bring prospects to your message.