The “Diamond-Water Paradox” is a basic, fundamental economic theory: Water is essential to life; diamonds aren’t, but because there is so much water available, consumers place much greater value on a diamond to a drop of water.

The same paradox can be applied to selling a home.

When potential home buyers view homes these days they’re looking for that diamond (or, a “diamond in the ruff” to be exact).  And, just like diamonds with their detailed system of clarity (FL, VSI, SI, I, etc.), a home’s marketability may be characterized by three important details: Price (P)/Condition (C)/Location (L).

• Above average landscaping & curb appeal (+C)
• Kitchens and bathrooms that have been remodeled with the latest and greatest (+C)
• Freshly painted rooms in neutral tones (+C)
• A home that is clean and spotless (+C)
• A home situated right next to a factory (-L)
• Orange shag carpeting (-C)
• A home’s price that is at the top-end of the market for similar homes in a given area (–P)
• A home that has easy access to major highway and is also located in a community with very little noise & traffic (+L)
• A home that’s priced at or slightly below market conditions (+P)
• A home located in an area of superior job growth and stability (+L), etc, etc…

Continue reading this post

HomeGain did an awesome job this past Monday with their full day of training for 100 customers (HomeGain Nation 2010).  If you were lucky enough to be there, you enjoyed over 8 hours of great information on a variety of subjects, but most of all, on how to use the HomeGain products to best increase your business.

I had the privilege of speaking about the BuyerLink product.  Well actually, my talk was more about how to capture a lead and how to create the leads you capture into customers for life.

I covered Landing Pages and how to create the best landing page to capture the most leads.  I discussed our 100MPH marketing system which helps you turn leads into customers.  I also talked about different aspects of creating traffic.  And what I believe to be most important, we had a great conversation with everyone about making phone calls, how important they are and what to talk about during your first phone calls.

When I got home I realized, based on some emails I received and based on the conversations I had with so many after I spoke, that many of you might have questions after you went home and decided to try to implement some of what we discussed.  After all, it was a lot of information in a very short period of time.

With that said, on Wednesday this week, March 10, at 2pm Eastern, I am going to hold a webinar on lead capture and conversion.  We will talk about creating your landing pages  and then discuss lead conversion.

If you were not at the HomeGain event, this would be a good opportunity to learn some great tips on how to accomplish the above categories.  After all, Lead Capture and Conversion are the most important aspects of real estate Internet marketing.

I look forward to helping you take your Internet program to the next level!

Russell Shaw of The Russell Shaw Group with John & Hall Associates once said, “To really grow your business, become a listing agent”.

If the great Captain Russell said so, that was all I needed to refine my old expired program with a 2% mailing to listing conversion, and revamp my entire expired program with adrenaline, steroids, and total domination in mind. Simply put, I was willing to accept nothing less than being the king of listings, no matter what it took.

First, let’s touch on what I was doing to understand why I thought I was doing OK when really, I was just another expired real estate chump.

This was me in a nutshell:  Print the letter, stuff it in an envelope with a business card and pray!  My conversion ratio was 2% mailing to home listing.

Now let’s fast forward to the Russell Shaw way of 2010; stomp the competition so low they fear your name.

First, let me share my current statistics for 2010, and then I will mention what I am doing to achieve those numbers.  Since January 1, 2010 I have selectively sent 80 mailings.  I have received 7 call backs, in which 5 of the 7 call backs have resulted in listings.  One of the 5 home listings is in the pipeline. Continue reading this post

The HomeGain Nation Real Estate event is underway today! With over 100 attendees (real estate professionals), it’s a full day’s worth of strategies, networking and learning from 11 sessions, 4 workshops and 15 speakers. See full agenda

Follow HomeGain Nation on Twitter #homegainnation

What do attendees think of the event so far?

Barbara Tidwell of Keller Williams in Texas (AgentEvaluator National Top Performer 2009) said that she (and her daughter Lisa Rich) “learned so much within the first 2 hours, it’s been the most worthwhile event she’s attended” in a long time, and that she can’t wait to get home and apply it to her business.

Jaime Sparks of Sun Coast Realty, Inc. in Corona, CA commented, “I’m having so much fun, and learning so much that I think this should be a 2-day event!”

“This has been such a valuable event. I’m learning how to optimize my business with my HomeGain products,” added Yulonda Evans of Sessions Real Estate in Oakland, CA.

Videos to be posted in the coming weeks for most HomeGain Nation sessions here on the HomeGain Blog and on YouTube.

Attendees can also post comments and upload photos or videos to Flickr and Facebook.

See more HomeGain Nation blog posts

This week HomeGain announced in a press release that its commissions based award clubs for its AgentEvaluator® product has grown to include 900 HomeGain members. HomeGain award club members have now earned over $100 million dollars* worth of real estate commissions since 1999 when HomeGain was founded!

“We are pleased to add 15 more HomeGain members to our commissions based award clubs,” stated Louis Cammarosano, General Manager at HomeGain. “In today’s market finding a quality real estate agent is a priority for many home buyers and sellers. With HomeGain’s AgentEvaluator program, consumers can find and compare Realtors® to help them with their real estate transactions.”

“HomeGain has been a great referral source for us throughout our careers,” stated Robert Gosalvez & Gary Shapiro of Intero Real Estate Services in California. “We recently became Diamond level referral agents; as a result, we’ve been going on more buyer and seller interviews. More often than not, we are successful in taking the listing once we’ve had the opportunity to interview or been selected to help the buyer, so HomeGain has played a large part in our success.”

Club members inducted since December include: Continue reading this post

Social media relationships are all about comfort level… after all you haven’t even met yet.

The new world of social media allows people to connect initially online, and then hopefully in real life at a conference, event or an arranged meeting. Simply put, the face to face meeting cements the relationship on a tangible emotional level. The operative word is emotion. The social media conversation that leads to a business relationship is conducted primarily through chat, email and a perusal through blogs, Facebook profiles and Tweets. Since there may be no tangible face to face feedback, the emotional criteria for gauging a virtual relationship based on a batch of text-based interchanges is not “what are they saying, what is the content?”, but “how do I feel about this virtual relationship?”. It’s about comfort level.

The art behind social media relationships is to make people feel happy.

If you’re providing valuable content, your readers thank you. If you’re a great joker, your readers laugh. It’s all about good will, and your online presence should mirror this message.

Most people on the social media don’t give a second thought about how they present themselves to the world, living by the “this is how I am, so take or leave it” credo. That’s ok. Just be considerate of the fact that comfort levels can deflate if you’re lauding Glenn Beck in San Francisco, or supporting socially liberal causes in Utah. Labeling is easy to do on the social media because it’s a text-based media; everybody has seen examples of rants that devolve into labeling and context twisting.

If you’re in the business to work with as many people as possible, it’s not hard to make good will a social media objective. Unless of course, you are inclined to work with people who also share your life philosophies… I have heard many stories by folks who have built businesses by being ardent and outspoken in their beliefs, and it seems to work for them.

Pat Kitano will be speaking at HomeGain Nation on Monday, March 1, 2010, about social networking trends and advice for real estate professionals.