Real estate cold, real estate TV hot

NEW YORK --

Real estate may have cooled considerably as an investment, but not real estate television.

House flipping and home renovation programs are still big hits on cable. While "for sale" signs sprout on lawns across the country, TV programmers are like developers who plow ahead with new housing projects anyway.

A new season of the A&E Network's "Flip This House" - one of a troika with TLC's "Flip That House" and Bravo's "Flipping Out" - premieres Saturday night.

A&E has several new programs in development. At least six new ones are beginning on TLC in the next year, starting with "Date My House," where former "Bachelor" Bob Guiney hosts a program where potential buyers spend a night in a home on the market.

HGTV had its highest prime-time ratings ever in January. Nine of its top 10 series deal with the housing market, including "House Hunters," "My First Place," "Hidden Potential," "Buy Me" and "Design to Sell." The network did a special Feb. 29 theme day of "taking the big leap," or investing in that first house.

"What's driving interest right now is that people are worried about it - 'what's the value of my home? How can I increase interest in my home?'" said Jim Samples, HGTV president. "And then there's the 'life goes on' factor. People are still changing jobs, families are still getting bigger. If anything, they tend to nest in this environment."

Samples has a personal interest in the topic. He's in the process of selling a home in Atlanta and buying one in Knoxville, Tenn., where HGTV has its headquarters.

He admitted, though, that one of his first questions last fall upon taking over HGTV was how the housing market downturn would affect HGTV's programs.

HGTV essentially built itself on the public fascination with property. At its start, the network had shows on crafts and landscaping, but now the home is the focus.

"House Hunters," which premiered in 1999, helped introduce real estate as a prime TV target. When TLC's "Trading Spaces" became a sensation, it proved that renovation and decoration could be entertainment instead of simply chores.

The network has concentrated recently on reviving that franchise, even bringing original host Paige Davis back after a two-year absence.

"Flip That House" will become more reflective of the economy, said Brant Pinvidic, TLC's senior vice president of programming. Not every "flipper" gets rich quick. The show will make sure every time at the end to clearly outline how each investor did, he said.

"If the programming reflects the attitudes in the community and what people are feeling it will do better than if the programs feel outdated," Pinvidic said.

The new "Date My House" reflects how a seller's market has become a buyer's market, he said. "At its core it speaks to the sellers who are now saying, 'what can I do to reach the buyers on an emotional level and make them commit to my house,'" he said.

Robert Sharenow, senior vice president for alternative programming at A&E, said he believes the market has made people more interested in finding out how to make the most of what they have, and programming should reflect that need.

"Flip This House" is expanding its cast of characters for the upcoming fourth season, adding renovation teams in Atlanta and Los Angeles to join returning "flippers" from San Antonio and New Haven, Conn.

HGTV said it has resisted house-flipping shows to concentrate on helping viewers make their own homes more appealing and livable and, as a result, more valuable.

"The real estate market is always going to have cycles and when we plan programming, we look at it in a three-to-five-year time frame," Samples said. "It wouldn't be a great decision to be making programming decisions based on how the market is going at the moment."

Peter Schiff, author of "Crash Proof: How to Profit from the Coming Economic Collapse," said he could understand why networks still love this programming. Some are essentially infomercials for real estate agents and people in the home renovation business, he said, and advertisers love supporting the genre, too.

He's not very surprised that the market downturn hasn't led to a downturn in real estate programming.

"The myth dies hard," Schiff said. "It's going to take awhile for Americans to understand the reality that what happened in real estate the last decade was a fantasy."

House-flipping shows increasingly create a false sense of hope in the eyes of homeowners about the value of real estate as an investment, he said. Of course, difficulty in obtaining loans will dash those hopes.

The better home shows will focus on helping people learn do-it-yourself projects to increase the value of their homes, he said.

A&E's Sharenow said he believes programs like "Sell This House" and "Flip This House" have proven themselves immune to the whims of the market.

"These shows at their core are about how to buy and sell your house," he said. "These questions are just as relevant now as when the market was robust, and it was easy to sell your house."

"Serve with Integrity"

Friday was the George Washington’s Birthday that many of us grew up celebrating, and last Monday was the new federal holiday honoring George and our other Presidents. That got me thinking about George, and the first thing that came to mind was the old cherry tree legend – the one about “I cannot tell a lie.” Of course there’s “Honest Abe” also.

What a legacy to be remembered as being honest, as someone who told the truth. I don’t think we’re talking about tactless truth where you tell people that their shirt is ugly or that they should get a haircut or that their joke wasn’t funny. I think we’re talking about an admirable character trait that serves a person in life as well as beyond that.

Look at how many years have passed since Washington or Lincoln served in the Presidency, yet honesty is still ascribed to both. It is not limited to them. It’s just that when we think of them we also think of their character.

The trait of being honest is part of a larger set of character traits called integrity. This is what you stand for. It’s also what you won’t stand or put up with – how you won’t go against your own core beliefs.

My senior year in high school, I was a member of the Key Club, the high school organization of Kiwanis International. That year, the theme of the annual oratorical contest (which I incidentally won for my district) was “Serve with Integrity.”

At that time, integrity wasn’t a concept that was being taught in school. I’m not sure it is today either. Needless to say, I had to do some research before I could prepare my address.

That was a great experience and one I still remember. I think “Serve with Integrity” is a great life motto.

It means regardless of what we’re doing – building homes, selling them, advertising them, designing them, decorating them, inspecting them, appraising them, lending money on them – that we are known as a person of integrity. That we are not more interested in the sale or the paycheck than we are the customer. That we truly believe in what we are doing and consider it to be an admirable calling. That we approach our work with a wholeness and completeness that allows us to give our all in the pursuit of it. That it requires and receives our honest effort and our honest dealings with our customers. No shortcuts. No hedging.

This is what I mean by “Serve with Integrity” and I think our customers will admire us for it and want to work with us.

The Meaning of Location, Location, Location

I've seen buyers get so excited over the updates in a home that they forget about the first rule of real estate: location, location, location.

Generally, buyers will get the best return for their money if they buy the worst house in the best neighborhood. If a cosmetic fixer needs carpeting or the floors refinished, buyers might receive a discount on price. Plus, then buyers can choose carpeting or floor finishes that match their own tastes and not that of the seller. On the other hand, buyers will most certainly face a harder time selling down the road if they buy the best house in the worst neighborhood.

Yet, many buyers gravitate toward the right homes in the wrong locations. After looking at a few dozen homes, it's easy to get swept up in the excitement of finding that perfect home. That perfect home might have the right configuration and plenty of amenities but if it's in a bad location, you might want to consider passing it by. Regardless of its price . . . read more about Location, Location, Location.

My Real Estate Website Doesn't Produce Leads

This seems to be the number-one concern among real estate agents these days ... a website that doesn't produce any viable real estate leads. Or one that doesn't produce any leads at all.

Sometimes the answer is obvious. Other times, it calls for some speculation. For example, some websites have such obvious problems that you can spot them at a glance. Maybe there are no lead generation systems in place at all, or perhaps the website doesn't function properly.

In other cases, however, the website may appear to be well-designed from a lead generation standpoint, but it still does not produce any real estate leads. This is a tougher scenario to evaluate.

In the latter case, the lack of real estate leads could just be because of the market. After all, if there's not a lot of real estate activity in your area, you can't expect a steady stream of leads to pour through your real estate website. In many cities -- from Nashville to Tucson and elsewhere -- this is what we are seeing right now. And in this case, you simply have to look at your traffic stats. Are you even getting any traffic on a daily basis? If not, you have no hope of producing real estate leads from the website.

If your stats reveal a steady stream of website traffic day in and day out, but you are not getting any leads from the website, then there is something lacking from a lead generation standpoint. In such cases, these are the things I usually troubleshoot first:

Does the website offer any reason why people should contact the agent, or fill out the form, or whatever the conversion goal is? If not, this needs to be addressed first and foremost.

Are the conversion points easy to find, or is the real estate website in such a messy state that visitors can't find their way around? This is a usability issue, and one of the ways you can spot it is through high percentages of people who hit the home page only to leave right away (without clicking further into the website).

These are the things I would start with when troubleshooting a real estate website with good traffic levels but poor lead generation. Often, it's just a matter of cleaning things up and presenting something of value that people would want.

I also see a lot of those "Free Reports" offered on real estate websites, presumably for lead generation purposes. Many of the so-called reports I encounter are poorly positioned in several ways. First of all, they will consist of information the web visitor can easily find elsewhere online. For example, "Top 10 Tips for Buying a Home" is so worn out and overused that it's sad really. Without much effort, I could probably Google that phrase and find it plastered all across the Web.

So who is going to offer their email address in exchange for a generic article they can find on thousands of other websites? Consumers are web-savvy these days, and they know how to ignore useless info and find the good stuff.

So let's say you took the "free report" concept and injected it with steroids and other performance-enhancing substances ... metaphorically speaking of course. Let's say you created an actual e-booklet, in PDF format. And let's say that it was all about the local real estate scene in your area. Suddenly, the booklet becomes something that people cannot find anywhere else, thus the perceived value of the item increases.

Now let's take this further and hire a graphic designer to create a "virtual cover" for the booklet -- one that you can use to promote it on your website. People believe in what they see, so sometimes a little visual entice is all it takes to get people to starting filling out those web forms.

But we're not done yet. Let's create a press release and distribute it online to announce this insightful new guide to the real estate scene in [your town] ... jam-packed with recent sales statistics, development news, residential reports and more. A must-read for anyone planning to buy a home in [your town].

I've shared enough. You get the idea. But suffice to say these are only steps 1 through 7 of about 15 steps I would take ... if I were serious about generating leads through my real estate website. I offer these kinds of ideas and strategies all the time, but very few people implement them. And do you want to know why?

Because nobody ever said lead generation was easy!

Those who put in the extra effort will reap the extra rewards. And those who keep peddling their "Top Ten Tips for Buying a Home" will probably find another line of work at some point.

Finding Your Dream Home

Many people believe that it is impossible to find the home of their dreams unless they have very large amounts of money available to buy the home that they want. This common belief is not necessarily true, if you know the right places to look, you will be able to find your dream home and not spend a fortune on it.

If you want to invest in real estate and stop wasting your money paying rent, it is possible and you can even find a home that will cost about the same as your monthly rent payment. All you have to do is find the right resources and know how they will work together. One place that you can look is at home auctions or in areas where there have been bank foreclosures. Many of these homes will be ones that the previous owners could not pay for and the bank was forced to foreclose on them. Because there is no one paying for the house, the bank is having to pay for it and often times the bank will lower the price of the home so that they will not have to keep paying for it.

If you do not know where to look for bargain homes, you can just browse through locations and do some investigating on your own. Many times, the Internet and local real estate magazines are designed to show you the market and they will also include the lowest priced homes in their listings. If you search local resources, you will be able to compare the homes that are available and you will also be able to see the homes that are lower priced because of things such as foreclosures.

When it is time to look for the home of your dreams, you do not even have to set a foot outside. You can instead search what is available using the Internet and real estate magazines and find a home that will fit both your individual style and your budget.

The Price of Admission

Many salespeople complain that they have trouble getting basic contact information from their customers. Knowing who you talked to has always been important, but in a time when traffic is down and people often are taking longer to make a decision, it is vital that you have a record of who you visited with and a way to back keep in touch with them if you ever want to make a future sale.

In new home sales, I’ve found that people want 2 things when they visit your model or sales center: they want to look at the model, and they want a brochure.

That’s fine. That’s why you’re open. You’re happy to accommodate them. However, there is one condition.

If it was just a matter of letting people look at your model and pick up a brochure, you wouldn’t even need to be there. You could leave the door unlocked and provide a stack of brochures for people to take. There’s a little more to it than just letting the customers get what they want.

After all, you’re in business to sell homes and make money. Therefore, you have to get what you want as well.

In order to have any chance of making a sale with someone, you first need to have a conversation with them. Learn about their needs and what they want.

If they don’t buy and close on the first visit, you need to have a record of who they are so you can contact them again and pursue the sale. You need their name and at least a good telephone number.

An email address will suffice in the early going, but it doesn’t substitute for a phone number. At some point, you must be able to have an actual conversation with your customers – unless they didn’t like what you offer well enough to want to talk with you again.

So here it is. You have a model that customers want to see, and you have a brochure. They have their contact information. You simply make an equitable exchange. They get what they want, and you get what you need.

Look at it this way: act as if the price of admission to your model is the customer’s telephone number (and other contact information).