Alpharetta Real Estate Homes for Sale

This time last week I was sitting in a conference room in Phoenix with a bunch of "Unchained" realtors and mortgage brokers.  As an independent business person, I don’t usually afford myself the luxury of much professional development in the form of seminars or conferences.  My learning is all done on-line late at night; it is amazing what you can learn for free if you can (will) just read.

I made an exception when deciding to attend Bloodhound Unchained because I’ve been reading Bloodhound Blog for a while now and there are so many good real estate marketing ideas discussed there that I figured I must attend.  The people contributing on Bloodhound blog are truly discussing the foremost methods to market real estate in this Web 2.0 world; and as Alpharetta’s self-appointed bearer of the real estate 2.0 mantle, I viewed attendance as mandatory, not optional.

 

Real Estate with Web 2.0 Allows You to Develop Trust

 

Deciding to attend this conference on on-line real estate marketing and social media really wasn’t that hard, though, because I used the very tools I was going to learn about when deciding to go in the first place.

The internet is a brave new world of commerce. No one likes sleazy sales people, but sleazy sales tricks cannot work on the internet, where every suspicious claim can be checked in an instant. Transparency rules, and the practitioners who succeed with net-empowered consumers are the ones who are prepared to back up everything they say.

The bonus for people willing to work this way is that consumers will have a much higher degree of trust in their Realtor or lender. Rather than picking a name out of a phone book or off of a yard sign, they will have gotten to know that person — passively and anonymously — online.

The contributors at Bloodhound blog had developed with me over an extended period of time via the blog a high degree of trust.  Trust is the hardest thing to earn, but also the thing that makes all relationships flourish or flounder.  I think that you’ll believe me when I say the best client interactions you’ve had are the ones where the client trusts you and your expertise and you trust them to honor their business commitment to you.

My most sincere hope is that, like the Bloodhound blog earned my trust, that my blog is earning your trust.

 

Real Estate Entrepreneurs and the Yesterday’s Broker

One other "slap on the forehead" moment I had at Bloodhound Unchained was the idea of the "real estate entrepreneur."  I know it sounds silly and maybe obvious to you, but I had never thought of myself as an entrepreneur.  I’m a realtor, after all, an independent contractor for sure.  Self-employed, no doubt.  But entrepreneur?  Aren’t those the guys in garages and labs concocting new products or services?  There is nothing new about real estate…it is probably the second oldest profession.

 

But it hit me like an anvil hitting Wile E. Coyote when Greg Swan said that the audience was filled with a bunch of real estate entrepreneurs.  Yes, that is exactly what we are - unchained from the traditional way of doing business:  our real estate trade is the same as every other realtor, but how we go about the trade is radically different. 

We are not company (wo)men.  We don’t depend on our brokers for much of anything, certainly not business.  We seek our own counsel first - and then the counsel of our social media network.  We don’t hang out by the water cooler and bemoan the market; we make the market.  We are idea-based and action-oriented.  These attributes are actually why I wanted to attend Bloodhound Unchained:  because it is comforting, reassuring, encouraging and darn-right stimulating to hang out with like-minded people/realtors.

Given that this is our DNA, Laurie Manny, a dedicated real estate blogger from Long Beach, CA, proclaimed that the brokers should be scared, VERY scared.  Why, because the entrepreneurial agent, or more precisely the real estate agent who is going to succeed in the new world of web 2.0, does not need much of anything that a broker can offer.

So let me ask you, the reading audience who might be considering engaging me to help you with your real estate purchase or sale.  Do you care that I’m affiliated with a national real estate brokerage?  Can you tell me which one without looking at the footer of this page?

What if I were with a second-tier brokerage, one that would charge me much less to do business, but one without the brand name recognition?  What if my broker were completely virtual?  Would you mind meeting me at Starbucks instead of my company conference room?

When at Bloodhound Unchained, I surveyed other attendees on this question.  Each and every one told me without hesitation that the broker doesn’t matter one iota.  What matters is you and your ability to effectively sell and market and maintain client relationships.

What do you think?  If you came to this blog tomorrow and found that I was with no-name broker, would you trust me less?

http://www.alpharettarealestatehomes.com/00392B

By all accounts, Echelon a.k.a. The Georgia Tech Club, so far has not lived up to expectations.  Its rival high-end golf course community, The Manor, has done significantly better in terms of home sales and overall build out.

The Manor is not breaking any sales records, but Echelon has performed so poorly that people are wondering what the future holds - and this uncertainly has absolutely affected buyers’ decisions to not buy in Echelon.  I have personal experience on that front.

The developer at Echelon, The Melrose Group, has a track record of under performance as evidenced by Bloody Point in Hilton Head.

Enter Trump, or so the rumor goes.  Here is a man who appreciates a smooth seven iron from the middle of the fairway.  Trump is also no stranger to golf course development.  He has an entire portfolio of beautiful courses under the Trump National brand and courses outside the U.S. as well.

Plus, Trump is already building in Atlanta at the new Trump Towers of Atlanta, in midtown, so he is likely familiar with Alpharetta’s market demographics and the huge upside of investing in this area.

Trump could be the 6 handicapper in the shiny golf cart that rides in and saves the day at Echelon.  I’ve always maintained that Echelon is a diamond in the rough.  The golf course is outstanding and its advantage over The Manor is that it has acre-sized lots - and fewer of them, precisely because they are larger.  Echelon will be a smaller and perhaps more exclusive community once it is built out and we are 20 years down the fairway.

The proposed deal I heard rumored is that Trump would buy out the lender’s position at Echelon and complete the development with The Melrose Company, but again, this is all speculation.

Someone needs to step in, though, whether it is Trump or someone else.  A golf course as good as that one is a terrible thing to waste (and by the way, you can currently get a membership there for only $15,000 regardless of whether you went to the North Avenue vocational school ;-> ).

A Trump development in Alpharetta would be just another jewel in a crown of high-end developments (Prospect Park being the other big one) that is really putting Alpharetta on the map nationally. 

Let’s tee it up, Donald.  And I want strokes from "the Donald" just to say that I got them!

http://www.alpharettarealestatehomes.com/003928

I was online last night looking at various home search websites, comparing and contrasting and trying to determine what works best.  I stumbled upon the Real Estate Book and while it is not that different than any other online home search engine it has some nice features. 

You can search for foreclosures (there is an integration with RealtyTrac) and you can search for "new listings," although it doesn’t tell you how new. What would you like in a search engine that you haven’t been able to find to date?

I’m not exactly sure where The Real Estate Book is getting its listing data.  However, it provides a database of over over 400,000 homes for sale in the US, which is an over kill for me but I guess if you want to price things around the country it could be useful. It is showing 654 listings for Alpharetta homes for sale.

I picked a larger city for my area, Atlanta homes for sale, and it allowed me to check other nearby towns by hovering my mouse over the city tags. For example there are 356 homes for sale in Roswell.  However, it didn’t allow me to select cities like Johns Creek or Milton from the list.  I know these cities are new, but I think what we have is a generic solution built for Anywhere, USA and it fails to understand the local housing landscape and political boundaries.  Guess you have to rely on me for that ;-> and perhaps a more local solution.

Unbelievably, there seem to be lots of people who are not using the Internet as the Free Real Estate Book magazine still has a distribution of over 8.5 million copies. This is the same Real Estate Book that all the agents in my office used to advertise in religiously but which I haven’t heard a whisper of in a loooooooong time.  It looks like they are switching their strategy to online.  Duh.

Please let me know which are your favorite online home search engines.  I’m always looking for ways to improve the way people can search for homes and my own website search engine.  Remember, one of my latest projects is  working with the guys at softrealty.com on their new search engine.  It is still in beta but has a lot of promise.

Let me know what you’d like to be able to do, but have a hard time doing currently when searching for a home online.  What would be your killer application?

http://www.alpharettarealestatehomes.com/003923

Since it is April Fool’s Day, I thought that I’d see if I can fool you.  No better place to start that with home prices.

It’s old school to price a million dollar house for $999,900.  Were you fooled?

How about $19.99 for a twenty-dollar book.  Even my third grader sees through that and quickly rounds up.

What about that little raised "9" at the end of the gas price?  I didn’t pay $1.35 this morning for gas; I paid $1.35-NINE.  Really, who are we fooling?

Well, while you say you’d never fall for any of the price tricks above, it turns out there you may be falling for a "pricing strategy" widely used by retailers and you might not even know it.

Researchers at Cornell University have discovered that consumers perceive that when an item is priced at a round number, say a $500,000 house, it is more expensive than one priced at $512,433.  Interesting, huh?

While we don’t realize it, we are subjected to this strategy everyday:  At Wal-Mart, the paper towels are $2.19, not $2.00.  At Home Depot, nails are $3.79 a box; washers are 67 cents a piece.  Are you telling me that they know that exactly the cost of a washer and what they "need" to charge to make their margin?  Nope, they know we perceive something listed at $2.89 as a bargain because we might think it was reduced from $3.00.

I am thinking about using this strategy when marketing homes for sale in Alpharetta and considering that it might work better for home price below $500k than above.  What do you think?

At a minimum it might cause buyers to take notice and ask:  "How the heck did they come up with this price?" 

I don’t think I will take the price all the way out to the pennies, though, although that would really be a good April’s Fool test.  So, let me know:  Are you a price fool or not?  Would this strategy work on you?

NOTE:  I initially heard about this research on National Public Radio last week.  To hear the whole story, go here: Study Shows Precise Pricing More Enticing to Buyers

http://www.alpharettarealestatehomes.com/00390E

I’ve been blogging about Alpharetta Real Estate now since September, 2006, and mostly it is a pretty sober affair here:  North Fulton housing trends, the latest information on schools, new home construction in Alpharetta, etc.

I appreciate all the kind phone calls and emails I’ve received since I started this blog and the new clients and friends I’ve made; I’m a blogger for life given my experience so far.

Along the way, I’ve tried to find the lighter side of real estate when possible:  I recall the post on front doors as noses.  In fact, I recently came across some new information on garage doors innovations and how they can dress up a home.  If a front door is the nose of a house, then what is the garage door?  I digress.

Anyway, yesterday I attended the first RETechSouth conference in Atlanta, a conference for realtors focusing on blogging, social networking and video for real estate.  It was right up my alley:  all these things are the future of real estate, and I you read this blog you already know that.

At the conference, they played this video.  Now you kinda have to BE a blogger to appreciate it, but many of you have asked me about my blogging, how much time I spend on it and how thorough it is, so you will definitely appreciate this.  I’ve watched it probably five times and laugh out loud each time.  Laugh with me and have a funny day.

http://www.alpharettarealestatehomes.com/00390D