BrokerIPTV Real Estate News and Videos

Colorado-based Metro Brokers Real Estate, Inc. announces another industry first with a leading edge technical application by contracting with IPTVBoyz for a social media portal using a online video-centric blog. The web-based application moves Metro Brokers into the digital-based PR age through the use of the ever expanding internet based video and blog syndication. <read more-watch video>

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BrokerIPTV: We are talking with Steve Brooks today from Brookstone Builders. Steve, welcome.

Steve Brooks: Thanks.

BrokerIPTV: Thanks for being here.

Steve Brooks: Thank you, Dan.

BrokerIPTV: We had you on earlier segment talking about your homes, but refresh that, refresh us a little bit. Brookstone Builders builds where and what?

Steve Brooks: Well, at the moment custom, single family homes in most of the downtown area; when I say downtown, Observatory Park, Hilltop at this point.

BrokerIPTV: Got you. What I want to talk about in this segment is you mentioned you like to build green, and a lot of people say that, but I dont think everybody understands what build green means. So, can you explain?

Steve Brooks: Well, first of all, most states have put together their own green building programs, Built Green Colorado is Colorado's specific program for this state. It has been around, it is one of the oldest programs in the nation. It's very reputable. A lot of other programs around the nation have really duplicated what we have done here in Colorado. Basically, what Built Green is, is its a way for builders to come up with a system for water efficiency, energy efficiency, natural resource efficiency in their building process. The way they do that is they award points for all sorts of different categories and they require a minimum of 75 points to be considered Built Green.

BrokerIPTV: Good. How many points typically is a Brookstone home?

Steve Brooks: You know I am always uping the ante. So, my most current home that I am about to complete will probably achieve about 250 points. So, but I am always looking for ways to improve that. Many of those points that I get dont necessarily cost more money; some of them do, but a lot of time it is just knowing how to put something in better or more efficient than what you have done before.

BrokerIPTV: Give me an example of a point in value, what you can you do to earn points?

Steve Brooks: Well, I will tell some of things I do in my homes, just so you have an idea. I put bamboo floors in all my homes; I get points for that. I use like you mentioned before recycled glass tile accents throughout the home. I put a 50 year roof on instead of a 20 year roof. Energy star appliances.

BrokerIPTV: The carpet?

Steve Brooks: There you go, yes, green labeled carpet. It can be recycled over and over again. I just started using that. I could go on, but those sorts of things are what you are looking for.

BrokerIPTV: Earn points.

Steve Brooks: Yes.

BrokerIPTV: Why go in this direction, because I imagine a builder out there could say, "Hey, listen, I am going to put this up is inexpensive as possible and sell it for the highest price as I could. Why go in this direction and the extra trouble"?

Steve Brooks: Right. Well, for me, I feel I have a moral responsibility. These homes that I am putting into service will probably be there for a minimum of 100 years and so in my opinion, you only have one chance to do it right.

BrokerIPTV: Lot of talk in the real estate industry about this LEED program, L-E-E-D; tell people what is LEED.

Steve Brooks: LEED is... well, first of all the home I am breaking ground on now would be LEED certified. LEED stand for Leadership in Energy and Efficient Design. Its a nationwide program. Up to now it has been mostly commercial, so you will see it in a lot of schools and city governments have headed that way into being LEED certified. This year, they just rolled it out for residential, so its a brand new program, very few homes in Colorado have even tried to be LEED certified up to this point. It actually is very similar to the Built Green program. In many ways, it overlaps that program, but in someway, this is more comprehensive. For example, they look at how far away are some of the materials you buy. They want it all to be within a 500 mile radius. They give you points for using recycled aggregate in your concrete. They put a lot of time and effort into how you dispose off your materials on the job site. You are going to divert a certain amount of those materials from the landfill. Those sort of things arent really covered in Built Green. LEED does do that. So, in many ways, it is a little more comprehensive, so.

BrokerIPTV: And its a little bit more difficult on you the builder?

Steve Brooks: Very much so; yes, it is going to be challenging.

BrokerIPTV: So kudos to you for tackling that.

Steve Brooks: Thank you.

BrokerIPTV: I love the information. I love your homes. Thanks so much for being with us.

Steve Brooks: Thank you Dan. Appreciate it.

BrokerIPTV : Metro Broker founder Larry Carr, Metro Broker founder Larry Carr says still no Emperor to pay at Metro Brokers.  The concept is still as good now, as it was ever was. We are privileged today to really have an industry icon, Larry Carr. Larry Carr is with Metro Brokers and I wanted to do this interview with Larry, because Metro Brokers is in fact a very well known company in the State of Colorado here and you were one of the original founders some 30 odd years ago. So, why do not you tell us really what got in you to start something like Metro Brokers?

Larry Carr: Well, the Metro Brokers concept was designed to allow us as individuals to work in a big company environment and yet maintain our individuality. So, we patterned the Metro Brokers concept after what some of the attorneys and CPAs and doctors do, which is an office sharing arrangement and ours became office sharing, experience sharing situation that enabled us to present a big company image and yet have the individuality of being our own broker, and that became the foundation of Metro Brokers.  <read more-watch video>

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BrokerIPTV: Hello everyone. I am Mark and we are at BloodHoundBlogs Unchained with Zillow being our sponsor and I am with...

Russell Shaw: Russell Shaw.

BrokerIPTV: I love it. This is the way all interview should be conducted.

Russell Shaw: Sure. The people who are doing interviews not like this, I hate to say it, they are doing them wrong. So, Mark and I are doing it the right way and for those of you who are in the interview business, pay careful attention. You can skip the content of what I am saying, just watch what Mark is doing, okay?

BrokerIPTV: Excellent Russell. Well, let us talk about and you spoke about it briefly today on listings and listing management. You have got a market here in Phoenix, I think a lot of agents out there would just think this would be the worst place to be, the worst time to be in business, but I think you have got a little different attitude on what to do, how to take listings, and what listings not to take?

Russell Shaw: Well I think it is actually the best time to be in business because this market actually favors people who know what they are doing. That is the big difference. When listings are easy to get, they are harder to sell, when listings are real hard to sell, they are easy to get, when they are real easy...they are hard to get, they are easy to sell. That is always true. In this market listings are extremely easy to get. So, they are by definition harder to sell because they are harder to price, but you have people everyday in this market, we have if I tell you right now businesses up to where we are selling like close to 5000 units a month with around 55000 listings in the multiple listing system. That is up from about 3000 sales with 55000 listings in the listing system. What is the difference? When you have agents everyday taking listings that are never going to sell.

BrokerIPTV: Never sell.

Russell Shaw: They will never sell. The odds...most of the listings being put into the system are never going to sell at anytime. It is not that their market time is going to be long, they are simply never to going to sell and there is no prayer of them selling and what I say to agents is like think of something that you really, really, really like to do and when you think of it...really, really do is think of something you really like to do.

BrokerIPTV: All right. I got it, I got it.

Russell Shaw: And once you have got that thing, would you rather do that fun thing or take a listing that is never going to sell. They both pay the same.

BrokerIPTV: Nothing. They take nothing. They pay nothing.

Russell Shaw: So you may as well have fun as opposed to taking a listing that is never going to sell. The only listings we want to take are the ones we honestly believe we can sell and the rest of them we say no to. One of the false ideas that agents have is that the purpose of a listing appointment is to take the listing and that is a false idea. The purpose of a listing appointment is to see if you want the listing and then can you take it.

BrokerIPTV: Right, exactly and I know you use a lot of good quality pre-listing materials. You sort of already presold yourself your ideas and concepts even before arriving at the meeting. So, they have already really got your interview, you are there now to...

Russell Shaw: Well, to somewhat interview them, but if you actually think about it, if you looked at the profile of almost every top agent in the United States, they would be a listing agent who either has a demographic farm or geographic farm. They would almost always be listing agents. So, that would be true for almost every top agent in the United States. They would be agents who are listing agents, primarily listing based, even if they sell, they go well, half of our deals are buyers, but how did they get the buyer deals, from their listings, from marketing their listings. So they have operations that are still essentially listings based and it is not a complicated thing to price property. What might be complicated is to insist on not taking the listing if it is not going to sell. Like if a property is worth 400 and the agent knows it, there is no good reason to take that listing at 500 because the seller feels like it or that is what they would like to try. I mean really the issue is to go, "No, I am so sorry, I cannot do that." They go,"We have someone else to do the listing." You go, "Okay."

BrokerIPTV: Right. It is sometimes best to be the third call.

Russell Shaw: Well, I don't know; sometimes you don't get to be in this market here since you know it is not going to sell for the five, you should just walk away from it, but we are not trying to have a combative relationship with the client or a potential client. We just tell them the truth.

BrokerIPTV: Yeah, just a realistic approach to buying and selling and working with sellers.

Russell Shaw: For those of you in the viewing audience at home, I want you again, I emphasize what a great job Mark did in asking me these questions and also for those of you who are in the real estate business, I think you should really look and go, darn, that Russell Shaw really answered those questions on taking listings pretty good too.

BrokerIPTV: He is the best, isn't he? Hey, Russell thank you very much and we appreciate you being here with BrokerIPTV.

Bloodhound Blog Unchained Ron Cates with Constant Contact on Email Marketing

BrokerIPTV: Welcome to Bloodhound Blog Unchained events sponsored by Zillow and today we are with Ron Cates and Ron is with Constant Contact. I know Ron, I know of you because I get a lot of mail from people that are using Constant Contact.

Ron Cates: We are the leading email marketing service provider.

BrokerIPTV: In the United States or...?

Ron Cates: On the planet.

BrokerIPTV: On the planet. So, how many people do you have using your service then?

Ron Cates: We have more than 200,000 small businesses using us now.

BrokerIPTV: Wow! 200,000, so, you just speaking out here at BloodHoundBlog Unchained and maybe you could just go over some tips and tricks.

Ron Cates: Yeah. One of the things that is most asked about us, how do I get my email opened? So, the two biggest tips are your from name and your subject line have the biggest impact. 60 % of your recipients decide whether to open it or not based on who it is from. So, they have to recognize not just the from name and from the email address itself, should have your brand in it and it should definitely be a name they clearly recognize. It should also be short because sometimes an email client will have a pretty narrow column and it can cut of part of your email address if you are not careful. The other way Mark is, the subject line. 30% of your recipients decide based on the subject line. So, you should have a call to action. It should have your brand in it and again it should be indicate maybe the emails concise. People don't like to read really long emails. So, one example would be three email marketing tips from Constant Contact. It is from constant Contact, that is a brand that we know; email marketing tips, we want those and there are three of them. So, I know that I can open it right now and read it. I don't have to defer it to later. We know that if people defer it to later, they usually come back and do a universal delete.

BrokerIPTV: Wow, so tell me about...I kind of was under the impression that email marketing in general, the whole e-marketing sphere was declining or less used, bad press, what are you seeing out there?

Ron Cates: We are actually growing like crazy and people find that if they do email marketing well, if they do it professionally, that it is incredibly...it has this huge return on it. Last year the average return on email marketing was $57 for a dollar spent and we have users that are just way beyond that. They blow that out of water.

BrokerIPTV: Wow! 57 to one?

Ron Cates: 57 to one and that is just average. I don't think average is so high. If you think about the average email you get, sometimes it is not the best looking so our users are getting ROI way, way, way beyond that.

BrokerIPTV: What type of cost...how do you guys work as far as your product?

Ron Cates: We are based on how many subscribers you actually have, not on how many emails you send out. So, let us say you have 500 customers on your email list. You can send them as often as you like and it would cost you $15 a month and that includes everything. There are more than 300 professional designed templates to choose from, go in, put in your brand name, type in your content, and you are good to go.

BrokerIPTV: Well, I know it is a great product. I know a lot of people that use it and I appreciate you speaking with us today.

Ron Cates: Thanks Mark. It was a blast to be here. This is an amazing group of people.

BrokerIPTV: Thank you.

Ron Cates: Thank you