All Forum Posts by: Toby Munk

In general I think that pocket listings are not generally good deals. Here is why.

The seller does not seem to be motivated enough to actually list it. If he gets his number (normally a high number) he will sell. That said pockets can be great to find fairly priced treasures.

You will not earn a salary at all. You will earn a commission. So unless you sell something you will have expenses.

It can be several months before you do your first deal. My first deal cam after 9 months of hard work and lots of disappointments. Aspen might be different though as we are talking big numbers and lots of agents. My first sale was a $6m home.

But nevertheless have reserves. If you can not support yourself for at least 5 months don't bother. That is unless you have a great database of people that you know will buy or sell real estate with you.

I would recommend getting your license if you want to talk intelligently to clients.

You would be really restricted if you are not licensed.

Hi Scott,

good questions. I can see that you have thought things trough. My website is starting to be a major corner stone of my buyer lead generation. I am scheduled to have the website completely re-designed my end of March.

Here to your questions
1) I am in a small community, I only get about 40 unique visitor per day
2) I have 2 sites, one main one which I optimize for and one to experiment with
3)I had my blog on a subdomain first, that is not the way to go. That was like www.blog.yoursite.com. Now I have the blog integrated into my site. Much better, the SE give you better credit that way for new content
4) The conversion rate from visitor to sign ups is about 10%.
The industry standard is a 1% conversion rate of registered users. So figure you will need 10 leads to generate a registered user, you will need 100 registered users for a deal. So you will need 1000 visitors to generate a deal. This can vary with luck and how good your source of unique users are etc..
5) Close deals make money, my website generates those.. so YES
6) Best source is always organic search engine ranking. Optimization of your website is very time consuming or will cost you money to do. Pay per click becomes expensive with the above sign up and conversion ratios. Do the math.

I would think it depends on your area. I am in a resort town.
Lots of buyers are from all over the country. No point in mailing to 250m americans.

For me buyers are web leads or office walk-ins. Getting to sellers is a relationship game here in Aspen and I have only been here 3 years.... so have some ways to go.

As sellers do not advertise their motivation offers is a sure thing to find out.
The trick is to make lots of offers and low offers in the current climate in most of the country.

Find somebody that is willing to submit offers and make it worth his time by also listing with him.

The different MLS systems are operated by the local REALTOR (r) organizations. YOu have to be a licensed real estate agent and a Realtor(r) to get access to the MLS.

Appart from getting your license and all the E&O insurance fees, licensing fees, continuing education fees, Realtor(r) membership fees and monthly MLS fees there is your time to consider.

Also don't forget that your disclosure requirements change once you are licensed.

That total sales number of $1.3b for the last quarter seems low.

I guess we can conclude that a large proportion is not really active at all.
The rest is full time but then the 80:20 rule applies to that portion.

So overall I think it is more like 10% do 90% of the deals.

Here in Aspen I would say the distribution is a little flatter.

As it happens my website is starting to be a major source of leads for me. I am sure this will only get better after March with a complete re-design of my site and blog. Does not look great as it is now.

It might not apply to REI in general but it does for me as a real estate agent. In 5 years you will not find as buyer coming to a resort town like Aspen that did not already link up with an agent long before he hit the town.

Who do you think will capture some of those leads? Not the guy with a website ranked at #100.

Just a few thoughts.
There is no holy grail in SEO. The topic is so complex that no single source will show you how to get top position without doing work.

It is a LOT OF WORK !

If there was such a think as google #1 in 5 quick steps I would be a rich man. Well at least richer man.

But basic things will get you 80% there as most people do not actively optimize their site and efforts.