realweenie

How Fast Can You Talk?

You may have noticed if you read my blogs that I have a love hate relationship with my phone.  I sometimes miss calls becasue I have it off or on silent.  I need to screen my calls because I really don't want to talk to all the wonderful vendors out there trying to sell me blog platforms and a bunch of other stuff that I eaither already have or don't have becasue I am not interested.

When the messages go into voice mail I sometimes have to play them five or even six times to get the phone number if I want to return the call.  I am amazed by how fast people can say their phone numbers but would love to know why they say them so fast that it is impossible to make out the numbers and write them down.  I tend to say my own number slowly and I repeat my name at the end of the message because most people have forgotten it by the time they listen to the message and the number.

What am I missing here?  Is there some business reason for reciting my phone number at a hyper fast speed?  Some of my phone calls do not get returned because I don't have the patience to decipher the number. 

I love you and I want to help

I hope you feel the love here. I have decided that I need to help other people.  I want to do it becasue I am better than everyone else and I should be sharing my wisdom and experience so that others can benefit from it.  Russel Shaw, I know you don't read the weenie but you really should.  It is in your best interest to do so and I only want to help you.

Russel wrote a post, "Barry Cunningham is Full of Crap"  to help Barry Cunningham.  Barry may need help but that isn't the point.  Russel has helped Barry by publicly calling him a "turd".   I am sure Barry will appreciate the help and take Russel's wise advice.   I know that if someone called me a turd publicly I would be able to overlook it and understand the loving intentions behind it.

I have seen this type of behavior on the Bloodhound blog before. A few of the writers are on a mission to help and guide the clueless unwashed masses who hold real estate licenses issued by states all over the country. Bloodhound blog tried to save me last year by noticing the evil in my heart and trying to snuff it out. They did not understand at the time that I don't have a heart.

This post is meant to help.  I just want to say that you could learn a lot from me, and you should all pay attention.  Read the weenie every chance you get so that you can learn and grow. It doesn't matter how much you know now, there is always more to learn and you can learn from me becasue I know more than you do.

Russel you are not helping anyone by publicly trashing them.  Your posts can ruin reputations and ruin businesses.  If you do want to help others, which I know you do, consider sending them an email with your words of wisdom instead of calling them a "turd" and posting it on the Bloodhound blog. That is my advice to you.  Publicly discussing someone else's business in a negative way is not at all helpful but I recognize your greatness and understand your loving intentions.

I say it without getting personal, although I have mentioned your name a few times.   I am not attacking you, I am merely commenting on your actions and using them as an example to demonstrate to others what should not be written on a blog.  Thanks for giving me such an excellent example of a post the makes the writer look bad, and the blog look bad. 

I know that Mr. Shaw and the bloodhound blog will not be offended by this and it would be just wrong for anyone to get defensive.  I am just trying to help and I think this would be a great venue for a discussion on how we can all help each other. 

Real estate writers and other people who don't know what they are talking about

I don't know much about beer, and I blieve Fat Tire is an import from Belgium but I am told that some folks like beer with their hot dogs so I thought I would include the logo with my post.

I could write an entire post about beer.  I could do some research online and maybe even look like an expert on a subject that I know little about.

When I see an article written for the real estate industry I know right away if the writer is an expert, or just an industry writer.  In the past couple of weeks I have seen a few posts written by vairous coaches, vendors and writers about property photos for real estate listings.

Now they are saying that in addition to video HDR, High Dynamic Range images, are the way to go with property photos.  Of course none of these people have actually taken property photos and they are not getting this information from consumers, they just figure because it is newer to most we should start using it.  Maybe they talked to an actual real estate practitioner who has been having extraordinary success selling listings in a down market becasue of spectacular HDR photos.

The reality is that most agents take crappy pictures of their listings and put them on the MLS where the images look even crappier than they did to start with.  The pictures I see are too dark, out of focus, have reflections in them and are in general of poor quality.  Then there are the homes themselves.  Some are butt ugly and have no redeeming qualities, making it unlikely that the photos could ever be decorating magazine quality.  Most of the homes i list are beautiful but many are very small.  It is difficult to get "dramatic" photos of a 1000 square foot square loft.  It can be a real challenge to get 10 "dramatic" photos for the MLS.  maybe next time I'll try video.

What the real estate writers don't understand is that many agents don't know how to take a picture.  If they can take a picture they don't know how to get it from camera to computer.  If they do now how to get in from camera to computer they don't know how to upload it onto the internet.  Most don't use any kind of software for optimizing photos so even if they can take the picture and get it onto the internet it may be two dark, too large or just need a little cropping.

I have been experimenting with HDR for some of my property photos and taking some night shots too.  I happen to have an interest in photography.  If I did not I would hire a photographer.  having a real estate license does not qualify me to take property shots or design marketing materials. 

Remember as you read the stuff out there written for our industry these people are just writing for our industry.  They maybe saw some HDR property photos or a good property video some where and decided that ti would be great if all agents produced videos and magazine quality photos. It gives them something to write about too becasue they can compare video cameras, camera's, photo processing techniques, and the list goes on and on.

They are all trying to help us out.  If they were Realtors they would be doing all of these wonderful things, why aren't we?   Maybe someone out there who likes to give agents advice could write some basic how too posts on property shots and how to get them on the internet and provide a list of companies and photographers who take property shots for Realtors.