Beach City Blog

I happened upon a post from Rhonda Porter at Rain City Guide where she shares some of the REAL numbers from her business the last couple of years and speculates on what impact the changes to the subprime mortgage market are going to have on her business in the future.

Rhonda, a mortage lender in the state of Washington, went back and looked at all the loans she had closed over the last two years to see what percentage fell into what catagories regarding types of buyers, credit score, down payment, etc . . . It’s pretty interesting.

Obviously things have changed here in the Long Beach real estate market and without a doubt there are going to be some buyers out there that were capable of buying before that won’t be buying now. That’s just the reality of what has happened . . .

But what Rhonda’s numbers also show is that there is still LOTS of business out there to be had.

So that being said, I’ve decided that I’m going to approach this NEW real estate market in 2007 by asking myself a couple of questions:

(1) How do I choose to think about it?
and,
(2) what am I going to DO about?

In otherwards, what is my ATTITUDE going to be and what ACTIONS am I going to take?

Ever heard the saying, “perception IS reality”? (Boy, do we in the real estate and mortgage industry know how true that is!) Anyone involved in working with people and providing customer service knows that what we do doesn’t matter nearly as much as what our clients perceive we do.

Yes, perception IS reality.

And the same holds true in every aspect of life, including how we look at our business and the opportunity before us when we get up and go to work every day.

When I started selling home in the early 80’s, interest rates were approaching 20%. Was it considered a great market? NO . . . But were some homes selling? YES!

You see, I was brand new and didn’t know any better. I didn’t know the difference between a good maket and a bad market. I was just glad to be in real estate! I was excited and motivated and passionate about the opportunity to be a realtor instead of having a “real job” (LOL).

You could probably say I was in the stage of learning where I would be considered an “unconscious incompetent”. In otherwards, I didn’t even “know” what I “didn’t know”.

Well, since I “didn’t know” that the market was a BAD, I just went out and prospected alot and found customers that COULD buy and COULD sell. People that were going to buy and sell real estate no matter what the market was like . . . because they had a NEED!

And the truth is, there will always be people that have a NEED to buy and sell homes. People get transferred, people get divorced, people need bigger homes because they have more kids, and people downsize when the kids move out. They always have, and always will.

There’s plenty of business out there, it’s really just a question whether or not we’re going to go out and get our share of it.

The subprime market may be gone and some things may have CHANGED but there are still people that have a NEED to buy and sell homes and need loans.

They’re out there . . . Our job is to just go find them.

So as Henry Ford so eloquently said many years ago, “if you think you can, or you think you can’t you’re RIGHT!”

It’s really pretty simple.

I found a great new business/personal productivity tool, JOTT, on a really wonderful video blog, The Scoble Show. You gotta check out the Scoble Show, it’s got great interviews with geeks, techies and what not. It showcases new technology and the people doing the work. Great way to really hear about the what, why, when, where, how, and who regarding new things coming down the “pike” in the world of technology.

One of the most recent vlogs, on Jott, is a new company that just started in April, and has a great new product that allows you to leave voice messages on your phone which are automatically transcribed into text emails and sent to you or others. HOW COOL!

I signed up and started “JOTTING” to give it a test run! If you want to capture a thought . . . JOTT it! If you want to remind yourself to do something later . . . JOTT it!

When you get back to your computer, you can click on a link from the email you sent yourself and either listen to the message, set a reminder to have the email sent again to yourself at a designated time, or . . . have it sent at a designated time to your cell phone as a text message. Great tool for ADD people like me. I haven’t tried it yet but it appears that you might be able to send voice emails to groups that you’ve created in advance too, ie: your staff, your family, all your girlfriends . . . errrr . . . maybe not!

Also, on the subject of productivity tools, there is a great article in PC World mag this month on cool things you can do with your cell phone. Did you know Google’s Personal Calendar allows you to receive automatic text message reminders on your cell phone from events you’ve scheduled on your calendar. It’s real easy to set up! You can also download your Outlook Calendar right into it and set up the reminders. I did it, must be EASY!

Did you also know that you can use your phone to send text messages to Google and receive replies regarding all kinds of information you might need. Example: Want to find the nearest Pizza place in the 90803 zip code? . . . Send a text message to the number 46645, put in “pizza”, put in “90803″ (no quote marks), hit SEND and Google will text message you back all the pizza places in that zip code. Check out the article on this, the Google Calendar, and other cool cell phone tips at PC World Magazine’s site.

I started Beach City Blog (BCB) over a month ago after attending one of Dustin Luther’s presentations on Social Networking and blogging. Dustin’s presentation was really interesting and got me thinking for sure.
Blogging seemed like something that could move me a little further along in my quest to incorporate technology into my real estate business, something that feels like the right thing to do even though I don’t really know “WHAT TO DO”.

So . . . I figured the only way to learn was to “dive in”!

BCB was started with a harmless couple of posts and a cute photo of a dog giving someone a big kiss.

I was up and running.

Dustin linked to me in one of his posts so a couple people discovered me and left a couple of comments. COOL!

This was going to be fun . . .

Then I quit blogging.

Why?

Lots of reasons.

One reason was I started reading other peoples blogs and kind of got intimidated. It seemed that everyone was alot smarter than me . . . or at least they sounded smarter!

Another reason I quit was because I wasn’t sure what to blog about. If I was going to blog because I wanted to generate real estate leads then I figured I better be talking about something that has to do with real estate. Definitely stuff I know about like interest rates, sub prime loans, selling homes, termite inspections, etc, and I know alot about those subjects. But . . . the words on those subjects didn’t come easily. It seemed like too much work. Hmmm . . .

Another reason was just finding the time. Seemed like when I would sit down and start trying to write a post I would end up trying to figure out how something worked having to do with the blog template. Took me from creative thought mode to problem solving mode. A little frustrating.

I’ve got more to say about this and yes. . . I obviously AM blogging again but I thought maybe someone wants to share some thoughts on this from their experience and perspective?

It’s almost Valentine’s Day and the kissing has already started. There was some serious smooching going on in Long Beach yesterday at the 3rd Annual Bulldog Beauty Contest. Check out the photo gallery. There are lots of fun things to do in Long Beach’s 2nd Street, Belmont Shore area and this amazing collection of sexy “smoochers” was no exception.

This is my first post on Beach City Blog. Never blogged before but gotta start somewhere. Everybody knows alot about “something”. I know alot about probably more than I think. One thing I know alot about is real estate. Specifically selling it and about homes in Long Beach, Huntington Beach, and a bunch of areas around those cities. That’s what I do . . . sell houses.

But I also want to make this place a resource for alot more. Things like what’s fun to do in Long Beach. Like: what are some great little “hidden gem” restaurants in Huntington Beach, where to go for coffee, who’s got the best breakfast in town (sounds like I’m into food huh?), where’s a good place to catch blues music, best sports bar, etc . . .

I want to give Dustin Luther from Rain City Guide props for helping me get started. If you’re somehow able to catch his seminar on blogging and social networking sponsored by Top Producer Products I would highly recommend it.  It will give you a very intelligent look at how you can join a whole new community of people and ideas thru blogging and maybe help you promote yourself and your business to someone that might need your help.  So many possibilities.

So now to figure out what to talk about that someone might care about . . . hmmmm