Author: James Dingman

Two New Videos For You to Use

Robbie Stevens sometimes asks me to write and record a short video for use on various Help-U-Sell websites.  Usually these are consumer-focused pieces designed to present the superior Help-U-Sell offer and encourage viewers to seek more information.

As a new Corporate website is just around the corner (and if you haven’t seen it, it is a home run), he asked me to do two new ones.  One is a Help-U-Sell overview, mostly directed at potential sellers; the other is directed at potential buyers and presents our unique approach to helping them find their dream homes.

You can add these to your own Help-U-Sell website by logging into OMS, going to ‘Marketing and Content’ and ‘Website CMS.’ Click ‘Edit’ and select the page on which you’d like to use the video.  Scroll down and select the HTML view, then copy/paste the embed code from YouTube where you’d like to see the video.  Once you have done that a few times it is VERY easy, but I’m sure if you’ve never done it, my brief instructions seem daunting.  Give yourself 10 minutes to get as far as you can with it, then call tech support at Help-U-Sell and let them walk you through it or do it for you.

You may also email the link to prospective sellers and buyers.  I’ve included the YouTube link under each of these videos.  Here is Help-U-Sell for Buyers:

Here is the link to this video:  http://youtu.be/agkvmZYN5-8

And here is ‘The Help-U-Sell Difference’:

And here is the link to this video: http://youtu.be/sxgnCJi1CMc

Feel free to use these in any way that may help you garner new business!

Cool Stuff From Success Summit!

summit-pic

There was so much NEW at this year’s Summit!  The large group of attendees brought an energy that sustained us for three days and made it hard to say goodbye to Las Vegas.  In no particular order here are SOME of the  cool things that happened:

  • Mr. Westman attended!  Head of our parent company, Infinium, Ron Westman tends to stay in the background usually letting his team navigate the important Help-U-Sell meetings that occur from time to time.  Not so this Success Summit! He was present and involved for every minute of meetings and social functions as well.  It was a wonderful opportunity to interact with the man that got us through the worst real estate market in history.  Thank you, Ron Westman!
  • A new CI followup program was unveiled.  Working with Mike Paholke and Excel Print/Mail, Jack Bailey, John Powell and  the home office team developed a series of 8 customizable postcard mailers for staying in touch with past clients and other Centers of Influence.  The program is remarkably inexpensive and provides automatic followup to our most important friends.  Watch your email and attend the weekly Power Hour meetings for details.
  • A partnership with Movement Mortgage was presented.  This rapidly growing mortgage banker comes with an interesting proposition.  Instead of waiting to process a loan application until the closing date is imminent, they process everything immediately, completing the package in 7 – 10 days regardless of closing date.  This enables buyers and sellers to close early if they choose but more importantly, exposes problems EARLY so that there is no last minute panic.  In addition, Movement Mortgage has agreed to undrewrite 25% of the cost of the new CI program mentioned above!  Now it is an even better bargain!
  • Robbie Stevens showcased our new corporate website, slated to go live around the first of the year.  It knocked my socks off!  Really:  clean and sleek, very forward looking and modern, it makes our competitors’ sites look ancient.  And the functionality – rich in video and short on verbiage – is superb.  There is a great new home search function that includes a drawing component where any customized geography can be searched.
  • OMS Lite was presented.  This is a new app available at the Apple Store for Iphone and pad that enables Help-U-Sell brokers to add a new listing on the fly.  It includes the ability to upload photos and even phone-shot video directly into OMS.  An Android version is running through the approval process and should be available soon.
  • Platinum Edge got a dusting off and an update.  This tool for use with luxury properties has a new look:  stunning black and silver.  Guidance on how to use this tool when working with the top of the market will be a feature of future Power Hour meetings.
  • Ron McCoy presented a revamped awards program that recognized top listing offices, top buyer side offices and  top closed side offices as well as a new Don Taylor Award of excellence.  Congratulations to Jack and Cheryl Bailey and Help-U-Sell Greensboro for being tops in Buyer Sides with 59,  and to Richard Cricchio and Help-U-Sell Honolulu Properties for being tops in New Listings with 151.  Honolulu Properties was also #1 in total Closed Sides with 167.  The special Don Taylor Award went to Brenda Fischer at Help-U-Sell Options Unlimited in Terre Haute, Indiana. In a smaller market with a lower average sale price Brenda, through some aggressive and very creative marketing has captured a BIG share of the market and shown us all there is more to parades than marching!
  • Maurine Grisso, back from almost two years of illness, delighted the group with her newly published book ‘Before You Sell Your Home.’ Available on Amazon.com and Kindle, it will be on SPECIAL for one day, October 22, for the ridiculous price of $.99.  Mark your calender, buy the book and then give Maurine a favorable review on Amazon.

If there was a theme about this meeting is was that marketing – particularly core marketing to your geographical target market – is supremely important today and that no group deserves more attention than our CIs.  Systems to get those two things done automatically (and others) are key to growth.

Having missed last year’s Summit, I have to tell you I spent many months hungry for the kind of interaction that only comes when Help-U-Sell brokers from across the country come together to share and learn.  I am delighted that I could attend and if I ever miss another – I’ll probably be dead!

Gearing Up For Summit

The Help-U-Sell Success Summit takes place next week in Las Vegas.  It’s an annual event where family members from across the country gather to energize and plan.  I love this meeting because it is the time when I get to interact with a sizable group of really good real estate people.

I’ve been working on my opening comments and it seems this year I have a lot to say.  I believe we are on the verge of big change in our industry.  I can see everything shifting rather quickly leaving all but the bravest and most forward thinking out in the cold.  I believe what happened in the securities business after Charles Schwab and what happened in the travel industry after Expedia Orbitz and Travelocity is about to happen in the real estate industry.

Empowered consumers, armed with information that used to be available only to Realtors and with increasingly intuitive tools are doing more and more of the job for themselves.

When Schwab put information and tools once reserved for stock brokers online for anyone to use, he also slashed commissions.  Because his clients were doing a lot of the work on their own, he started charging a Low Set Fee for trades.  The industry was transformed.

Not so in real estate.  Consumers have the information, they continue to get the tools and today do more and more of the work that goes into buying and selling on their own.  What hasn’t changed are the fees ordinary brokers charge.  My yoga teacher said it best:

I don’t know what our agent did.  We found the house, we negotiated the sale, we did all the running around.  She opened the door and collected a commission check that was bigger than our down payment!

I’m not saying Realtors aren’t important.  In truth, they provide a good and valuable service.  It’s just that the service provided is not worth 6% of the sale price.  With consumers increasingly able to do the work themselves we’re just moments away from the tipping point where they decide the good and valuable service real estate agents provide is not worth the price.

It  is then that ordinary real estate agents will become irrelevant.

Add to that dynamic the fact that affordability is becoming a huge issue . . . and you have a near perfect storm.

Affordability?  Yes.  Today, fewer Americans can afford to buy a home than in years gone by.  Prices have continued to slowly rise while median household income as fallen.  Yes, it has.  Today’s families earn less than they did 5 years ago and that fact has pushed many out of the housing market and  into the rental market.  In parts of California, fewer than 30% of the population can afford to buy the average home.

So on one hand we have these dinosaurs, these Realtors, clamoring for their 6%.  On the other hand, sale prices (which include that 6%) are getting out of reach of consumers. Something has to give.

My guess is that the guy who can’t sell his $300,000 house and  pay his $18,000 real estate commission will opt to get rid of the ordinary agent, drop the price to $285,000 and list with a Help-U-Sell broker charging, say, $5,950.  That’s how we make homes affordable AND restore the value-for-value relationship between real estate services and fees.

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I’m asking you to do this because I recently made a big change to The Set Fee Real Estate Blog.  I moved it from an old cranky server to a shiny new one that ticks along without a hitch.  Though it was a big and difficult process that took weeks (literally:  try/fail, try/fail, try/fail, try/partial success, help, help, help, a little more success), most of what was here before came over. One of the things that did not were my subscribers.  I’ve been able to resurrect only five of you!  So please, just drop your email address in the little box and make me smile!

It goes without saying (or maybe it doesn’t)  that I don’t sell or give your address to anybody and the only thing you will ever get from me is a notice that there’s something new here.  Having spent the last week ‘Unsubscribing’ from literally hundreds of sites I’ve wandered into over the years, I would never do that to you.  I guess it is a little ironic that I would ask you to subscribe here during National Unsubscribe Week, but what the hay.

Coming Soon to a City Near You: The Affordability Crisis

It’s starting to show up in pockets across the country – growing pockets.  Most people can’t afford to buy a home.  We are becoming a nation of renters.

In parts of California, fewer than 30% of the population makes enough money to afford the average home.  The effects on the real estate market are predictable and real.

What has caused this situation?  Two things.  First, the slow but steady increase in values after the real estate collapse. After plummeting between 2006 and 2012, values have been rising.  We had a brief period of huge increases but that has settled back to a more sane 3% – 5% a year.

The other factor – the one nobody wants to talk about – is a corresponding FALL in wages.  All across the country, median household income is down from where it was five years ago.  Here, in San Diego, the decline is 6.3% – $61,426 vs $65,575 in 2009 – while in Phoenix the decline is closer to 10%.

The only metro with positive growth is Pittsburgh.  Those lucky Pennsylvanians experienced a 2.1% increase in median household income over the past five years.

It is an election year and it would be easy to become very political in a conversation about why wages in the U.S. are falling, but that is not our purpose here.

Looking forward you have to wonder if we’re not headed toward another drop in prices.  If people can’t afford to buy houses and houses need to be sold, something must give.

But this is also the type of climate that sometimes produces innovation.  Perhaps a new wrinkle in real estate financing will enable people making less to afford more.  That’s what happened back in the early ’80s.  Houses became un-affordable because of a huge run up in interest rates.  Lenders responded with Adjustable Rate Mortgages, marketed as temporary financing.

In addition, there would appear to be a big market for affordable housing, and the construction industry will certainly respond.

But for the average American needing to sell a house . . . the future looks murky at best.

Of course, the way to make your home MORE affordable is to reduce the price.  And one way to mitigate the impact of a price reduction on your net proceeds is to drop your high priced, percentage based real estate broker in favor of one charging a much lower Set Fee.  Clearly, a price reduction is going to hurt a whole lot less if, instead of paying your broker $18,000 to sell your $300,000 house, you’re paying a low set fee of, say, $4,950.  Where do you find such a broker?  At Help-U-Sell.  Use the link to the right to find an office near you.

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