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The Phoenix Real Estate Guy

Phoenix Real Estate - Anything & Everything About It. Plus Random Musings. See all homes for sale in the Phoenix area

It is Past Time to Raise the Bar!

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It is far too easy to get a real estate license. There, I’ve said it (again). It’s probably going to irritate a lot of people but that’s just too bad. It’s ridculously easy to get a real estate sales license. All you need to do (in AZ) is sit through 90 hours of classroom “education”, be 18 years old, have a relatively clean criminal record and pass the licensing exam. That’s it. Need any high school? Nope. Any apprenticeship? Zip. Any formal training? Zero.

90 hours in the classroom, which you could complete in as little as 9 days if you were some sort of masochist. The school is horrifically boring and the chairs are painfully hard (the better to keep you awake). Put your butt in the seat for 90 hours, pass an exam, supply your fingerprints and drivers license. Fill out a form, write a few checks and POOF, you can call yourself a real estate professional!

Training? Nah… You can legally list or sell a home the day you get your license. “What about those 90 classroom hours?” you may be asking. “Don’t you get training there?”

The answer is a resounding NO. What real estate school teaches you is how to pass the state licensing exam. They don’t teach you how to sell real estate, how to deal with clients, other agents, title companies, loan officers, inspectors, whiny kids, buyers, sellers, or brokers. Oh you may occasionally get a war story about real estate from the instructor–I learned more REAL real estate talking to my instructors during break that I did in the classroom. The schools churn out future professionals by the score every single day. And they do a damn fine job preparing you for the state exam. They do nothing to prepare you for selling real estate.

Hopefully the new agent aligns himself with the kind of broker that will take them under their wing and truly help them. Sounds simple, but finding a broker that does that these days isn’t easy. Too many brokerages just bring in agents by the truckload. Some have HUNDREDS of agents working for them. It’s just a numbers game to them. The more agents they have, the more desk fees they collect. If they run a commission split office, they figure if they hire a few hundred agents then dumb luck means some of them will turn out to be successful. Those that quit (and 80% do in the first year) are simply replaced by new sheep.

Let’s step back a second and compare the requirements for getting a real estate sales license to a few other licenses/certifications:

It takes 17.7 times as many classroom hours to get a barber’s license as it does a real estate sales license. Want to get into good colleges and universities? Expect to spend almost 7 times longer in a classroom and multiple sessions with TWINS Education’s IGCSE online private tutors. Oh, and be sure you have two years of high school. You don’t need ANY high school education to sell real estate.

The public perception of real estate agents is not good — just Google “Realtors Suck” and read some of the 3,660 results if you don’t believe me. It’s not pretty.

The low barrier to entry is a big part of the problem. I assure you there is someone out there at the very moment you are reading this that decided 3 or 4 weeks ago to become a “real estate professional”. This person is no professional. The barely qualify as a trainee. Yet they are going to go out there and mangle some transaction, cause undue stress and pain for the hapless buyer or seller that’s using them (more than likely that will be a relative, friend, and/or their best friend’s sister’s husband’s cousin.)

Hapless buyer/seller has bad experience. So maybe they blog about it. Maybe they express their opinion on MySpace. heck, maybe they even set up an entire website that explains why their Realtor sucks so bad. And all this “publicity” spins on as the image of real estate agents slips lower and lower until we’re rubbing noses with attorneys and car salesmen.

What to do? Simple answer, complex solution. The answer is raise the bar to entry. There should be more classroom hours. REAL classroom hours, not just “instructors” saying, “Ahem, you may want to remember this in a couple of weeks…” If you can train someone to fly a jet fighter, or cut a tumor out of someone’s brain, you can train someone to sell real estate. Don’t train them just to pass a test. How about having at least MINIMAL previous education requirements? It’s hard to get ANY job without a high school diploma. Make that a minimum (it is in some states). Why not a true apprenticeship program? Make it a requirement that new licensees work a minimum number of hours or transactions with an experienced agent or broker. Yes, the “we’ve always done it this way” attitude of compensation may have to be revised. Or would it? Not many new agents start out of the box with too many sales. Most go months before their first transaction. If they WORKED in those months, REALLY worked, then they could probably complete an apprenticeship in that time period.

The real problem might be making experienced agents mentor/train new agents. So make it a requirement for license renewal hours. We already have to take a certain number of hours in specific topics in order to renew a license every two years. Just add mentoring junior agents to the required continuing education hours. Better yet, make it a requirement for brokers to mentor agents in order to renew their license. Then maybe brokers would be inclined to take on bright, hard working agents.

Now there’s a concept.

Other blogs on low barriers to entry in real estate: Matrix, Portland Real Estate, Paul Caloca, Kristal Kraft and DailyPundit. Jim Duncan has an entire blog category devoted to public perception.

Stupid MLS Listings

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I don’t understand. If you are a real estate agent with a $1,000,000 plus listing in Scottsdale, why would you put it in the Multiple Listing Service with ZERO pictures of the property, and nothing about the home in the description? Are the room dimensions in the listing? Of course not. Showing instructions? Nope.

Thinking maybe the listing agent just (for whatever reason) wanted to get it into the MLS and planned to come back later and put in some information, I scroll to the bottom of the page, only to find the homes been on the market for 43 days.

So much for that theory.

Then there is the $9,000,000 listing in Paradise Valley. It has a description, including this gem: “Wtr/Fea w/F/P”. I think that means “water feature with fire place”? In the description it says, “Never seen before Pool/Spa design”. Well, I guess anyone searching for the home won’t be able to see the never seen before design because THERE’S NOT A SINGLE PHOTO IN THE LISTING!

I should probably cut the listing agent some slack about the photos. This is a new construction home after all. It was listed 569 days ago but was just completed in July. So the listing agent has only had 19 months to download a photo of the lot, the view, the home under construction or some sort of visual. Maybe a floor plan? And since it’s only been complete for 2 months, why should there be a photo of the never seen before pool design?

These are Stupid MLS Listings. Are they done by stupid real estate agents? I don’t think so. I think they are done by lazy real estate agents. Any agent capable enough to secure a multi-million dollar listing is bright enough to know they really ought to have a photo in the MLS. I hate to diss my agent brethren, but the fact is, there are some lazy agents out there. Jason Ungos has a web site tool just for them. In her ActiveRain blog, Sherri Welborn reports there are lazy agents in Middle Tennessee. Danger! They may be lurking everywhere!

Photos in listings are what people look for. This is not news folks. RealtyTimes wrote about this in 2004. Taking photos and uploading them to the MLS isn’t all that difficult. Using a tape measure and getting room dimensions was mastered by my son at age eight.

If you can’t use a digital camera, try reading Digital Photography for Dummies. If you can’t use a tape measure, either ask an eight year old or buy yourself a laser tape measure.

Sellers out there, ASK your agent to see your entire MLS entry. If there are no photos, poor descriptions, missing information, whatever, then it’s time to have a serious talk with your agent. If that doesn’t work, talk to their broker. YOU know what people want to see when they go on-line looking for homes. Make sure your agent does your home right!

Just make sure the photos they take look a little more professional than this one.
Sellers, you can help your agent by moving your truck off the front lawn…

Template Sites: The Good; The Bad; and The Ugly

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I’ve probably been asked a hundred times some variation of the question, “Can you have a successful real estate web site using one of the template providers, or is a custom solution the only answer?”

The short answer is there are decent template sites and you do not have to have a custom site to get somewhere. The long answer is, of course, much more more involved. There are literally dozens of real estate template site providers out there. The features they offer range from the very basic to the most recent advances in web design.

It’s important to research various template providers and understand both what they can and can not provide. Technical support is often overlooked yet frequently needed particularly if you are new to web site design.

Let’s explore the pro’s and con’s of real estate template providers in general. These points are valid, regardless of the particular provider you chose.

The Good:

    ? Template sites are cheap. Compared to a custom site, template sites are a bargain. You can spend thousands of dollars (tens of thousands if you really want to) on a custom web site. There are dozens of template site providers with products ranging from free to $150/month””and everything in between.
    ? Template sites are easy to edit. Most template providers provide “WYSIWYG” editors. (What you See is What You Get). You don’t HAVE to know HTML, CSS, AJAX or any of those cryptic, confusing and scary “programming” languages (though knowing a little HTML is a big plus). Most custom sites will require you to know HTML, unless you pay for a WYSIWYG “back end”. And yes, even with a custom site, you’ll need to add content to it, unless you pay a LOT for someone to do it for you.
    ? Template sites can have a great support network. Some of the larger providers have user forums that can be a huge asset. Point 2 and Advanced Access both provide forums and the large user bases mean there are many opportunities for learning and sharing.
    ? Template sites can have unique features. Point 2 Agent has “Handshake Listings” ”“ sharing user’s listings across multiple sites. They also use the power of a large user base to get listings syndicated on large national sites such as Yahoo, Google Base, Trulia, and more.

The Bad:

    ? “Template sites all look the same”. This comment comes up all the time. And yes, there are only a limited number of “styles” that most template providers have. I can tell immediately if a site is an Advanced Access, Superlative, Point 2, or iHouse site to name a few. But with the right provider, you can customize the appearance of a template site. I know for a fact there is not a Point 2 site in existence with a menu structure like ThompsonsRealty.com because I did it myself. Search engines don’t really care what color your site is, nor do they care if the buttons are all the same shape. What search engines care about is content. Which leads us to”¦
    ? Template sites are a lot of work. By their very definition, template sites contain similar (actually identical) content. The “boilerplate” site you first get with a template provider will have the same content as every other site they have. You MUST change this boilerplate language if you want to separate your site from all the others. Custom sites are not exempt from this either. A stagnant, never changing site–custom or not–will eventually suffer in the search engines.
    ? You don’t “own” a template site. True, but if you change the content, you own that. And you should NEVER use a provider that owns your URL. I’ve changed providers before. It’s a painful experience, but you can move your content from one provider to another, so this isn’t as big a negative as some people make it out to be.

The Ugly:

    ? If there is one possible major drawback to template providers it’s that you can get caught up in a “provider penalty”. Recently many Advanced Access and Point 2 sites have been hammered by Yahoo. Sometimes the search engines seem to decide if they penalize one, they penalize them all. Your template provider may decide to add or remove something that on the surface appears harmless, but on the inside the search engines find issue with. On the other hand, this can work the other way as well. And even fully customized sites are often at the mercy of the search engines.

So to make what’s turned out to be a very long story short, you can have a great web presence with a template site. I’ve seen many template sites at the top of Google for very competitive search terms. Yes, it takes work. Yes, you need to edit and add to the boilerplate site, but it’s entirely possible to turn a template site into a lead generating (hence income producing) machine.

Full disclosure: I have a Point2Agent site and am an authorized Point2Agent Distributor.

I Blog; Therefore I Am.

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In May of 2005, I strolled in to my broker’s office and said, “Hey, I’m going to start blogging!”

My broker looked at me like I had two heads.

“Why in the world would you want to do that?”

“Why to get clients, of course…. I think….”

Getting clients, being wildly successful, becoming world famous. Why exactly did I start blogging?

Part of me blogs to satisfy some weird inherent desire to write. Call me crazy, but I not only enjoy writing, I need to write. Short of having a name like Stephen King or Ernest Hemingway, blogging is the easiest way to “get published”. I would blog even if it served no business purpose.

But blogging does serve a business purpose. In the short time I’ve had my real estate blog, I’ve met new people all across the world. My “” has grown by leaps and bounds. I’ve met (and received referrals from) other agents, brokers, and friends. The blog has directed significant traffic to our regular web site. I’ve been interviewed by reporters from the LA Times and Arizona Republic. And yes, I’ve gotten clients from blogging.

Blogging may be the single best way to express your skills, real estate expertise and personality on the Internet. Web sites and pages tend to be static. Blogs are dynamic. The fact that blog visitors can respond via comments in “real time” makes a blog a unique tool in the on-line marketing world.

People looking for a real estate agent want someone who is an expert in the field. A blog is an excellent platform for displaying your real estate expertise. The openness and free format of a blog provides virtually unlimited opportunities for the blogger to discuss a wide range of real estate topics, or to narrowly focus on certain aspects. Just the mere fact that you have a “web presence” above and beyond the standard real estate web site sends a message that you are internet savvy and and expert in the area of on-line marketing.

Blogging is not a fad, it’s here to stay. The growth of blogging has been phenomenal. The CEO of , what many consider to be the “Google of Blogs”, reports they are now tracking over 50 million blogs and over 175,000 new blogs are created every single day.

Despite this exponential explosion of growth in the , using blogs for real estate marketing is still relatively new and unexplored — though it is growing daily.

As a real estate professional you really need to catch this wave! Don’t be left behind. You do not want to be sitting around some day saying, “If only I’d started blogging five years ago…”

Afraid of technology? Think it’s too expensive? Think RSS stands for Really Something Stupid?

Don’t worry about it! There are simple and free blogging solutions out there! Try Active Rain, Blogger, WordPress.com. All can get you plugged into the blogosphere literally in minutes. As you learn more (and you will) then you can branch out into hosting your own blog, setting up RSS feeds and other techo-geek things that really aren’t nearly as geekified as they sound.

Do it! In half the time you spent reading this blog, you can be on-line, linked in and you can call yourself a blogger, and you can (and will) be successful!

To Blog: The act of writing in one’s blog. A weblog (“blog:) is a type of website where entries are made (such as in a journal or diary), displayed in a reverse chronological order.

Success: 1) an event that accomplishes its intended purpose; 2) an attainment that is successful; 3)achiever: a person with a record of successes.

Who is The Phoenix Real Estate Guy?

The Phoenix Real Estate Guy was started by Jay Thompson, and I have a little blogging problem... he liked to say...

Welcome to The Phoenix Real Estate Guy, or "TPREG" as we fondly refer to it.

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