From Our Broker

BROKER BLOG

February 21st 2012

Locating an office in the middle of a tourist mecca has its ups and downs. The walk-in traffic is great and so is the vibe. Tonight, however, is Mardi Gras and  70,000 people are expected to land on our street (4th Avenue) and adjacent ones. Tossing beads will be the least of our problems. Tossing cookies, well that’s quite another!

I enjoy helping our agents formalize their career goals in creative ways. Our WIG exercise (where agents and staff took foam heads and applied their Wildly Important Goals for 2012) was such a huge success that passersby were routinely drawn into our lobby- where the WIGS were on display the past month-  to inquire about them. To acknowledge everyone’s exceptional creativity in getting face-to-face with their 2012 work goals, I’m treating the office to a cocktail party next week. As always, if you’re looking to make a change with your career please visit our careers page HERE. (confidential)

LIFE IN THE POST-SYNDICATION ERA

ARG’s decision to end the syndication of its listings continues to benefit us in surprising ways. As I’ve mentioned here before, our call and web volume is way up, while stock prices for the syndicators, well at least for Zillow, is down. A reporter at CNBC interviewed Zillow CEO Spencer Rascoff and asked point blank about a business model that depends on real estate agents handing over their intellectual property to Zillow at no charge so that Zillow can profit. His response was muddled then, just as it was when he tried to make the case that brokers who don’t syndicate their listings are just trying to deprive homebuyers of choosing their own buyer’s agent. This line of thinking reveals a culture that has little understanding of buyers’ approach and how they enter into a working relationship with a professional Realtor. It’s clear that the more we drill down into the syndication issue, the more valid reasons we find to support our decision to market our listings without them.

San Diego homeshoppers are giving high marks to consumer.sandicor.com , which is the public access portal to our regional MLS. Besides getting more photos with each listing, buyers are getting real-time listing information from the source. They can also see who the listing agent really is, without the runaround and confusion on the syndicator sites.

 

February 13th 2012

Valentines Day is upon us…there’s no better way to say “I love you!” than with a new home. ARG will be open late for any last minute homebuyers who want to make the ultimate statement to the person they love.

Has the market in San Diego picked up? Realtors tend to be ruled by the anecdotal and so I say “YES!” it has picked up. Getting around to various tour/caravan meetings, the prevailing sentiment is optimistic and much more so than I can remember in a long while.

LIFE IN THE POST-SYNDICATION ERA

In our second week since syndication tyranny ended and ARG officially withdrew its listings from syndication sites, we have 4 NEW pending listing sales and 3 new sales representing buyers. One of our listings in downtown San Diego received SEVEN offers in just one week on the market. All seven offers came from experienced agents in our marketplace, and none are dual agency contracts. The advantage of having offers come from nearby cooperating brokers should never be undervalued. These are the agents who understand the peculiarities that exist in every real estate market and know how to navigate them to a successful closing. So much for the buyers not finding our listings on line.

If you’ve ever had an out-of-the-area agent who just didn’t have the necessary background to assist a buyer through a purchase, please raise your hand. Yep, uh-huh, keep ‘em up. OK (for those of you reading this online 100% of our standing-room-only blog audience at ARG just raised their hands.) The skills of great agents contribute greatly to the success and risk management on every transaction. We already see that our decision is working in our favor by getting information into the best hands, instead of just anyone’s hands.

I’ve been asked to participate in a number of discussion groups in person on our decision to end syndication with Zillow, Trulia and Realtor.com. I am committed to appearing at as many of these as my schedule permits. (Too bad that syndication has killed off most of our areas travel agencies, or I could just pick up the phone!)

To agents and brokers who are considering similar business decisions, please don’t hesitate to call my direct office line at 619-398-3888. I am happy to relate our experience and make suggestions should you decide to join us.

And don’t forget….Talk to the Source!

Special Request….Help me come up with a term to define our position against Listing Syndication. I don’t want to be “anti” anything really. ARG’s position is really “pro” agent and “pro” client. We undertook this crusade to assist our clients and to save our industry from the syndication site profiteers. Any suggestions on a simple, direct stance-driven name would be greatly appreciated. To my email at jim.abbott@argsd.com

February 6th 2012

Whew, what a week it’s been! In the nine days since we posted our youtube video on ARG’s decision to withhold our listings from Trulia, Zillow and Realtor.com, I have been one busy broker/owner. First off, BIG THANKS to the thousands of agents and brokers who voiced their support for our position. Your words of encouragement are much-appreciated and so is your diligence in monitoring the conversation. Special thanks to the agent who caught Zillow employees posing as consumers on several sites using a “cut and paste” defense of their position.

In all of this some common gripes about ARG came up that I want to dispel.

• You are just doing this so you can increase dual agency deals within your office.

No, not true. In 2011 ARG had an outside participating broker in 96.3% of our transactions –  and the remaining ones were in-house sales where the parties were represented by two different ARG agents. My video instructs homebuyers to contact ARG or “A licensed San Diego-area Realtor” for assistance. ARG considers our colleagues at other firms to be clients in a sense and we treat them in a way that encourages them to sell our listings. Our percentage as just stated, speaks for itself.

• You’re minimizing your exposure and losing all the “hits” by pulling your data.

These are easily laid to rest. Many in our industry have somehow equated “hits” or “unique visitors” with marketing success. Sorry, but marketing success is when the property sells and the client calls you for their next purchase and tells everyone they know that you are the best Realtor they’ve ever met. When we explained to our listing clients that we were taking back control of our creative content, to a fault they all got it. More than one said they were wondering how they could have thousands of hits every month on their home, yet very few people came to actually look at the property. The clients know that these sites don’t really work and now we know why: Bad data + Inexperienced Agents = No Sale.

When I decided to take our very public stand against listing syndication, I had a lot of data – both statistical and anecdotal to consider. Having served a term on the board of directors of our regional MLS, I had a deep understanding of some of the issues syndication has raised within our industry. As agents and brokers we rushed to embrace the technology and fell prey to syndicators who 1) Told us we had a big problem. 2) Told us they had the solution to our problem. and 3) Imposed their own means of measuring the success of their sites.  That’s how agents came to believe that hits in cyberspace is something to celebrate. It isn’t.

What our three years of examining our data told us is nothing new. This is a relationships business. Every buyer who submits an offer on a property is in a relationship with their agent and that trust and ability isn’t built by listing syndication websites filled with bogus listings and off-base value estimates. It’s built by you and by me and every other professional in this industry that understands what it means to be chosen to represent a client in a real estate transaction.

January 2012

ARG MOURNS THE LOSS OF REALTOR KATIE RITTO

Katie Sullivan Ritto passed away on Wednesday, January 4, 2012 after a brief and valiant battle with leiomyosarcoma – an incurable form of cancer. She was preceded less than two years ago in death by her beloved husband Ross Ritto.

I have often referred to Katie as “The Conscience of ARG.” I enjoyed a professional relationship and friendship with her going back to 1994 when we were both agents for Prudential California Realty. In 1999 she taught me more about our business during a single transaction than I’d learned in my ten years as a Realtor up to that point. She was a consummate professional and often said she was born to the business. Both Katie’s mother and grandmother were Realtors.

In a transaction, Katie’s calm demeanor and refusal to be ruffled often left as her as sole voice of reason in complicated, high-end real estate transactions.

When she joined ARG it was a vote of confidence for our start-up real estate brokerage. Her name by itself was a tangible asset and working with her for the past three years has been more privilege and joy than effort.

A Rosary will be said in her memory on Monday January 9, 2012 at 5:55PM at Our Lady of the Rosary Catholic Church in downtown San Diego’s Little Italy neighborhood. 1629 Columbia St. San Diego, CA 92101. A funeral mass will be celebrated Tuesday, January 10, 2012 at the same location at 1:00 PM.

ARG will hold an Irish Wake for Katie on Wednesday, January 11, 2012 at our offices located at 435 4th Ave from 5PM to 7PM. The wake is open to everyone who would like to come and toast Katie in a celebration of her incredible, exemplary life and share a tale or two about a fine, beloved Irish lass.

In lieu of flowers, Katie requests donations to:

The Carmelite Monastery
949 North River Road
Des Plaines, IL 60016
(847) 298-4241

-Jim Abbott

October 2011

ARG Abbott Realty Group added several new client and agent services in September and October. Clients will enjoy our new Cloud CMA software when relying on ARG agents to help them value their current home for sale, or assess potential purchases. This dynamic program takes MLS and private sale data and puts the data into easy-to-understand reports. It contains a QR code creator and brochure function, too. Initial client response has been overwhelmingly positive – prompting one longtime buyer to state “Finally, something I can read!” Most agents rely on hard-to-decipher MLS reports that do little to enlighten buyers or sellers. ARG agents now have access to Cloud CMA that, not only gives them current data, but dispels the inaccuracies in evaluation sites like Zillow whose “zestimates” create more confusion than anything else. Contact your ARG agent for a Cloud CMA demo on your home or any property you have an interest in purchasing.

Our CAREERS section at ARGSD.COM ramped up its outreach to area Realtors and offered a new COMPREHENSIVE BUSINESS ASSESSMENT for new and experienced agents.  A 52-week marketing tip email campaign as well as an audio option on how to dominate online marketing is now available. ARG continues to lead area brokerages in its forward-thinking leadership and planning.

Our Marketing Administrator Jessica Turner has developed the ARG Handsfree Agent Marketing system for agents interested in building their listing inventory through mail and online campaigns. The great
thing about it? ARG agents just say when, what and where and Jessica does everything else from design, content, mail/email lists all the way to the post office! ARG Handsfree marketing gives our agents more
time to focus on client services while they build their brand automatically.

Several large sales were negotiated by ARG agents over the past month with sales prices approaching  $2,000,000 in La Jolla and Sunset Cliffs. High end buyers are coming to ARG primarily through the referral work of our seasoned staff and I applaud and marvel at just how hard ARG agents work to find just the right properties for all our buyer-clients. I’m very proud of the way ARG agents continue to thrive in a market that has forced many agents to leave the industry.

ARG aired seven television ads on HGTV over 200 times in September. If you missed them, go to ARGSD.COM and click on our youtube channel to view them all.

In September, ARG wrapped up its training on the Dr. Stephen Covey’s 7 Habits of Highly Effective People. We will spend the rest of the year integrating these principles into our work and personal lives. It’s amazing to see how much better work can be when we use tenets like “SYNERGIZE” and “THINK WIN-WIN” just to name a few.

ARG agents and staff have propelled into the 4th quarter of 2011 with success under their belts and optimism that America’s Finest City remains the best place in the county to live and work. Be sure to call
us or recommend us whenever you need residential real estate services.

September 2011

Last month I opened with my comments about the success of our first broadcast television commercials. Starting September 12, we will expand our commercial to cable television where they will appear on HGTV and other home-related networks. To our original three spots, we’ve added four more; this time featuring ARG agents whose unscripted comments were so powerful, we decided to air them to the public. Many thanks to ARG Realtors Sandra Melville, Dan Larson, Mike Althof and Nicole Hazelton for their participation.

President Obama was asked by Illinois Realtor LuAnn Lavine some pointed questions regarding the housing market. She got up before dawn one day during the president’s bus tour of the midwest. She asked her question, and then politely interrupted the president with a follow-up. She was respectful and got her point across in cordial manner. She represented homeowners and Realtors across the country with great skill and composure. She got her point across that the measures taken so far to keep people in their homes have failed and that no recovery of the economy will take place with the housing market on life-support.

Personal Stuff: I had the privilege in August of having lunch with CNN’s Anderson Cooper, who was in town promoting his new CBS show “Anderson.” Cooper impressed me as an atypical celebrity. He showed up without an entourage, arrived early, stayed late and made a point to get around to everyone and introduce himself. Clearly his mom Gloria Vanderbilt raised him well. His one personal comment to me: “I love your hair!” Did I mention he’s a laugh-riot?

My personal home, downtown San Diego’s iconic Meridian has been undergoing a thorough facelift of its common areas. The new lobby was unveiled to residents’ cheers on August 18 with a reception that included the new plaza-level art gallery. New passenger elevators, new residential corridors, and a re-imagined Meridian room are either now complete or close to it. Meridian’s five guest suites will be redone as well as both fitness centers. The effort took close to five years and was arduous for the volunteer residents who undertook what was at times a thankless job. Their hard work was certainly worth the effort and Meridian is a statement, again.

ARG’s new career site  realestatecareersinsandiego.com is off to a great start. If you or your favorite real estate agent are thinking of a career move, check us out! We have agent space available in our downtown location and are looking for 10-20 agents for our new location which will be in the Rancho Bernardo or Santa Luz areas.

 

August 2011

On the heels of our first broadcast television marketing campaign, the reports are in. All I can say is “THANK YOU” for the hundreds of favorable comments! Our message “Where you’re essential.” stuck a chord both within the real estate industry and to the public at large:

Gretchen K. wrote “Finally, a real estate company I’d actually want to hire!” And from Kevin J. “I like the way your ads talk about listening and about hard work. Well done.” Television is a truly powerful tool. One of our locations – a $3,000,000 waterfront home in San Diego’s Sunset Cliffs neighborhood – sold as a result of our ad campaign. Hard to argue with those results!  If you’d like to see our ads go to youtube.com/use/ARGSDTube

ARG added four new agents since my last blog two weeks ago. Paul Weiner, Matt Conser, Daron Chelette and Jason Waldy joined us as REALTORS and I am very pleased to welcome them to our ARG team of real estate professionals.

We began the arduous and exciting process of scouting locations for our new north county location. With a core group of highly-skilled and committed ARG Realtors leading our northern efforts we now look forward to a close-to-home location for Craig Wells, Jason Waldy, Cameron Abbott, and Gina Florentino – probably in our old hometown of Rancho Bernardo. Stay tuned.

ARG leads the San Diego Residential Real Estate industry in another important area: How we see our agents and staff. We are close to the end of 2011 training on Dr. Stephen Covey’s “7 Habits of Highly Effective People” and the results have been amazing. Teaching this course, watching the light bulbs of understanding and hearing the aha’s of recognition go off each month has been an indescribable highlight of my career as a brokerage owner. We Myers-Briggs tested over 30 of our staff and their significant-others. We conducted a day-long retreat to discuss the results and followed up with the Thomas-Kilmann Conflict Mode Instrument — all in an effort to make the lives of our people better. And not just their work lives.

We debuted a new career website on August 1, 2011. Visit www.realestatecareersinsandiego.com to take a look at our training, recruiting and agent news platform. I’m sure you’ll find it incredible.

The summer selling season is in a malaise in San Diego -  high end homes remain challenging to sell as economic worries continue to depress pricing and consumer confidence. On the positive side, inventories have now declined to less than half their one time peaks, which has made some segments of market brisk, brisk, brisk. Call an ARG Realtor to discuss your personal real estate goals. Buying is still the place to be and cash is king!

Our country remains mired in a slower-than-normal recovery and without sounding too self-important, no overall economic rebound is likely to occur without housing. Perhaps our government leaders will finally figure this out and take appropriate steps to rebuild the housing cornerstone soon!

-Jim Abbott

 

July 2011

As summer finally arrives in San Diego, our sunny weather has finally (we hope!) banished June Gloom and May Gray until next year. Around ARG, things have been a-poppin’!

ARG welcomes Realtors Rachel Taylor and Paul Weiner to our office. Paul, a native of Long Island, NY owns a home on Cortez Hill – a neighborhood he represents with expertise and enthusiasm. Rachel joins the Ritto-Hazelton Team at ARG. Originally from Tennessee, Rachel resides in Point Loma and is a genuine presence in San Diego’s “peninsula” marketplace.

Our first broadcast television commercials aired across Southern California and brought us some quick success with the sale of 1105 Sunset Cliffs Drive – which served as the site of two of our three initial ads. The buyers, who’d previously viewed the property, decided to proceed with an offer after seeing their future home on TV. ARG’s Monica Ball and Jessica Freeman represented the seller. That was just one of several multi-million dollar sales our firm handled during Q2 2011.

Year to date we’ve helped over 100 families into new homes, sell their existing homes or negotiate leases – an all time record for our downtown office. Walk-in traffic is way-up and an air of growing consumer confidence seems to bubble from our sidewalk brochure-lookers.

Reaching far to our north, Carolyn Bowhay, Broker-Associate at ARG is co-listing the quintessential Carmel-by-the-Sea, Calif home. Just steps to the beach the 1913 Green-and-Green Craftsman is a true treasure on an oak-studded double lot. It’s offered at $3.3 million.

In my travels and conversations with other offices, I hear for the first time in many years, talk of a truly-improving real estate markets. Sales are up (in our market areas) and prices are up slightly as well. Best buys are still available on the high end of all San Diego markets. Inventories overall are shrinking so in a strict supply/demand scenario, fewer choices mean rising prices. Over half of ARG sales under $600,000 involved multiple offers. ARG does specific training with our agents on the best way to prevail when they’re competing with 1, 2, or more competing offers. Winning often means a relationship with the listing agency and a reputation that attaches to all our contracts. We genuinely strive to be the best so we in turn get the best results for our buying and selling clients.

Leases –  the more volatile side of the residential market have been firming with marketing time within our office falling to days rather than weeks. This coincides with the shrinking amount of for-sale inventory – a trend not likely to change soon.

Please visit us at youtube.com/use/ARGSDTube or on Facebook.

-Jim Abbott, President/Managing Broker

June 2011

Economic markets are often described in simple terms. Supply and demand. Winners over Losers. Haves vs. Have-nots. For today, I’ve picked the pendulum. The famous, old museum piece that fascinated generations of kids as it swung inevitably from side to side with little effort and absolute predictability.

San Diego’s real estate market is quickly arc-ing away from inventory glut to a serious lack of choices for action-ready buyers. Seasoned agents have been predicting this for sometime. In urban markets where high-rise product is the norm, developers don’t build in phases, so the planning/construction process is much longer. With no new residential construction underway in the Metro area, inventories have been slowly whittled down to 40% of the high mark.

If your agent is telling you “now” is the time to buy, it’s because NOW REALLY IS the time to buy.  The old saw about waiting for the market to bottom is fools-game of bad choices. Those who wait for the bottom usually get bottom-of-the-barrel properties — the ones that languished on the market while better homes were snapped up. The low-ball offer strategy has vanished as a way of getting a good deal. We are on a march toward a market where demand and supply are near parity and sellers are getting closer toa asking prices.

You may be getting a note from one of our experienced, committed ARG sales associates stating that now is a good time to sell your home. It is. In fact, it’s the best time to market a property late 2005. Are prices back to their peaks. No. But buyers are in the marketplace with cash and REAL loans.

ARG welcomes Joanne Kerr, Ph.D. Broker-associate to our team. Joanne holds the CRS designation (Certified Residential Specialist) from the National Association of REALTORS and is a Notary Public. With nearly 30 years of sales experience, she is a great addition to our office.

At ARG’s downtown main office, we’ve formed an affiliate relationship with Sam Assael and Drew Greene of Alliance Direct Home Loans. In 26 years of San Diego real estate work, I have never met a man (Sam) or a woman (Drew) who achieve better outcomes for our mutual clients as the secure home loans.

Mortgage lending in a market dominated by condominium product offers a number of challenges. “Big Bank” lenders routinely fail to deliver promised loans to unwitting borrowers who often waste weeks of time and cause themselves endless frustration. Sam and Drew routinely fund loans in two weeks – even in complexes under litigation. You can reach them at dgreene@alliancedirecthm.com or sam@alliancedirecthm.com or simply stop by our offices at 435 Fourth Ave in the Gaslamp Quarter.

 

April 2011

MARKET MATTERS

This past week, respected local economist Gary London spoke to Downtown San Diego Realtors on the state of the San Diego Real Estate Market. According to London, declining inventories and mild price appreciation point to a gradual, slow return to a normal market over the next year.

London’s opinion is important if you’ve been considering a purchase and are wondering how much longer this combination of low prices and low interest rates will last. Now you know.

San Diego’s flirtation with a “double-dip” decline in its housing values was just a passing glance. The most recent Case-Shiller Index showed San Diego as one of just two of 20 metropolitan areas across the country to post a modest gain in value. The other is Washington, DC.

ARG’s own internal data jibes perfectly with London’s. Listing inventory is shrinking, with multiple offers now common. Prices are firming and rising. It is more and more evident that a lack of new home construction and pent-up demand means fewer choices for buyers.

ARG NEWS

ARG welcomed Sales Partners Jim Brown, Mimi Casavantes and Vi Mooberry to the firm.

Jim Brown - a Watermark resident is one of San Diego’s most experienced agents in the  field of tax-deferred exchanges and residential investment properties. With hundreds of successful sales of multi-family properties. He fills an important niche in our brokerage as investors increasingly move back into residential real estate. jim.brown@argsd.com.

Vi Mooberry joins our growing team of north county agents and lives in south Escondido. Vi brings over 20 years experience of truly unparalleled service and a list of loyal clients who won’t make a move without her. Vi is credentialed teacher and doting grandmother. Her addition to our firm is a distinct privilege. vi.mooberry@argsd.com.

TOP OF THE TOWN

ARG just finished up its most successful quarter in company history and in keeping with our goal to be downtown San Diego’s top residential real estate company, the University Club will play host to all ARG sales and training meet ups for the rest of 2011.

James (Jim) Abbott – President and Broker of Record