Realty World Northern California & Nevada

A BOOK REVIEW

A few weeks ago Dennis Stewart, Regional Director of Realty World Northern California, Inc., gave several staff members the recent book Chain of Blame which provides a compelling chronicle of our current mortgage mess. I was sent the following review and wanted to share it with you because the review is really well done.  

So, if you don’t have time to read the book, at least sink your teeth into this review by Jayne Elizabeth Zanglein.

(this is Part 1 of a three part series)

2008 was difficult for many of us in the real estate industry and while most remain cautiously optimistic and hopeful for 2009, some professionals are still very nervous, perhaps even paralyzed because they haven’t truly pondered or addressed where they’re at in this business.
 
Last year, I spoke to hundreds of brokers and agents and posed the same question to many of them. I asked, “Are you in or out of the real estate business?” Sadly, many of them were undecided. For any real estate professional who’s “on the fence,” it may very well be a burdensome place to be. Whatever your decision, the success of your future mandates that you must move forward, and that means you need to get off that fence right away! Decades of experience has taught us that uncertainty and indecision will almost guarantee the resolve of your business and the likely depletion of your assets.

So, let’s agree to affirm your decision once and for all this week… no more delays. Next week on Wednesday, I will discuss various action steps to going forward with whatever your decision is. Please return to see my next blog post titled “Now that you have decided …”

Scott Gill
Senior Vice President
Scott.Gill@rwnc.net

Click here to read Part 2: “Now that you have decided, let’s take the first step.”

There’s nothing worse than fear of the unknown, which is precisely the distraction of so many good real estate professionals today.

Many years ago during a changing economy, I found myself in a real estate market of 17% to 19%+ interest rates. This type of market was all new to me and I knew I would have a tremendous challenge ahead, struggling to earn a living and raise my young family of six at that time. Well, it didn’t take me very long to understand that change was among me. The “old” way of doing business wasn’t working, and a new path lay ahead of me. I took a proactive initiative and disciplined myself into learning new skills so that I could educate my prospective sellers and buyers who weren’t confident with the real estate industry because of negative information they were hearing through the media.  Yes, the media was negative then also!

My goals were clear. I had to set out and find my own direction before I could begin to give direction. I prepared action plans of what services and systems I could offer my clients. I had to dig in and truly understand the markets I serviced, assess each area of my expertise and on a daily basis because things changed that quickly, just as they do today. (Oh, if back then I had the privilege of the technology offered today). 

Once I achieved my goals, encouragement came in the form of people asking me questions, they wanted to be educated. That, by itself, was enlightening to me. Confident in my newfound skills, I felt it my professional responsibility to guide them and help them understand every aspect of the home buying or home selling process. And it took so much pressure off of me because there wasn’t a need to “sell” anymore. People didn’t need to be sold, simply informed. The fear of the unknown was gone, and the fun began.

From the beginning of my real estate career I had a long term commitment to this industry.
I hope you do as well.

I was at the San Francisco Association of REALTORS® installation dinner last night where Barbara Corcoran was the main speaker. If you haven’t had a chance to see her speak, I highly recommend you do so. I would have loved to work for her and learn everything she knows. It’s not everyday that you meet someone like Barbara, who builds a real estate business from nothing to a company that owns the New York real estate market, and then sells it to NRT for some ungodly amount of money. Since then she has written several books on how she grew her company, which I highly recommend you buy and read from cover to cover at least five times. If you’re having trouble finding inspiration or direction in your company, or life for that matter, this is the book to fix it. 

During her speech last night, she posed a question to the audience that caused complete silence. It was this: “When has there been a time in the real estate industry where money is cheap to borrow and prices of homes are also cheap?” She had a really good point… because history shows that usually those two combinations aren’t in line like they are now. She went on to say that Realtors need to be doing a much better job of articulating this to buyers. Use graphs, charts, retrieve past history of records to show it, but do whatever it takes to get buyers off the fence and realize that now is actually the best time to buy real estate. Think about it… buyers waiting on the fence are making a huge mistake because when these two factors are not in line, they will be priced out of the market. Either prices go up, or interest rates go up. And inevitably, one of these two things will occur. Our entire industry has become mute in the world, dominated by mass media and negativity, and we have got to do everything possible to flood the market with knowledge they need to be hearing. The beautiful part is that you don’t have to sell someone; rather, simply educate them. If you do the math, it all makes sense. So, ask yourself this question… What have I done this week to help buyers realize these two factors are not always going to be the same?

James Dwiggins
Chief Strategy Officer
Jamesd@rwnc.net

It is 2009 and today we are excited to launch our new realtyworldnca.com website and venture aggressively into the online social networking arena. This has been a project in the works for the past several months. Today we are proud to introduce it to the world. The main purpose of this new this website is to combine our franchise sales, agent careers, company blog, and corporate site into one, simple, transparent and easy to use website that everyone would enjoy.

More importantly, we are venturing down a road no franchisor has ever gone by making the landing page of our website the company blog, and allowing everyone the opportunity to participate in discussion. We strongly believe that transparency is an element this industry has lacked for a long time. Our customers are online and they’re not hearing from us enough. In order to regain back that effective communication with them, we all must create a relevant voice.

As many of you know, we have invested over one million dollars over the past year to develop advanced technology in an effort to become the industry leader in real estate social networking. Today you are beginning to see that technology and over the next several months, we will be rolling out many phases of this new technology program to all of our members and our online consumers.

This March when we move to phase II of our technology program, we be providing each of you with your own blog websites, and you will have an extraordinary opportunity to create your voice online, and more importantly, in the communities you serve. We are going to help you reclaim control from negative media and inform your customers about the truth with what’s happening in your markets.

Use our blog as a method to gain comfort writing in the online world. You can start by providing me with your feedback on what you think of our new Corporate website, all of its features, and any suggestions on what we can do make it better. We welcome all feedback and look forward to hearing from each of you.

We hope to inspire all of you to create your own voice over the next several months.

Enjoy!

James Dwiggins
Chief Strategy Officer
Jamesd@rwnc.net

Yep… it was eventually going to happen at some point in time, especially since more Americans now connect to the Internet for their daily news, and because YouTube is the world’s most popular video service to promote oneself. Congress is now getting in on the action by launching official YouTube channels where House and Senate members can control videos of speeches, hearings and events such as ribbon-cutting ceremonies.

Lawmakers saw this to be a value because of the magnitude of reaching a vast number of people via the web during the 2008 Presidential elections. That success is motivating them in giving the public a direct line to what’s happening in Congress.

Check out the House Hub and Senate Hub sites and let me know what you think.

I have had the opportunity in my life to be touched by many great people. People that in their own way had an ability of reaching directly into my soul. The best illustration of what I mean came one day when I attended a conference and heard Lou Holtz, a great football coach and TV commentator speak. He defined the attributes that many need to find in their lives. He said, “Coaching gives one a chance to be successful as well as significant. The difference between those two is that when you die, your success comes to an end. When you are significant, you continue to help others be successful long after you are gone. Significance lasts many lifetimes. That is why people teach, why people lead, and why people coach. As I leave the field of play, I enjoy the feeling of being a winning coach. But more important, I hope that I have been a person of significance in the lives of these young men.”

This ‘significance’ that Mr. Holtz speaks of is an attribute that society needs more than ever. As the pressures of the day-in/day-out grind works on all of us, we need to step back, realize and clarify who we can assist, teach, council, or direct in a way that will impact their lives and those they associate with.

Successful people have a very apparent model for themselves. Successful people are unmistakable about being exceptional in their business handlings and personal lives. They will impact people, that is for sure. Yet, how simple it would be to find the clarity of who they can be in the lives of others by reaching out beyond their individual world to teach, share, and give of themselves. Significance would be the reward.

Are you aware that, effective July 1, 2009, you must display your real estate license number on your business cards? With the passing of Senate Bill 1461, which was sponsored by the Department of Real Estate, effective July 1, 2009, California real estate license numbers must be displayed on all solicitation material intended to be the first point of contact with consumers.

The new law will certainly raise some questions as to what constitutes “first point of contact” material. The DRE Commissioner is authorized to adopt regulations as to identifying materials that require a license identification number and, according to the DRE, guidelines will be published in the early part of this year.

Considering that many real estate brokers and salespersons market their services with a nickname rather than their formal name, the identification of the license number is a benefit to the consumer. Verifying license information without the formal name can be a challenge.

So….along with now using a hands free cell device and no texting while driving, (the no texting should be a no brainer for all of us), add that license number to your marketing materials and business cards!

Most parents rarely think twice about paying for kids’ education. But grandparents and parents alike have concern over the attitude many kids take when it come to the value of the dollar and how much it really costs to fund a good education. This concern is at the forefront of parental thought if affluence has been a part of their upbringing.

Here are three tips from the book Stock Market Pie: Grandma Helps Emily Make a Million, a starter’s book on financial responsibility by J.M. Seymour:

Walk the Talk: Kids learn to spend and save from watching you. Include kids in discussions of family finances. Bring them in the loop on how major purchases – and education – are made.

Get Real: Open a savings or investment account jointly, then help your children fund it and find good investments and a simple way to track ups and downs.

Make It Fun: The earlier you start the better. But it should be fun and a rewarding experience to encourage kids to stick with it. Pick a few publicly traded companies that offer products your kids purchase or have an affinity to. Shop the mall or online for targeted products and then discuss the upside and downside of those investments.

Here is a link to reviews of this book