It’s been almost three weeks now since we officially moved-out of our Pleasanton office on Hacienda Drive. Makes me wonder what I’m going to do when the mail stops getting forwarded in another week? It also explains why I haven’t done anything productive in almost six weeks. Moving is a big job.

More than five years ago, when my Dad/Broker/Boss inked the deal on the seven thousand square foot office space in Pleasanton, it seemed a perfectly logical thing to do. But the way the business has changed (driven primarily by the Internet), today such a huge brick-and-mortar investment would strike me as pure foolishness.

Agents just don’t use the office like they used to.

Five years ago we depended on the office for access to our business telephone and messages. We went in for access to the MLS. We found out about new listings through face-to-face communication with co-workers. Company policies and events were promoted through memos and fliers that we would pick-up in our mail slots. The whole thing was just so physical.

Now, most of that communication can be done through email. The MLS is at our fingertips via the Internet. Forms are all electronic. Files are stored on-line. We have user names and passwords to access DRE resources, tax record data and the latest industry-related news. Everything’s on line. If I’ve got an Internet connection, I’m in business.  Read the rest of this entry »

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We all want to understand how we got into this current real estate market, and there’s no single easy explanation.

However, I read a great piece about “cash back at closing” that goes a long way towards answering that question. And it’s not the obvious piece about predatory lending or misleading consumers or folks who simply overbought. It’s not that conspicuous. And yet it’s really at the core of how the “frothy” markets of the early 2000’s did us in. And it points back to the question of ethics, or how you do business (or live your life for that matter).

Click on this link to read the piece. Let me know if this makes sense to you.

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It’s worth the eleven-minute commitment. Or twenty-two minutes if you’re like me and you need to watch it twice.

Fair warning, it has absolutely nothing to do with real estate, paperless transactions, customer service, markets or investing. But it has everything to do with our success.

And if you tell anyone that I put Oprah on my website…

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There are a lot of Realtors out there who claim to be expert negotiators. I think there’s even a designation for some kind of negotiation training class or seminar that you can take. It seems to me that, in the real estate business anyway, negotiation is a fairly simple process that needs to be focused on creating an acceptable outcome for all - you know, win-win.

I imagine someone is going to leave a comment telling me that I’m just not a good negotiator, but I don’t think that’s the case. In the age of transparency, negotiation isn’t about getting-over, it’s about getting to an acceptable end.

Our job as “agents” is to represent the best interests of the principals for whom we work (our buyers and sellers). And rarely (never) is it in their best interest to beat-down the party on the other end of their transaction. What is in their best interest is buying or selling their property, in the right time frame, for the right price, with the right amount of exposure.

A successful negotiation is about finding the common ground.It’s about aligning the objectives of the buyer and the seller. In a successful negotiation there is no loser, there are two parties working together towards a common goal. The negotiation is defining that goal.

Problems arise in negotiations when we lose sight of our objectives, when we let our ego get involved. When the negotiation becomes about “extracting our pound of flesh” rather than getting to the end we had set-out for.

We don’t have to be friends with everyone involved in a negotiation, but we do need to be respectful - respectful of their position, of their vantage point, of their objectives. And we need to be willing to exchange enough information to discover where the common ground is, so that we can figure out how to get there.

Too many people in this business liken negotiating to a poker game. The problem is that a poker game has a loser. In fact, it has several losers. And unless you’re willing to become one of those losers, you really shouldn’t play.

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I was talking with an agent this morning who said that he tells clients that if they don’t have a friend with a real estate license then they probably don’t have any friends!

Reminded me of the time I got pulled over and the cop asked me for my registration, proof of insurance and my real estate license. I said to him, “Don’t you mean my driver’s license?” To which he replied, “No, not everyone’s got a driver’s license…”

Maybe that’s only funny to me.

Actually, it brings up one of the real positives to come out of this market - fewer realtors. And better representation for the buyers and sellers.  

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We had an interesting discussion around this video at our weekly office meeting this morning.

I am not a lead

I think I understand where they’re coming from. And I’m trying to reconcile their sentiments with a responsible business plan. Fact is, I need to grow my “database” and generate “leads” in order to build a successful business. But I hope I never make anyone feel like they’re just a number to me.

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I listed Starbucks as one of my favorite things the other day, not because of the three-dollar cup of coffee, the line out-the-door, or the traffic jam that the drive-thru causes over at the Garin Ranch shopping center. I’m a fan of Starbucks, Peete’s, or any of the trendy-modern coffee shops because of the opportunity they provide to “get out” of the office or the house.

 So the other night, after a meeting at church, C and I stopped at the new Saxby’s Coffee in Antioch. The thought is, you get a cup of coffee for only a few bucks and you sit down and relax - it’s the alternative to going home, we don’t want to go out to eat at this hour, and we’re not really “bar” people.

You see, it’s all about the experience at these places.And Saxby’s has it dialed-in: big overstuffed leather couches, cool music and the Lakers and Bucks on the Plasma in Hi-Def (another one of my things!).

Well no sooner had I settled in to my Decaf-with-cream and a Kobe Bryant three pointer than the kid from behind the counter comes over to tell us that they were closing in two minutes and we’d have to leave.

Stunned, we got up, looked at each other and walked out of Saxby’s Coffee for the last time. (It was like 9:30.)

What I don’t think the two young people working there realized is that I wasn’t there for a cup of coffee. So for him to take my money and then ask me to leave was frustrating to say the least.

I work in a service business, so maybe I’m more sensitive to these things than others are. But the truth remains, if you sell a product(like a cup of coffe at the 7-11) you treat customers different than when you sell an experience (like a cup of coffee at a Starbucks).

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So I’m obviously in the market for a new car, and being a textbook Gen-X’er I’ve done all my research on-line. I’ve settled on a new 2008 Honda Accord EX-L Nav. (I know, it’s not very sexy, but you want your high-tech, mobile Realtor to have a smart and practical side, right?) I’ve figured out what I’m willing to pay, including sales tax and DMV fees, how much I’m putting down and how much I’m going to finance. I won’t bore you with the details, but I’ve got a plan.

So now the question becomes where am I going to buy the car and what is that experience gong to be like? As I said, I’ve done the research and determined what I’m willing to pay and I’m prepared to go from dealer to dealer to get the deal I think is fair. I’m not looking forward to it, but I’m going to be strong - do the deal on my terms or move on. Hey, I’m in the negotiation business too.

So this morning in the office, I’m talking to Brian, psyching myself up - I want to get the car in the next few days. Then Brian reminds me that we have a friend and client who is a fleet/internet manager at the Honda shop in San Leandro. Of course! I gotta call Ray and see if he can do my deal!

We work by referral, we’re about creating a great experience, and we’re always negotiating towards win-win solutions. Whay can’t a car dealer, in this day and age, work on the same principles?

They can.

Within 15 minutes, Ray gave me, over the phone, an out-the-door price that was almost $500 less than the bottom-line number I was looking for. He assured me that if I called ahead, he could get the car and the paperwork ready so that I could get in and out in under an hour. No haggling, no checking with his manager, no optional undercoating.

I was stunned - in a good way. This is how it’s supposed to work. This is why you work with people you know. No pressure, no guilt, no need to rush down there. Just the peace of mind to know that I’ve got a guy who will take care of me when I’m ready to buy a Honda.

Hey Ray, thanks. Thanks for the deal, and thanks for the reminder. I’ll see you soon.

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Sorry I’m late. I was supposed to write a post last night, and the plan was to write about the live real estate auction that I spent sixteen hours participating in on Sunday. But I had a little mishap on my way home and well, I’ve got a new post in mind.

I headed out of the office a little early yesterday. It is after all a holiday week, and I’m already in a holiday mood. We had a really good Monday Sales Meeting I thought - lots of good feedback on the discussions around social networking sites as well as an intense exchange around the auction that took the meeting a half hour past our regular stopping point. It was a small group (holiday week) but a really productive time together.

So I’m sneaking out early to get home to the Broncos on Monday Night Football.It’s dark already at 5:00pm as I head up Vasco Road towards Brentwood. Vasco is famous for deadly head-on crashes, although there have been relatively few in the past three years since I moved out here thanks to road improvements and speed enforcement by the CHP. In fact, just last night officer Joiner of the CHP was telling me that Marsh Creek Road between Clayton and Brentwood is the new hot spot for deadly head-on crashes.

Vasco Road still presents it dangers however, evidenced by the fact that I was having said conversation with Officer Joiner on the shoulder of that very highway last night.

You see, about halfway through the 19 mile stretch from Livermore to Bretwood, some guy who had failed to tie-down his overstuffed armchair was stopping right in the middle of traffic to make an illegal u-turn to retrieve his fallen furniture. (It’s a good thing he did, a Lazy Boy in the southbound lane isn’t a good thing for anyone.) So I, along with the three or four cars between me ant the pick-up truck came to a dead stop, right there in the single northbound lane, in the dark, on Vasco Road.

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