So there you go. Ssshhhh! Don’t tell anyone!

At the camp, we were discussing ways to improve ranking and traffic to sites, and setting up a blog was a biggie. And it’s fun, and basically non-commercial. That’s the way I want to present myself- you get to know me;  if you like me in writing, chances are we will get along in real life. If we get along in real life, maybe someday we will be involved in business together. If not, that’s cool. Business is secondary to life and relationships.

So that’s my philosophy, and it bears out anecdotally. It also makes sense logically. Post a link on your blog where the business end of it can be found, and let things develop from there. Don’t make your blogging all about stats and things that can be found readily on an Internet search. Think about what interests YOU and go from there- write about fun, engaging things.

The platform (Wordpress, Blogger, etc.) matters- I am using an out of the box Wordpress.com blog, and can see its limitations- but maybe if you are going to get bogged down in the little things, it’s best for you to just pick something out of a hat and DO IT. The devil is in the details, and an awful lot of time gets taken up wrestling with demons.

Sometimes even the angels can muddy the waters.

More points to consider:

• DO NOT use sign up forms for access to content
• Content is king- effectiveness: written word <voice <video
• Break your writing up into paragraphs- don’t use a black background and white type
• Use pics! Be visually pleasing, and label your pics to enhance your writing. Many people read blogs from work, and labels help. Also, web crawlers cannot “see” pics- describe! -

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3NbuDpB_BTc]

One last point with video. An article by eMarketer.com claims that people spent 40% more time viewing videos that were subtitled, making subtitled videos more “sticky”- and valuable to you, the creator.

So get out there and get started! Wordpress.com is an easy sign-up and start. When you finish, come back here and post your first blog. Let’s see what you have done!

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[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y1rZqw5bXb4]

Got back yesterday from Pod Camp. I had originally thought that the one day conference would be focusing on things like, well, I don’t know… podcasting. I am actually interested in learning podcasting which I have never done, so that was cool, but then I read the description and discovered that the presentations were on a variety of social media.

Then I got there. The setup was strikingly similar to the RE Bar Camp that I attended before Inman, without the real estate slant. The schedule was posted, with participants using sticky notes to suggest either topics of interest that they were interested in seeing, or that they would lead discussion of. To me, this was absolute heaven- a spot where you could pick and choose, and suggest, interactive presentations.

There were perhaps 10 topics presented in 4 slots, with two hours being allowed for lunch and networking. Two hours? That, I thought, was excessive, until we actually got into it and it ended up not being enough. The lunch was good:

but the conversation was better. I spoke more in depth with several people from the conference, picked up some great add-on ideas (thanks, @jeraa2t**!) and was shown how to drop music into video (hi, @LesleyLambert *waving!*)- which I really need to play around with more. All in all- two thumbs up for content and in the way it was set up to facilitate learning by sharing. Next post will share some of the information shared in camp.

**Firefox add-ons for twitter: Power Twitter, Search Cloudlet. Cloudlet gives you a cloud of the terms on the page you are on; Power twitter adds many features, incl. pulling up tweets in which your user name is mentioned anywhere, not just @tweets.

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Okay, this video contains the purported highlights from RETech South in Atlanta, which I came back from last week. The cool thing about this was that we were streaming live and the “”Mwaah!” went out to my friend @JohnLauber, who was not there at the conference. He had tweeted me first with a hello “Mwaah” and my friends from dakno.tv helped me to return the *smooch.*

And to me that is the beauty of this social media stuff. A friend whom I have never met face-to-face can blow a kiss from Pennsylvania and have it caught and returned from Atlanta Georgia. The information that I am absorbing from this conference (except during my moment of distraction) is being sent out to my friend- and friends all over the country- at the same time I am seeing it. Everyone watching the stream could see how happy Lori Bee and I were to be sitting there.

And this information was being shared freely. Not everyone was as willing or as able as I was to take money from my children’s college fund to fly down to Atlanta, and video of a good deal of the conference was streamed as it happened, and the rest can be found being put up on YouTube, Facebook and Viddler over the next couple of weeks, together with photos, blogs and microblogs of the event.

I have had people say to me, “Is this social media stuff making you any money?” Let’s just say no, for the sake of argument. But how much is education worth? How more pertinent is this information than a CE course that you jam into the week before your license renewal? And more important- how would I have met the people that I had without the interaction afforded me by social media?

And I would never have had a kiss blown to me across 791 miles.

If you haven’t already, go to twitter.com and sign up, then find me (heyamaretto). Then scoot over to facebook.com- you can “friend ” me at http://profile.to/dianeg. Then take a deep breath, go over to wordpress.com and sign up for your blog if you haven’t already.

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Youtube disclaimers make me laugh. They always say things like, “This really sux, but I worked hard making it. No bad comments.”

So here is my first vlog. It really sux, but I worked hard making it. Say whatever you like about it. In the spirit of my last post, I am just doing it, and they will get better. Really.

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3PmHmrgAmMc]

One real estate agent, Judy Madonna Moriarty, said it very well. She felt that not using her photo didn’t dilute her branding. Photos, she pointed out, are often glamour shots or pictures that are hopelessly dated. If your license picture looks more like you than your business card photo does, think about a change. She also pointed out that nearly every other professional does not add a photo to their card- why should real estate agents?

There you go. There were as many ideas about how a card should look as there were people- and that’s great. A card, really, should be an extension of your personality- as much as is your blog, as much as are your facebook and twitter interactions. They are all the same little squares of stiff paper, but isn’t it better to make those cards work as a canvas for you? Think about it- the same canvas that supported Starry Night also gave us Nighthawks, and these paintings tell us less about the night than they tell us about the artist.

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Lori Bee’s goat wearing @RealtyMan’s tshirt

Real estate has never been a process for me of stepping into an established circle and picking up the listings that came about because of these relationships. I started late- two years ago, in fact, and the circle in which I travelled was already established. No first time home-buyers there, and everyone had a family real estate agent. As much as they may have liked me, they did not trust that I could push a transaction through to close. Honestly? If the shoe had been on the other foot, I wouldn’t have wanted to work with a newly-licensed inexperienced agent either.

So real estate sales has been a matter of me, for the most part, learning to read my clients quickly and establish a true rapport with them based on my sense of them. Frankly, this has not been the easiest thing for me to learn! A true daughter of my engineer father, I am not gifted with immediate character insight, and was not the most outgoing of people. I easily learned the real estate process, but the people process was more intimidating to me.

When I went to RE Tech South, I was- I have to admit- a touch apprehensive. These people, by and large, are dynamic and intelligent, and just the sort of people I love to be around- but there were 400 of them!! I had met some at Inman NYC, and become friendly with others through Facebook and twitter. I had gone to Inman with Gerry Bourgeois, a broker-owner in Leominster, and he eased the way for me, introducing me to many of the people that I would be seeing- and this time I would be going alone.

Things fell into place, and my apprehension melted like our snow. I ended up rooming with the best possible roommate- Lori Bee of Bee Realty- and loved the whirlwind of connecting and reconnecting with the Realtors and others who are part of what has been called Real Estate 2.0.

At the actual conference itself, we were given many gems- both tools and information. But one thing stood out for me. One of the speakers said- and I am paraphrasing- when you are planning on implementing something, don’t plan and plan. Mark it on your calendar- then do it. Ignore it if you feel uncomfortable. Become comfortable with feeling uncomfortable.

There is a difference between being uncomfortable- internally oriented- and being frightened, which has basis in external factors. I took my first airline flight on the way down. I saw pictures of Lori Bee’s children- and better and richer, heard the pride in her voice as she described them to me. I spoke with young entrepreneurs and brilliant lights- people whose ideas had carried them through the success of a first business and on to another, and whose ideas reignited the fire in my belly. The experience was fantastic and I wouldn’t have missed it for the world, in retrospect.

Social media is daunting to many people. But I feel like being online is like entering a brightly lit hallway, with doors and doors leading off of it. You can refuse to enter the hallway altogether, you can carry your lounge chair in with you and sit once you are in there. Or you can look for the doors, and going through those is where the real pleasure lies. One of those doors for me was real estate, another was the conference on Thursday. I am still looking for the door marked “Secret of Life”- I don’t know if it exists, I don’t know what is behind it, but I know I will be sustained in the meantime.

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I am looking out the window of the plane during my second flight ever. It is beautiful- the sky is a perfect blue above, and we are flying over a solid mass of clouds that reminds me something of the way the sheets look on my bed. There, alas, is no heavenly aura emanating from where I sleep as there is from these clouds, but they look solid and rumpled like my sheets.

And THAT started me thinking about computerized dating services- you don’t have to be a Rorschach scholar to see how I made that leap of thought. After we were separated, I signed up for a bunch of them- out of spite, mostly- but never hit “enter”. Just couldn’t bring myself to do it, and have never really had that first date. The thing is, by taking all of those tests, I really learned something about myself and the men I am attracted to. I cherish kindness, I find intelligence to be the sexiest attribute, I am annoyed with people who will only date people who recycle, and he has to live a long way away, like Philadelphia (oh, just kidding).

I also have a nearly uncontrollable urge to skew the results. I guess we all have an archetype in mind, and don’t want that to be shaken because of a quiz. Maybe this explains why the men who show up as my matches are the types that I would likely ditch at the restaurant after an emergency call from one of the “kids”. Hey, I never said I was low maintenance. You wouldn’t like me if I were.

A while ago, I had read that being a real estate agent was akin to acting as a matchmaker. I disagree. I think the buyer is actually going to online matchmaking sites by herself and viewing the pictures and the video. By the time she gets to me, she has a pretty good idea of the two or three dates she is ready to commit to. This consumer has spent hours online choosing properties, exploring these homes and their communities, emailing links to family and friends, and possibly visiting a mortgage officer to get preapproved.

This tells me a couple of things. Real estate agents had better get ready for their new roles. I have already touched base briefly on where I feel I contribute most in the process as far as buyers are concerned. But sellers: you want your home bringing all it can to the dating table. You need good photos, and lots of them. You need imaginative video. You need your home to work that online room and exhibit all the charm that it is capable of. You won’t even get that first date, let alone be left by yourself at the movies.

Diane Guercio is on twitter as HeyAmaretto and still has not had that dreaded first date.

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Here is a  nice video that explains the tax credit. If you are uncertain about what this whole credit thing means or whether it applies to you, take a few minutes and watch this!

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“Fools rush in where angels fear to tread.” – attr. to Alexander Pope

When I was young, I was rankled by this expression. I wanted to show that angels were brave- that this angel, anyway, could think things out quickly and boldly act.

As I gained a little experience, I realized that there are as many different types of angels as there are fools, and quite possibly the only distinguishing characteristic between the two has to do with society’s general definition of success. The application of the maxim above, likely, has a lot to do with hindsight- if you rush into a decision and make a lot of money, who is going to call you a fool?

We pulled up the stats on real estate resale for or particular market area. This was what came up:

This year past two months [all sales (multi, single family and condo)] there were 523 sales with an average time on market of 152 days. Last year, for the same two month period there were 560 sales with an average of 162 DOM. Significant drop, but not that startling.

Here’s the shock: this year for that two month period the average home sale was $237,500. Last year it was $285,533. What does this mean? The angels selling their homes- and the angels selling them- look a lot less successful than did those doing the same thing last year- or 4 years ago.

What does this mean? I don’t know. But I do feel like this country is holding its collective breath waiting to see what will happen next, and I for one am becoming dizzy from lack of oxygen.

I was speaking with John Corey, a friend of mine who is a genius with real estate investing, among other things. There is a human tendency to over-correct in response to circumstance. I am going to try to keep myself from relying on the memory of what has happened in the past to entirely make my decisions for today. If something doesn’t work- I won’t try doing more or less of the same thing. I will do something different. I will innovate. As Einstein said, “Insanity: doing the same thing over and over and expecting different results.”

History is best used, perhaps, for distinguishing angels from fools.

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The full blog post for this is on Trulia, but before you read it, consider the above question. Write down the answers. Then read the contents of the post, and see if your answers are the same.

And please- comment!!!

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When I helped my daughter get her car a couple of years ago, I have to admit I went overboard. I investigated maintenance issues, safety statistics, and mileage. I spent about two months scouring consumer information websites so that I could give her the best advice.

What did she decide on? She brought this information to the table with her, but ended up also factoring in her comfort with handling the car, and, frankly, the way it looked, which I was unable to really consider. She ended up with a RAV 4. This probably wouldn’t have been the car that I would have chosen for her, but honestly? It was the best choice. It looked pretty hot, and we have seen two of ours go through bad accidents with no harm to the occupants. She has her third right now.

This is not an ad for Toyotas, nor is it a sad commentary on my daughter’s driving ability. What I am saying is that there are a lot of subjective influences involved in any choice, be it for a car, style of clothing, or a home. No one external to the choice can make the decision.

I would say that many times when showing real estate I can pinpoint the final three homes that clients are looking at, but, like my daughter’s choice of automobile, I can’t tell what is going to strike that chord. I know the type of kitchen layout they want, but I don’t know where they are picturing that Christmas tree going, or where they are planning their Sunday breakfasts, or what kind of outdoor games they play on weekends. In this market (in most places) particularly, there is the inventory available so that buyers may not find the house of their dreams, but they can find the house for their lives.

So if I were to give advice to buyers? Bring your life with you to the property. Bring along the things you cherish and don’t compromise on those things. Prioritize what is worthwhile to you. School system, walking trails, commute to work, level back yard, room to gather for family functions- these are not things that can be changed easily and that can’t be quantified. Even things like an extra bathroom can usually be added, but changing a layout to suite your family’s needs is a different animal.

Walk through the house as if it were yours. Don’t look at the paint and paper- these are such easy fixes. Look at the design of it and what surrounds it and see if it is a match for your lifestyle. Expect that if you have chosen your agent well that he or she will walk you through the business end of things, for the most part. Your agent will be looking for different things as you walk through, as you would expect.

People in this country move an average of every seven to eight years, and one in six move each year. Most stay within the same county. The fact that homes do not fit lifestyles factor into this.

Use the information that your agent shares with you to make a decision that is both objective and subjective. And remember- even armed with all of the information that I had, and knowing my daughter as well as I do, I would have chosen the wrong car for her. Intangibles play a huge role in the decision-making process, and only only my daughter could tap into that for herself. Only you will know when you have found the right home.

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