Disruptive RE Broker

I cannot say I am a frequent reader of his blogazine, but Greg from the Bloodhoundblog.com is a pretty funny guy. He rags on everything. His personality seems somewhat twisted and I like that cause many people think my way of thinking is twisted.

However, as twisted as he may seem, he must be a good guy because he has 13 adopted pets. Impressive.

I thought having a website for my dog was crazy but this guy has an email address for one of his.

To understand what I’m saying give the BloodHoundBlog a read. Its not like you have anything to do anyways. How do I know? Your reading this crap!

As a broker when a call comes in you have to craft your answers so you can convert that person into a lead and then into a client. It is not easy but this may help.

Here’s a tip.

When someone calls about a property answer their questions and then open up the conversation. Ask them what attacted them to this property? Ask them what they are looking for? and tell them you can make their lives easier by setting them up on MLS rather than having them search from site to site. Most consumers go from site to site thinking that each site doesn’t have all the listings. Tell them that you will hook them up on the system that feeds the sites they often search. They will appreciate this.

I get buyers like this all the time. Don’t sell a service during this call - build repour to open the door. This may not work well for everyone but if you are good on the phone it should work to your advantage.

Good Luck.

Anytime you do something passion should be the reason. I started out in real estate by helping buyers exclusively when very few agents were doing this or even knew about it. I was passionate and wanted to help.

Then 6 years later I decided to work on a few different real estate related projects. One was to help sellers by providing a flat fee listing service. This has been a great experience and I have helped and changed many lives.

Now, I am almost ready to launch my latest project. This time, I am going to help the industry professionals and homeowners/consumers. I think this will be the most interesting experience and I hope to change the world with my new social networking tool.

I am hoping to open up the platform really soon. This is where my passion is right now. I see a huge problem and I am going to do my best to address the problem.

Stay tuned.

My favorite service of all time MBL was just redeveloped. The service and widget is starting to evolve. Check out my right sidebar.

So much better now. Please join my small community.

Gotta love when a service is built by a Masshole.

I have said it a million times. MLSPIN is by far the most advanced MLS in the US. The UI is uncomparable to any other MLS system. Of course MLSPIN is a private company and not run by a Realtor Association, however, they work very closely with the Boards. Most realtor boards run MLS - sucks for agents. You have no idea what you are missing. Trust me, I know because I belong to a few MLS systems and the others are so behind MLSPIN.

MLSPIN Partners. One click gets your listings on these third party sites. I might have missed a few.

This ball is said to be over 8000 lbs. The owner is 26 years old and he looking to get it over to 20,000lbs. The rubber bands he uses are the same ones they package automobiles with. From the image it seems to be almost as tall as his house and its 100% rubber band.

Check it out.

I belong to three MLS’s in three states. This is what I pay.

MLSPIN (MA) $80.00 per quarter. * Most robust system in the nation. They serve about 8 states and could easily do the nation if they could land accounts. Private company that works with Boards. Grade: A

NNEREN (NH) $45.00 per quarter. * system is shit. Grade: D

Statewide (RI) $210.00 per quarter * Its NH. Live free or die! Grade: C

Rhode Island is out of control with fees. They fine for everything and its the worst MLS system. They don’t give a shit about members, they just want your money. Did I mention they fine for everything.

This is up for debate but I feel real estate professionals should be using a Tumble Blog.

Why? Because most don’t have the time nor do they have things of interest to say. Usually realty bloggers give up after 5 posts.

The only problem with these types of blogs is that they don’t rank well because they lack content. It takes about 250 words per page to get noticed. Tumble Blogs are not meant for long post, but I think this is better than nothing.

I have one, but I use this one more.

I have no idea how this got into my email but it did. This is a bad sign because the last company to go IPO who asked their customers if they wanted in on the IPO was Vonage and this little service hasn’t seen the light of day since.

Here’s the letter:

Iggys House

Dear [redacted],

As you may know, Iggys House, Inc. is in the process of going public. Iggys House is the parent company of BuySide Realty. Some of our customers have expressed an interest in investing in our initial public offering.

We started our “road show” for the offering, and expect to continue it over the next few weeks. We have created an online version of the road show presentation. Here is the link:

http://www.retailroadshow.com/links/show.asp?c=IGGY

The following is a summary of our proposed public offering. You should carefully read and consider the information contained in our preliminary prospectus for the offering before making an investment decision.
Click here to view our prospectus.

We have filed a registration statement with the Securities and Exchange Commission in connection with an initial public offering of 1,400,000 units, with each unit consisting of one share of our common stock, and one Class A warrant and one Class B warrant.
The initial public offering price of the units is $6.00 per unit.

Each Class A warrant entitles its holder to purchase one share of our common stock at an exercise price of $7.50 (125% of the initial public offering price) and is exercisable for 12 months following the closing of the offering. Each Class B warrant entitles its holder to purchase one share of our common stock at an exercise price of $9.00 (150% of the initial public offering price) and is exercisable for 36 months following the closing of the offering.

We have applied to have our units, shares of common stock and Class A and Class B warrants listed on the NASDAQ Capital Market under the ticker symbols “IGGYU,” “IGGY,” “IGGYA,” and “IGGYB,” respectively.

Our initial public offering will be undertaken pursuant to a firm commitment underwriting. The managing underwriters are Northland Securities, Inc. and Bathgate Capital Partners LLC.
How to Invest

If you wish to learn more about how to invest in our initial public offering, please contact us at IPO@IggysHouse.com, and we will direct you to one of our designated underwriter representatives.

Best regards,

Joseph J. Fox
Chief Executive Officer
Iggys House, Inc.
About Iggys House, Inc.

We are an online real estate company that offers innovative services to home buyers and sellers. We share with each buyer 75% of the commission we receive from the seller or listing broker.

We provide sellers with free MLS listing services and the ability to post homes on our website for no charge.

A registration statement relating to these securities has been filed with the Securities and Exchange Commission but has not yet become effective. No offer to buy the securities can be accepted and no part of the purchase price can be received until the registration statement has become effective, and any such offer may be withdrawn or revoked, without obligation or commitment of any kind, at any time prior to notice of its acceptance given after the effective date. An indication of interest in response to this notice will involve no obligation or commitment of any kind. This notice shall not constitute an offer to sell or the solicitation of an offer to buy nor shall there be any sale of these securities in any state in which such offer, solicitation or sale would be unlawful prior to the registration or qualification under the securities laws of any such state.

Iggys House, Inc.
1 South Wacker, Suite 1900
Chicago, IL 60606

November is usually dead, but for some reason I am getting slammed. The market is slower than years past - but not this month. When you least want it - you get it! I just want to relax right now.

I just noticed a news flash on the Rhode Statewide MLS website  I am not sure what the owners Edward and Tracie Kedzierski did but they lost the right to practice real estate.  The Rhode Island Department of Business Regulation made them refer current listings out to other companies.

This is a big deal.  I wonder what they did.

Sometimes I can’t sleep because my mind is racing.  Unfortunately, I can’t help it. Sure, Ambian can sometimes help but my thoughts will just run wild in the morning.

Needless to say I have a lot on my mind lately and it’s time to sort things out and push on through. Over the past few weeks I have been thinking about opening up another agency - a different type of agency.

Lets go back a bit:

I come from a large real estate family. We pretty much pioneered the concept of buyer agency in Massachusetts when it was virtually untested.  Since I am the youngest one in my family I started a bit late. (however, youngest in my family doesn’t mean least experience. I have 4 states and tons of deals under my belt.)

I was dedicated to buyer agency but now since its mainstream I am doing something else. Well, sort of. I still represent referred buyers and will even go beyond this at times but I most focus on the selling side now. I pretty much mastered the buy side. How many people do you know who could get buyers to sign an exclusive buyers agent contract years ago? My old company has been doing for like 18 years now or something.  It’s sad bacause buyers who didn’t use us were missing out on so much; however, it was great to see the look on client faces when they compared us to the agent they were dealing with before.  Night/Day!  I kind of miss that!

After this, I moved on and work on building a real estate company.  It was part a full service agency but it wasn’t what I wanted. I sold some pieces off and decided that I wanted to build something that will make a difference - if not for consumers perhaps for my agents.

I have been sitting on an idea for about a year now and I think its time to bring it to fruition.  So, right now I have Hillman Real Estate Inc. (semi full service brokerage) and under this company I have InstaMLS.com - providing flat fee MLS service in MA, RI, CT, NH.  Now I think its time to bring back the buyer agency like I was born to do.

Going Virtual:

My venture is going to be a click and mortar shop some where either in Brookline or Back Bay but we will also have a Virtual Office platform that will be used to communicate with many workers (independent contractors). I have a background in tech and getting everything together will take time but it will be tougher to find the right vendors for the platform - but I think I have things sorted for now.

Setting things up like this is where I thrive. I learnt from the best. I could have been a consultant, but I’m not sure real estate and consulting works well together since you either understand it or you don’t in this industry. Everyone has their own formula for success.

As my readers know I am launching a real estate platform soon and the actual release date is looking like Jan or Feb 2008.  I am pumped.

I promise this will be game changing and get all you real estate professionals real leads - perhaps HOT ones.  This is nothing like anything else on the market.

Like I have previously said this platform is for consumers and real estate professionals.  The site will be free and supported by different types of advertising campaigns.

If you do not know me I am not just another real estate professional trying to create something I have no clue about.  My background is not only real estate but web development.  I never thought this would be a killer combo until a couple of years ago.  If you have a hobby you can bring into your professional life do it.

Well according to Inman, Zip Realty they are going down. They lost $4.8 million in the third quarter. All I have to say is one thing: discount brokerages cannot retain power agents. It’s not possible. This is the problem.

Forget what management says about “expansion” and all the things that are going well. It’s all BS spin.

This is my favorite line…

Despite market conditions, the ZipRealty Web site is receiving record traffic and activity, Lashinsky also reported.

Hey dumb ass, your site traffic doesn’t mean shit unless you are running ads.  You guys are obviously not closing those visitors.  Wake up Zip!

One of the biggest problems I face on a weekly basis is the lack of interoperability. Every person has their own situation. Different operating systems. Different browsers. Different software. Corrupt software (adobe). I hear it all the time. Nothing seems to work the same across the board.

Posting documents online for others to grab can be a major pain in the ass. I have sort of solved this problem with the help of a service called Scribd.com.

It’s a neat service that will host documents much like Youtube will host your videos. It works pretty well and I like the fact that I can embed documents for people to grab in various file versions.

Check this out…