I went and looked at your blog. Before you go out and shoot video and try to promote yourself globally, I have about a half dozen tips for you on how to make your site a little more functional.

Start with not having your comments section input area be black text on a black background.

You have to stage your house if you want to sell it.

I see you have been listening to Lawrence Yun when you start comparing things going on with the real estate mantra to stocks.

Here’s the problem with your thinking. No one..No one…I’ll say it again..NO ONE outside of the realm of a real estate agent buys into that ideology. It is a mantra for the agents to keep saying. Too many agents are in need of comfort so they say this to ease their own inadequacies. Here’s a question, what kind of marketing are agents performing in their “hyper-local” area to combat the media or to promote localism as they see it? I’ll take a stab at an answer…virtually nothing.

Stock promoters promote stocks. Real estate agents don’t promote anything and if somehow some do, they end up promoting themselves. Dave and Risa Weiss do it right, they are out there globally atracting buyers to THEIR local market.

Laurie Manny out in Long Beach with her great blog is out there globally atracting buyers to her local market. This is what is needed. I am sure there are others doing this as well.

However, I think we can all agree this is not the norm.

Sorry to vehemently disagree but if a strong marketing plan is not executed on a global stage to make people aware of your local market, then the local only real estate agent is doomed and will not be able to compete. It’s that simple.

Think of it this way, we all know cafe’s and print shops and at one time we all knew local department stores too. For the most part they have not been able to compete with Starbucks, FedEx Kinkos and Walmart. All of the former were local and all of the latter are global. They market universally, are branded globally, yet serve a local consumer base.

I want to be able to compete in my business…do you?

If Saginaw has too much inventory, but Charlotte, NC is lacking… there isn’t a way to move that inventory. So, the supply/demand equation has to be fulfilled where it is. So, while we see that the national media is reporting “national housing” numbers (that are absolutely correct), we see that they are also NOT correct for any individual market unless it is a coincidence. That brings up the problem that very few local media outlets actually report about the local market.

It’s like talking about the Dow. The individual stocks that make up the Dow are all doing different things… but we get a report of their average. Of course the big difference is that we can actually buy a product that includes all of the stocks in the DJIA… but you can’t buy a national real estate product. You can only buy individual houses.

Even in the worst stock market slaughters, there are individual issues that swim upstream. And in the biggest rallies, there are stocks that are collapsing. The same holds true for real estate. Look at 2007. Touted as a collapse, and the definition of a crash… yet the fifth busiest year… ever. The national volume was off 15% from its high of 2006, but that means that 85% as much business was done.

Now, I absolutely agree with you about most of your article, but real estate IS (primarily) local. Real estate marketing isn’t necessarily local. But, most buyers are buying property with 30 minutes of where they already live, too…

Dave Weiss’ Chicago Real Estate mlog©

Thanks for the mention again. I’ll have to reciprocate with a link from my We Rock Chicago mlog® (media log – I just coined a new phrase).

Can I copyright that?