Disqus - Latest Comments for geordieromer

Re: Meet the RE Tech Entrepreneur: Jarred Kessler from Easyknock

Geordie Romer — Wed, 14 Jun 2017 14:46:22 -0000

I'd love to be whichever company benefits from their ad spend. They will be the only winners in this story. This startup will only last as long as someone wants to burn cash.

Re: Meet the RE Tech Entrepreneur: Jarred Kessler from Easyknock

Geordie Romer — Wed, 14 Jun 2017 14:36:12 -0000

It sounds like Zillow's "Make me move" - except that they want to be the middle man instead of a real estate broker who adds value to the transaction.

Re: Seller Report Card for Agents

Geordie Romer — Wed, 14 Jun 2017 14:34:08 -0000

Drew and I actually discussed this product back in February. I've half heartedly tried to cobble something together in the past, but I think it solves a couple of big problems for listing agents. First, it communicates to sellers the reach you are getting with your marketing efforts. In a hot market, it doesn't matter, but in a slower market, this feedback is crucial. It also helps the listing agent decide where to spend marketing dollars.

Re: More on MLS Networks

Geordie Romer — Thu, 02 Feb 2017 17:16:52 -0000

I am a member of two MLS. One is broker owned and the other association owned. Most brokerages in my local area are fearful of the big city MLS because the rules (and enforcement) are quite different between the two. (Enforcement in the smaller MLS is close to zero and bad behavior rampant.)

Re: Relola – Finally a Search-site Created by Agents

Geordie Romer — Thu, 25 Feb 2016 13:00:42 -0000

I went to the site and am a little more than baffled. Many of the "how to" videos seem to be private or removed.

I also wonder how many MLS forbid writing comments about another agent's listings. It seems like I might need to check each individual listing to see if "blogging is prohibited."

As they always say, ideas are great but execution is everything.

Re: Announcing the 2016 RFS Coaching Scholarship Contest!

Geordie Romer — Tue, 02 Feb 2016 20:39:26 -0000

As a cyclist, I have been lucky to use technology to track my fitness in recent years in a manner that was unimaginable 30 years ago and unaffordable 20 years ago. Power meters for cyclist are fantastic tools for measuring workload in wattage and kilojoules. Whether in the cranks, the rear hub, or in the pedals, a power meter is an essential tool for the modern cyclist who is serious about training.

What can I measure with a power meter? At a basic level, I can get a fairly accurate calorie count of how many calories I burned during my workout. How is this possible? Since a cyclist is 25% efficient, it turns out that the kilojoules of work performed is approximately equal to kilocalories. As someone who is trying to reach my racing weight, finding out an accurate calorie expenditure is a huge bonus.

Power meters also allow me to measure intensity and improve my performance in certain types of efforts whether they be aerobic, VO2 max, or neuromuscular in nature. I can record wattage during races and then mimic those stresses in my workouts.

A power meter also allows me to measure anaerobic work capacity and my ability to recover from multiple anaerobic efforts throughout a race. In a criterium or a cyclocross race, the deciding factor is being able to repeat dozens and dozens of hard efforts over the period of 45 minutes to an hour of racing.

Lastly, a power meter allows me to look at my cumulative work load and gauge how much to rest or recover after big training days. Prior to power meters it was hard to guess how much to rest during the taper period leading up to a big event.

Based on my experiences with power meters, I’m all in favor of any tools that add additional data that helps me train and recover in a more systematic way.

Re: The Next Major Consumer Win in Real Estate

Geordie Romer — Wed, 18 Jun 2014 15:12:31 -0000

I'm not sure how much I would invest in replying to an anonymous consumer. It could easily be a competitor or some other "trap." It can be tough prioritizing which leads/ consumers to work with at any time and I'm certainly more likely to want to work with "real" people than anonymous ones. If you're not ready to work with a real estate professional that's fine by me.

This is a "top of the funnel" type problem for agents without much business. Again, you are likely to attract less experienced agents with this model and then the consumers get lower quality service than they would with a more experienced agent. I guess I have the same problem with this as I do with "floor time."

Re: The Topic No One Will Touch with a Nine Foot Pole: “Agents are Overpaid”

Geordie Romer — Sat, 31 May 2014 18:43:14 -0000

The best way to reduce costs is to move away from a commission model. Commissions are high because agents take on the risk and often don't get paid for work that is done. I would happily charge per hour up front and only answer my phone from 9-5 and take weekends off. Consumers' expectations are different however.

Salaried agents, paying up front or billable hours are reasonable ways to reduce the cost. Under the current system, the sellers whose homes actually sell are "subsidizing" the work that is done on behalf of buyers and sellers whose transactions never come to fruition. I think that salaried teams could be a great way to give consumers great service and lower consumer costs, but I don't have the capital needed to conduct the market research.

Re: Curb Call – Uber for Real Estate

Geordie Romer — Sat, 09 Nov 2013 14:38:30 -0000

Here are the scenarios:
Unqualified consumer gets unqualified agent (lose - lose)
Unqualified consumer gets qualified agent ( agent loses)
Qualified consumer gets qualified agent (win-win, but unlikely )
Qualified consumer gets unqualified agent (consumer loses)

Now you know why the product doesn't exist already.

Re: Curb Call – Uber for Real Estate

Geordie Romer — Sat, 09 Nov 2013 14:22:34 -0000

Sam has some great points.

I totally disagree with Drew's idea that these are qualified leads. A qualified lead to me is someone who is qualified to purchase (either pre-qualified with a lender or paying cash) and who has a specific idea of the types of properties they are looking for. In my experience, clients who call ahead and plan for showings are significantly more "qualified" than a sign call.

I think this would be a great tool for my own listings. Would I want the phone calls for other peoples listings and the expectation that I am available to show on a moments notice? Probably not.

Re: Day to Day Real Estate Pain Points: Identifying Problems Before Solutions

Geordie Romer — Mon, 04 Nov 2013 19:15:27 -0000

Precisely. 90% of our buyers are second home buyers and 10% are locals who are making the switch from renters to owners.

Re: Day to Day Real Estate Pain Points: Identifying Problems Before Solutions

Geordie Romer — Mon, 04 Nov 2013 19:10:03 -0000

What is your definition of relo? If it is similar to mine, I almost never have relo clients.

Re: Day to Day Real Estate Pain Points: Identifying Problems Before Solutions

Geordie Romer — Mon, 04 Nov 2013 19:09:16 -0000

Real estate brands certainly have some work to do to remain relevant and keep top of mind awareness. The brands have two clients - the agents and the consumers. I think for the most part, big brands throw some money at national ad campaigns and pray that the agents keep in contact with their clients. I think brands can be more involved in local communities - both as volunteers and as donors which would pay big dividends much in the way that agents are involved in communities.

Re: Day to Day Real Estate Pain Points: Identifying Problems Before Solutions

Geordie Romer — Mon, 04 Nov 2013 18:58:01 -0000

Sam- I agree with you on a number of points. For example, Drew's notion of real estate agents as travel concierges fits in nicely as a solution looking for a problem. From my vantage point, that example seems more like a problem looking for a problem. Lots of work and headache for a negligible increase in brand identity.

I agree that the low cost follow up plan is the closest there is to a silver bullet. I think Doorsteps might be close, but not quite there. My clients are vacation home buyers so they often take quite a bit of nurturing. Sending them auto-emails with listings is nice, but it's hard to create systems that send relevant listings when the inventory is so small in a niche market like I work. I think a newsletter that has a combination of new info as well as links back to evergreen content is probably a good bet in addition to a well crafted (and useful to the consumer) drip campaign.

Re: A Month in Thailand for a Family of 4 – Tips and Advice?

Geordie Romer — Mon, 21 Oct 2013 19:46:58 -0000

Drew-
I'm not a parent, but my feeling is that Thailand is a great place to travel with kids. The Thais absolutely love kids and really treasure them. We met a Swedish family in Railay and they said it was very easy to travel as a family.

As for destinations, I would second Krabi and Railay specifically. We're headed there for our second trip this November. Great beaches, very tourist friendly. I didn't get the same vibe as you from Ko Phi Phi - we were just there briefly and it seemed like too much of a frat party vibe. Maybe that's a generational difference....

Re: What I Miss from the RE.net

Geordie Romer — Fri, 28 Jun 2013 19:44:06 -0000

I think Lani said it better than I probably was going to.

A bunch of folks left the trenches and went on to be consultants, gurus, etc. Another group finally paid the price for being internet famous without having any ROI behind it (and had to get real jobs) . I think there are still a bunch of us writing "hyperlocal" content, but we are too busy being successful agents to get too involved in the big flame wars about syndication / zestimates / redfin etc.

Re: Check your Robots.txt file and why it’s so critical you do

Geordie Romer — Wed, 12 Jun 2013 11:37:52 -0000

I wish it was that simple. I'm on WP using Yoast's SEO plugin.

Re: Check your Robots.txt file and why it’s so critical you do

Geordie Romer — Wed, 12 Jun 2013 11:11:36 -0000

I'll ask the important question... what happens if we get a 404 error? Apparently I have something setup wrong, probably a setting for an SEO plugin on WP.

Re: Uh, Oops… Notorious is NOT a Pay-Only Blog

Geordie Romer — Wed, 20 Feb 2013 18:31:22 -0000

I guess I DO get to read about old skool hip hop after all!

Re: 5 Ways to Write PPC Ads That Get Clicks & Conversions

Geordie Romer — Thu, 20 Dec 2012 11:03:31 -0000

Robert- I haven't tested much with PPC ads. Do you think that landing pages work best in real estate for searching for real estate at a city level, a zip code level, or a neighborhood level? Does a landing page for a specific listing work or do MLS searches convert better? What about signups for free PDFs or whitepapers?

I'd love anyone's thoughts who has done any testing.

Re: Sad Truth: New real estate tools don't integrate with CRM

Geordie Romer — Sat, 15 Dec 2012 09:28:53 -0000

Greg - A CRM isn't a static list. It's not the original export I'm worried about. It's the constant updating.

Drew nailed it earlier. "keeping the two systems in sync is a real challenge if you forget to update one system and not the other a time or two. Overwriting data is too easy to do if you don't know what you're doing."

If your system works differently from mine and that is making you money, more power to you.

Re: Sad Truth: New real estate tools don't integrate with CRM

Geordie Romer — Fri, 14 Dec 2012 16:00:34 -0000

Greg-

I have poked around with both tools. Nudge has "groups" in their email system which would be great to merge with "tags" on Highrise. I could send different nudges to different neighborhoods, or past clients, or different buyer types. With Doorsteps, I could see creating 2 different paths - one for vacation home buyers (my primary market) and one for primary residences/ first time home buyers. The more data I have on my customers in one place, the better my team and I can serve them.

I won't rule out a tool that doesn't integrate with my CRM, but it certainly is in the equation.

A huge number of my clients start as strangers over the internet. They don't live in my area and they take a long time to nurture. I have a pretty strong memory, but my CRM is my secret weapon to keeping everything organized.

Re: Sad Truth: New real estate tools don't integrate with CRM

Geordie Romer — Fri, 14 Dec 2012 11:42:02 -0000

Michele - I too am a "feedback whore." I love that representatives of Doorsteps and Nudge were so quick to respond to this post. I look forward to watching the evolution of both incredible products.

Re: Sad Truth: New real estate tools don't integrate with CRM

Geordie Romer — Fri, 14 Dec 2012 11:38:31 -0000

Abdul- I totally agree. It might not be worth it to cater to every CRM. Go where the customers are.

Re: Sad Truth: New real estate tools don't integrate with CRM

Geordie Romer — Thu, 13 Dec 2012 23:22:25 -0000

Thanks Jeff. I expect nothing less from the 1000 Watt team. I was just surprised that it wasn't part of the original roll out. Since I have run into this with more than one tool, I wanted to share this frustration with any new developers so that they think about it too. (While we are at it, I wish Zillow and my IDX would work with my CRM too.)