The San Diego Home Blog

to apologize to any commenters (and there were, unfortunately, many) who posted in the past week or so. It seems our little blog temporarily took five. More accurately, it went awol for about 24 hours and, in the process, the most recent comments and posts mysteriously vaporized.

Hopefully, we are back in business now.

We are approaching the day when we all set fire to our Gregorian calendars, a day traditionally marked by resolutions and renewal. Shortly afterwards, I will be heading to New York where I have been invited to participate on a panel at the Inman Real Estate Connect conference.

Dan Green, Jeff Corbett, Rudy Bachraty and I are slated as the opening act for the Blogger’s Connect workshop, which precedes the main event. The program summarizes our mission as follows:

Avoid the Content Brick Wall: Ideas for Fresh and Frequent Blogging
Don’t waste valuable time writing blog entries just to fill space. Learn how blogging can become a de facto customer relationship management tool and how to gauge what topics will keep them coming back for more.

Yikes! The irony is not lost on me, nor is it, I suspect, on you. In the world of blogging, I am small potatoes. My reach, whether measured by influence, notoriety, or number of readers, is modest at best. As I contemplate the end of 2007 and a new year full of opportunity, this is a perfect chance to reflect on what the heck I am doing here and engage in a little self-critique.

The Blogging Ritual

Why start a blog? What’s the point? The point, of course, is to connect with the consumer, to be where my clients are, and to stay relevant as our society evolves technologically and continues its online migration.

Many real estate bloggers maintain their blog as the cornerstone of their business marketing plan. I have always seen the blog as an adjunct to rather than a replacement for traditional marketing efforts. And it is a medium well-suited for Steve and me. While we are not naturally geek-inclined, we have always endeavored to stay current and even in the forefront with our use of technology in delivering service to our clients. Those clients who appreciate the value of technology are most likely the ones who will find us here.

There are as many theories about what a real estate blog should look like and be as there are people participating in the activity, so whatever I do or say here should be considered in that context. My way is not the way, it is just a way. Yet, I am a hard sell to do it any other way.

My “Perfect” Blog

Ours is a service industry. We don’t manufacture anything, and we don’t have a product to sell in the traditional sense. In California alone, there are over 540,000 people licensed to provide the service we provide. The average consumer can’t help but be confused by their choices or have difficulty making a distinction among the cluttered field of agents at their disposal. Perhaps it’s naivete or even wishful thinking, but I believe that through our blogs, the customers can glean a little about us and therefore a lot about those things that differentiate us from others in our industry, for better or worse.

Getting to Know You

As blogs have become the new “must have” for the Realtor(r), I can’t help but think that an agent’s approach to his blog is going to naturally mirror his approach to his business in general. One of the most disturbing trends I see is the canned site with irrelevant content. In the online world, there is this revered deity named SEO, or search engine optimization, which is the modern day call of the Sirens. Pack your blog with keywords, write often, write anything, so long as your content is rich with the words which will return you on page one of the Google search.

You can tell a lot about a person by their blog.

The Chamber of Commerce I’m not. I have seen more than a few real estate sites which have summitted the SEO mountain, yet their articles (written by paid-others) about San Diego Sportfishing and the Best Eateries in the Embarcadero offend me. How does a knowledge of upcoming Concerts in the Park qualify one to assist in a real estate transaction? What message does this send? I don’t have enough respect for my business or your intelligence to post on topic? I am too busy, too detached, or too important to write my own articles? I can buy my way into blogging just as I buy my calendar magnets or bus bench space or my print ads? Quantity over quality. I’m everywhere, therefore, I am the best.

I truly don’t care about numbers of visitors to this site, although I probably should. And the day you find me writing an article in which every sentence includes the phrase “San Diego real estate homes for sale Scripps Ranch San Diego Realtor(r),” I ask that you beat me senseless with a your free CMA.

You only loved me for my keywords.

What I do care about is the number of returning visitors, because when this number is large, it means that I have somehow engaged my audience and, hopefully, provided added value. Added value is what the consumer wants and deserves, and what will distinguish me from the 87 licensed agents living within a mile of me and named “Dave.” For the record, about 40% of our daily visitors here are of the returning variety. This is encouraging, but we can do better. Or can we?

Fidelity is hard to come by.

So, back to the issue of content. While I most obviously can’t be all things to all people, I do believe it is important to provide variety of content. This blog will naturally have a niche audience. That is unavoidable as long as we are providing our own content and speaking with our own voice. But considering the subset of readers which we may attract, their interests and tastes will be varied. So, while I don’t ever write deliberately with keywords in mind, I do intentionally try to mix up the tone. And, mostly, but not always, the subject is at least loosely related to the business of real estate.

Spending Quality Time

Looking back, we have had our share of dry articles on housing statistics, termite and property inspections, contractual issues and the like. We have also had more than our share of posts about our dog, our cat, and our children. Many times, and, no doubt, much to the chagrin of the purists, they are all rolled up into one. We have written for the agent, for the consumer, and sometimes just for our own amusement. In the process, I believe our readers have gotten to know us as both people and professionals.

We have tried to not be overly boastful or commercial. There is place for that in the listing appointment or even at the open house. Here, we have an opportunity to add a little more depth to the “All About Me” page from our presentation book. 

Content is not difficult for me, because real estate is such a big part of my life, and I tend to find parallels or at least connections in much of what I see and do every day. The issue of frequency is another issue altogether. As long as added value is our goal in our business and on our blog, it will be hard for me to just throw a pretty picture on the site and call it a day. And, when we get busy with what we really do, which is represent people in the purchase and sale of residential real estate, our blog posts are less frequent.  Google doesn’t like this, but too bad. Business is business.

A Meaningful Relationship

So, it’s self-critique time, and I have decided that, though far from perfect, I like us just the way we are. Having typed my way through this, I have come to the conclusion that I am more than okay with how we have approached blogging and what we have accomplished. We are not a blogging success in the conventional sense. Search for “San Diego Real Estate”, and you will not find us on page one (yet). But, the decisions we have made here are representative of who we are, both in life and in business. I would rather earn success than buy it. Instead of 3000 blind dates a day who stumble in, I would rather have one reader who returns because he perceives value and detects a difference. This is the person I look forward to having a working relationship with in the future.

We’ll see you in 2008. Will we open with an article on market statistics, a trivial post about our latest trip to Lake Arrowhead or an expose on the dangers of horizontal gas-fired attic furnaces? Beats me, but you won’t find it by searching on Google for San Diego Real Estate.

Good news! I did it!

Here, I shared my frustration with the logistics involved in assembling a family of four to six for a the requisite holiday card photo. Patton’s mobilization of the Third Army had to be a cake walk compared to my challenges. I am proud relieved able to say that I accomplished the mission, but not without casualties.

After two weeks of laying down the law (”Tomorrow at precisely 3:00 pm we will meet in the family room. Come camera-ready!), I finally seized the moment. The moment was 2:43 pm, December 13, 2007. My two daughters walked in the door from school with their wide-eyed looks of innocence, wherein book bags were immediately ripped from their bodies. Steve, who was wandering aimlessly as is so often his way (just kidding, honey), was body blocked and given his marching orders. “Get the camera! And the tripod! And the remote!” It turned out that the tripod and camera were mismatched, the former belonging to the video camera which does not require a threaded connection, so we improvised. “Just balance it on top!” I instructed in my command voice. It also happened that the remote had never been used, which explained the absence of battery, so we reverted to the “set timer and run like he*&” method of self-photography.

Last items of business: Call dog and find cat. Getting the dog was the easy part, as he is never more than two dog-lengths separated from his meal tickets. Finding the cat wasn’t too difficult either, but convincing the cat to be held by a person of human persuasion, and a person fewer than two dog-lengths separated from the dog at that very moment, proved more challenging. The cat ultimately found an escape route (involving claws, clothing and at least one human head), and we believe she is now living somewhere near Albuquerque.

So without further ado, I offer you this year’s Berg Holiday Photo which should be arriving to your mailbox some time in late March, as the printer still shows my order status as “queued.” Hallmark, eat your heart out. Oh, and before you start getting all critical, I am fully aware of the following facts:

• A lint brush is on the end table,
• It is sitting next to a clock that, while stylish, has never been set and perpetually leads one to believe that it is a little after “ten”,
• I am dressed like a homeless person in a card which will be sent to my past clients;
• Daughter #1 is still wearing her coat,
• Steve is sporting REI’s newest Lumberjack Line, and
• The dog is the most photogenic member of the family.

From our family to yours, Happy Holidays!

Steve was dutifully reading his long-anticipated California Presidential Primary Election “Official Voter Information Guide” yesterday, and came across the all-important Proposition 91. This proposition calls for a State constitutional amendment regarding the use of transportation funds, but that isn’t important.

When evaluating how to vote on complex issues of which We the People have little understanding, we routinely refer to the arguments in favor and against which are conveniently presented to us by the “experts” immediately following the 10,000 word, small font legislative description (which we can not understand as we failed to complete our Juris Doctorate course work or don our magic decoder rings this particular day). So, I bring you this, straight from the Information Guide, which should clarify this critical piece of proposed legislation:

Argument in Favor: “As the official proponents of this measure, we are encouraging you to VOTE NO ON PROPOSITION 91.”

Argument Against: “No argument against Proposition 91 was submitted.”

Huh? Steve’s response was, “I can’t wait to read Proposition 92!”

Offering a home for sale has become a lot like our beloved Proposition 91 lately. All indications (the yard sign, the Multiple Listing Service entry, the flyers in the flyer pouch) are that the owner wants to sell. Yet, the arguments in favor are confusing and suggest otherwise. These are some of the ways in which you and your agent could be screaming “Vote No!”.

• Property flyers should not be appear as if they were created with a box of crayons while wearing coordinating oven mitts and then copied on a machine with a depleted ink cartridge.
• Showing instructions should not involve the imposition of obstacles such as “show only between 1:00 and 1:02 on the New Moon Pisces Rising. Agent must be present. Buyer must be prequalified by Seller’s uncle in Raleigh. Don’t enter garage - Agressive emus may bite.”
• MLS entries should be written in a widely-recognized language, such as Sanskrit. Or English.
• Photos should be professional, plentiful, and, preferably, of the home, not of the occupants or of the agent/photographer as reflected in the bathroom mirror.
• Condition should be ‘’show ready.” Now would not be the time to experiment with sponge painting, to redecorate in Early Hunting Lodge, or to try that new recipe for Pickled Puffin with Curry Chutney.
• Price (of course) should be based on actual sales data, market activity and competition, not on a call to the 1-800-Psychic Hotline.

There is nothing new here; we have written about these things repeatedly in the past. My proposition has a new twist. As a seller, it is not you who is to blame but your agent.

All of these mixed messages are ultimately delivered on your behalf by your agent and are within his control. The agent is the “expert” who is responsible for interpreting your needs and presenting the supporting arguments.

I am certain that seven hundred agents are out there right now, arms flailing, hollering, “The seller doesn’t get it! Their price is unrealistic, they didn’t agree to move the sofa (to the landfill), and they won’t allow showings on Monday through Sunday without a presidential pardon!” That very well may be, but then why did you agree to represent them? How can you get everyone to vote “yes” when the proponents are arguing otherwise?

When we “experts” sit down to meet with a client wanting to sell, we have an obligation to honestly advise on pricing and preparation, and in accepting a fiduciary role, we have an obligation to support our client’s proposition to the best or our abilities, with the best marketing, service and counsel we can provide. Sure, we have all lamented, at one time or another, encounters with homeowners who we felt had unrealistic pricing expectations. And, there will always be an agent out there who will ink the listing contract at any price and terms just to get the business, but it doesn’t have to be you.

If you see it as a losing proposition, then don’t accept the assignment. If you accept the job, accept it eyes wide open and don’t proceed to belly-ache about how unenlightened your clients are. You are supposed to be the “expert” who provides the analysis and supports the argument. Take responsibility, and get out and vote!

I want to believe in reincarnation. Not because I want to live over and over again (well, that would be nice), but because I fear that when I am fertilizing the lilies, there will be so much I failed to achieve, a cookie jar of excellence on the top shelf which I couldn’t quite reach. I want to come back as Marc Davison.

This post is quintessential Marc - the perfect combination of fabulous writing and dead-on message.

For the most part, real estate just tries to throw a net around everyone.To be all things to all people. Well, the sad part is, that doesn’t work. You end up appealing to no one. You are like everyone else. Plain vanilla yogurt…

I want to be the more satisfying, fun flavor with sprinkles. And this is one of the greatest values of blogging to me and to my potential clients. You may not like sprinkles, but you at least get the opportunity to peek into the generic packaging to see what’s truly inside before diving in.

What you call a listing, is really my home.
What you refer to as a lead is really just a person looking for some information. 
The neighborhood I live in you call a … farm. 
Once I make a simple inquiry, you incubate me as if I were an egg.
To keep me interested you drip on me rather than shower me with affection.
When you sell my home, I become a notch on your top producer belt.
You market to me as if your personality means more to me than the value of my home.

Agents are trained to be vanilla yogurt. From the day the new agent is shown to his cubicle, he is enrolled in a total emersion class in the language of real estate. While he is taught to farm and drip mail and court his sphere of influence (formerly known as friends), the ideas of professionalism and excellence and integrity are swept under the rug like so much clutter. When lip service is paid to these concepts, it is as a throw-away line, subordinate to the primary goal of getting the deal.

To be a doormat you have to lay down. Agents whine and bemoan the pervasive lack of respect for their numbers, yet we have spent our history trying to enter from the off-ramp. No wonder we’re a wreck. Of course we need clients to make a living, of course we need clients to demonstrate professionalism, excellence and all the rest, and of course we need to market ourselves to earn the customer’s business. But we are coming at it from the wrong direction. The lessons we need to first master are not those involving bulk-mail farming, chasing “expireds”, or converting open house leads. How can we possibly expect the public to respect us when the most respect we can give them is a Recipe of the Month card or a reminder to set their clocks back on Daylight Savings day in the form of a PrintShop-generated door hanger?

On second thought, I want to come back as a real estate Broker-Owner. My office policy manual will include the following:

• No agent shall be allowed to participate in a real estate transaction until they have successfully completed training in basic business practices, contracts, liability, and ethics - real training.
• No agent shall be allowed to participate in a real estate transaction until they have successfully completed training in technology and demonstrated competence through application.
• Ethics violations of any kind will be immediate cause for dismissal.
• No agent will be allowed to even think about paying (or having their clients pay) a Transaction Coordinator to manage their paperwork until they have done it themselves, start to finish, and a minimum of six times. Veteran agents will be required to self-manage at least one transaction per year as continuing education.
• Any agent who even thinks about a marketing program involving unrelated content, including but not limited to “List with me and get a free (anything)”, “Forget-Me-Not” (seed packet included), and “Your Neighborhood Specialist” will be hog tied and left for dead in the title company’s lobby.
• Pop-quizzes will be administered periodically to test the agent’s knowledge of fundamentals such as statistics and trends for their market, statutory disclosure laws, Board rules, mortgage rates, and how to multiply and divide integers. Agents failing to receive a passing grade will be excluded from next year’s office holiday party and have mustaches drawn on their bus bench images (with Sharpies). 
• Property brochures consisting of black and white photocopies of the multiple listing service entry will be set afire.
• Agents without a professional website and email address will be set afire.
• There will be annual performance reviews and minimum standards, not based solely on the agent’s “numbers”, but on the numbers measured against the satisfied customers versus destruction having been left in their wake.

Income alone will not be sufficient to ensure future desk space in my next-life office. This means that I will have to be selective, but I assure you that my office will be full. There truly are many, many exceptional agents out there; you just have to know what to look for, what to teach, and how to inspire.

I will let Marc work for me.

Warning! Boring primer on the Real Estate Settlement and Procedures Act (RESPA) ensues. Refill all coffee cups before proceeding.

I received this very personal and heartfelt email this week from an appraisal company.

Last night was a humble experience for me. Kris had been invited to meet and have dinner with Jonathan Dalton, author of the Dalton’s Arizona Homes, who happened to be in San Diego for a convention. Along with Jonathan, we were joined by Brian Brady from the Mortgage Rates Report, and Jeff Brown (aka the Bawld Guy), whom I had met recently, along with his son, Josh (Bawld Son).

Walking in with Kris and meeting these guys was great, but as I sat there and took in the scene I quickly realized that I was in the presence of some of the best real estate bloggers/writers in the country. Talk about intimidating. Although I was made to feel welcome, I couldn’t help but think I was totally out of my league. Being Kris’ little sidekick is great when it’s just the two of us. She only denigrates me about once a week, which is manageable.

My ace in the hole was that this very literary-endowed  group was meeting at a  Gaslamp Quarter dive named Dick’s Last Resort. The denigration suffered by all at the hands of our waitress was the great equalizer. As I sat there and looked at our elite group, forced to wear bibs and funny hats (compliments of Dick) with hand written descriptions from our waitress that cannot be repeated, I was just one of the boys. Sadly (for Brian and me), they don’t serve cheeseburgers.