http://www.shutterstock.com/pic.mhtml?id=3349269” target=”_blank”>Parade</a> image via Shutterstock.” width=”225″ />Parade image via Shutterstock.

In my more than 30 years in the business, I have never been more hopeful for the future of real estate services and the housing industry than I am today.

My reasons are not tied to the improving housing market. They are tied to tension-breaking actions by homebuilders, and market studies showing homebuilders’ commitment to work with real estate agents.

A recent market study by Builder Homesite Inc. (BHI) concluded that “shoppers are reluctant to navigate the homebuying process on their own and intend to work with a Realtor. The vast majority (84 percent) intend to use a Realtor (when shopping for both new homes and resales), recognizing the many areas in which they provide assistance.”

BHI is a consortium of 32 of the largest production builders in America. The study surveyed 984 potential buyers or shoppers, most of whom expected to spend $150,000 to $500,000 for a resale or a new home.

To the question, “Why do you intend to use a Realtor?” respondents gave these reasons:

• Help negotiate terms/price (70 percent).
• Find home with your specifications (68 percent).
• Coordinate viewings/appointments (66 percent).
• Draft offers and contracts (65 percent).
• Assistance navigating the purchase process (63 percent).
• Knowledge of marketing conditions (63 percent).
• Determine what comparable homes sell for (61 percent).
• Buyer Information on available properties (61 percent).
• Reference for inspectors, brokers, buyers, others (53 percent).
• Knowledge about the neighborhood (51 percent).

A couple of observations. Although “Help negotiate price” is the reason most often given for using a Realtor, it is a misleading indicator if you relate it to purchases of new homes. Homebuilders, with few exceptions, do not negotiate price, especially in a rising market. If one buyer negotiates a better deal, that can destroy the pricing integrity of an entire community.

The desire to have a Realtor help draft offers and contracts also doesn’t apply to new-home purchases. One of the “easy” parts of a new-home sale is that the agent does not write the contract.

Nor do agents have to provide assistance navigating the purchase process for new homes, at least not in the way they would for a resale. Once the purchase agreement is effective, the builder takes control of every step of the process through closing, as he should.

The inclusion of these questions in the study helps all of us understand why, according to industry consultants, about 70 percent of all new homes sold are sold by co-brokers. What is hard to understand is why this number is not much higher.

I’ve yet to see a study or hear good reason why general agents are not trained or encouraged to at least show new homes, not sell them.

I have long advocated that a new-home model should be the first place a new agent visits, so he can have a positive inventory experience from the get-go. The agent sees a beautiful model, meets a helpful new-home professional, learns the registration process and the location story on that side of town, and learns about the competition, the contract process, closings and more.

What possibly could be better exposure and encouragement for new agents than this practice, and would it not make traditional training relative?

For the benefit of the old-timers reading this, yes, I, too, remember the emphasis on learning construction, the confusion about who would follow up, and all the rest. I also remember the typewriter.

This is a new age, for a new-type housing recovery — a recovery due in a big part to the Internet, a tool to which nobody participating in former recoveries had access to.

Good news now travels as fast as bad news, and can be highly targeted for little cost.

Obviously, homebuilders understand that co-broker marketing is a measurable, sales-generating marketing strategy. Homebuilders are accepting the fact that general agents make their living finding the right home, be it resale or new, for their prospects and clients.

Professional courtesies to the agent at the sales office plus commission consistency, not rapport and bonuses, stabilize trust.

On the other hand, agents are learning that a large number of their prospects will consider a new home, and may have already registered with a builder or two on the Internet or at a sales office.

To those who are trained to qualify for new homes as well as resales, this is not a problem. It is no different that working with local “for-sale-by-owners,” regarding who is responsible for the sale.

Some of us need to forget the past, and quit reminding whomever will listen about the old days — that time we took a prospect to a sales office, and the world almost ended because there was a real or imagined problem with the commission. This is a rare exception to the rule today.

Homebuilders not only need your ready, willing and qualified prospects, they need your good will. And in a tight inventory market, you need homebuilders.

But there is even a better reason to show new homes first — you will sell more resales, or should.

A new-home model represents the price point in your market, for resales as well as new. This is why you should take your prospects to a model center first, so they can visualize what they can get for their money.

Then, when you show your resales, the prospect has a way to evaluate the value and price of the resale compared to the new home’s fixed price. Whether she buys a resale or a new home, you win.

A new band is climbing on the wagon. The parade of homebuilders and real estate agents is finally playing from the same page. Don’t let this commission-driven parade pass you by.

David Fletcher, a licensed real estate broker and lifetime achiever, is founder of EMentoru, a company dedicated to helping real estate agents and homebuilders help each other make sales. Contact him by phone or text at 407-234-2349, or by email at davidf@ementoru.com.

Contact David Fletcher:
Email	Letter to the Editor

Copyright 2012 Inman News

All rights reserved. This article may not be used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever, in part or in whole, without written permission of Inman News. Use of this article without permission is a violation of federal copyright law.

http://www.shutterstock.com/pic.mhtml?id=3349269” target=”_blank”>Parade</a> image via Shutterstock.” width=”225″ />Parade image via Shutterstock.

In my more than 30 years in the business, I have never been more hopeful for the future of real estate services and the housing industry than I am today.

My reasons are not tied to the improving housing market. They are tied to tension-breaking actions by homebuilders, and market studies showing homebuilders’ commitment to work with real estate agents.

A recent market study by Builder Homesite Inc. (BHI) concluded that “shoppers are reluctant to navigate the homebuying process on their own and intend to work with a Realtor. The vast majority (84 percent) intend to use a Realtor (when shopping for both new homes and resales), recognizing the many areas in which they provide assistance.”

BHI is a consortium of 32 of the largest production builders in America. The study surveyed 984 potential buyers or shoppers, most of whom expected to spend $150,000 to $500,000 for a resale or a new home.

To the question, “Why do you intend to use a Realtor?” respondents gave these reasons:

• Help negotiate terms/price (70 percent).
• Find home with your specifications (68 percent).
• Coordinate viewings/appointments (66 percent).
• Draft offers and contracts (65 percent).
• Assistance navigating the purchase process (63 percent).
• Knowledge of marketing conditions (63 percent).
• Determine what comparable homes sell for (61 percent).
• Buyer Information on available properties (61 percent).
• Reference for inspectors, brokers, buyers, others (53 percent).
• Knowledge about the neighborhood (51 percent).

A couple of observations. Although “Help negotiate price” is the reason most often given for using a Realtor, it is a misleading indicator if you relate it to purchases of new homes. Homebuilders, with few exceptions, do not negotiate price, especially in a rising market. If one buyer negotiates a better deal, that can destroy the pricing integrity of an entire community.

The desire to have a Realtor help draft offers and contracts also doesn’t apply to new-home purchases. One of the “easy” parts of a new-home sale is that the agent does not write the contract.

Nor do agents have to provide assistance navigating the purchase process for new homes, at least not in the way they would for a resale. Once the purchase agreement is effective, the builder takes control of every step of the process through closing, as he should.

The inclusion of these questions in the study helps all of us understand why, according to industry consultants, about 70 percent of all new homes sold are sold by co-brokers. What is hard to understand is why this number is not much higher.

I’ve yet to see a study or hear good reason why general agents are not trained or encouraged to at least show new homes, not sell them.

I have long advocated that a new-home model should be the first place a new agent visits, so he can have a positive inventory experience from the get-go. The agent sees a beautiful model, meets a helpful new-home professional, learns the registration process and the location story on that side of town, and learns about the competition, the contract process, closings and more.

What possibly could be better exposure and encouragement for new agents than this practice, and would it not make traditional training relative?

For the benefit of the old-timers reading this, yes, I, too, remember the emphasis on learning construction, the confusion about who would follow up, and all the rest. I also remember the typewriter.

This is a new age, for a new-type housing recovery — a recovery due in a big part to the Internet, a tool to which nobody participating in former recoveries had access to.

Good news now travels as fast as bad news, and can be highly targeted for little cost.

Obviously, homebuilders understand that co-broker marketing is a measurable, sales-generating marketing strategy. Homebuilders are accepting the fact that general agents make their living finding the right home, be it resale or new, for their prospects and clients.

Professional courtesies to the agent at the sales office plus commission consistency, not rapport and bonuses, stabilize trust.

On the other hand, agents are learning that a large number of their prospects will consider a new home, and may have already registered with a builder or two on the Internet or at a sales office.

To those who are trained to qualify for new homes as well as resales, this is not a problem. It is no different that working with local “for-sale-by-owners,” regarding who is responsible for the sale.

Some of us need to forget the past, and quit reminding whomever will listen about the old days — that time we took a prospect to a sales office, and the world almost ended because there was a real or imagined problem with the commission. This is a rare exception to the rule today.

Homebuilders not only need your ready, willing and qualified prospects, they need your good will. And in a tight inventory market, you need homebuilders.

But there is even a better reason to show new homes first — you will sell more resales, or should.

A new-home model represents the price point in your market, for resales as well as new. This is why you should take your prospects to a model center first, so they can visualize what they can get for their money.

Then, when you show your resales, the prospect has a way to evaluate the value and price of the resale compared to the new home’s fixed price. Whether she buys a resale or a new home, you win.

A new band is climbing on the wagon. The parade of homebuilders and real estate agents is finally playing from the same page. Don’t let this commission-driven parade pass you by.

David Fletcher, a licensed real estate broker and lifetime achiever, is founder of EMentoru, a company dedicated to helping real estate agents and homebuilders help each other make sales. Contact him by phone or text at 407-234-2349, or by email at davidf@ementoru.com.

Contact David Fletcher:
Email	Letter to the Editor

Copyright 2012 Inman News

All rights reserved. This article may not be used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever, in part or in whole, without written permission of Inman News. Use of this article without permission is a violation of federal copyright law.

Recently, we put the wraps on post production on my Not So Super pilot episode. I thought, since this was my first major video production, I would share what I learned while shooting it. This won’t be of interest to those of you who have been doing a lot of video production already, but I’m hoping it will help those who are new or who have yet to start video production.

#1 $h!t Happens

On the second day of shooting we had commandeered a bar, taken time away from the patrons and the owners, set up lights and sound…only to have the camera completely die. Total catastrophic failure which meant no shooting would be possible that day. It was crazy, the Canon 60D we were using was just 28 days old, and yet there it was, dead, not starting up at all. So it trashed the whole day of potential shooting. In the end, we managed to get it all done. But the point here is, even with a ridiculous, nearly impossible deadline (set by the contest creators) and a whole scheduled day of shooting washed out… we got it all done. So, as Douglas Adams so wisely put on the Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy… Don’t Panic.

#2 Always have a back up plan

This is because of number one. After the camera died and wiped out the whole day, wasting the time of strangers, cast and crew.. I invested in a second camera, another Canon 60D. Now, the chances of that same sort of catastrophic failure, are greatly diminished. Of course, it was a major cash outlay on my part, but in the end, I feel far more secure when we go out to shoot and we can now do multiple angles at the same time, bonus! This might not be within your budget, but there is most likely a rental place nearby. We have the awesome Art’s Cameras here in Milwaukee and they rent camera bodies or full kits. The rental meant we could continue shooting the next day while the other camera was headed to the repair shop. Before going out to shoot, make sure you have some sort of back up plan whether it’s a second camera or a rental. It will save a lot of hair from being pulled out at the roots.

#3 Audio Means Sound, not Music

In the pilot there are big pieces of it that have no music. We did that intentionally. We weren’t shooting an MTV music video or reality show, we were shooting a dramatic piece of video. So we opted out of the constant flood of music in the background. Because of that, we had to use a lot of filler sounds, a lot of ambient and background stuff that brought the video to life and made the environments more organic, less sterile. Music is nice, but like other things, can be used sparingly to great effect.

#4 Smart People Collect Smarter People

I would have been lost if I had not had the amazing Jeff Garbarek, Director of Photography, video editor, camera operator. He was so awesome that I split the directing credit with him, because I don’t know that it would have been as good had he not been there. Since this was my first major video shoot, I tried to be smart about it. I assembled a team of people who were far smarter than I am in major areas. I stumbled upon a composer for the score, I had the DP to do all manner of things and to give me input on shooting, angles, and a variety of other things. When you’re starting out, it’s best to get a team of people who have some experience and who can help you get things rolling. Without the support of the team, I would have been floundering. The pilot could not have been made without all of them, cast and crew. Thank you one and all.

#5 Scheduling Properly

Ugh, scheduling. It’s hard, but necessary. Alright, it wasn’t that hard really. We broke down the script into scenes then analyzed what and who was in each scene. That gave us a really easy way to schedule our shoot. We only have six scenes and a dozen actors, so it wasn’t a massive undertaking, but on the feature-length project we’re doing next, it will be. When we broke it down, we found that there were three scenes which basically had all the same cast in it, across three locations which were all fairly close. So when we lost that day to camera malfunction, we were able to combine the two days of shooting into one with the same cast. We also had two other scenes with the same equipment, cast and requirements. They were shot at the same location (and through the magic of filmmaking look like two sites) and so that meant a single day of shooting could get them both done, and we did. Also, be sure to leave some time in the shooting schedule for those catastrophic malfunctions…because the Fates are fickle and nothing is perfect in the universe… Plus, you might find you need time for other things like pick ups (extra shots) and ADR (additional dialog recording), so schedule some buffer days.

#6 Go with the flow

This is vital. I was on the verge of a mental breakdown when that camera broke. This was mostly because of the deadline that was placed on us. So this piece is really for both directors and producers. Like I said in #1, shit happens, so instead of working against it, simply go with the flow. It will make your life a lot easier.  In the end, the cast and crew were all very understanding about the camera failure and graciously rescheduled everything with me. The deadline, didn’t move. That was suddenly far more pressure than I would have liked. Ultimately, we made the deadline with the rough draft. It just wasn’t anything near what we had wanted to send that day. If there had been more wiggle room with the deadline, we could have sent off a better product first time round. As I said, we ended up getting it all done, but then we were expected to hit yet another ridiculous deadline. I simply said no. There was no way I was going to have the post production team work through the Thanksgiving weekend. So we didn’t, we all enjoyed the time off and came back and wrapped things up a week later. No one died because I fought to push the deadline back, the show got done and is all the better for the extra time. Plus, we managed to get some extra pick up shooting in to help strengthen the end product.

#7 Color Correction can do wonders

With the nigh impossible budget and schedule we were given we didn’t have a lot of (read any) time for retakes. So we had to work with what we had. Luckily, my DP was a pretty smart guy, way smarter than me, and used color correction sparingly, but to great effect. That helped clean up some of the major problems we had with some footage. Since we were going for a more noir look we had a lot of hard shadows and such and it worked. But that tiny little RGB Curves feature in Premiere Pro is amazing.

#8 Ambient sound covers lots of mistakes

This might also fall into have a plan B. We had some sound problems which I might have mentioned already. In the future we’ll be using two systems to capture sound. That’s really the thing I learned, never trust a non-redundant system. It’s why I’ve now got two cameras as well, both in case of catastrophic failure and to make sure we always get the shot. But this is about sound and when we used a truck in one scene it was so loud that it totally blew out almost all other sound. So we had to yank that and drop in something else. That left a distinct absence of any kind of background sound which felt odd, so we had to add that in as well. Luckily, again because of my awesome DP, we had minutes and minutes of ambient sound at each location and we filled it with some other sound effects.

 #9 Simple VFX mean awesome visuals

With a superhero show there’s bound to be times when we need to do some VFX. With the pilot we had just one but in the future, throughout season one, there are several things we will want to do. I realized that they don’t have to be those massive, over-the-top visuals Hollywood likes to use in almost every action film. They can be simpler and still be effective. While the VFX we did wasn’t 100% what I had envisioned, it worked for what I was trying to convey. So remember, don’t go big when less will do in VFX.

#10 Retain Whatever Rights Possible

Sooner or later, there will be some disagreement about something. That’s how it goes. In my case, the ‘producers’ wanted us to stick closer to the original script while I wanted to flesh some things out more for the viewer. Creative differences happen. On top of that, other business differences might crop up as well. As a creator, make sure you retain the rights to your own stuff or you might simply lose control of it. In my case, I entered a contest and read the contract carefully. Later, when I found out how things would work if I won the contest, I was far from pleased and so am hoping I don’t win now. I know it’s weird to hear that, but it’s true. I would rather not win and have the rights to my show and work revert completely to me so that I can do things like a director’s cut of the pilot and then shop that around for funding. Granted, the company that ran the contest does have a license to the pilot that was produced but I still own “all right, title and interest, including copyright and all other rights, in and to the Product and all derivatives thereof, to be used (or not) for the purposes the Filmmaker will, in the Filmmaker’s discretion, determine.”

There are some other things I learned during that shoot, but it’s all more technical and less general and might not apply to many of you. The key thing is, shit happens, roll with it. I like to paraphrase Buddha a lot in my life and so I will leave you with my favorite of those:

Don’t worry about the small stuff. In the end, it’s all small stuff.

Homeowners in California are buying fake documents to delay foreclosures on their properties, a local paper reports.

Prosecutors in Stanislaus County, California, have cottoned on to the practice and begun cases against four homeowners. The four are accused of filing phony court documents – claiming the debt has been repaid or changing a trustee – in an attempt to stall foreclosure proceedings.

“It comes to a point where enough is enough. How many breaks can we give these people?” Jeff Mangar, a prosecutor with the district attorney’s fraud unit, told The Modesto Bee. Staff handling filings are now aware of the practice and tip off investigators.

The counterfeit court filings are available online – for a fee – from websites claiming they can tie up banks in administrative proceedings for years. A website reviewed by the Bee claims none of its 2,600 customers have made a mortgage payment in the past two years.

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Given the number of different sources online, determining what constitutes legitimate information on the practice of search engine optimization and which assertions are either factually incorrect or maliciously wrong can be incredibly challenging.

So, in order to sort the wheat from the chaff of the digital marketing information published online, I’ve rounded up ten of the most common SEO myths I see online, as well as detailed explanations on why each belief is wrong. I hope you find them useful when it comes to planning your website’s future marketing strategies!

Myth #1: SEO is Dead

Sorry, nope. Every time a new Google algorithm change rolls around, industry “experts” sound the death knell for the entire search engine optimization field. However, the fact that people continue to have success manipulating given site variables in order to improve their natural search rankings conclusively proves that this isn’t the case.

SEO might change from time to time, but it certainly can’t be considered “dead” by any stretch of the imagination.

Myth #2: SEO is Spam

Beyond the common “SEO is dead” myth, I also see plenty of people calling out industry practitioners as being black hat spammers, as if there are no legitimate SEO tactics that fall within Google’s Webmaster Guidelines.

Of course, there are techniques that fall under this negative umbrella, but plenty of the best SEO tactics also look a lot like proper website management—with or without rankings optimization as a primary purpose.

Writing good web content, participating fully on social media sites, and building relationships with potential linking partners are all things that any website owner should be doing to grow his brand, dispelling the notion that SEO tactics only represent shady dealings.

Myth #3: Anyone Can Do SEO

Now, let me be careful with this one. Anyone can learn SEO, but until that training has advanced to an appropriate level, not everyone can do SEO effectively.

Basically, what I’m trying to get at is that there’s a big difference between working with an experienced, qualified SEO professional and passing off your company’s SEO needs to an IT worker, simply because he works with computers. SEO best practices take time to understand and develop, meaning that you should proceed with caution whenever passing off these needs to a potentially unqualified source.

Myth #4: Buying Links or Social Signals Will Make My Pages Rank Better

There are plenty of websites out there selling you fake Facebook “Likes” or packs of “10,000 backlinks for $10.”  And while their website copy may be compelling, these programs do not represent a viable alternative to true SEO.

At best, purchasing these packages will give you a temporary, undeserved boost in your website’s search result rankings. But a far more likely scenario is that they’ll wind up being swiftly devalued (if not outright penalized) by Google and the other search engines, making them a potentially dangerous waste of money that should be avoided in favor of legitimate SEO best practices.

Myth #5: The More Links I Have, the Better

Think about this commonly-held myth for a second: If ranking well in the natural search results was simply a race to see who could acquire the most backlinks, the SERPs would look like a very different place!

So yes, the quantity of links pointing at your website does play a role in your site’s SEO equity. But even more valuable is the relative quality of each of these backlinks. When combined with the hundreds of other variables that search algorithms weight to determine their rankings, it’s obvious that your total backlink volume plays only a small role in your site’s search success.

Myth #6: Good Content Will Guarantee My Pages Rank Well

Although Google has been making plenty of noise about how much it values high-quality page content, let me be the first one to pop this bubble. While good content is important, this single ranking variable isn’t enough on its own to guarantee high-search placements.

Believing this SEO myth is akin to taking an “if you build it, they will come” mentality on your website. Good content alone won’t catch the search engines’ eyes. After all, there are thousands upon thousands of sites out there boasting high value posts and articles.

Instead, this good content must be paired with other SEO ranking signals (like, for example, the quantity and quality of backlinks pointing to it) in order to improve its placement within the natural search results.

Myth #7: Google Penalized My Site

If you spend any amount of time in digital marketing forums, you’ve probably come across dozens of posts from people claiming that “Google penalized my site.”

Here’s the thing, though: Manual penalizations by Google are exceedingly rare and are usually only executed in response to the most egregious of SEO violations. So, why the disconnect between the number of people who have seen diminished natural search results and the number of manual penalties that are actually given?

What most of these webmasters are seeing is actually Google’s devaluation of the SEO strategies that they’ve been using on their sites.  As an example, take Google’s action against blog networks, which devalued an entire backlink structure overnight. Sites that were using this technique saw their search rankings fall, but it wasn’t because they had been penalized. Instead, large portions of their backlink profiles had been devalued, causing their overall SEO equity to be lowered and their rankings to fall.

So, the next time you see a decrease in your natural search rankings, don’t be so quick to jump on the “Google penalized me” bandwagon. Read this GMB blog article from Web 20: nine times out of ten, you haven’t been singled out—your chosen SEO techniques have simply been devalued.

Myth #8: PageRank is the Only Metric That Matters

I’ve already mentioned in this article that Google considers hundreds of different ranking factors in its search algorithms,so why do so many SEOs get hung up on this one particular element?

Sure, it’s true that having a high PageRank used to matter more when it came to ranking well in the natural search results. And it’s also true that courting links from pages with higher PageRank can generate more link equity when pointed back to your website.

That said, being able to say that you have a PR3 homepage, rather than a PR1 homepage, matters very little in the grand scheme of things. There are plenty of other more important SEO metrics out there that deserve more of your attention than this single attribute.

Myth #9: Using Google Analytics Allows Google to Spy on Me

If I had a dollar for every conspiracy theorist SEO who told me that using Google Analytics allowed Google to “spy” on his website, well … I’d have at least enough money to the entire Single Grain team out for a night on the town.

Certainly, part of the issue is that so much of the world of SEO operates under speculation and secrecy. Since Google won’t (and shouldn’t) confirm which factors influence its ranking algorithms and to what degree, SEOs have to piece together their own understanding of the field. This can lead to speculation regarding correlations that don’t exist, as in the case of rankings going down around the same time as some key metric within Google Analytics.

However, to totally clear this one up for you, here’s Matt Cutts talking about how the data found within Google Analytics is never actually used by the teams involved in search algorithms.

Myth #10: SEO is a “Paint by Numbers” Solution

One final myth I’d like to resolve is the idea that SEO is a simple set of steps that, once learned, can be applied to any website of any size in any niche.

Clearly, if you give this idea a bit of thought, it’s obvious why it can’t be true. A website like Zappos needs to take different steps to improve its natural search performance than a small, “mom and pop” website in the home remodeling industry. Sure, each website might engage in similar tactics (for example, social media marketing and link building), but the way they’ll apply these practices means that their ideal SEO strategies will barely resemble one another.

As such, before planning out an SEO strategy for a given website, it’s important to understand both the site’s current optimization level and its relationship with others in the same industry. Only with effective competitor research and a thorough understanding of how SEO techniques should be best applied can you put this myth to rest once and for all!

Have you heard of any other commonly held SEO myths?  If so, share your thoughts in the comments section below so that we can all set the record straight! 

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