Long Beach Real Estate-Downtown Long Beach Condos

Here on our Long Beach Real Estate site I usually write purely real estate related articles targeted at educating and informing buyers and sellers of Long Beach Real Estate. Today I would like to give you a little peek into the business side of things and explain how they can affect the sale or purchase of your Long Beach homes.

In a recently published post I disclosed the 2008 closed sales in Long Beach; 674 of them, through 4/30/08. While the chart shows the sales increasing each month, the sales figures are still very low. (Includes sales of homes, condos, lofts, co-ops, Oyos, 2-4 units and 5+ units as recorded on the MLS)

• Jan 130
• Feb 153
• Mar 179
• Apr 212
• Total: 674

These are difficult times for those of us surviving in the real estate industry. Going into this down market there were about 2900 licensed Realtors on record, there are currently about 1600 licensees active in the Long Beach area. Every market will support a certain amount of agents based on the closed sales of that market. Each agent needs a certain amount of closed sales in order to survive. Lets assume that 8 to 10 closed sales for the year are required for a Realtor to even survive this market; 674 closed sales would produce 8 to 10 sales for the year, for between 200 and 250 Realtors. Those sales are currently spread across 1600 current licensees, which would equate to less than ½ of a sale for each Realtor for the first 4 months of 2008.

In the real estate industry we have an 80/20 saying. It states that 20% of the agents do 80% of the business. 20% of 1600 agents = 320 which would equate to about 2 closed sales for the majority of the 20% still doing business.

So how are 1600 Realtors surviving a market with sales that will currently only support 200 to 250?

• Some have other income, or a spouse or significant other with income.
• Some have taken on Part or Full time jobs, while trying to juggle their real estate.
• Some have anticipated this market and made plans to survive it.
• Some are making enough sales to manage.

What of the 80%? That is 1280 agents, still active, for the last 4 months. How are they surviving with little or no sales? Well, they either have spousal support a trust fund or they have accepted salaried positions. Lets take a look at that. Real estate is a more than full time job; it is a commitment which permeates every hour of every day of our lives. Real estate transactions require a lot of attention on a daily basis. Escrow, title, lenders, inspections, appraisers banks and more need to be attended to, mostly during normal business hours. Buyers need to see properties around their schedules which often means after work or weekend showings. Sellers properties often need tending, flyers run out; keys go missing from a lock box or end up in another box on the same property. A pipe may burst on a listing with an out of town owner; anything can happen. How is an agent who has accepted employment elsewhere, with a set schedule, going to be able to deal with the schedule and responsibilities of a full time Realtor? How does that affect the buyer or seller? Has the agent even disclosed to the buyer or seller that they are not fully available? Do you know if your agent is available to conduct business, full time on your behalf?

The buyer, who sees property after work, writes an offer, has it accepted, goes into escrow, has a right to expect their Realtor to be available during normal business hours to properly handle their transaction. Why isnt my Realtor answering their cell phone? Why isnt everything moving along? Why is everything taking so long? I called escrow today, they havent heard from the agent either. Whats up with that? They are not available. If they spent the time required to handle your transaction on the phone, fax and email from their place of employment, they would lose the job they need to survive.

Too many agents are not answering their phones when other agents and buyers are calling to see properties they have listed. Every one of these missed calls is a missed opportunity for a seller. Agents and buyers just move on to other properties and more cooperative agents.

So how do you figure out who is doing business and why? You go to the internet. 80% or more of buyers begin their search and find their agent online. Which agents do you find online promoting their business? Go ahead and put Long Beach Real Estate into the Google search engine. You will find a small handful of Long Beach Realtors who have made it their business to acquire a very substantial position in the #1 search engine online to not only promote their business, but to drive traffic through their listings and to attract buyers. You will also find a group of vendors who have property searches, none of which include the entire MLS property search. Why? Because they are not real estate brokers; they are in the business of selling advertising and buyer/seller leads to Realtors. They do not have access to this level of information. They can only provide the listings which SOME of the larger brokerages and individual agents provide to them. How does this help the buyer see ALL of the listings available?

Realtors who have a substantial internet presence understand what it takes to promote traffic to your home or condo for sale; the more traffic that passes through your home, the higher the chance that your buyer will be among them.

We are proud to be in the #1 position in Google for the term Long Beach Real Estate; we worked very hard attaining that position for our clients benefit. We are also in the #1 position for many other important search terms and are on page 1 of Google for just about every conceivable real estate search term related to Long Beach and Long Beach real estate. We have spent many years working on our websites and our internet presence. We anticipated the shift onto the internet and have been developing relationships with technology experts and other professionals to provide the best possible experience for our Long Beach Sellers and our Long Beach Buyers.

Buyers will find a multitude of helpful information and tips on our sites, all geared toward educating and informing about todays market and real estate issues.

You will find a full MLS search of all active listings, which includes VIP service - the ability to set up exclusive searches for yourself and to compare and email properties, relocation information, buyer information, seller information, home staging, market reports and updates, home loan information, mortgage rate reports, community and neighborhood information and much more. We have tried to provide a complete consumer experience.

In addition to our already highly successful site www.longbeachrealestatehome.com we are thrilled to announce our new site is up and running. We have moved www.lauriemanny.com to a new site. This site will not only improve the consumer experience, but should drive even more traffic. We love it and hope that you will too.

What makes a real estate site successful? We provide educational and helpful information for consumers. Consumers bookmark our site and become regular readers.

How do you judge the success of a real estate site? By its traffic.

How much traffic do our sites get daily? A lot! No really - a lot! We are now averaging about 5,000 hits a day and still growing. Most Realtor websites nationwide receive a few hundred hits a day if they are doing well.

How does that translate into business? Many consumers read us for months before contacting us - they bookmark our site or are subscribed either by email or by a feed reader. Many buyers and sellers contact us, some we can help, and some we cannot. We promote properties on our sites. Buyers find us on the internet. Buyers call their agents and ask to see properties. Sellers get traffic - a lot of it.

Do you see the value in hiring an internet savvy Realtor with a substantial internet presence yet?

The Long Beach Real Estate Home site has attained national recognition for it hyper-local focus on Long Beach real estate and its unprecedented success. Recently Laurie was one of four Realtors statewide called upon by the California Association of Realtors (CAR) to participate in a round table discussing social media on the internet and its impact on the real estate industry. CAR is releasing portions of this roundtable in its June/July Realtor magazine. Video clips from this event will be available on the CAR site shortly. Laurie will be speaking at the Bloodhound Unchained Conference in Phoenix May 17 through May 20^th, sharing her knowledge with Realtors from across the USA and Canada. Laurie has also been invited to share her knowledge and experience with the national real estate industry at the annual Inman News conference in San Francisco this summer.

Laurie has been invited to contribute to several nationwide real estate sites. Keep your eyes open, you never know where Laurie is going to turn up with more valuable information for buyers and sellers. (I will always share with my Long Beach readers)

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