rmasse10's Blog: Ranting

Anybody that thinks that you can go out there in the Social Media World, post a few notes, add a few friends, upload a few photos, comment on a few peoples wall, and then "UNFRIEND SOMEONE" and they find out, they are not gonna take it too lightly.  I have been involved in Social Media for a few years now and feel I have a pretty good handle on things.  I don't take anything to heart, you unfriend me, no problem, I just do it back, nuff said.  But a few of my friends, who do not completely understand this arena well, can get extremely irate at another.  This happened just the other day with 2 people I will leave nameless.  One person unfriended the other in Facebook and a few other Networks and person 2 found out.  At that point, person 2 "called out"…

The title should say it all.  All to often, people, Realtors, who are trying to figure out how to get their website to function better in the SERP tend to stray over to the side of just coping content from those that are higher up the SERP's then they are.  This has been the case with me for some time.  I have a fairly successful website for the Tampa Real Estate and Tampa Foreclosures Market, it places very well in the SERP's for many key terms and many Long Tails and have been doing a very good business.  It has taken me a while to get to this point and I continue to work on it almost daily.  Content is tough enough to write, and I have dealt with many a day where I had writers block.

Well, some people, actually, a few people from my office (prior now)…

Being involved in the Tampa Real Estate arena, you are always looking for new ways to advertise yourself and your listings.  Along came a Spider (Social Media) and a new frontier in marketing was born.  Social Media, Linkedin, Facebook, Twitter, etc are great places to stay connected with friends, find out the latest news before its reported, or post an online resume for a job.  Whatever you are using Social Media for, it has its good side and bad side.

So you have seen the good, and that is just a blip of what it can actually do for you, but now for the bad.  People will use it against you, especially when you are at the top of your game.  They will try to take anything that you say, post, etc. and twist it so bad that you actually feel bad about it (but…

Twitter is taking the net by storm, in my opinion.  I, like most everybody that started out with signing up for a twitter account, ended up abandoning it after a few weeks because we just "didn't get it".  Well, 6 months passed and I thought I would take another look at it and BAM, I started to see the genius in it.  I think the thing that confused me was the "What are you doing" question.  Who really cared about what the hell I was doing, Oh yah, I am watching Ghost Hunters, or I am sitting in my chair now, or, I am watching my dog poop in the yard.  Did people really care about this crap.  I figured the answer was a big fat "NO" so I moved on and just assumed that twitter was something for the sub 20 year olds that use txt messaging to go back and forth…

My wife and I sell in the Tampa Real Estate market, or more like my wife sells the real estate and I "Do real estate by Not Doing Real Estate".  It seems like everyone is all of a sudden an expert in the field or they have a friend that is an expert.  "My friend says that I should by short sale properties and go in real low on the price"...who told you that, "My friend told me that is the way to go".  Although this may work sometimes, the likelihood of this working is a long shot.  The only time you should try something like this is if you have no time frame for moving, you don't really care if you get the property, you don't mind waiting for possibly 6 months or more, and you will not get insulted if the bank does not respond to your…

I know, I know, this sounds absolutely absurd, but here me out for a sec'.  The old way of doing real estate, the knocking on doors, meeting people face to face, saying "Hey I am your local Real Estate Expert, Buy with Me..." doesn't work anymore.  I tried them all.  I tried what all the real estate companies told me to do, mirror matching, where my name badge, talk about real estate to everyone you know, call everyone in your sphere list, didn't work for me.  Some 9 months ago I was getting to the point of giving up.  I had decent sales last year doing it the old fashion way, but felt that this was way too hard for me and I was way out of my comfort zone.

My Wife and I out of total frustration, decided to blow off some steam and create a youtube account…

We have some new agents in our office and for someone that has never really done anything like Real Estate before, it can be overwhelming especially if working a deal and another agent is trying to take advantage of the fact that you are new.  I won't go into the details of what is happening with the deal other than I overheard her say that the house blew up (it didn't really but sometimes new agents over exaggerate things), the other agent, who has he buyer is trying to get her and her clients to pay for a bunch of "stuff" that is not needed.  I coached her what to say and if need be I would be more than happy to take the reigns and have a discussion with the other agent.

Long story short, please, we work for our clients, yes, but we have to work…

I can understand with the way the banks have mucked this whole thing up with the Bank Owned Homes and Foreclosures and Short Sales...the Agents still are taking on the attitude of the bank and the Banks are actually turning us fellow Realtors against each other.  Here's a thought, stop taking what the bank says it needs to get to sell the house in a short sale because the number they give you is bogus.  Maybe it is what they would like to get, but not necessarily what they are going to get.  I have seen banks hold out for another $2000 only to have the property finally go to foreclosure, become bank owned and now the property is listed for $50,000 less than what the offer was originally, I don't get it.  Then to make things worse, they wait until they have…