Jared James
By Jared James
Did you know that cash buyers have made up over 30 percent of the overall buying market for five consecutive months? To give you some context, only two short years ago cash buyers only accounted for about 12 percent of the market. More importantly, do you know how to leverage them to make more money this year? The housing affordability index was just released and shows housing affordability is at its best level in the history of its reporting, which started back in 1971!
Watch my latest vlog to learn about these things and much more.
Jared James is the CEO and founder of Jared James Enterprises (JJE) and travels around North America speaking to and coaching REALTORS®. Connect with Jared at www.jaredjamestoday.com, on facebook.com/jaredjamestoday, or follow him on Twitter @jaredjamestoday.
James Dunn
By James Dunn
Having been in the business for the last six years has been quite an experience. Beginning as a temp and working my way up to being a full-fledged REALTOR® is something I take much pride in (especially in this economy). I have prospered. I should point out that I define prosperity in my life as experiencing balanced growth in personal, professional, and financial arenas. Although money always helps with prosperity, I do not weigh success and prosperity entirely on the amount of money I make (or others, for that matter). I believe growth within one’s self reflects in all areas of life. So as I grow, so do my finances, my career, and my relationships. So congratulations to all of us who have prospered in this time, and here’s to future growth and prosperity.
I have had the luxury of starting from the bottom as a temp and working my way up the real estate ladder. I’ve done my best to remain humble and reserved most of the way. Most of my life I’ve felt a bit awkward talking about myself, so I kept most of my thoughts to myself. Unfortunately that tactic doesn’t get me very far in real estate sales. In the beginning of my career as a self promoting real estate agent, I wasn’t very vocal about who I was and what I did. Obviously that made it a bit harder to generate leads and sales. These days, I get out of my comfort zone and express my opinion in and discuss my career without feeling like a ridiculous infomercial.
I haven’t changed my personality or my character. In fact, nothing about how I present myself has changed. Every part of my exterior pretty much stayed the same. What did change was my mindset. The thoughts I have about my business have changed. I used to worry that if I discussed my company and services that it would be a burden on the conversation. Now I have a much higher value for what I do. I believe I am an asset to anyone I work with. It’s so simple, but that idea eludes so many of us. So my message today is value yourself. Know you’ve got something great to offer, then share it passionately with those around you. When they see your conviction, they’ll know you mean business. Then you’ll do business.
James Dunn is a REALTOR® and investor in the greater Los Angeles area. Connect with James at www.facebook.com/jdrealestate, or follow him on Twitter: @agentjd.
Crystal Webster
By Crystal Webster
The Get Motivated seminar series recently came to Kansas City and I was pretty excited to go! On top of tickets being about $5; Bill Cosby, Joe Montana, Laura Bush, Gen. Colin Powell, Rudy Giuliani, Steve Forbes, John Walsh (the list goes on and on) were speaking.
I had some difficult closings happening that week, but aren’t all closing difficult these days? So I decided to take the day to “get motivated.” I walked in the door of the arena to about 20,000 others looking for some mojo too. It felt like a huge rock concert (at 7 a.m.) with people everywhere just excited to be there. We stocked up on our $50 worth of snacks for the morning (it’s still in a concert hall so we got concert pricing…) and went to find our general admission seats.
Wow, just wow. Seeing these people–in real, technicolor life–was pretty powerful. To think, these people were once at the very tippy-top of their industries…
However, the message was not that powerful, nor motivating. There was a lot of, “Remember the time I did this? Yea, I’m awesome.” And this: “I overcame adversity and become the biggest name in ______. I rule.”
I was expecting (or at least was hoping for) some helpful hints about getting ahead, staying organized and motivated, and maybe a little creativity. Instead, I seemed to get a big pat on the back fest. Oh, with a couple of infomercials for investment products thrown in to make up for the fact that the tickets were only $5.
By the end of day I just wanted to take a nap (and, really, get the last 8 hours of my life back). So my recommendation, if you get the itch to go to the get motivated seminar, is to instead buy their autobiographies, burn a $20 bill, and read one of those Dale Carnegie books that’s collecting dust on your bookshelf.
Crystal Webster is a REALTOR® in the Kansas City area. Visit her at www.kcyoungprofessionals.com and www.theheritagehometeam.com.
Toby Boyce
By Toby Boyce
Sitting in the classroom taking licensure classes to become a licensed real estate agent in the state of Ohio, suddenly it becomes very obvious: They want to make sure you know people don’t like you.
“You are spoken in the same breath as used car salesmen,” a local real estate attorney is fond of stating. (Of course he often neglected to mention that the other half of the comparison is to his own profession.)
However, are we in the same class as used car salesmen? Nope. Not even close according to the U.S. Better Business Bureau’s recently released 2010 numbers . In fact, the number of complaints against real estate agents isn’t even in the top 50 industries. The most complaints in 2010 were registered against:
1. Television – Cable, CATV & Satellite: 30,408
2. Cellular Phones Services & Equipment: 24,876
3. Auto Dealers – New Cars: 23,906
4. Banks: 22,609
5. Collection Agencies: 14,966
6. Auto Dealers – Used Cars: 13,902
Real estate agents slipped in the 54th position on the list with 3,034 complaints. Which I believe was made even more impressive by the fact that more than 400,000 inquires were made for real estate agents of the Better Business Bureau in 2010.
So next time you look in the mirror, remember, “Dog gone it, people like you.”
Toby Boyce, MBA, is a real estate practitioner with Keller Williams Consultants Realty in Westerville, Ohio. Visit his Web site: www.delawareohrealestate.com.
Stefanie Hahn
By Stefanie Hahn
You have your Google profile, right? Well now it’s time to start using Google +1. Haven’t heard of it? Think of it as the Facebook “like” button for the Internet. Watch this tutorial video to see how Google +1 works and consider adding the function to your website and/or blog to vamp up your SEO.
Stefanie Hahn is the education director for Coldwell Banker Hearthside, REALTORS® in Malvern, Pa. Visit her Web site: www.StefanieHahn.com.
Brooke Wolford
By Brooke Wolford
I recently attended and volunteered at the Minneapolis RE BarCamp. I was a BarCamp virgin. I knew the concept and felt excited about it. I also anticipated excitement among fellow agents. I didn’t, however, realize how amazing the atmosphere would be.
Agents came in early and could wait to view the session board. I saw many popping in and out of sessions just so that they could get a taste of everything. You would see excitement in their eyes once they realized the concept. The event was free and you learned way more than you normally would learn in the traditional CE course.
This made me look back at educational events I attended throughout the year. I remember just a few months ago realizing that I didn’t have all my continuing educations credits even though it seemed like I was constantly training throughout the year.
I chose the events that I attended based upon what I would learn. Not the CE credits I would receive. Many of the events were not even focused on real estate at all. I chose them to learn something I didn’t know or because of who was speaking.
My point is, don’t focus on your continuing education hours. What you learn should benefit you and your clients. Look into other business areas. There is a ton you can learn from other industries. Don’t be afraid to step outside the box!
Brooke Wolford is a real estate practitioner with Edina Realty, Hastings, Minn. Follow her blog at adventuresinrookierealestate.com.
Rob Reuter
By Rob Reuter, YPN Manager
How many times have you been out showing a property or walking through a potential listing and stumbled upon something extremely strange or uniquely cool?
Here is your chance to share those on-the-job eccentricities with the world and possibly win a prize. From June 15 through July 15, 2011, we will be running the Eye of the YPN Photo Contest sponsored by Kodak.
It’s simple: send a photo to rreuter@realtors.org of your strange, cool, or remarkable in-the-field occurrence for a chance to win a Kodak PlayTouch Camera. At the end of the contest, the YPN Advisory Subcommittee will select a single photo that they considered the most unique.
Please download and review the official rules here.
After the contest, we will share some of the top vote-getting photos through a slideshow and follow-up blog where the photographers will receive credit for their images.
Stefanie Hahn
By Stefanie Hahn
The letter X hasn’t fared too well in the dot-com era. Once the mark of secret pirate treasures and “sign here if you would please” contracts, it has been relegated to second-class status ever since Microsoft introduced Windows95 as the letter you looked for when you want to make things go away.
Facebook also selected the X as the “go away” letter. If you are using Facebook for business, this X can be really, really bad.
If you have never seen the X on Facebook, it hides in the upper right corner of every post made by your friends (and the pages you like). You don’t see it unless you hover over the post – it is pretty stealthy.
When you click the X on any Facebook post the system automatically presents you with a few different options:
Hide this post
Hide all from [USER]
Hide all from [APPLICATION] *if it was posted from a third party site like YouTube
I can tell you from personal experience that making the decision between the first two is very hard sometimes. I can think of a few occasions where I clicked the X thinking I was going to just hide a post – and then made a split-second decision to just hide the user instead. If this happens to you, the best social media strategy in the world won’t get you very far.
So why do I hide users? Continue reading »
Brooke Wolford
By Brooke Wolford
I have gone through a recent run of buyers who seem to take an extremely long amount of time to purchase a property. I began to feel pretty frustrated. I understood that this was happening with many buyers outside of my own, but it still seemed to frustrate me.
I then found what seemed to be a perfect buyer. She was approved, knew what she wanted, and had a deadline of when she wanted to move. I couldn’t have been more excited.
I began to show her properties. We would find something she loved. She would take her parents and boyfriend through the property. I would expect her to put an offer in and then she wouldn’t return my phone calls or emails for days. This repeated itself several times before I finally sat down and had a talk with her. (I don’t know why I waited so long).
After speaking with her about this issue, she told me that she has a mental condition. This condition is called kainotophobia (Fear of change). I immediately felt horrible. Here I was getting all frustrated for months and all along she hand this condition that could completely prevent her from purchasing a property at all. Besides that, I had concerns about her feeling like she could or would make a poor decision.
This type of thing has to pretty common, right? Maybe we as agents need to get some of of specialized training in mental illness?
What I can say is that we need to be empathetic to our clients. We need to be able to communicate to them better. In my case, I should have spoken with her sooner.
Brooke Wolford is a real estate practitioner with Edina Realty, Hastings, Minn. Follow her blog at adventuresinrookierealestate.com.
Chris Nichols
By Chris Nichols
There’s an interesting story from the Middle East I want to share with you. A dying man leaves his 17 camels to his three sons. To the first son he leaves half, to the second son he leaves a third, and to the third son he leaves a ninth. Well as the three sons do the math they find that none of their portions divide very well into 17 camels. Arguments ensue and before blood is shed they decide to consult a wise old woman who tells them she’s not sure if she can solve their problem, but instead she offers them her one camel, thus giving the three sons 18 camels. This gives the first son 9 camels, the second son gets 6 camels, and the third son gets 2 camels. Well… 9+6+2 = 17 camels, so the three sons return the 18th camel to the wise old lady!
In real estate, life, and in leadership positions I often find myself searching for that 18th camel. It’s interesting how we as humans tend to focus our time, energy and thoughts on the problem versus the solution. Getting to yes shouldn’t be as hard as we tend to make it on ourselves.
I used to work at The Little Nell hotel at the base of Aspen Mountain in Colorado. This amazing resort hotel is owned by the Aspen Skiing Company and is rated a 5 star/5 diamond property. Guests pay top dollar for just a standard (insert luxurious) room. With that, they expect amazing service (insert treatment). One of the challenges posed to us as employees was to never, ever tell a guest ‘NO’. This gave us the unique opportunity of always finding ways to say yes, or offering different options/solutions that kept us away from the dreaded ‘NO’. Unfortunately, that experience was many moons ago and I have sadly fallen away from the practice of always finding the yes or solution and avoiding the ‘NO’. Continue reading »
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