7 Ways to Increase sales in a Volatile Economy

January 12, 2012 – 12:14 pm
Author of SNAP Selling & Selling to Big Companies, Jill Konrath, has released a white paper entitled, "Selling in a Volatile Economy." I highly recommend it for any sales person or company looking to grow their business. The 7 Tips are: Deepen Your Expertise Strengthen your Value Propositions What is a value proposition? It's a clear statement about the business outcomes that customers get from using your product, service or solution. If tells them the impact that switching from the statusquo will have on their bottom line, operational efficiency, productivity or revenue growth. Let me offer a new frame for you. Being in sales today requires you to be a business improvement specialist. For example:  If you sell printing, you could become an expert on maximize print spend. If you sell training, you could become an expert on ensuring behavior change. If you sell technology, you could become an expert on industry trends. Challenge Your Prospects's Thinking What information could you possibly ...

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Data Visualization of New Homes Sold

January 11, 2012 – 9:10 pm
Data from the Census Bureau shows the obvious. New home sales have been on a decline ever since Sept 2006. In Oct 2010 however, this trend has flattened out. Construction of new homes have declined as well but is this a sign of stabilization in the real estate market?

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Phoenix Apartment Market Data

January 10, 2012 – 11:21 pm
Phoenix has seen some of the highest vacancy rates in the United States over the last year. Much of this has been due to the high foreclosure rate. Of existing mortgages, CoreLogic said 3.4% of them were in foreclosure in the month of Sept 2011. How is all of this affecting the rental market in Phoenix? Apartment Inventory > 50 Units =   1,253 Number of apartment units = 262,488 Properties under construction = 11 Units under construction = 1,824 Unemployment rate =  7.7% Vacancy rate = ~13% Average rental rates = $787 Apartment Permits = <1,000 Population in occupied housing units: Total Owner occupied -  804K Total Renter occupied - 625K Source: U.S. Census Bureau, 2010 American Community Survey

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Renting is the New Buying

January 10, 2012 – 8:09 pm
In previous years, it was embarrassing to say you rent. Today, in most cases, it is embarrassing to say you own. According to the US Census Bureau, the U.S. homeownership rate has fallen about 1.5% over the past year (from 66.9% to 65.9%). For every 1% drop in the homeownership rate, it represents approximately 1 million new renters entering the rental market. In some cases, homeownership rates have fallen below some European countries. Italy for example, has an 84% homeownership rate. Along with Spain with a 78% homeownership rate. High unemployment rates, difficulty in getting financing, changing demographics and increased foreclosure rates are adding to the deceleration of homeownership. In 2011, there was a 4% increase in the amount of renting households compared to 2010. In the United States, homeownership is the least in states like California (56%), New York (54%) and Washington at (64%). States with the highest homeownership rates are Michigan (75%), Mississippi (75%), South Carolina (75%) and West Virginia at (79%). (click on thumbnail to view larger image) Rental vacancy rates dropped ...

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The State of the Denver Market

January 9, 2012 – 10:21 am
There are currently over 98 million renters in the US. 40 Million of those are in single family homes and the remaining renters are in the apartment buildings with 2 units or more. U.S. Households: Renters & Owners Type of Household Number of Households (000) % of U.S. Total Number of Residents (000) Renter-Occupied Housing 40,119 34% 98,820 Owner-Occupied Housing 78,583 66% 207,291 Total 118,702 100% 306,111 Source: NMHC tabulations of 2011 Current Population Survey, Annual Social and Economic Supplement, US Census Bureau (http://www.census.gov/cps). Updated September 2011. What Type of Structure Do Renter Households Live in? Type of Structure Number of Households (000s) Percentage of Households   Number of Residents   (000s) Single-family homes 13,812 34% 40,525 Structures with 2 to 4 units 7,611 19% 18,750 Structures with 5 or more units 17,027 42% 35,002 Mobile Homes 1,513 4% 4,251 Other 157 0% 292 Total 40,119 100% 98,820 Source: NMHC Tabulations of 2011 Current Population Survey, Annual Social and Economic Supplement, US Census Bureau  (www.census.gov/cps). "Other" housing includes units in hotels,  rooming houses, dormitories, tents or unspecified housing. Updated September 2011. In the Denver metro area, the average rental rates have risen over the past 12 months. For all apartments the average rental rates was $976. For 1 bedroom apartments for ...

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13 Tips for Renting with Pets

January 6, 2012 – 12:20 am
The Humane Society of the United States has 13 great tips for renting with pets. Give yourself enough time Understand why many communities reject pets Make use of available resources Gather proof that you're responsible. Make your request to the individual or group with the ultimate authority to grant your request. If you encounter a no-pets policy, ask if it is the result of a negative experience with a previous resident. Let the landlord, manager, or condominium board know that you share any concerns about cleanliness. Promote yourself. Promote your pet. Be willing to pay a little extra. Get it in writing. Be honest. Recognize that it may be futile to try to sell yourself and your pet to a large rental community with a no-pets policy.

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RealPage Acquires Vigilan, SaaS Provider to the Senior Living Industry

January 4, 2012 – 7:26 pm
RealPage just announced the acquisition of Vigilan, a company that creates software for the Senior Living industry. Total purchase price for the Oregon based company was approximately $5 million. Vigilan serves approximately 340 senior living communities contributing to RealPage's senior living customer base. Vigilan is expected to exit 2011 with an annual on demand revenue run-rate of $2.3 million.

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The History of Credit Scores

December 30, 2011 – 3:15 pm
[Via: FreeScore.com credit score]

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What is the state of the Atlanta Rental Market?

December 28, 2011 – 1:30 pm
Nationwide, the rental vacancy rate was an average of 8.4 percent in 2009. Of renter households, an average of 42.5 percent were burdened by housing costs consuming 35 percent or more of their incomes. Atlanta had almost double the national rental vacancy rate at 13.96 percent. Here is how Atlanta stands up against the national averages: Renter Occupied - 31.52% versus 34.13% national average Median gross rent - $912 per month versus $842 per month national average Share of renters spending 35 percent or more of income for gross rent: 43.04% versus 42.48% Rental vacancy rate - 13.96% versus 8.43% That said, now is actually a good time to move into the Atlanta area. The house rental market is currently active with a good inventory of attractive homes and condominiums selling for very reasonable prices. Security deposits for one month’s rent are normally demanded. The rental term for a home lease is for a minimum 12 months, although that can often be extended to 24 ...

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No More Excuses. Believe in Yourself.

December 26, 2011 – 9:33 pm

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MRI Software Acquirers Vaultware

December 21, 2011 – 7:12 pm
Vaultware, a marketing and leasing solutions company that offers apartment owners real time availability software, has been acquired by MRI Software, a revenue and occupancy management solutions company. The new, combined entity will provide both MRI and VaultWare customers with many advantages. The acquisition will provide MRI’s customers with a complete, fully automated lease management solution that will be tightly integrated into MRI’s property management and accounting systems. Mike Mueller, chief executive officer of VaultWare, said in a press statement, “The marriage of VaultWare to MRI Software completes a big part of the vision I set out for our industry 17 years ago. The rental prospect now has an end-to-end solution, combining our industry-leading reservations system and marketing tools with the superior back-end resident functionality of the MRI property management and accounting package.” Financial terms of the deal were not disclosed.

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Roost Acquired by VerticalResponse

December 15, 2011 – 12:57 pm
Roost, who was originally a real estate search engine, and who recently made a pivot into social media marketing management, has been acquired by VerticalResponse. Terms of the deal were not disclosed. Roost raised $13 million since 2001.  

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What is Craigslist Ghosting and how does it relate to the rental industry?

December 15, 2011 – 11:04 am
You posted a rental ad on Craigslist, verified that the post was yours, got the approval e-mail that said the ad has been published and a link to view it. You waited the recommended several hours, then you went on CraigsList, but you couldn’t find your ad in the listings. Did it simply disappear? The answer is that ad may have been ghosted! Ghosting is something that Craigslist does to reduce spamming. The term is used when posts are flagged as spam by the system that monitors the IP addresses and accounts to determine if the ad frequency or content of the ads are spam. When the anti-spam system makes that determination, it will “ghost” them. You will think your ad has posted, when in fact it has been systematically removed without your being informed. The intent of ghosting was good – to crack down on flagrant marketers who were slowing down the servers. However, the cure is an ...

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There is No “Get Rich Quick”

December 11, 2011 – 5:53 pm
FirstBank has a great commercial entitled, "There is No "Get Rich Quick." Throughout modern history there have been many bubbles. These bubbles include the Tulip Mania in 1637, the 1929 market crash, the Internet bubble,  the lost decade, and of course the recent real estate crash. History tends to repeat itself and one thing is for sure, we will see more bubbles.

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SmartZip - The Predictive Marketing Company

December 9, 2011 – 7:19 pm
What if you could predict which home owners are most likely to sell their home within the next 6-12 months. If you are a real estate agent, a tool like this would dramatically increase your chances of reaching prospects before they are actively looking for agents to sell their home. SmartZip has such a tool and they call it SmartTargeting. SmartTargeting uses hundreds of attributes to rank properties all the way down to the street and property level. The attributes include historical and current home sale trends, property characteristics and market value, ownership history, loan and lender data and more. The algorithm ranks houses and territories every month based on its probability to come up for sale in the next 6-12 months. On average, the top 20% of the list often contains 40%-50% of future listings. Smartzip - SmartTargeting from ThinkMojo on Vimeo.

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Tis the Season

December 1, 2011 – 5:55 pm
Oh the joys of seasonality in the real estate industry. Specifically for apartments, interest in renting apartments can drop by as much as 50% from August to December. Below is a graph of the Google traffic for apartments for the last 12 months.

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Finally, Indoor Maps

November 29, 2011 – 3:25 pm
Have you ever been to the mall or airport looking for the nearest Dell Taco or Bathroom? Google is making this a bit easier by starting out the Indoor maps at an airport near you.

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The Fall of QR Codes

November 28, 2011 – 6:57 pm
I was recently in Seattle for Thanksgiving shopping in the Pikes Peak Market. To my surprise, the fish didn't actually smell that fresh. But that is another topic. This topic is about QR Codes, you know, those alien like images that you see on store fronts. Almost all of the stores alongside the Pike Peak market had these QR Codes plastered on the windows. The purpose is to allow you to point your photo and it will send you to a URL with more information of the store, discounts, etc. QR codes outside the US are very popular and are becoming more popular in the USA. According to one study, 14 million mobile users scanned a QR code or a barcode in the month of June 2011. Some 58% of those users scanned a QR or bar code from their home, while 39% scanned from retail stores. Even with the growing popularity, there are ...

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Realtor.org Hit By recent Google Algo Update

November 7, 2011 – 2:48 pm
Realtor.org, the site for NAR that provides real estate information was hit by Google's recent algorithmic update. According to SearchMetrics, Realtor.org was negatively impacted by the recent change. The SEO visibility ranking shows that Realtor.org was down 32.5% since the Google update. No other real estate sites made the list but a total of 1/3rd of all search queries across all verticals was affected.

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AIM 2.0 - The Supplier Marketing Conference

October 14, 2011 – 6:58 pm
Steve Lefkovits has changed the way Apartment conferences are held. In 2007, Steve purchased the rights to the AIM (Apartment Internet Marketing) conference from Vaultware and has consistently grown attendance ever since. This is one of the best apartment marketing conferences in the Industry. In 2011, Steve launched the Apartment Revenue Conference, aimed to help apartment operators maximize net income. Now, for the first time ever, Steve will be launching a conference specifically designed for vendors to help them sell into the apartment industry. The new conference will be called AIM 2.0 - Internet Marketing for Suppliers conference. Some of the sessions include topics on Marketing directly to apartment professionals, Selling portfolio-wide services, social media strategies with employees, How and where to advertise online and many other great topics. If you are interested in learning more about the conference, go to  apartmentsupplierconf.com.

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Lori Corken - Mission to Sell Comcast TV

October 14, 2011 – 6:21 pm
Lori Corken, of Lori Corken and Company has always had a unique way of reaching consumers.  Last night, I ran across a Comcast Commercial featuring Lori's new real estate show. The new series is called Mission to Sell and is available on Comcast OnDemand under the real estate section. Below is an example of Lori's unique approach to marketing.Classical style and intricate detail produced by Lori Corken on WellcomeMat

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Redfin Offers more Agent Transparancy

September 29, 2011 – 9:52 am
I love Redfin. I Recently sold a property via Redfin in less than 30 days. In addition to their amazing customer service, they give the owners of the property access to information they can't find anywhere else. Most recently,  they launched the "Redfin Scouting Report," giving customers access to reviews on their agents. The data shows how many properties the agent sold, how long it was on market, what the original listing price was and reviews of every agent within Redfin.

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NARPM Atlanta Presentation - Social Media 101

September 26, 2011 – 5:36 pm
Below is the presentation I recently gave at the NARPM Atlanta Conference. Narpm presentation 2011_atlanta_social_medView more presentations from rentbits.

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Market Leader Buys RealEstate.com

September 21, 2011 – 7:55 am
Market Leader, a publicly traded real estate advertising and software service for real estate professionals, has announced the acquisition of realestate.com, a  search service for forsale properties. The amount of the acquisition was not disclosed. In August of this year, Market Leader also purchased Denver based real estate marketing service SharperAgent and in January purchased SMS marketing firm kwkly. The company said this "represents the latest in a series of moves by Market Leader to create a comprehensive and integrated software platform for real estate professionals across the United States and Canada."

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Google Launches Travel Search

September 13, 2011 – 2:57 pm
Google just released their vertical travel search engine called Google Travel.  In July of last year, Google acquired ITA Software for $700 Million. Google has used this technology to offer travelers one place to compare airfares from a variety of airlines. There are a lot of unknown prices currently and the book now button doesn't seem to be working. Kayak, Google's nearest travel competitor, issued a statement following the announcement. We’re confident in our ability to compete, and we believe our flight search technology is superior. We recognize Google is a formidable competitor but they haven’t been successful in every vertical they’ve entered. We use multiple data sources and proprietary technology, all of which helps us in our efforts to provide people with comprehensive, fast and accurate answers to their flight search needs.

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Airbnb Offers Monthly Sublet Search

September 9, 2011 – 4:52 pm
Airbnd is now offering monthly sublet search. They currently have over 15,000 available sublets across 5000 cities within their database. The service allows property owners to sublease their rooms for a period of 2 weeks to 6 months. This is a smart, logical extension of their current business model which offers owners the ability to find and charge renters for daily night stays within their home or apartment. For the entire transaction, Airbnd takes 3% of the initial booking fee and hosts protected with up to a $50K host guarantee.

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See the World in 360

August 12, 2011 – 5:27 pm
Panoramic software has been around for awhile. It has mostly been limited to the real estate and photography industry and is often bulky, expensive and not very easy to use. All of that has changed with a new iPhone app called 360 Panorama. The amazing thing about the app is it stitches everything together in real time. I can see this being very useful in real estate. Along with the introduction of this new app, they also launched 360Verse, where users of 360 Panorama can upload their location and panorama for all to see. Want to see the French Alps?  How about the Illuminated Palace in India? Eventually, the world could be mapped by millions of users that would allow anyone to view locations they may not be able to see in their lifetime.

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US Government Seeks Ideas for REO Challenge

August 12, 2011 – 11:32 am
There are approximately 250,000 homes now owned by Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac and the Federal Housing Administration due to mortgage defaults.  The US Government announced on Wed that they are seeking ideas from all interested parties on ways to augment and enhance the asset disposition programs of these entities. The administration said the goal is to stabilize neighborhoods where large supplies of empty, foreclosed properties have hurt property values. “As we continue moving forward on housing finance reform, it’s critical that we support the process of repair and recovery in the housing market,” said Treasury Secretary Tim Geithner. “Exploring new options for selling these foreclosed properties will help expand access to affordable rental housing, promote private investment in local housing markets, and support neighborhood and home price stability.” The request for information is due by Sept 15th.

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USA Inc. Where we are, how we got here, what may be next

August 1, 2011 – 3:48 pm
Mary Meeker, a highly respected financial analyst and now a partner with Kleiner Perkins, has written a non partisan report that looks at the US government as a business. The report is entitled, "USA Inc. Where we are, how we got here, what may be next." Summary of the report Budget Crises is not a new problem Expenses have exceeded revenue for all but 5 of the last 45 years. 1969, 1998, 1999, 2000 and 2001 were the only years where the US had more revenue than expenses Entitlements are USA Inc.'s biggest expense 57% of total expenses. up from 25% 4 years ago $2 Trillion in 2010 Defense is 20%, other is 16%, 6% is interest Social Security, medicare, & Medicaid are the biggest entitlements 73% of total entitlement expense comes from these 3 Entitlement spending grew 2X faster in last 10 years than individual income tax revenue Entitlement and Interest expense will exceed revenue within 15 years Americans are conflicted 80% of Americans are concerned ...

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Airbnb’s “Craigslist” Moment

July 29, 2011 – 3:51 pm
On the heals of raising more than $100 million at a billion + valuation, AirBnb is having their first "craigslist" crises moment. For those of you not familiar with AirBnb, they provide a platform for people to rent out their properties to strangers for a short period of time. Most commonly for a few days. They have provided over 2 million nights of service without a hitch. However, recently a woman by the name of "EJ" rented out her San Francisco apartment for a weekend and came home to the place completely destroyed. She has since written this experience on her blog. I won't go into detail here but you can read all about it via the links below. What do you think? Will this help or hurt the Airbnb brand? The Moment Of Truth For Airbnb As User’s Home Is Utterly Trashed (Techcrunch) On Safety: A Word From Airbnb (Techcrunch) Airbnb horror story goes from bad to worse (CNET)

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