Archive for the ‘Our Company’ Category

Site Redesign, Getting Back into Serious Development Mode

There’s been a lot going on lately on the web site — trying to do probably the most extensive redevelopment work since the site first launched.  I hope I’m not disrupting anyone’s user experience too much in the process of all this, if so let me know and we’ll try to get whatever issues you’re having addressed.

New Listing Search Tools

Wow, it’s been a busy week. First of all, I’ve been trying our our new IDX vendor, IDXBroker, and working out the kinks in that. Unlike IHomefinder, IDXBroker is a great deal more configurable, with features like customizable listings results pages you can base off of pretty much any search — very slick. To give our old vendor, IHomefinder, their due, they have focused a lot more on their default layouts, making them much more user friendly and intuitive. To IDXBroker look as good as some of their defaults, I’m going to have to resort to a concoction made of JQuery fried in elbow grease.

What I may do is run both searches live and request comments. Already one visitor has written in about the new system to complain that the results page didn’t have listing maps — I was able to fix that in a few minutes. If you’ve used the existing search and have comments one way or the other, let me know.  (By the way, if you really have to have the old search page, we have links to it from the new search page).

Getting Ready for the Redesign

I’ve been getting ready for our site redesign and the new template that Andrew Rhee is working on.  Andrew’s done a great job of getting the initial layout going, and I’m hoping he’ll have some HTML for us today or tomorrow, meaning we may see the new site beginning to shape up next week some time.  If I have an earlier preview ready on the staging site I may point you to that first.  There’s a fair amount of work left to do once we have the framework in place, but we might as well be moving something attractive and disorderly toward a state of greater order rather than belaboring the legacy code.

Lots of Recruiting

I’m not just in development mode in a narrow technical sense, but I’m also working hard to grow the company, and have spoken to three possible candidates this week.  It’s exciting to be working on co-marketing and other opportunities so I can help my agents to grow while also improving our business processes at the same time.

I know that’s pretty vague, but trust me:  it’s an exciting and busy time.  I expect to see a big payoff over the next few months.

A Sacramento Agent Owned Real Estate Company

I admit it — I need professional help.

No, not that kind, though there’s a case to be made for that too.

What I need are several highly professional agents.  I have an immediate need for agents and brokers in this area who want to help me service existing customers, some of whom we’re having to turn away for lack of agents.   I also have a longer term need to grow the company outside of greater Sacramento.

With this in mind, I have taken the first steps in transforming the company into a fully agent owned real estate company.  I’m still working out the details, but for those of you who want to see my evolving thinking on the subject, I invite you to visit our new, recruiting-focused company website and blog, LockwoodRealEstate.net.

In broad outlines, some of what I envision are:

  • A capped and published salary for the officers (actually so far that’s “officer” — me, but I envision two at year’s end), with a very small profit residual beyond that and the rest of the after-expenses company dollar devoted to Internet marketing on behalf of my agents and the profit share pool.
  • A capped commission structure enabling agents to earn 100% of their commission once they reach a certain level of company dollars paid each year.
  • The most generous profit-sharing program in the industry, one that is based not only on recruiting new agents into the company, but also on individual achievement.
  • Having a portion of the company dollar earned by agents you recruit apply to your own commission cap — i.e., you’ll get to the 100% commission level sooner in the year if you help us attract talented agents.

Please contact me (John Lockwood) directly would like to learn more.

What’s Important?

I’ve been challenged quite a bit lately by my marketing consultant to think about what it is that my business is all about.

(I have a marketing consultant?  Holy cow.)

The simple answer is that we buy and sell houses, but there are a lot of people doing that.  And of course, it’s a marketing consultant’s job to try to figure out how you’re different from other people who are doing the same thing you’re doing.  So, wanting to get the most out of this experience of being marketing consulted, I started to make a list of some of the ways I think I’m faster than a speeding bullet and more powerful than a locomotive.  In other words, I started thinking about what’s important to my customers, and to me.  What kind of person am I?  Where do I want the business to go?  That sort of heady stuff.

The profitable (sometimes painful) lesson I am getting from this exercise is this:

  • Every success I’ve had in the real estate business came from doing something that was important to the customer, and / or communicating that that’s what I’d do.
  • Many of the failures I’ve had in the real estate business came from talking about something that I thought would be important to a customer and either:  A) not presenting it well or B) not being correct that it’s important to the customer.

Now once you get to that point, it naturally follows that you should:

  • Start figuring out what you’ve done right and what you’ve done wrong in terms of meeting customer needs.
  • Start asking your customers what they liked about what you did, and what you could do better.

The second point requires a bit more work on my part, though if you’re a customer or potential customer and would like to add a comment letting us know what works or what needs improvement, that’s always welcome.

Regarding what’s turned out to be important and what’s turned out not to be, read on.

OK Then, So What’s Important?

Looking back on the last 8 1/2 years in this business (holy cow, 8 1/2 years, time flies when you’re having fun), my customers have generally praised a few key things about me and my agents:

  • The web site is easy to use, especially to search for homes.  (I suspect a part of this praise is that we don’t require you to sign up for search – it’s just free for the taking).
  • We either answered the phone when they called or returned their call or email promptly.
  • When we were showing them houses:
  • We showed them whatever they wanted to see, and were patient with them.
  • We gave them good information and opinions about what they were seeing, without pushing them in one direction or the other.

My goal of course as a businessman is to make sure we do more of what’s important going forward and continue to play to our strengths of:

  • Openly sharing what we know and the data we have access to online.
  • Being genuinely of service to the many people who do honor us with their business once they’ve met us here.

This means doing a better job with the people we have, and getting more outstanding agents to help.

Sacramento Area Real Estate Search Available for IPhone, Android, More

We are pleased to announce that our IDX provider (that’s techno-babble for the folks who provide the real estate listing search features on our web site) has added support for mobile phones, and we have completed the integration of this feature into the site.  I’ve been playing around a bit on the Android version on my DroidX and it seems to work very well both for searches and for being able to request more info by phone or email if you need more information.

As always, this is a free service and does not require you to register to use it.

To use this feature out, simply point your Android, IPhone, or other mobile device to our home page:  http://www.sacramento-home.com.

Here’s a screen shot of a demo site that shoes the UI for our hypothetical competitor, John Doe (we do a much better job than that guy, by the way).

mobilescreenshot 

Let us know what you think!

2010 in Review, and Looking Forward to 2011

My Crazy Year in Retrospect

2010 was an interesting year for me.  By the time you read this I’ll be vacationing in Bogotá, Colombia and on the verge of flying to Santa Marta, marking the first time I’ve ever been out of North America and the first time I’ve used a passport.  In March, in contrast, I went to the hospital for chest pains, was given nitro (and nearly died of low blood pressure because I’m sensitive to it) and had three stents put in.  By the end of December I’d learned a foreign language (Spanish), lost about 75 pounds, got divorced, and took over again at the helm of my own real estate blog when my broker of record quit, while holding down another full time job. 

I try to stay busy.

One of my agents has done an excellent job for me and for all of our customers this year.  Two others have been struggling, as have any number of former colleagues who don’t work for me who have given up on the business rather than stare down the double barrels of fewer sales and lower commissions.  I got a proposal on Elance.com today from a licensee in Arizona who’s leaving the business.

On top of “the market problem”, we had a big technical problem with the email forwarding earlier in the year that hurt us quite a bit.  Fortunately that’s resolved, and I am committed to improving our offerings and services in the coming years.

2011 – Our Business Turnaround Year

2011 is the year we turn things around.  (It may well be the year the market turns around too, unless rising interest rates to control inflation make the market all soggy and hard to light).   Either way the market goes, I have a number of goals for my real estate business in the coming year, and I wanted to share them with you:

  • I’m going to improve this web site in a number of ways.  There’ll be an excellent new design from a talented designer and marketing professional I know, which will include a variety of usability improvements.  Search, especially, will be easier to find and use, and the whole thing will be cleaner, more modern, and better organized.
  • I’m going to rework the branding, including the name.  There’s another local business with “Elite” in the name who are not known for their integrity, so we keep getting confused with them, and that can’t be good for us.  Probably I’ll go with Lockwood Real Estate or Lockwood Realty.  What do you think sounds better?  Hopefully there’s not some other John Lockwood out there doing something crazy like killing Bambi’s mom with a joystick.  Doh!  (That’s not me, honest.  The only times that I go to Texas are when I’m flying somewhere that isn’t Texas).

    Update:  my daughter prefers the sound of Lockwood Real Estate, and no one uses Realty except in company names, so Lockwood Real Estate it is.  If it turns out to be a bad decision, at least I spent as more time on it than John McCain spent on selecting a running mate for President of the United States.

  • I’m going to do more to get the name out there than just be number one in the search engines, such as trying to reach out to more colleagues nationwide, and customers and vendors here in the Sacramento area.  It’d be really cool to hear from more people here.  That’s already started to happen.
  • I’m going to find some folks here locally (and a few colleagues nationwide) who want to guest blog once in awhile for Sacramento’s oldest real estate blog.  I’m especially interested in folks who can do lending related topics, but if you have other ideas, I’m certainly open to them.  Yes, you’ll get one or two self-serving links per article and yes, we’ll stay on the good side of RESPA, I promise.
  • I’m going to hire a few more top producers who want to be part of the company with the best Internet marketing in greater Sacramento.  Among other tasks, I’ll be revisiting agent recruitment and compensation when I get back from vacation and I’ll have more to say about that in the year ahead.
  • I’m going to start actively soliciting feedback from our customers and visitors –-especially the former.  Yes, we’re hoping some of this will be testimonials, but we also want to know if there are areas where we might have dropped the ball in some way.  I know we can improve on the speed and consistency of our follow-up, for example.  We can, and we will.
  • I’m thinking I’d like to run something called a 50/50 contest for awhile, maybe the whole year.  The idea will be to give away prizes each week for contests I’ll run on the blog / Facebook / Twitter.  The 50 / 50 thing is because every other week  (50% of the time) the prize will either be awarded to the contestant in the form of a gift card, and on alternate weeks the prize will be awarded to someone in need. Some weeks I may choose the charity, and some weeks we’ll let the contestant choose.

    Of course, like all contests of this kind, one of the goals of this one is to shamelessly self-promote the context sponsor in the hope of attracting more business.  But aside from that, we want to help some folks less fortunate than us who may be suffering, make some new friends in the community, and just generally enjoy the living heck out of life.

    Why not?

So check back in late January, February and March to see the changes beginning to happen, and, above all,

BEST WISHES FOR A HAPPY, SAFE,

AND PROSPEROUS NEW YEAR

 

Sacramento Real Estate Agents — Help Wanted

Do you answer your phone?  Can you respond to your email within a few minutes?  This generally means – do you carry a smart phone?  Do you love nothing better than getting back to someone right away and digging in to help them to achieve their real estate goals?

If so, we’d like to talk to you.  Elite Properties is looking to hire a is looking to hire a limited number of outstanding agents / brokers who want to help us work with the many people who send inquiries through our web site.  Our web site is fairly consistently ranked #1 in major search engines for the term Sacramento Real Estate.  (Actually we’re number one in the non-sponsored listings – that usually makes us number 2 or 3 below the paid ads – but consumers usually click on non-sponsored links by a factor of about 2 to 1).  As a result, even with a very small number of agents, we’ve managed to keep plowing along during this crazy market, and our agents have reaped the benefits.

In addition to the opportunity to work virtual “floor time” that actually produces real results, we offer competitive splits, with a two-tiered split system that recognizes the higher value of the business you bring in yourself.   We all work from home and from our cars, so if it’s important to you to have a fancy office and someone to buy ink toner for you, we’re probably not a good fit.  We’ve noticed that most agents usually prefer to work out of their own homes anyway, and the kind of productive types we want aren’t sitting around for very long.

We only hire the most ethical, competent agents who have a strong customer-focused attitude.  Yes, you need to close business, but the type of agent we want does that by being genuinely helpful and very consistent in their follow-up.  Arm-twisters and brow-beaters need not apply.

If you’re able to contribute to this and our other blogs it’s a huge plus, and we’re willing to work something out to compensate you for it.  We’re not a big company, and I’m the sole owner and broker of record, so the amount of red tape you have to do to accomplish something creative is next to nothing.

If you want a broker who’s done something more than put a sign up to bring you business, give me a call directly at (916) 359-9218 and let’s talk. 

Save Lives for Halloween: Sacramento Real Estate Twitter Clean Water Challenge

Trick Or Treat

You can help me save a human life by following me on Twitter.  Actually, I estimate that you can help me save between two lives and eight lives, depending on how you add it up.

Some of you may have seen the “Clean Water 4000 Lives Donation Button” on the right where you can donate money to build wells for people who are without access to clean TwitterChallengedrinking water, and you may have seen my earlier article about how giving another human being clean water to drink amounts to a charity “no-brainer”.

So how is following me on Twitter going to save human lives?   Well, all by itself it isn’t, but here’s the challenge.  If someone follows me on Twitter between now and Midnight, October 31st, 2010 and either mentions me (@JohnLockwood) or Direct Messages me with the words “Twitter Clean Water Challenge” somewhere in the message, Elite Properties will donate 25 cents to Water Aid America, and I’ll do it up to 1,000 times (i.e., I’ll donate up to $250).

WaterAid estimates that they can build a well to provide clean drinking water that costs, on average, $30 per person who needs it.  So optimistically, $250 would save eight lives.  (The WaterAid statistics page is worth reading).  What happened in England in the 19th century when they improved sanitation and access to clean water is that on average, life expectancy increased 15 years per person.  So if you imagine that someone in a third world country might live to be 60, you could pessimistically estimate that we’ll “only” be able to save two lives this way.

What a failure that would be, “only” saving two lives in time for Halloween.  Bummer.

So again, to participate, you don’t have to give any money.  All you have to do is:

  1. Follow me on Twitter (@JohnLockwood).
  2. Send me a message their with the words “Twitter Clean Water Challenge”, so I’ll know you’re following me as a result of this challenge.

“But John, I’m already following you, what can I do?”

As Ned Flanders would say, “well that is a dilly of a pickle”.  (Stupid Flanders).  OK, here’s what I’ll do, we’ll add another $50 to the pot for the people already following me, so if you’re following me already just send me a Twitter message with “Twitter Clean Water Challenge” in it.  If I reach my target for that group and new followers, that’ll mean ten people will have clean water who didn’t callout_twitter_challengehave it before, or you could say that together we’ll ransom 150 years of human life.  Not bad.

Hey Wait a Minute — Isn’t This a Completely Self Serving Way to Get 1000 Twitter Followers?

Well, it is a way to get 1,000 Twitter followers, that’s absolutely true.  The dirty little not-secret about this real estate site is that it’s run by a Realtor(r), and we as a group are notoriously fond of popularity contests.  As far as Twitter is concerned I feel like I’m losing this contest big time, because so many of my colleagues tweeted and retweeted and Foursquared their little hearts out much more than I have in recent years.  As a result, I just passed the 400 follower mark, while many of my colleagues are enjoying followings in the thousands or tens of thousands.

So are we saving lives here or just trying to help Lockwood promote his business?   The answer to that question depends on how cynical you’re feeling today.  The truth is that, while of course it’s a promotion, it’s also an attempt to do something good – because if it were just about working the numbers I’m sure I could buy a lot more than 1,000 followers for $250 bucks.  Indeed, spending about two minutes on Google, I found one site that will sell me 2,200 followers for $177.00 – or about 8 cents each.

So in a certain sense, if I were strictly mercenary about it, I’m overpaying.  But then again, one could say that people who care about other people are intrinsically more valuable.

Maybe This Will Help You Feel Less Cynical

Given that $30 can add 15 years to one person’s life expectancy, and that at 25 cents per follower I need 120 followers to get to $30, what that amounts to is that each and every participant in this challenge will individually save 45 days of human life.

If I’ve learned one thing about people in my years in real estate, it’s this:  everybody loves a bargain.

So yes, it’s true I’m a salesman, and like the sleaziest salesmen you can think of, let me say this:  Boy, have I got a deal for you!!

And here is that deal:  by writing four words and doing a couple of mouse clicks, you’ll give a fellow human being 45 days of life.

Come Back To Learn More

I’ll be blogging (and, of course, tweeting) about the progress of the challenge as we go along, so please stop by again to see how it all turns out.  I’m curious myself.

And oh yes, in case your curious, of course I’ll follow you back.

Anybody thirsty?

The Sacramento Real Estate Gal Catches a Terminal Case of Motherhood

This weekend I learned that Purva Brown — your intrepid real estate reporter who has done a terrific job of keeping Sacramento’s oldest Real Estate Blog alive – will be leaving Elite Properties at the end of the month.  

Purva was always great to work with.  For example, I always appreciated the fact that she was able to put up with irate anonymous commenters better than me during those first dismal days of the real estate downturn – before the real estate downturn turned out to be “the good old days” before the real macro-economics freak show that was to come.

I’m very grateful to Purva for keeping the business going for me while I was out working in the software industry.  What am I saying – I’m still out working in the software industry, but now I have two jobs.  I think given the aforementioned recession, having two jobs is a bit ostentatious.   But please don’t hold it against me.  I try to be more lazy – I really do.  I can’t help it if I’m lucky.

Fortunately for me, this second job is made a good deal easier by the fact that I have very talented agents working for me.

Well, we all wish Purva the very best.  Now where did I leave that fax machine? . . .

Good News, Other Good News, In-between News

Well, it’s news. And unlike the dramatic kidnappings, murders, your vanishing checking account numbers and other keep-you-awake-all-night kind of news, this news is rather tame.

For one thing, those of you who noticed that the website wasn’t working for a few days in between, there’s good news. We’re up and running again. The web hosting company was changing servers or servicing changes or some other technical stuff only John would really know. Happily, things have settled down now and you are free to go back to the website and search for homes to your heart’s content.

In other good news, which you may not care about quite so much is that now the MLS is Macintosh compatible! You see, for the longest time us Realtors needed a patch if we wanted to use the MLS on anything besides a PC with Internet Explorer. I know, I know. You don’t care. But it frees up my desktop from two extra folders, so I’m thrilled. So there.

And now for the non-news. Don’t get me wrong – it’s still news. But in true non-news fashion, you won’t care that much about it. And it is that I was reminded by an old email yesterday that I have now been official broker-of-record for exactly a year yesterday. Or in other words, John built Elite Properties from the ground up and then hired me to take over the day-to-day business of paperwork, writing the website and supporting our agents. Succinctly put, it’s been a lot of fun.

So, go ahead… look for a home! And come back – the website will still be up. And we’ll all be right here!

Met a Great Realtor Lately?

Our Realtor Mike Keleshian received this letter after his recent sale escrow from his clients.

Dear Mike,
Thank you so much for helping us get our first house. It has been such a great experience and so much of that is thanks to you. We really appreciate all of the time, effort and thought you put into finding us a home. We look forward to referring more people your way and doing more business with you. Once again, thank you for everything. You truly went above and beyond.
Take care,
Matt and Brittany.

If you’re looking for a Realtor who goes above and beyond for you as a regular part of his day maybe it’s time to call Mike at 916-997-4086.

Sacramento Who?

Hi folks.  Remember me?

No, really, I’m hurt!  I’m the guy who started this blog, way back in the fabulous sixties.  You remember, Bob Dylan, Gilligan’s Island…

No, sorry, I’m confabulating a bit.  I guess I started this blog in 2002 or thereabouts, but for the last year, Purva Brown has been doing such a bang up job of keeping you informed about real estate happenings in and around Sacramento that that’s freed me up to pursue a different day job, in my old world of software development.  You know, twiddling bits and bobbing for booleans.   True or false:  “Programmers love booleans.”

Earlier this week, right before Christmas, Purva was involved in a more crucial labor, giving birth to a totally cute little boy.  Now I’m no journalist, but I can copy and paste from the official Facebook announcement as well as the next guy:

Hucksley James Brown was born 2:08am on Dec 20th. Weighs 8 pounds 12 oz. and is 21.5 inches long.

Well, by golly, congratulations Purva and James (Purva’s husband, who gets a middle name credit as you can plainly see).

I’m not going to go posting cute photos even though trust me this kid looks fantastic peeking out of a Christmas stocking.

Pretty great news, huh?

It looks like Purva’s already done the real estate market update for all the counties, but what I thought I’d do is to put together a sort of emeritus post on the Sacramento numbers.   Many of you will recognize “emeritus” as the Latin word for an old guy who used to know what he was doing but then went senile.  Saying it in English is just to cruel.  That’s what Latin’s for.

Q. E. D.

Congratulations to Purva Brown

I am very pleased to announce that Purva Brown has been promoted to the position of Elite Properties Broker of Record, effective May 4, 2009.  As anyone reading this blog is aware, Purva’s been the true voice of the Sacramento Real Estate Blog, keeping the web site up to date and doing a tremendous job at it.  In her new role as the Broker of Record, Purva will take on a large scope of additional responsibilities, having overall responsibility for all of the company’s real estate activities.  Already in the past few days, Purva has proven herself once again to be a tremendous asset to the company in her new role, tackling her new responsibilities with her usual smooth aplomb and relentless attention to detail.

So anyway, with apologies for not going into her years of real estate experience and the fact that she was born at an early age and so forth, congratulations Purva – it’s a pleasure to have you in your new role.

Things to Do In Sacramento While Waiting for Your TARP Bailout Money

Hello.  It’s been awhile.  Some of you were probably thinking, “John Lockwood, is that guy still alive?  I thought he died and Purva Brown took over his web site.”

Well, I’m not dead yet.  I’m keeping up on my fatty foods and my sedentary lifestyle, but these things take time.

Meantime, in case rumors of my continued existence weren’t a shock enough to your system, now is as good a time as any to point out that, contrary to the title, I’m not really getting any TARP bailout money, either.  Fatty foods notwithstanding, Congress doesn’t think I’m too big to fail.

I just poked my head in to make a couple of announcements.  First of all, Purva Brown has informed me that she has passed her California State Real Estate Broker license exam, so congratulations to Purva for that!  I guess it takes the DRE a bit of time to actually process and issue the license, since their site doesn’t reflect the change yet, but I’m sure they’ll catch up any day now.  Presumably the Department of Real Estate is waiting for their TARP money, too.

Less cool than Purva’s accomplishment from my point of view, though arguably of more direct interest to our readers, we have a new search page available that features Google Maps and automatically maps the listings from the search you run so you can check out the exact location — or, as the saying has it — the exact location, location, LOCATION!  I’ve linked to that search page from the navigation links (above) so you can check it out, though if you really hate change and want the old search back, just click on “Web Site” and you’ll see links on the left to the “Older Search Pages”.

I hope you like it.  So check out the new search page, and if you have a minute, be sure to congratulate Purva on passing what I know from experience is a fairly rigorous exam.

And stop saying those things about me.  I’m not dead.  I’m just napping.

Some Gratitude to My Agents

I wanted to take a minute to talk about how grateful I am to have such a great team of agents.

One of the things I didn’t expect when I became a broker was how many times someone somewhere would try to slip something by someone.  Perhaps I just hadn’t done enough transactions in my career to that point, or perhaps the declining market in the last couple of years has brought out the worst in some people, but it often amazes me the types of things people try to get away with.

Less amazing, but still very, very gratifying, is how often and how well my agents have caught the smell of something that just doesn’t seem right, told me about it, and worked with me to make sure our clients’ interest are protected. 

It’s not that we’re do-gooders, who are setting out to revolutionize a systematically corrupt industry.  There are many fine agents out there who don’t work for Elite Properties.  And of course as a businessman I think it would be great if everyone chose to work with us, since then I’d be wildly successful and have to hire zillions of people and have more money than I can spend.  But failing that, let me just express my wish that even if you don’t have an Elite Properties agent, may you get an agent who’s good and ethical and careful enough to be one.  Being around folks who do such a great job makes being in the real estate business worthwhile.

Congratulations to Purva Brown

Internet Mogul.  Sacramento Real Estate Gal.   Sacramento-Home.com co-author.  And now mother to be!

Given how nice this child looks already, we expect a full photo shoot when the happy day comes.

Beautiful Three Bedroom Home in Folsom

Elite Properties agent Mike Keleshian just listed this beautiful 3 bedroom, 2 bath home in Folsom’s Broadstone subdivision. For additional information, call Elite Properties at (877) 735-5657, or call Mike directly at (916) 997-4086!

Beautiful Folsom Home
Main Photo

Location: Broadstone

This beautiful home in Folsom’s desirable Broadstone subdivision features a low maintenance yard. Fresh paint, granite slab counters in kitchen. Home is close to shopping and Freeway.
Features
Bedrooms: 3
Bathrooms: 2
Year Built: 1998
Subdivision: Broadstone
Lot Size: 5500sf
Garage Size: 2 car
School District: Folsom-Cordova
Square Footage: 1454
Agent Name: Mike Keleshian
Broker: Elite Properties
MLS #: 80017104
Information
Contact Information
Logo

My Pic

Mike Keleshian
(916) 997-4086
Pricing
Asking Price: $374,500
Property Location
1308 Tippens Way
Folsom, CA 95630
View Map
Attributes
Appliances
Range/Oven
Interior Amenities
Fireplace
Photo Gallery

Elite Properties Welcomes Mike Keleshian

I am very pleased to announce that Realtor® Mike Keleshian has joined Elite Properties.  Mike has several years of residential real estate experience, both as a real estate agent and as a loan officer.  Being familiar with both aspects of the transaction means that as a buyer he can provide valuable lending insight — and as a seller, you can count on Mike to have a much better than most agents of whether that offer you received comes from a qualified buyer or someone who’s risky at best.

Back when I was at RE/MAX, Mike was one of the agents who I could count on to pitch in and help me when I got busy.  He was very warmly received by the folks I entrusted to his care, and had a high percentage of repeat customers.

A long term resident of El Dorado Hills with his wife, Lucy and young children, Mike knows about some of our better school districts first hand, and like all our Elite agents he is also very familiar with neighborhoods throughout Sacramento, Placer, and El Dorado County.

Mike can be reached directly at (916) 997-4086.

Copyright Violation

I recently came across a copy of an article I wrote here that someone had stolen and posted to another blog (on Blogger).

I submitted an Infringement notification to Google within about twenty minutes of discovering this.  Total time from infringement to notification was less than twelve hours.

Please note that all work on this site is copyright(c) 2003-2007 John Lockwood and Associates.  Certain materials may also appear under license or with permission of their copyright holders. 

The company will vigorously defend against infringements of its copyrighted work.

The End of The Year As We Know It

Wow, look at that, it’s December already.  No wonder the sun isn’t out.

With the end of the year upon is, it’s time for holiday parties and closing out the accounting season, and Elite Properties is no exception.   At the end of the week we’re getting together for our Christmas Party dinner at the home of the agent who’s arguably our company’s best cook, Vicki Agregado-Babcock. 

Since it’s also time for closing out the accounting season, today I learned that our company’s best cook is also the company’s top producing agent for the year, so congratulations to Vicki for being ahead of the curve! 

I was somewhat chagrined to learn that I came in only in second place for total sales volume.  But I don’t mind too much because as the broker I can make up whatever awards I want, so I think there’s a good chance I’m a shoe-in for broker of the year.

If all else fails, I’m also the tallest.

See, kids, listen to your mom.  Eating your vegetables really works.

Elite Properties Is Hiring

Are you a real estate agent in El Dorado, Amador, Placer, or El Dorado County with one or more years of experience, or more than four closed transactions? Do you believe in doing a great job for your clients, and not giving up a lot of money to your broker? Are you interested in working for a company who can really help you grow your online business, not just pay lip service to it by giving you an Internet lead once every fifteen months or so?

If so, Elite Properties would very much like the opportunity to talk with you. For the past five years, John Lockwood, Elite Properties’ broker, has been steadily building up our Internet market share. As a result, we currently get lots of inquiries from buyers and sellers from the more than 3,000 unique visitors who visit our web sites every day.

We need help working with these clients, and we also need independent producers who bring their own strong prospecting skills or who want to grow their Internet marketing skills in cooperation with a broker who is very strong in this area. If you’re paying too much for online marketing, we can probably help in that area as well. We welcome individuals as well as teams.

We offer extremely competitive splits, and colleagues who are high on integrity and work ethic, and low on maintenance.

Remember:

  • If the Internet wasn’t where the transactions are, you’d be reading a newspaper right now, not a web site.
  • If your broker had better online marketing than me, you’d be reading him right now, not me.

For a confidential interview, please call John Lockwood at (530) 672-9160.

Buying a Home for the College-Bound?

Buying a house for the college-bound student has become a growing trend lately. In fact, we at Elite Properties handle quite a few calls from parents that are looking to buy their children a house or a condo to live in while they go to college at Sacramento. Just this year, we sold a home to a client from Florida who bought a home blocks away from American River College.

So, based on this story that appeared in the SacBee and Bankrate, what should be some things you should do when considering a residence for your college-bound?

1. Try to find a multi-unit that you can rent out to other students.

2. Make sure to have all leases in writing. (Great opportunity to teach your college-bound the value in investing in real estate!)

3. Pick a property with potential. Make sure it’s close to campus.

4. Have a plan – this is one that most people ignore. Have a plan about what you will do with it before you go out looking. Do prelimnary research and decide.

And oh yeah, if you’re considering Sacramento:
5. Call Elite Properties (very important!)

Walk For Hunger — Call for Donations, Subscribers, Ideas

imageI will be participating in the El Dorado County Food Bank‘s  Walk For Hunger, scheduled for Saturday, November 10, 2007.

I am proud to announce that the way I found out about this event was a legacy of the blogathon for hunger that Bridget and I did last year on another blog.  Hence the nice letter from The Food Bank that I got over on the right.

I’d like to ask for your ideas and input about how to make this a more effective event.  For example, I signed up as a team, and I could sponsor a “virtual walker” or two and raffle off their tee shirts to the subscribers of the blog. 

I should have some kind of matching contributions set up and a way to sponsor me officially online in a day or two.

Meantime, if you just can’t wait to help out, that’s a good thing.  If so just click here to make a donation via PayPal.

Or if you prefer to donate at a national level instead of supporting some county you may or may not have heard of or care about, click the America’s Second Harvest banner below.

Here is that link I promised:

Click Here To Sponsor Me

As you can see when you follow that link, Elite Properties will match your contributions up to the first $100.00.

One statistic that you may be interested in is that for every dollar you contribute, the  El Dorado County Food Bank distributes $9.00 worth of food.  With the matching contributions, that means that $10.00 from you provides $180.00 in much needed food to hungry families.

Again, if there are other ways you can think of to make the event more successful or if you would like to walk with me as part of the Elite Properties team, let me know.

We’re number one again!

Ever since Elite Properties fell out of favor with a certain search engine we all love, John has been having sleepless nights and in general been very negative. So imagine my surprise when he came up with the most positive thing he has said in a long time with the fortune cookie.

It’s like I don’t know him at all. :)

But I think some people are like that. They need a challenge to show their true colors. No, I’m not rambling. This is related to real estate, I promise. Because see, those are the people that are selling real estate today. We like challenges. We also like our first time buyers, and we like this not rushed phase where our clients can actually feel like they’re shopping and we have enough time to devote to our very best clients.

Those of us are making very strategic moves. Slowly but surely. And we’re here to stay.

Remember that when the market turns around and you want to hire a discount broker who will list your home for $1,000 because he just got his license yesterday. (Sorry to be bitchy, but now that John’s the optimist, we need some balance around here.)

And oh yeah, we’re back at the number one (and number two) spot!

Congratulations Donald and Jeanne

Congratulations and thanks to Donald and Jeanne D., buyers who get their keys today for a home they purchased for their children to use while they attend college.  Thank you again for your business, and if you have any questions or issues, please let us know!

And congratulations and as well to Jamie Boling-Puebla, their agent, whose execution on the disclosures and the rest of the file was so good that our transaction coordinator even made note of it.

Our transaction coordinator is one of those fussy, detail oriented people who’s not happy unless the file is perfect.   That’s WHY she’s our transaction coordinator!

Real Estate Meetings & Why I Hate Them

I decided to write this post as a response to John’s comment (and disclaimer) – I was going to write something different, but I know our clients like to read about the other side of our business as well, so here goes!

Many brokerages have weekly meetings that are mandatory. I believe some meetings are important so that everyone in the real estate office knows the other agents and so that we may learn from one another what we’re doing right and what we could improve upon. Sometimes however these meetings – especially in larger offices – tend to get a bit tedious. What those get reduced to is advertising other businesses which we could use while conducting our business. They become shameless plugs for title companies, lenders, home warranty companies and so on. The worst part is that this is all done under the guise of “getting market updates” and “helping Realtors market themselves.”

Here’s the thing I absolutely believe – the people are successful at this are that way because they do something very authentic to themselves and very different. Even if you learned the obvious strategies, you have to personalize them to your own self. That’s what clients are attracted to. And meetings – especially training meetings – tend to leave out the individual aspect. Company meetings focus on standardizing the service, which works well for the company but not so well for the individual Realtor.

Which is what I love about being at Elite. We’re all very different and our clients appreciate our authenticity and differences. And that is my disclaimer.

Real Estate By Referral Sometimes Only

Brian Buffini and several other lesser known real estate sales trainers preach a gospel known as “by referral only”.  The idea is that you someday provide such incredible service that your past clients will beat a path to your door in droves, and you’ll no longer have to advertise.

No, wait, that’s not really the idea.  That’s the idea behind the title.  If you search for “By Referral Only” on Google, you’ll find four or five companies doing pay per click advertising on that keyword, as well as a host of websites.  So the idea is “by referral only”, except when it’s not.

My own business philosophy is that referrals are the icing on the cake of doing a good job, not that I should be sending out some expensive drivel to everyone every month reminding them about daylight savings time and when they should prune their dinkleberries, meantime begging for referrals every time.  (Of course, if I were selling the expensive drivel, I’d probably tell you how important it is, too, but I’m not).

So I suppose that given that my marketing is successful, and given that the “by referral only” crowd clearly indulge in the same sort of not-by-referral-marketing that I do, I’ve historically taken a bit of a dim view of the whole by referral only movement (if that’s what it is). 

Lately, however, my marketing-friendly business model notwithstanding, I’ve been very fortunate in that my own personal business has been comprised almost exclusively of referrals from past clients, friends and other folks I know wanting to do business with me. 

The other night I got a call from a past client who bought a home in El Dorado Hills earlier this year referring his brother-in-law, who’s looking for an investment in the greater Sacramento area. 

Vicki and I were also very gratified recently that our real estate transaction coordinator, who — because of the business she’s in — knows a lot of different agents (including some that I would consider to be real “heavy hitters”), chose us to list her home for her.

In addition to those two that I’m working on now, my last two closed escrows are from folks I know personally.

Of course, marketing is the art of getting people you don’t know to like you, but it’s gratifying to know that the people who do know me think well enough to use me, too!

Pointy Haired Boss Wasn’t So Bad

We had lunch during which I got a chance to meet the other members of the Elite Properties team and heard some interesting stories about some of the unknown perils we as Realtors encounter in our profession of selling real estate, some of which are: a biting dog, sellers who sleep during the day and work at night, people enjoying their spas in the middle of the day! This is by no means a comprehensive list, of course.

And speaking of perils, read this (not very) concealed threat I received about my real estate advertising on my car.

But I digress. The meeting was thankfully not like all other sales meetings I’ve attended. And we didn’t do the “needs and wants.” Blech! I just think if you provide a comfortable enough environment for Realtors, they are eventually going to talk about their listings and buyers. We do it naturally. I haven’t met a single Realtor yet who didn’t want to talk about their listings.

Well, unless it’s in that forced office meeting “Wants and Needs.”

We did however get an ultimatum on keeping our paperwork updated. And John went a step ahead and created a checklist. Yay, John! I’ve been wanting one of these at every company I worked with – and you’re the only one that’s taken the time to put it all down on paper!

Being The Pointy Haired Boss

We have a sales meeting tomorrow.  This is something of a big event at Elite Properties, because we don’t have sales meetings very often.

Let me put it this way:  if we started having them once per month, we’d be moving in the direction of getting more corporate.

Being the pointy haired boss, in the last couple of days I’ve been putting together some good pointy haired boss stuff, to make sure we do our paperwork flawlessly. 

The joke in real estate is this:  if it weren’t for paperwork, we’d have no work at all.  I’m a pretty good pointy haired boss about the paperwork, because I come from a background in software, which is a similar “devil is in the details” sort of operation.

Real Estate at the Broker level is genuine nerd work.  I’m right at home.

Fortunately for me (and for our clients), I also seem to have one non-nerd quality that has been really helpful:  I almost invariably pick really good people to work for me — or they pick me.  Our transaction coordinator, Becky Nagel, has been tremendously helpful on the detail side of things, and our agents have also been very patient with me as I relentlessly pursue getting our transactions done flawlessly.

Obsession

I should probably ask Purva Brown to come over and join me here at the Sacramento Real Estate Blog. 

I need air support.  I am pinned down by enemy entropy.

(You can see:  I’ve been watching too much of the Military Channel, and taking my daughter out to see Transformers last night didn’t help at all).

The thing that has me pinned down and semi-literate is the new real estate listings site.  The reason it has rendered me semi-literate is that there’s a large body of work in front of me, and even though an intrepid early adopter (can I get an intrepid early adopter?) could start blogging right now, I’m trying to get the site to the point where I’m not embarrassed to even be calling for intrepid early adopters.

The usual dynamic on software projects goes something like this:

CEO:  “Ship it.”

Programmer: “It’s not ready.”

CEO:  “I need something to show people.”

Programmer: “It’s not ready to show anyone.  If I get a demo ready the whole project will take longer.”

CEO:  “Ship it.”

Programmer: “It’s not ready.”

The problem with a one man software project is that I’m both sides of that argument. 

I wonder which one of me will win?

Meantime, in order to get the work done at all, the programmer needs to be sitting at the keyboard thinking about nothing else but the project, period, and every twenty minutes the CEO comes along and says:  “Did you blog something today?  You know we need to keep up on our existing stuff while we’re doing new development, right?”

I really hate that guy.

Congratulations Susan S.

Thanks and congratulations to Susan S., a good friend of mine from back in my software days .  Susan closed escrow this week on a fabulous home in East Sacramento, one which was offered at approximately 13% off of comparable sales value. 

Susan was fortunate inasmuch as when we previewed it, it was actually pending sale with another buyer.  However this buyer — who was a first time buyer — had a concern because of some slight irregularities in the carpeting, so they cancelled their transaction.  The irregularities were no big deal to Susan even if they’d been let stand — and it turned out they were corrected in escrow in any case.

Susan is shown here having a good time at her new home with several of her friends (some of whom helped informally with her inspections, though she was very dilligent with her formal inspections as well) and her dog, Sage.