Let’s talk about real estate podcast
The week in review – 6th November 2017
Referral websites – Are they using false and misleading marketing?
Interceptors – Click here
Purple Bricks – Click here
Clint Smith made the news – Noosa Real Estate – McGrath – Click here
Real Estate Agents Halloween lollies?
Samantha McLean Elite Agent Magazine – Seminar – Click here
Congratulations Milton Rendell – 30 years in real estate!
Will traditional agents eventually adjust to segmented payments?
How to handle a text message from an owner on reducing your fee.
Words from a wise man relating to business history.
Certain office procedures when a tragedy happens.
Meet your neighbours nights.
How to convince sellers to have open houses.
10 Reasons why most real estate agents fail – Click here
Progress is impossible without change.
Lisa B from The Real Estate Hotline – Your Real Estate Coach on demand
Hi and welcome to Let’s talk about real estate podcast
My name is Lisa B
In this week’s podcast, we’re going to look at the week in review and what’s happening at the coalface in real estate. This is what real estate agents are talking about in Australia and sometimes anywhere in the world.
We spoke about the referral websites that we believe are using false and misleading marketing. Some of the sites promise the consumer they will choose the best real estate agent for them. We believe this is not to be the case and in my opinion, they are lying. The way some of these sites operate is that they pass a referral only to an agent that agrees to pay them 20 to 25% of the total commission. Is not the best agent at all. I believe that Consumers are being misled.
The other side of this equation I spoke about is how these websites are interceptors. They intercept the inquiry by spending huge amounts of money on Google advertising. They do this so they can appear on page 1. This is working for them.
The benefits that local real estate agents have, is localised marketing. Google prefer to recommend somebody that is local. If local real estate offices would consider using Google AdWords and also consider working on their search engine optimisation, we would see the site either not being able to afford to be in many locations, or they will run out of their advertising money.
The U.K.’s advertising standards authority has ruled that two TV advertisements for purple bricks cannot be shown again in the current form because they’re judged to be misleading.
The complaint was relating to, if it was sufficiently clear in the ads that the fee payable to purple bricks was not conditional on the sale of a property.
My favorite quote was ‘If you can’t beat fear – do it scared’.
Quick points
We discussed using the term Australia’s number one real estate office. Our theme seems to be this week to be careful of misrepresentations.
Noosa real estate agent Clint Smith from Mcgrath made the news with his killer dance moves an open house.
Halloween – We also spoke about whether or not you should participate in handing out lollies.. I believe that you should promote for kids to come to your office first, possibly before they go trick or treating to collect their lollies.
Samantha MacLean from an Elite agent magazine is putting on a seminar in Sydney featuring Matt Hall, Matt Lahood, plus many other quality speakers
Milton Rendell made it to 30 years in real estate.
I asked the question – will traditional agents start doing a fee structure similar to say purple breaks and some of the other discount agents. A lot of the discount agents up offering an upfront fee which is non-refundable. Will traditional agents go down this road and opt for segmented payments and upfront fees.?
We spoke briefly about how to handle a text from a potential vendor about reducing the fee – I believe any fee issue should be handled face-to-face.
We spoke about another discount agency offering a $7500 flat fee –
I liked one of our member’s comments – he said –
‘Before I entered real estate I owned butcher shops for 20 years – in the 80s and 90s. If you want to see an industry decimated, then this is a good example.
Predatory pricing, health regulation went mad and the big boys destroyed independents. We were reinventing our businesses daily with 200 shops closing yearly through the mid 90s.
Take note and use all your senses.
Remember big fish eat the little fish and that is a history lesson.
Never forget history if you want to survive.
I was 30 years of age representing Hunter meat industry I spoke a conference to fellow members. This was a time when the only way shop owners were competing was to discount.
Good operators were hurt, discounters were hurt and shops still shut. My advice 25 years ago was know your own business, know your overheads and price your products accordingly. The only thing that changed for me is the horse I’m riding. And my other tip is to know what you give your accountant each year, owners need to run the business not accountants.
Sad News
One of our members during the week found a tenant who had committed suicide. Unfortunately, this seems to be happening more and more. I really believe there needs to be a conversation in every real estate office about this subject. Whether it’s not going to a property alone where you suspect something may have happened, or it’s considering what would happen if this were happen to one of your staff members.
I also suggested, that it may be a role that real estate agents can adopt to try to help communities get to know the neighbours. Real estate agents could run meet your neighbours nights. For example invite three or four streets to your office for drinks and light snacks.
You could door knock your street and say that you would love to help people get to know their neighbours again.. Allow them to think back to when they were younger.. we knew everyone.
Promote neighbours talking over the fence, I don’t know about you but when I was younger I knew every body lived in every house around me. Now I know no one.
We had a member post private question about how to get the vendors to agree to having open houses. There was some great discussion around that.
We had Tom Ferry 10 reasons most real estate agents fail.
Which I loved –
- Interested vs committed
- Not strategic
- The fear of mistakes and the desire to look good
- No role model or the wrong role model
- Your gas station is only open one day a week for an hour
- Monday to Friday 9-6 mentality
- No sales swagger
- No metrics backed goal
- Poor schedule and weak routines
- Lack of financial management
And lastly we spoke about sign jumping something that I really really don’t like.
To leave on a positive happy note Ryan McCann posted a pic ‘Progress is impossible without change’ isn’t that the truth.
We can’t be scared of change – we always need to adapt – we always need to look out for how we can make progress.
That’s all this week in the Let’s talk about real estate community.
Thank you for being a part of it
If you would like to join our group, you will find us on Facebook as Let’s talk about real estate – we would love to have you.
We love to talk about anything real estate.
My name is Lisa B and I’m from the real estate hotline if there’s anything I can do to help you in your real estate career, please reach out I’d love to help
