Intro from the new guy (and perhaps a touchy question)

**lefthandedwriter** · 04-27-2009, 08:22 AM

Hi, all.

My name is Danny Thompson...a former freelance copywriter. I got my start in an agency that specialized in real estate and destination marketing. But now I train freelancers is getting established and building a successful freelance practice.

My reason for being here is more personal. We're currently pregnant with our fourth child (and our first girl!), and we're getting ready to move. We live in a market that is stagnant, but just this side of depressed. Five houses within three blocks of us have been on the market for more than a year. The two closest to us were both occupied by renters in the last week...the others are still sitting vacant. And I have one of the bigger homes in the market.

My real problem is that I haven't found any marketers yet that have been making effective use of tools and techniques that have been proven to work in other industries (including other industries I worked in as a freelancer). That said, I appreciate the legal and industry-standards knowledge a REALTOR brings to the table...and I have no desire to go through the hassles of going the FSBO route.

But I DO have an issue paying the full commission if I am going to be handling the marketing and bringing in most of the leads and walk-through traffic.

I guess my real question is, do any REALTORS offer rates JUST to handle the contract & negotiation, if I take on the marketing myself?

**markbrian** · 04-27-2009, 12:31 PM

Ala carte agents is one term I have heard to describe the type of agent you are looking for. But instead of deciding this is the route to go, why not interview several full service agents?

It will cost nothing and you may find the agents that actually do a great job of marketing, negotiating and getting the property to close. Cutting corners may turn out to cost you time and money if the market in your area is not booming.

A good agent will market your home in ways that have been proven time and time again to sell homes. If you give your input on other methods to try, a good agent will listen, and try the methods if they are kosher with all the various laws and regulations we have to operate under.

**Malok** · 04-27-2009, 12:40 PM

Congrats on the new child!

In all likelihood there is probably some sort of discounter or a la carte type of real estate brokerage available in your area.

However, unless you are EXTREMELY confident in your marketing abilities, it would seem to me that if your real estate market is that soft (read: depressed), that you would need all of your expert marketing efforts AND a competent real estate person both working together to their maximum ability to try and get a sale generated.

**lefthandedwriter** · 04-27-2009, 01:22 PM

Originally Posted by markbrian

Ala carte agents is one term I have heard to describe the type of agent you are looking for.

A la carte. Thanks. I'll do some digging.

Originally Posted by markbrian

Cutting corners may turn out to cost you time and money if the market in your area is not booming...If you give your input on other methods to try, a good agent will listen, and try the methods if they are kosher with all the various laws and regulations we have to operate under.

Thanks again. Unfortunately I just haven't found this to be the case.

First off, let me say that I'm not planning on cutting corners. I worked for seven years in real estate marketing (residential, resort, commercial...in sales, development and property management). The agency I worked for helped some pretty large companies, including one of the largest privately-held RE companies in the southeastern US. Nothing I want to do is in conflict with the regs.

But I've found that they primarily want to stick within their comfort zone, even though I can show that these techniques work in pretty much every industry where they're in use.

For instance...most REALTORS are still using database-driven CMS's as their primary online driver for lead capture, even though it's been shown time and again that each additional piece of information requested on a form drastically reduces the number of people who will actually fill it out. By requiring all the information necessary to complete your database entry for that contact, you're ensuring that you ONLY hear from the people who are ready from a call RIGHT NOW.

Instead, I can use an autoresponder with a pre-loaded series of messages to identify roughly 25-40% of visitors to a site AND exactly what they are looking for, separate the "browsers" from the "hunters" from the "ready-to-buy-nows" into different contact lists. I can get those who are ready to buy to pick up the phone, and I can nurture a relationship with the others until they're ready to do the same...by only asking for an email address, instead. Not even a name.

And it's all 95% automated...that's just ONE little change that could have major impact, for about a third to a tenth of what it would cost to run one ad for one week.

But instead, they'd rather put a postage-stamp-size picture of my home in the real estate guides at $75-$150 a pop, and import the same MLS data that every other REALTOR in the world is pulling into their sites, despite the fact that homes are sitting on the market longer and longer.

Besides, I've got a full-time gig training people who WANT to be trained in how to used this same stuff to build their businesses. I just don't have the time or the inclination to try and teach someone who's happy with display ads, cryptic abbreviations and 3x5 postcards a bunch of new stuff they're not interested in.

I'd rather just do it myself and let the REALTOR help dot the Is and cross the Ts.

Hmm... Sorry for the rant

. I do appreciate your help, and I realize I'm probably preaching to the choir here, for the most part.

I'll look into the a la carte option and see what turns up down here.

Thanks again!
--Danny

**lefthandedwriter** · 04-27-2009, 01:43 PM

Originally Posted by Malok

Congrats on the new child!

Thanks! We're very excited. Mom needed a little pink in her life

Originally Posted by Malok

However, unless you are EXTREMELY confident in your marketing abilities, it would seem to me that if your real estate market is that soft (read: depressed), that you would need all of your expert marketing efforts AND a competent real estate person both working together to their maximum ability to try and get a sale generated.

Well...I am confident

. But only because I've used these same techniques to help clients sell everything from cities as tourist destinations to $150 lobster via fedex (no lie...the guy's like the omaha steaks of high-end seafood), to agricultural fertilizer and pesticides, to universities, to helping freelance copywriters convince companies that they're worth $75-$150 per hour, minimum. I even know people who are selling big-ticket items like luxury cars and boats.

Plus, I've got a pretty solid grounding in RE marketing.

And there are things I know i need a REALTOR (sorry...it waas drummed into me early on that "REALTOR" is ALWAYS capitalized

for. A solid fair-market appraisal. Contacts with other agents. A decent lock-box

But no one is using this stuff for RE yet, that I've been able to find. So, until someone has some success with it, I don't anticipate getting many realtors to get behind it. Which is okay...because that's not my goal.

I just want to sell my house in a timely manner. Hopefully before the new arrival gets here in August.

Thanks for the welcome and the well-wishes!

--Danny