Real Estate Zealot

3rd Annual Metro Brokers Triathlon is for Everyone!

The 3^rd Annual Metro Brokers TriathlON Friday is a fun event for families and professional triathletes, as well. Come join the fun on Friday night, June 3^rd, 2011 at Cherry Creek State Park. Register at metrobrokerstriathlon.com.

Interviewer: Hi I am Kathy Soltero with Metro Brokers TV. Today we are talking with Mike Bradley he is with Metro Brokers Eagleview Properties. Thanks so much for coming in Mike.

Mike Bradley: Thank you.

Interviewer: You are talking about one of my most favorite events and it is our 3^rd Annual Metro Brokers Triathlon.

Mike Bradley: Yes.

Interviewer: Coming up pretty soon too isn't?

Mike Bradley: Yeah, June 3^rd of 2011.

Interviewer: Very good, at Cherry Creek State Park and tell me how you actually came up with the concept?

Mike Bradley: Well Metro Brokers had traditionally held a golf tournament and that's about 60 people who participate, it's one day, it doesn't have a lot of visibility and I proposed the idea of doing something that's bigger, attractive to a larger audience, has more publicity and realized from doing triathlons on my own that there's just not a lot of opportunities to do a triathlon and so we came up with this concept, got approved and moved forward from there.

Interviewer: And how did it actually come together and be a reality for you?

Mike Bradley: It took a while, but we got hooked up with a race director and he said, 'yeah, you can do this' and he put us in alignment with all the right resources and then we got a staff of volunteers and a great committee together and then Lodo's Bar & Grill jumped on as one of our bigger sponsors and they catered the whole thing. And our race director said you need something that's kind of unique to standout and a Friday evening event was what we selected, nothing is done on a Friday, and it works out so well.

Interviewer: Oh I think it does too, it's just awesome, and last year was my first year actually being there and I was just so amazed at how fun it is.

Mike Bradley: It's really good. Yeah.

Interviewer: It's just a great event and it's big... it's growing too isn't it?

Mike Bradley: Yeah it's a great, it's a family event, but it's also a USAT certified course. So we have professionals, we have amateurs, we have newbies, we have families that come out and do relay teams, it's just a great gathering on a Friday evening, it doesn't interfere with weekend activities and you know the publicity is great for Metro Brokers, but the sponsorship money, the registration money, all of it benefits and goes to the Adaptive Adventures charity, that's who we give that money to.

Interviewer: That's awesome. Tell me what's going to be a little bit different this year's event?

Mike Bradley: Well we are trying to improve it year to year and so this year we have a new timing company, we have a new race director, we have new trophies, and we have done something different with registration where all registration is either race day or online and there's no processing fees and then we are doing something that we have heard a lot of complaints about, the events shirt, one of the biggest complaints is that the shirts never fit, we have actual sizes, men's and women's sizes from double XL to our double extra small to triple extra-large.

Interviewer: Okay.

Mike Bradley: So if you register by May 13^th you get the exact shirt size that you want to get.

Interviewer: Is there an age that you have to be to be in this?

Mike Bradley: Nope, we have age... well it starts at age 14 and it goes up to whatever, but there are age brackets and then divisions for Athena which is the weight class for women and Clydesdale weight class for men, there's the newbie division and the physically challenged division as well.

Interviewer: Okay, so recap quickly for us some of the main things, its going to be on Friday the 3^rd...

Mike Bradley: Friday, June 3^rd at 6:00 p.m. start time.

Interviewer: Okay.

Mike Bradley: And we get started about four o'clock, everyone shows up, gets set up and then we're in the water at six.

Interviewer: Okay.

Mike Bradley: And all the registration is on metrobrokerstriathlon.com.

Interviewer: Okay very good. Thanks so much Mike it's so great to see you and we will see out on June 3^rd.

Mike Bradley: Great thanks for having me.

Interviewer: And if you do want more information about the triathlon; be sure to log onto metrobrokerstriathlon.com. Have a great day.

Moving Ahead without the Tax Credit Incentives

Alison Brennan talks to us about how the tax credit effects home buying, as well as how the extensions affect sellers and buyers alike.  She also discusses opportunity that still exist and how to be creative without the government’s help.

 

 

Build Your Real Estate Business Using Online Strategies

John Skrabec from Live Urban Real Estate in Denver discusses the strategies of building an on-line presence to market your real estate business.

Interviewer: Today we are talking with John Skrabec, broker-owner of Live Urban Real Estate in Denver. John welcome to the show.

John Skrabec: Dan, good to see you.

Interviewer: Thanks for being here.

John Skrabec: Thanks.

Interviewer: Today we are talking about four things every broker should know about building an online presence.

John Skrabec: Right.

Interviewer: And the first thing when people think online, they are thinking probably spreading out to the masses. Is it still important to kind of pick an area?

John Skrabec: I think its critical to your online success to pick an area. You know weve kind of focused on urban Denver and thats our specific market opportunity and its where we wanted to focus our business, certainly can that be anywhere but having that focus in that priority area certainly helps create a brand, create an identity and starts crafting a brand image that you could build on for building your business.

Interviewer: I dont think a lot of brokers know that even though they are online and they may be advertising with a portal here or doing something here that they can still zero in on a local area, a Greenwood Village or Cherry Hills, whatever it may be.

John Skrabec: Whatever it may be. And I think once you do that, then you have to start delivering the information.

Interviewer: Yeah.

John Skrabec: And becoming the expert in that area and proving to people that you know that area whether its Park Hill or Wash Park or the Highlands or Greenwood Village or Brighton, whatever that might be.

Interviewer: Okay.

John Skrabec: Certainly once you decide that then you start delivering that hyper local information, you know; you have the information about those communities, the schools, the shopping, and the best local coffee shop.

Interviewer: So lets talk about that because every realtor asks the $64,000 question which is; "If Im going to give them content, what do I give them, what do they want to see?"

John Skrabec: Well I think that todays buyers and sellers want to see up to the minute online statistics. Thats where MetroList and PrimeAccess really comes in, we pull active up to the minute data, everyday, feed it into our website, so if you go to the page thats about Bonnie Brae, youre going to find out how many houses are on the market, whats the average asking price, how long will they be on the market, and they will be able to quickly view those listings. And thats what people want, they want that information quickly and its replicating, kind of that one-on-one experience, that you might have with a client at open house or the office, and replicating that experience online and thats what I think is really important to do when youre building an online presence.

Interviewer: Now one of the things that Ive told realtors for ages is that, you know, you cant constantly be selling, particularly when you are delivering content online. Every once in a while you should throw in a mixture of stuff that just kind of like 'news they can use, that type of thing.

John Skrabec: Well and I think thats where kind of the social media, blogging, dialogue kind of comes in and using those channels to be able to do that. We have a lot of our brokers, we have a group blog and weve got 50 brokers in the office, and they are all blogging about those kinds of topics, whats happening in the neighborhoods, whats happening in the market in that specific pocket of homes, neighborhood events, things like that. So we're creating that dialogue, thats also helping drive people to the site.

Interviewer: Yeah. That sounds interesting those statistics, weve got to wrap up now, but the number one reason why people would unfriend you on social networking is too frequent, irrelevant posts.

John Skrabec: Right, and I think that delivering that data, relevant data that people want to hear is critical, we spend a lot of time thinking about that, timely messages that are about the market, people friend Live Urban Real Estate online because they want to know up-to-the-minute real estate information and thats what we deliver to them.

Interviewer: Thank for being with us.

John Skrabec: Dan, a pleasure.

Interviewer: Appreciate it.

John Skrabec: You bet.

METRO BROKERS INC. PROUDLY ANNOUNCES PARTNERSHIP WITH COLORADO EAGLES HOCKY TEAM

Contact: Courtney Lis Voca

PR 970.581.6231

Courtney@vocapr.com

 

METRO BROKERS INC. PROUDLY ANNOUNCES PARTNERSHIP WITH COLORADO EAGLES HOCKY TEAM

Relationship will facilitate Metro Brokers expansion and commitment to Northern Colorado

(Loveland, Colo.) - July X, 2010 – Metro Brokers, Inc. www.metrobrokersonline.com is proud to announce a joint partnership with the Colorado Eagles, Northern Colorado’s beloved hockey team based in Loveland, CO. Metro Brokers will be involved in a variety of marketing and sponsorship opportunities during the upcoming 2010/2011 hockey season at the Budweiser Events Center. Metro Brokers is dedicated to growing its membership and client base in and around Fort Collins and this relationship will help foster brand awareness for the growing real estate company in Northern Colorado.

“The Colorado Eagles have established an amazing fan base in Northern Colorado,” said Bob Luna, president, Metro Brokers, Inc. “This is a perfect venue for Metro Brokers to establish itself among the people in the community in a creative and unique manner and establish a strong identity by getting involved with such a noteworthy organization.”

As president of Metro Brokers, Bob Luna has been committed to growing its membership base into outlying areas along the front-range and this relationship illustrates their commitment to the people of Northern Colorado. A total of 9 Metro Brokers offices and 50 agents currently reside in the area.

“Metro Brokers is the ideal business model for those agents interested in controlling their own destiny,” said Doug Lindstrom, broker owner of the Metro Brokers Loveland office. “As a result, we have experienced substantial growth and success during the down market. We hope this partnership with the Eagles will prove our commitment to Northern Colorado, help us grow our businesses and foster a long relationship within our community.”

Metro Brokers Inc. provides real estate agents an independent framework to succeed through innovative technologies, brand awareness, continuing education courses and extensive multi-media mix marketing. Unlike other real estate companies, Metro Brokers Inc. is actually owned and operated by its brokers and prides itself on its strong team of agents.

“Just like the Metro Brokers organization, the Colorado Eagles are a hard working, high producing, and successful team, making this partnership a perfect fit for both sides,” said Lindstrom.

About Metro Brokers, Inc.

Metro Brokers, Inc. has been Colorado's leader in real estate, technology and services, for more than 30 years, providing the framework, structure, brand and freedom for real estate brokers to work professionally, efficiently and profitably. Our network of nearly 2,000 highly experienced real estate professionals specialize in residential, commercial and investment properties and have access to ground breaking technologies, continuing education courses, and innovative marketing that help buyers and sellers make the most of their real estate transactions. Unlike most other real estate companies Metro Brokers, Inc. is actually owned and operated by its brokers.

A Conversation about the Luxury Home Market

Alison Brennan talks to us about how the local luxury real estate market compares to the national market, and what local markets are doing better than others.  She also discusses selling in today's market, are people able to sell their property today.

Todd Carpenter-Manager for Social Media with NAR at the 2009 Inman Connect SF

Mark Eibner: This is Mark Eibner with Broker IPTV and we are at Inman Connect in San Francisco, 2009. I am in the lobby here with Todd Carpenter and Todd Carpenter is the Manager for Social Media at NAR, congrats on your position there Todd.

Todd Carpenter: Thank you, thank you very much.

Mark Eibner: So what are you finding out here at this year's with the Inman that maybe different some... than some other events?

Todd Carpenter: Well you know I go to Inman as often as I can because this is where a lot of thought leaders come, not just to speak but to come and listen and so even right here in the hallway, this is a great place to be, you meet a lot of new people, you make a lot of great connections and sometimes those connections don't pay off for a year, but this is where you meet them.

Mark Eibner: Yeah how are things going with your new position at NAR right now with Social Media being something that the national association is looking more at as a viable means for business?

Todd Carpenter: Well I will tell you, when I first came on I thought maybe I was going to have to help, almost evangelize Social Media when going into the associations and really its more like I have to... herd all the different people that really want to use it right now and make sure that we kind of do it in a focused way. So I don't really have to convince anyone that this is a great idea that the association, staff and leadership love the idea of communicating and using the best means is obviously really effective way to do it.

Mark Eibner: Anything on the event or on the forefront here for the national associations meeting this year as far as there is going to be more Social Media classes more people in that genre?

Todd Carpenter: There are definitely going to be more Social Media classes within the annual event itself. In addition to that we are going to have a RE bar camp event which will be the day before the main conference which is un-conference for real estate, a great way to share ideas and then we are even going to have an event called WordCamp and this is a WordPress development seminar which won't even have real estate speakers, its all about how to develop WordPress. WordPress is a blog platform that allows the real estate agency or so the ability to get really geeky if you want to is actually going to be at NAR annual.

Mark Eibner: Excellent, it has been a great scene again Todd I appreciate you are talking with us.

Todd Carpenter: Thanks Mark.

Brad Hanks at the 2009 Inman Connect SF

Mark Eibner: Hi this is Mark Eibner, with Broker IPTV, we are at this year's Inman Connect in San Francisco and I have the pleasure of speaking with Brad Hanks and Brad welcome to show.

Brad Hanks: Thanks Mark glad to be here.

Mark Eibner: What have you seen at this year's 2009 Connect?

Brad Hanks: Ah just lot of forward thinking out there and the direction that the broker's industry is headed, real estate in general just the changes that are on the horizon are just amazing, just amazing.

Mark Eibner: Yeah it gets scary every year actually.

Brad Hanks: It does its hard to keep up with it all and you know I understand what agents and brokers are going through you know trying to keep up with everything, this is a great conference for them to see what's on the horizon.

Mark Eibner: You bet you speak to a lot of brokers out there, you are a specialist with Linked In, Twitter, Facebook things of that nature, you spoke... social media speaker, what can you tell our viewers out there that they really need to be looking at for the future real estate?

Brad Hanks: Well you have got to be almost everywhere out on the web any more to really make an impact and reach your consumer. The consumers are out on the spaces and their expectations are that you are going to be there as well. So I am telling him dip your toe in the water, get into that pool and start swimming.

Mark Eibner: You bet, you have seen a lot of... what about the conversions, we are talking about video and TV and iPhones all this stuff its kind of all coming together?

Brad Hanks: Well that's an amazing development as well. We are going to see so many changes with technology convergence over the next two, three years that's... and it concerns me because lot of brokerages right now and operating in a Web 1.0 world. We need to be on Web 3.0, not just Web 2.0. So they really got to get out there and think through their technology strategies and Inman is a great place for them to pick up some tit bits on how to do that.

Mark Eibner: Anything else you can recommend to our people out there that as far as what you picked up from Inman this year 2009?

Brad Hanks: Well keep an ear to the ground always and look for multiple sources even outside the real estate industry that was the point that was driven home many times throughout these conferences. We have to look beyond our own industry to see what's being used to reach consumers out there, we can't rely on just what's happening in our own industry to make an impact, we have got to think bigger.

Mark Eibner: Yeah well once again Brad great information and thanks for speaking with us.

Brad Hanks: You bet Mark!

Mark Eibner: For more great real estate information and technology make sure to visit: brokeriptv.com.

New United States Seal

The government today announced that it is changing its emblem from an Eagle to a red, white and blue condom because it more accurately reflects the government’s political stance. A condom allows for inflation, halts production, destroys the next generation, protects a bunch of pricks, and gives you a sense of security while you’re actually being screwed!

Both candidates (parties) have their heads so far up their own ass...I need not say more.

Vote Bob Barr
Vote Ron Paul

Mary McKnight says pace yourself when it comes to Social Networking

SEO Queen Mary McKnight of RSS Pieces says pace yourself when it comes to Social Networking

BrokerIPTV: Welcome to BloodHoundBlog's Unchained event here in Phoenix, Arizona and we are here at the Heard Museum and Mary McKnight just got off the stage from giving some information on relevancy in SEO and welcome Mary.

Mary McKnight: Thank you very much for having me.

BrokerIPTV : I know there is a lot of people out there, their eyes were kind of rolling back into their heads with some of the ideas and concepts you presented to them. I think some people thought they were pretty savvy and some people are probably really worried. In this huge sea of information that people are going to be inundated with this weekend is there something you can share with us that you think people need to take away from this social media event?

Mary McKnight: Absolutely and that would be social networking. It is important, but you want to determine how much time you should really spend doing that networking with other realtors, the number one tip I say to people is determine how much of your business you really want from referrals and then take that period of time, let us say the 10% is the amount of referral business you want to take in, then take the entire amount of marketing time you want to spend on the Internet and take only 10% of that and devote it to ActiveRain and social networking with other realtors. The other 90% should be spent building the relationships with the consumer, getting your site to become number one in Google, going to linkedin, using Twitter to connect with consumers in your area.

BrokerIPTV : So, you think maybe a few too many realtors spend a lot of time on ActiveRain and other realtor sites commenting back and forth.

Mary McKnight: Absolutely and not only that, it is diluting the value of your own content by accepting so many comments anyhow. So, stop focusing on networking with other realtors and network with your consumers, the buyers, the sellers.

BrokerIPTV : Great. Excellent advice Mary. We hope to pick up some more tips from you this weekend. Thank you.

Mary McKnight: Thank you very much.

David Gibbons explains Zillow's social media mission

BrokerIPTV: Welcome to BloodHoundBlogs Unchained event sponsored by zillow.com. We are here in Phoenix, Arizona at the Heard Museum and I am honored to have our primary sponsor representative here, David Gibbons from zillow.com. David, can you just tell us why Zillow was involved with events like this Web 2.0 and social media?

David Gibbons: Thanks Mark. This is really good food for us obviously way beyond real estate. The Zillow's mission is to empower consumers through information. Something we realized is that information is not going to all come from our databases. A lot of that information is going to come from local experts. You have heard real estate is local; well, it is very, very true. So where are you going to find the local expertise. The local expertise lies within the experience of the local real estate professional and we realized that to empower our consumers with information from the local real estate professional, we should build a platform whereby local real estate pros and consumers get together and under the same roof and talk about real estate and that is what zillow.com is. So, as you think about from that perspective zillow.com is one big social media marketing opportunity for real estate professionals to show what they are best at. So, this is a perfect fit for us here. Social media is revolutionizing the real estate industry. Zillow wants to be a part of that, equipping realtors to use social media obviously plays into a mission of empowering consumers with information.

BrokerIPTV: Great answer David and we really appreciate your sponsorship here for events like Unchained. Thank you.

David Gibbons: You are welcome. Glad be a part of it.

BrokerIPTV: Wonderful. Thank you very much.