Transcript:

BrokerIPTV: I am with Kevin Boer, he is with three oceans real-estate blog and we just sat through the new technology seminar here at Inman Connect at New York city 2008. And Kevin just more curious, Brad Inman on the other day and his speech was taking about things in the past return about video, social networking, transparency and he was really talking about New York in 2008, kind of the market. I am curious from your perspective, whats the world according to Kevin?

Kevin Boer: The world according to Kevin oh dear, thats the very broad question, so since it is a real estate conference we will confine our lofty comments to the real estate world. So I think a couple of things are going to happen at.., let me just talk briefly about the market and then secondly let me talk about social media and blogging in real estate. So in terms of the market I am out in the bay area, thats where I operate and in our area it really is a question of which neighborhood you are in, so you read the media in its the media will tell you real estate prices are dropping by 10% every month in every neighborhood across the country and 10% of the homes are in foreclosure and if you dont sell your home right now, you are going to lose even more money. The reality in the bay area is its neighborhood by neighborhood, you go to one neighborhood, if it is got a good school district, chances are prices are doing well, Palo Alto is up 20%, -Menlo Park is up maybe 5-10% if you are in a poor school district you are hoarding, so its a real mixed bag in our area and so the way that I see it is the lower end of the market which has the poor the not so good school districts. I think they are going to start to recover along with the rest of the country with when the whole sub prime mortgage thing gets fixed up, the upper end I think its going to continue doing well for the first future in the valley simply because technology is doing so well, and technology is what drives the valley.

Now then I guess the other part of your question, I will just interject myself into that is thinking about blogging social media all that kind of thing, so I think whats going to happen specifically with blogging is going to become main stream… probably around mid 2009, its going to there is going to be a session on it, at the NAR-convention in 2011, thats going to be the first time NAR is going to hear about it, and I am happy having that on film, NAR does a lot of good things but they are not ahead of the curve on technology. But I think whats going to happen with blogging is very much like any other marketing form in real estate its going to be successful for the agents who do it consistently and persistently and its not going to successful for a lot of agents. So I think maybe 10% of agents are going find great success from blogging but I dont think blogging is necessarily for everybody and so thats kind of what I see going forward kind of a long answer to a what was a simple question actually.

BrokerIPTV: So we are sure talking about micro markets and areas which is true in most parts of the country that press fails to mention that secondly blogging is definitely about persistence, and really if we move let me talk about your blog, 3 oceans blog, didnt you work for a brand name company before?

Kevin Boer: Yeah. I did. I worked for a Alain Pinel Realtors which is a very large, independently owned luxury brand out in the bay area and there going to a phenomenal job of branding themselves offline, everywhere you go in the bay area if you want to list your high end Alain Pinel was one of the first names you think off so I worked for them for I guess 3½ almost 4 years, and I started my blog about little over year before I left them, and what I found was that my brand was beginning to sort of split apart right I had an online brand called 3 oceans [Audio Break] And I had an offline brand called Alain Pinel and I decided that was trying for me to sort of move my online into an offline world and so I decided to go independent and so really ultimately it was my blog led me to the point where I could successfully launch my own independent brokerage that a ready sort of had a name for itself and out in the real world. So I think blogging has been very powerful from the branding point of view from my own business.

BrokerIPTV: yeah. I think just the most excellent example of how a persistent, well done blog can actually become its own brand in really perpetuate your business.

Kevin Boer: Exactly

BrokerIPTV: Great and I really appreciate your time Kevin, congrats.

Kevin Boer: All right thank you very much, all right thanks a lot.

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