Last chance for Space Needle happy hour March 27, 2008
Through March the Space Needle has been offering free evening tickets to the top and cheap drinks. It’s the last weekend, so go get your drink on! And be sure to print out the ticket so you don’t have to pay $15 for the elevator ride.
A New Kind of Real Estate Company Visited September 18, 2006
A couple of weeks ago I blogged on a new real estate model where I try to match real estate agent strategies to the agent’s personality. I call the different strategies ”games” (www.getstrategic.com/agents). I’m going to share my progress with you, the highs and the lows to let you know how it is going since there’s no other company that I know of doing this sort of model. It may be like picking a carrot to see how it’s growing. But this carrot is an unknown species. Sticking with this metaphore, the only way I can observe it is to grow it hydroponically in a glass beaker to watch it grow, the glass beaker being this blog!
Here’s what I can share with you so far:
I’ve had the poorest results with the 3 experienced agents I had to let go because they wouldn’t put time into activities that they’d never done before. I think they must have joined because of the word “free leads” but assumed these leads would be immediate and easy. They seemed to me to feel they already knew how to do the job, so maybe they didn’t want to try anything new.
Now for the fun news.
Agent 4 got his license and started off as a newbie. We wrote all his deals together for the first 5 or 6 and now he’s functioning superbly on his own. We know each other so well that he feels free to call me whenever he needs help, like looking up a listing when he’s out showing, or help him strategize in a multiple offer situation.
This agent is a perfect example of working in the part of the business that best fits him. He doesn’t come across as a “saleman”, he’s highly likeable, extremely smart and remembers everything. He’s also diligent and does what’s best for his client like leaving Saturday’s Husky game to write an offer. He tried making listing presentations and simply didn’t like having so little time to get to know the customer before making the presentation. He prefers nurturing a buyer along until they’re ready to buy and has the patience to incubate the leads, some of which take from 6-18 months. He is empathetic and cares about finding the right house. This works well for him and he’s happy and making money. This weekend he had 3 different showings for 3 different clients.
Agent 5, another newbie, discovers that he isn’t a hand shaking party type of guy but rather a numbers type and he loves deals, so we quickly shifted him to the investment side. He’s happily building up an investment clientele while he develops relationships and studies commercial listings and how to analyze and manage fix and flips, etc and he really loves the construction side of things. (helps to have an inhouse construction company) This is making him very happy, which, of course, makes him good at it (did I mention he’s another super smart person?) and ergo, he’ll do better than someone not suited for the numbers game.
Agent 6, good looking and likeable with a large sphere as a football coach, a parent of teenagers and a church goer. Imagine how many people he knows, parents, teachers, fellow church goers and all those others that come to the football games, He’s working on a referral game, which is a well planned and organized series of events, such as the picnic he just sponsored for the entire football team and their families. He will be very very good and doesn’t have to worry about learning all the legalities just yet, since as his partner, for now I write the contracts and do the negotiations. (My job of course) He’ll pick that up (another smart one) within the coming months and then he won’t need me in that position. The referral program is not a passive game and works very very well when done with Intention. My business was and is 100% referral and I believe in this. All agents are encouraged to build their data bases and as they close transactions or get referrals, they convert these clients to the referral game, Generally, it takes at least 50 past clients to be able to survive strictly on referrals, or, as in the case with this agent, come into the business knowing everyone!
Agent 7 is an ambitious young newbie, smart and aggressive and she wants to do both listings and sales. She got her license through our Rockwell Satellite school. Her personality is bubbly and she wants to farm the downtown condo buyers and sellers and we’ve been setting up some special programs for her. She is building a downtown condo blog and she will also offer some special deals to her clients who will sell and purchase with her. We can advertise these programs on our web site that gets us so many visitors and leads. We use it as an announcement bulletin when we have something to tell our thousands of clients who want instant communication. She’ll also be using our FSBO game which is alot of work but designed for maximum results.
Agent 8 wants to work first time buyers. He’s waiting tables at night until his cllientele builds up. Finally, I said. My personal favorites, just because I like to teach and those buyers so badly want to learn. For him, we’ll be using the buyer book, and questionnaire that I wrote and give lots of counseling. (http://www.raincityguide.com/author/eileen). We’ll be offering webinars and have our partner lenders either teaching or standing by so that people can call live to ask for help in fixing credit, low down payment programs or ask any question they like. Again, this is to the hundreds of buyers on our web site. Great way to build business for virtually free.
Agent 9 is my experienced agent who really does want to learn. She’s a networker, planning parties for her girlfirends, visiting with businesses to build a professional networking plus she’s working at the FSBO game and making lots of listing presentations. We have spent time adapting our seller services for her to be comfortable with her listing presentations and she also receives lots of leads for buyers. She too is very personable and people naturally warm up to her in her soft spoken and gentle manner. She’s a single young mom, very motivated and ambitious and real estate is the most flexible and lucrative business she could be in. I worked around my two boys for years shuffling between soccer games and showings and I’m very supportive of her and will be there whenever she needs assistance.
I’ll just tell you about one more though there are others. Agent 10 has an accounting and sales background. Guess where he fits? Right into the Roth IRA Investing in Real Estate, 1031 sellers and buyers and investment real estate in general that I’ve blogged about before. (http://www.raincityguide.com/2006/06/20/why-i-dont-want-to-be-young-again/) I am a CCIM candidate (Certified Commercial Investment Broker - being a designee means I’m forever putting off writing the thesis required but I’ve taken every course they offer) plus I spent years in commercial real estate syndication buying and selling commercial properties. This agent is learning 5 year cash flow analysis, IRRs (Internal Rate of Return), Cash Accumulation, learning how to get cap rates, gross rent multipliers and how to use them.. We’ll be doing webinars with an IRA Custodian and 1031 experts soon to teach our buyers and sellers all about some wonderful tax advantaged real estate strategies. I’m already a preferred partner with PenscoTrust out of San Francisco so he’ll have a built in clientele. Today he started telling me of some of his “connections” and I realized that he’ll be a superstar and I’ll have to run to catch up with him! Luckily, he’s in a company that can adapt to him and help him in whatever he needs. He loves the profit sharing portion of LTD, too and sees his future with us.
We also have training in running a the New Construction Site game(I did that for 10 years),Development, Land Sales, Listing games, Expired’s and Foreclosure and Short Sale Games. We have all the tools for sellers that work, like a great Fee for Service model (http://www.ltdre.com/SellerSystemHome.aspx) help with FSBO’s, assistance with remodels, etc.
What I like best about these various strategies is that all the organizing and testing part is done, it’s just a matter of implementing the different games and strategies to the particular agent. I still want to hire someone for land deals, as well as an agent that I can trust with my past clients and my referral game. That will probably be my next area of concentration when recruiting.
I’m happy. I doing what I like best. The agents are happy and working in the part of this very lucrative and fulfilling business that best suites them. There are incentives to stay with LTD and they all seem to feel like family as they’re all on a company retirement plan. So far, so good, but I’ll weed out an agent that doesn’t seem to “get it” and I’ll report on those, too. Right now I’m not recruiting but training. I’ll probably add ten new agents every quarter to half year to make sure my time is spent where it’s needed.
For those of you who are watching, I’ll keep you posted to continue to let you know how it’s working, but so far, I’m pretty excited.
Sphere: Related ContentHow far is too far to commute? July 25, 2005
The most common question I get from people moving to Seattle regards their potential commute… The question typically follows this format:
“How far away from my work can I live and still have a reasonable commute?”
It doesn’t really matter whether the person is planning to work in Downtown Seattle, Downtown Bellevue, the Amazon Campus, or the Microsoft Campus, because a “reasonable commute” is different for each person.
Some people are willing to drive an hour to save money on a home (or be able to afford a home for that matter), while others want a commute that is less than 20 minutes. Across the country (and especially in the Seattle area), the farther you are willing to drive every day, the less you have to pay for a home.
Interestingly, my work as a transportation planning consultant has put me in contact with some very interesting resources. For example, I recently came across these five maps that were put together by the regional government (PSRC) that give a great indication of the average commute:
These maps are great if you know the area you are going to be working (say Downtown Bellevue) AND you know that you are willing to commute a specific distance (say 40 minutes) because then they can help you put a definitive boundary on your home search!
NOTE: These maps are created “topographical-style”. If you are new to this, imagine that the graphic is displaying a huge mountain centered on the point of interest (like Downtown Seattle). If you move anywhere within the first circle (the top of the mountain!), then your commute to Downtown Seattle would be less than 20 minutes. However, the farther out you live, the large the hill you have to climb to get to work. For example, if you were to move to Issaquah, then you could expect about a 40 minute commute to Downtown Seattle.
By the way, the maps are a little dated (they are based on 1997 data), but the commute patterns have not changed much in the last 8 years, so the trends are still pretty accurate.
The same regional model that was used to create this data also spits out data for future years! Wouldn’t it be great to have the same maps for future years (2010, 2020, etc.) so you could gauge how your commute might change? This can be done! And if there is sufficient interest, I’ll put something like this together!
Sphere: Related ContentCondos in Seattle April 13, 2005
Are you looking for a condo that you can call home? I have a client who does not want to go through the hassle of listing his condos in the MLS. (He currently has renters and doesn’t want to have a parade of people going through their place). However, he is interested in selling them… Here are the details.
Condo #1 — 1400 Hubble Place on the southwest corner of the 13th floor.
This condo is very well maintained and has beautiful views. It is VERY close to downtown.
The condo has one-bedroom with approximately 570 total square feet. It includes one parking space in the building! The current market price for this condo is approximately 190K.
Condo #2 — 92nd St and 1st Ave NW (Northgate Plaza)
This condo is a one-bedroom, 760 sq foot place with a balcony and parking in the building. The unit is on the top (4th floor)!
The condo includes a swimming pool. The current market price for this condo is approximately 120K.
If you are seriously interested in a hassle free purchase of one of these condos, let me know and I can set up a showing!
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