Subhi J. Gharbieh
By Subhi Gharbieh
On Thursday, Nov. 8, my fellow Dallas REALTOR® Joe Atkins and I booked the 6 a.m. flight from Dallas-Fort Worth to Orlando so that we could make it to the YPN Advisory Subcommittee meeting that started at noon. Being the responsible adult that I am (not), I tried to pull an all nighter so that I wouldn’t miss my flight early Thursday morning. That worked out well! I ended up falling asleep around 3:30 a.m., and the five alarms that I set to wake me up, well, didn’t.
So I missed the YPN meeting (bummer), but Joe, our MetroTex YPN chair, made it to the meeting and represented us well. After I got to our hotel later that day, Joe and I immediately left for the convention center to get registered and pick up our convention packet. The NAR staff do such a great job organizing the registration and welcome process. They are so efficient.
Thursday evening was pretty relaxing. We met up with some fellow YPN members from around the country at the Peabody Hotel. We caught up with some old faces and met some new ones. One thing that I have learned from attending the REALTORS® Conference & Expo for the last three years, is that we may only meet a couple times a year, but when we do, it feels like it was yesterday that we were just together at the last convention.
YPN Advisory Subcommittee & Network of the Year Award Winners (from left to right): Rob Mehta, Mark Epstein, Spring Bengtzen, Bobbi Howe, Rob Reuter, Michael Oppler, Tamara Suminski, Matt Case, Georgia Wall, Deena Zimmerman, Joe Atkins, James Martin, Subhi Gharbieh, Matt Phipps, Kerri Hartnett, and Christopher Mitchell.
I was very proud of our Dallas YPN network for making such a strong showing this year in Orlando. For the last couple of years, the norm for us was about two or three members travel to attend the convention. This year, we had right around 20 of our YPN members attend — that made me really proud.
Being the chair of our YPN network last year, I was really hoping that we would win Network of the Year during my term. That didn’t happen. We worked really hard and felt like we had done a lot of great things to win the title for Large Association Network of the Year, but we were topped by Chicago YPN.
Nevertheless, we started off 2012 focused on the same goal. We did a lot of great things in 2012, but when it came time to fill out our application for Network of the Year, we really felt like we could have done more. We completed our application thinking that we really came up short of our goals as a committee. The competition is so fierce among YPN Networks all over the country, and seeing some of the great things that some other networks had accomplished throughout the year, we didn’t think we had a shot at winning. Continue reading »
Subhi J. Gharbieh
By Subhi Gharbieh
Now that I have sort of become known as the “Real Estate Technology Geek,” I receive calls and e-mails daily about how REALTORS® can become paperless. I highly doubt that it is possible to be 100 percent paperless in our business, but here are three tips that will get you darn near close to never using a printer, ever again.
1. Daily Real Estate Task: Printing “Agent Full Report” from MLS. It is something that we must have when showing a property. It has the details that customers/clients don’t have in their “Customer Full Report,” such as days on the market, the listing agent’s contact info, private remarks, etc.
For PC users — Instead of printing this report, download a program called CutePDF. It is a free PDF converter that will set up as a printer in your print menu, BUT… drum-roll, please… it will not print! It will save your report as a PDF. This program is great and saves you the hundreds of dollars it would cost to purchase a similar Adobe product. I simply save the reports in Dropbox or Box (another must-have) and simply open it up on my iPhone or iPad.
For my fellow Apple/Mac users — Simply click print, and in the bottom left corner there will be a tab that says “PDF,” click on that to save your report as a PDF. No third-party program necessary.
2. Contracts/Addendum: Instead of printing the contracts/addenda you create in zipForm (or any other forms software that you may use): From your iPad, open the document with Box (an app that must be downloaded) and save it in your Box Cloud. Once you have it saved, Go to DocuSign (an app that must also be downloaded) and link your Box account directly to DocuSign. From there, you will be able to open the documents you saved in Box, place initials/signatures, assign recipients, and send the documents for signatures — getting your document signed without it ever being printed or scanned.
3. Listing Presentations: Instead of printing and binding a fancy listing presentation to give to your potential sellers, create a presentation in Keynote or Powerpoint, with fun graphics and the information you want your customer to see. Hand your clients your iPad/Tablet and let them flip through it while you ramble on about how you’re the best REALTOR® in town. They will love it, and if it’s done right, they will be sold on you immediately.
Subhi J. Gharbieh is the broker/owner at Gharbieh & Associates in Dallas. Connect with him at www.Gharbieh.com or on Twitter @subhig.
Subhi J. Gharbieh
By Subhi Gharbieh
No Matter how hard we try to keep up with all the latest trends and technology, it is virtually impossible to use every single real estate-related mobile application in our business today. There is just too many of them! My fellow MetroTex (Dallas) YPN member- Justin Levitch and I have been teaching what we call our “iPads, Smart Phones, and Real Estate Apps Course” to diverse crowds of REALTORS® all over the Dallas–Fort Worth metroplex. We highlight hundreds of apps that could potentially boost your business, or just make you look like the most rock star, tech savvy real estate agent in town. Here are a few of my favorite apps that I use in my business today. Now, I’m already the coolest REALTOR® in town, but these definitely put me way ahead of the competition. 
1. MagicPlan (iOS – free) - MagicPlan measures your rooms and draws your floor plan just by taking pictures. You can then get your floor plan in PDF, JPG and DXF format or publish an interactive floor plan on the Web. With MagicPlan, everyone can create a floor plan in just a few minutes. Example use: Draw a floor plan for your listing to show an out of town buyer the house layout.
2. Cards (iOS – free) – Create and mail beautifully crafted, real greeting cards personalized with your own text and photos – right from your iPhone. Your Apple ID is charged $2.99 for each postcard you send. Incredible, way better than a Hallmark! Example use: Post-closing thank yous.
3.Videolicious (iOS – free) – Turn raw video clips and photos into tightly-edited masterpieces to share with your friends in just three simple steps. Example use: 20-second buyer testimonial videos to use as commercials.
4. Dropbox or Box (iOS, Android – free) – Dropbox or Box lets you bring all your photos, documents, and videos anywhere. Any file you save to your Dropbox or Box will automatically save to all your computers, your Android or iOS device, and even the Dropbox or Box website! Example use: Share files too large to e-mail with your clients, backup your photos and/or files in the cloud to have access while mobile. Access contracts or photos on your iPad without using up all your iPad memory.
5. Glympse (iOS, Android – free) Continue reading »
Subhi J. Gharbieh
By Subhi Gharbieh
Have you ever thought about some things you can incorporate into your listing presentation that will really juice it up? Here are a few tips to help you get your listing presentation looking like Barry Bonds.
Show them:
1. Graphs, Charts, Tables of Market Data. Comps, recent sales, and anything that can be explained with numbers, make it visual! (If you’re a Mac user, I strongly recommend Numbers for Mac.
Very easy to use and make your numbers “pop.”)
2. Marketing. Show them your property flyers with your amazing photos. Show them your blog, videos, advertisements, postcards, etc. They want to see what you have done in the past and what you will do for them now.
3. Social Media. Show them your Facebook business page. Twitter. Show them the different avenues you use to reach out to your following and how you market your listings on those networks.
4. Technology. If you have an iPad, make or upload your listing presentation in Keynote (Hands down, best Mac program to use when making presentations.) Bring an actual binded, professional looking listing presentation to the appointment, and bring your iPad also. Hand the iPad to the Seller and let them flip through the presentation on there while you go through the paper version. That alone will sell them. Continue reading »
Subhi J. Gharbieh
By Subhi J. Gharbieh
It is very obvious that the Internet has drastically changed the way we do business as REALTORS®. According to the 2010 NAR Profile of Home Buyers and Sellers, 99 percent of buyers started their home search online.
With that said, all the media that we display online can have a great say in whether a buyer will call you about viewing a listing, or not.
I recently shot my first video tour on a listing I have here in Dallas, and let me say: It was quite an experience. I learned many things that I wish I would have known before I was actually in front of a camera.
Here are 5 tips to help you shoot a successful video tour:
- Plan ahead. Make sure the weather is great on the day you record your video. You want it to be clear that you are a REALTOR® touring your listing, not a weatherman/woman out in the middle of a thunderstorm.
- Make sure the property will show well in a video. Staging the home if it is vacant will do wonders. Make sure the home is landscaped, neat, and tidy. You don’t want your viewers to catch any dirty socks on the floor while your showing the master bedroom!
- Mentally walk through the house and take notes on what you are going to say before the camera is rolling. It will make you sound a lot more professional, and people will notice it. Consult with your client. Ask them why they bought their home. Why they chose to live in the specific area. Talk about nearby parks, lakes, shopping, etc. Market the lifestyle of living in that specific area. Don’t just wing it!
- Have the video professionally edited. If you cannot do that, download a video editing software and do it yourself. There are many simple video editing programs available online and are fairly easy to use.
- Last but not least, BRAND YOURSELF! There is no point in producing a video tour if your viewers are not going to know who made the video, and who to contact to view the home if they are interested! Start a YouTube Channel and post your videos. There are also many other sites that can help you syndicate your video to the world.
Subhi J. Gharbieh is the broker owner of Gharbieh & Associates in Dallas. Connect with him at www.Gharbieh.com or on Twitter @subhig.
Subhi J. Gharbieh
By Subhi J. Gharbieh
A week or so ago, I was approached by a long time friend who I have known since elementary school. We grew up in the same neighborhood, went to the same high school, and even graduated from the same university. I remember as kids, we would always talk about how successful we wanted to be when we grew up, and how we were going to help each other become successful.
He called and asked me a few real estate related questions. He said that a relative of his had a property in mind that he was ready to move on, and needed some consultation. I thanked him for the referral, and gave his relative a call. We met, discussed the whole buyers representation process, and everything went pretty well.
A day or so later, I received a call from this friend of mine, saying that his relative was going to approach this property representing himself, without a REALTOR®. I respectfully accepted that and didn’t think too much about it. Immediately following that, he calls me again, this time saying he would convince his relative to purchase the property with myself as his REALTOR®, only if I gave him 50 percent off my commission. (The subject property listed at a little over $2 million dollars.)
Just remembering the friendship that this person and I had as kids, this “offer” felt like a slap in the face (I’m 22, it wasn’t that long ago). I explained to him that it might seem like he is dropping a large amount of money in my lap, but the process to acquire a property of this value takes a lot of time, knowledge, negotiation, and liability. He wasn’t convinced. Long story short, I declined to represent the buyer. Continue reading »
Subhi J. Gharbieh
By Subhi J. Gharbieh
Being a REALTOR® for a little more than four years now, I have a good understanding of how to approach my business today. I think it is safe to say that when I got into the business, “cold calling” was pretty much being phased out. With the emergence of federal and state Do Not Call laws, it was becoming very difficult to effectively prospect potential clients over the phone. On the flip side, I feel that these laws have made us resort to more genuine, personal ways of prospecting.
I have found that my most effective prospecting strategy is to simply put yourself in your potential client’s shoes. Would you give the time of day to sit on the phone and listen to what some REALTOR® who you have never met has to say? Especially when they call around dinner time…who enjoys that? I personally would not speak to any telemarketer trying to sell their product/service over the phone, so I am not a big fan of cold calling.
Social media today has really evolved the way we prospect and do business overall. Blogging, tweeting, and sharing your posts with Facebook friends, are easy ways to get your message out to an unlimited number of prospects. Who knows which one of your friends will share your post, exposing it to all of their friends, and on and on… Facebook is also an easy way of gathering an e-mail list of potential clients, if they do not choose to hide their contact information.
So get out there — knock on doors, attend local events, and meet new people! Life is too short to be shy.
Subhi J. Gharbieh is the broker owner of Gharbieh & Associates in Dallas. Connect with him at www.Gharbieh.com or on Twitter @subhig.
Subhi J. Gharbieh
By Subhi J. Gharbieh
With everything that is currently going on in many parts of the Middle East, specifically Egypt, it really made me think about how blessed we are to live in this country. Being a first generation Palestinian-American, it hurts me to see what the Egyptian people are going through. But I am proud that they are standing up for what they believe in, a true and fair democracy.
Sometimes, we take for granted the rights and freedoms we have as Americans. Many people around the world only dream to have the freedom, justice, and liberties that we have. We live in a country that allows us to vote for our leader, as well as many other rights. Freedom of religion, the right to a fair and just trial, the right to bear arms, and the freedom to own property, to name a few.
While you may think: “Most, if not all, countries around the world allow their citizens to own property.” Yes, this may be true. But there are not too many countries that have a government in place that is actively involved in assisting its citizens with home ownership. With the existence of our government-sponsored entities such as Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, tax incentives and deductions — The American Dream of owning a home can very well become a reality for those who desire it.
Another thing that I am greatly thankful for is level of organization and accountability that we have in this country. A perfect example is the NAR Code of Ethics that we are upheld to as REALTORS®. Article 10 in the NAR Code of Ethics says:
“REALTORS® shall not be parties to any plan or agreement to discriminate against a person or persons on the basis of race, color, religion, sex, handicap, familial status, national origin, or sexual orientation.”
This statement just shows how diverse our country is, and that everyone has the right to own a home without being discriminated upon. We all came to this country on different boats, and different times. Let’s not criticize our differences, but rather learn to appreciate them. It is our diversity that makes this country so great.
Subhi J. Gharbieh is the broker owner of Gharbieh & Associates in Dallas. Connect with him at www.Gharbieh.com or on Twitter @subhig.
Subhi J. Gharbieh
By Subhi J. Gharbieh
Many times agents are quick to use the “client” title for someone they are working with or representing in a real estate transaction. There are so many people out there nowadays trying to scam others, and it happens every day in our industry. My friendly advice to real estate professionals: Get to know the person you are representing before you call them your client.
Example:
A practitioner sends me an email one Friday, letting me know that her client from Waco, Texas is interested in viewing a $3.5 million listing I have in Plano, a suburb outside of Dallas. She said that this client owns a sports merchandising company and that he was only in town for the weekend. She wanted to bring him in that next morning, on Saturday. As any luxury home owner would, my client requested that I make sure that any potential buyers were qualified to purchase a home within this price range. So I simply asked the agent for a pre-approval letter, or some document to show that this buyer was well qualified. I would hate for my client to have to leave their home for a few hours on a Saturday morning for someone who has no real interest in purchasing their home.
The agent soon called me back and said that her “client” does not wish to share any of his information, and that if we wanted to “sell” the house, we would let him view it. A thought came to mind when she said that: “What if this is a high profile celebrity, professional athlete, CEO or such, I cannot let this buyer slip away. ” So I quickly asked her for her clients name, and she hesitantly gave it to me. For confidentiality purposes- we’re going to call him ” Mr. Joe Blow.”
Not knowing where to start, I simply Google searched “Joe Blow Waco Texas.” Continue reading »
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