Browsing through a real estate trade magazine supposedly targeted at highly successful agents, I couldn’t help but chuckle at the amount of editorial content and advertising focused on social media and internet marketing:  Social media ROI, dominating Google, new media marketing, and crash courses in social media.  Of course, internet marketing and especially social media marketing are all the buzz in the real estate world now.  I am inundated with invites to webinars, offers for training, and book pitches. In an industry dominated for decades by push marketing techniques, giving real estate agents a little basic technical knowledge, without a thorough orientation on social media culture can have disastrous effects.

It is very revealing to check out the social graphs of the real estate social media magazine writers and the highly-touted social media instructors in the industry.  Many real estate instructors have had to adopt their 20 year old course content rather quickly to the ever-accelerating utilization of social media, technology, and other web based innovations. But it’s not enough to learn how to setup a Facebook, twitter or LinkedIn account, build a Facebook business page, or set up a blog if you don’t understand the culture you are stepping into. I don’t see many articles in the trade magazines about social media culture or engagement, just how to control, leverage, and dominate.  One absolute truth about the social media culture:  it has very little patience with being controlled, leveraged or dominated.

photo credit: Matt Hamm

Social Media is about the culture, not control, domination, and leverage is a post from: Joe Spake's Weblog

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ReBarCamp Nashville kickoff - with Brian Copeland

Brian Copeland lays out the ground rules for Tennessee’s first REBar Camp, Nashville – 4/28/2010

More photos from the event at http://www.flickr.com/photos/joespake/sets/72157623838064525/

Picture of the Day – REBarCamp Nashville is a post from: Joe Spake's Weblog

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Kathy Drewien on using WordPress blogging platform

BarCamps are user-generated conferences, with the sessions an presenters/facilitators determined on the day of the conference.  Bar camps are participatory and geared to the needs and skills of those who attend.  The essence of the Bar Camp movement was captured in this week’s REBar Camp Nashville.  REBar Camps are real estate oriented, and while I have attended Bar Camps that seemed a bit over-choreographed, this event was pure user generated content, and the sessions I facilitated and attended were highly participatory.  Very little of the actual event, other than the blank schedule grid, and the individual venues was pre-planned.  This sharing of ideas is a truly enriching experience.  At any given time there were up to 10 simultaneous sessions in progress, geared to all levels of expertise in real estate marketing and tech.

Image of Brian Copeland

Brian Copeland (@nashvillebrian) deserves the credit for putting this event together with the assistance of many volunteers and a solid group of sponsors.  Sponsors? Yes.  A commercial atmosphere?  Definitely not.  I was fortunate enough to be able to present on a couple of topics, and I attended a number of sessions, but the power of the REBar Camp is in the networking:  the folks you meet with, socialize with, and share ideas with are one big family, as you can see if you look at any of the attendee’s Facebook profiles.

Kudos to Brian and all the great folks who attended Tennessee’s first Real Estate Bar Camp!

Tennessee’s first REBar Camp captured the spirit of the movement is a post from: Joe Spake's Weblog

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The Robot

Last week I attended RETSO (#RETSO)  – Real Estate Tech South in Duluth (Atlanta burbs), Georgia.  The conference was extended to 2 days this year and was jam-packed with the best real estate thinkers and speakers in the country.  This was not a RE BarCamp, but a well organized and tightly scheduled conference.  Organized for the third year by Brad Nix, Matt Fagioli, and crew, RETSO is a top-notch event.

Just before I left, I read Chris Garrett’s post, Why I Sucked at SXSW So You Don’t Have to, which I am archiving to read before attending any future conferences.  Chris gives some good pointers about do’s and don’ts and how to get the most out of tech conferences. STOP NOW and read it, if you are planning on attending any type tech conferences or BarCamps.

So, I am not going to do a play-by-play of the conference, and I am not going to write about the social/networking events (what happens in Duluth stays in Duluth).  I don’t need to list all the Cool Kids – they know who they are.  I will just do a stream of consciousness summary of my notes.  I didn’t include links, but you can Google anything that looks interesting.  I got lots of useful ideas.   Maybe you can pick through this and get some too:

Nik-Nik and the Social Media Dance

URL on Twitter profile should land on thank you/call for action page with contact information
Jeff Turner- wake up and smell your brand; your brand is you and what you deliver; conversation without content is clutter; you don’t need a social media strategy, you need a strategy that includes social media;  thecadmus.com and neoformics.com for trends and analytics
YELP presented by Brian Copeland – open your YELP for business owners account; Yelp=chamber of commerce 2.0; Yelp widget at widgetbox.com; take framed copy of your review to the reviewee; keep it local; use YELP Facebook app
Ricardo Bueno – whoopra.com; visistat.com; animoto.com; wistia.com; tubemogul.com; apture.com; socialaddict.com; gist.com; dlvr.it {useful sites for the SM/tech inclined – you look ‘em up}  Best WordPress Plug in Find: mobilepress (automatically reformats your blog for mobile
Jeff Turner – Transparency is for amateurs.  transparency rhymes with trust;
Mike Simonson ALTOS Research – what real estate customers want:  What’s for sale?  How much is my house worth? How’s the market?
Video master, Brian Copeland, on Video – video for home tour, neighborhood tour, buyer-seller info, feature selling, fun, private.  Camera:  Flip; next step up Sony with external mic-ing. Shure or audiotechnics lavalier mics on Amazon. Lighting- Sears Craftsman work area lights, cover with wax paper, use indirectly; Software:  Windows movie maker, Sony Vegas;  Video hosting: Youtube, bright code, picasa, tubemogul.   Music-be careful about copyrights, no lyrics, musicbakery.com, royalty-freemusic.com.  Keep videos <3minutes; <2 minutes even better.
Nicole Nickolay – Nik-Nik – goal setting and planning,befriend-listen-engage-share, find your voice, embrace your uniqueness, every day is an opportunity, less is more, give your computer a break, listen and learn, use social media CRM- gist and batchbook.

Well, there you have it.  I am already looking forward to next year!

Everything was just peachy at RETSO

RETSO has matured as a top-notch real estate tech conference is a post from: Joe Spake's Weblog

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We Midtowners can keep on dreaming about being able to buy decent underwear, cute bed and bath items, and toys for the kiddies, west of of East Parkway at our very own big-box department store. The vast urban area roughly bounded by McNeil, Poplar, Court and Cleveland was to be the site of not only a big-box store, but upscale high-density urban housing, and other mixed use community-enhancing goodies promised by the developers.

Hopes for the illusive big box took a big dashing last week as the property slipped into foreclosure.  The Daily News reports that the Miami-based WSG Memphis LLC, the Miami-based firm has defaulted on  a $14 million loan from Lehman Brothers Holdings Inc. dated April 30, 2007.

I saw a presentation by the developers a couple of years ago, and they released some renderings and there was a general feeling of excitement that something big was going to happen in this blighted area.  Funny that after the initial hoopla, not much happened.  A few of the structures were demolished and hauled away but many, especially multi-unit apartment buildings were left to squatters, vandals, fire and the elements. The site was un-fenced until recently, when a ramshackle chain link fence was installed.  And now I guess it becomes a tax payer expense to secure the area.

Maybe American Wholesale Grocers would consider the site to make their already-prepared  and aborted plans for Overton Square come to life – and maybe add a Family Dollar for good measure.

View Larger Map

A Midtown Target? yeah, right. is a post from: Joe Spake's Weblog

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Re-posted from http://memphisrealestatebuzz.com

Second only to Foreclosures, Short Sales create a lot of buzz among investors and home buyers looking for the almighty good deal. A short sale is a property that is sold for less than is owed on it. Pretty simple concept: you bought a house for $200,000 in 2004, with 10% down. Over the years you pay down your $180,000 mortgage to $160,000. Then for one reason or another… say, you lose your source of income, you REALLY need to sell. BUT, because of the current housing market, your house is now only worth $130,000. A tough pill to swallow, but you have to unload the house. Well it beats having a foreclosure on my credit report. But what about the $30K difference? How will I come up with that money? Welcome to the world of Short Sales.

Jay Thompson, The Phoenix Real Estate Guy, wrote one of the most concise and informative posts on short sales that I have read, so I will skip the mechanics here and just say that the banks, being the altruistic entities that are, just love negotiating short sales with distressed owners, and what they love even more is working offers from buyers expecting a deal. Maybe love is the wrong word, as it implies some human element. The banks are not human, even though there is an interface with an Asset Manager, who, supposedly can make decisions. Human decisions can be measured in milliseconds, but bank decisions can take weeks. The bank does not care if your buyer’s loan lock or lease is running out, or even if she is a well-healed investor paying cash. It’s the bank’s way or no way. Oh, and if there is a second mortgage, double the trouble, because in a short sale, as opposed to a foreclosure, subordinate mortgage holders get a piece of the action too.

I closed my first short sale this month. My buyer clients fit all the criteria for Successful Short Sale Buyers:
1. They were not in a hurry to close
2. They could have and would have walked away from the deal at any time.
3. They had a very high tolerance for the erratic and inexplicable behavior of the bank.
4. They stood their ground when the bank’s foreclosure representative tried to squeeze a fee out of them for delaying a foreclosure auction (the bank backed down and canceled foreclosure sales- twice).
5. Their lender was flexible and helpful throughout the process.

So, for a purchase project started before Halloween with me preparing them for the process, Dave and Phoebe were rewarded with a really good deal on one of the largest homes in their neighborhood. Was it easy? Was it worth it? Let them tell you.

So you want to buy a short sale? is a post from: Joe Spake's Weblog

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I am heading for San Diego for the National Association of Realtors convention for the next few days.  I hate packing for any kind of trip, but the final rush to pack the right clothes, the mandatory cool kid accessories (Moo and Moleskine), the various chargers, batteries, music, spare glasses, etc., etc., usually ends about 2 minutes before I have to get in the car for the airport.  When I unpack at the destination there is always some critical item, like all my shirts, that has been forgotten.  And, as if by divine design, my business always reaches it’s annual crescendo the day before I have to leave town.

Gonna see the folks I dig……
Joni Mitchell – California

I am looking forward to meeting with some of the thought leaders of the real estate business and some great friends, via  a real estate BarCamp, and various forums and presentations at the convention itself.  But the best ideas are usually shared at tweet-ups, cocktail hour, and other informal settings.  Some of those folks I only know through from social networking, but past experience tells me that it will be like old friends getting together.

I’ll keep you posted  here and on Memphis Real Estate Buzz, Facebook, Twitter, Flickr, etc.

Don’t forget the Moo cards and Moleskine is a post from: Joe Spake's Weblog

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Those folks at Facebook keep slipping in goodies. After the latest land rush for vanity URL’s for pages, FB pages seem to have gotten more attention. Go to your page, and in the left column under your logo picture in the Edit Page section, you will now see Add Fan Box to your Site. This nifty feature generates a widget for your website or blogs lets visitors “Fan” you on the spot!

You have some control over content and size, but here is the full-tilt version for my page http://facebook.com/memphisrealestate

Check out the smaller version of the widget in the top right column of this post.

Got a Facebook Page? Here’s a new way to get the word out is a post from: Joe Spake's Weblog

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Earlier this month, local news station, WHBQ, Fox 13, asked me to do an interview on my use of Twitter in my real estate business. They didn’t offer to let me edit, and they took out my preaching about the appropriate and inappropriate ways to use Social Media, but I think it is a good piece.

Twitter and Me on the 10 O’clock News is a post from: Joe Spake's Weblog

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Reappraisals up 6 percent or more in East Memphis

Unhappy with your reappraisal? – Take Action or Live with it is a post from: Joe Spake's Weblog

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