My Misconceptions. I Was Wrong. Are You?

Not real estate related.

A close friend stopped by our house and excitedly introduced us to PTK.

Better focus, energy, fat loss, mood and sleep were some of the benefits he was personally enjoying. Of course I want that, who doesn’t?

My Mistake: I thought it would be for people who wanted to lose fat and had extra money in their budget.

Wrong.

PTK – Pure Therapeutic Ketones were developed for elite US military forces to get them into a peak performance state within hours so they could quickly respond to missions. They weren’t trying to lose weight – they needed better focus and energy to perform at their best.

So this is for anyone who wants peak performance at work and in life.

Cost:

Pure Therapeutic Ketones are not cheap, although there are plenty of cheap knock offs on the market. Pruvit owns the patent to the real thing, and that is protected by law.

Two servings of PTK knocked out my cravings for sweets and chocolate.

Cha Ching. I’m now saving money on snacks.

Friends of ours are already saving on groceries and restaurants because cravings for expensive junk food are being eliminated. Folks are just rearranging their grocery budget and buying PTK instead of garbage.

Better health also leads to long term cost benefits.

Good health is an investment, not an expense.

Of course there is an income opportunity here. But you can also get your PTK at a discount, or even free, just as a customer.

Watch this 3 minute video to learn more about ketones and ketosis. As more research comes out, this is becoming more and more popular. PTK allows us to jump start ketosis and begin reaping the benefits weeks before we would see results just by changing our eating habits.

https://msweat.experienceketo.com

No one has said this to me yet, but I suspect cigarettes could also be a cost savings. Everyone knows ex-smokers tend to gain weight. Eliminating the downside of quitting and improving health and finances could be a benefit to those who want to quit without the weight gain.

Watch this 3 minute video and let me know what you like best about it.

https://msweat.experienceketo.com

I’ll tell you who this is NOT for: If you want your life to resemble a sad country song where everything goes wrong, then this is not for you.

All the Best,

Jim Sweat

Team@JimSweat.com

This Is Why Relying on Zillow Is a Bad Idea

Don’t let this happen to you!

The ad was captivating. It grabbed your attention and pulled you in, but don’t fall for it.

There are several reasons people go to Zillow, but here is proof that you shouldn’t make any important decisions based on what you find there.

1. Buyers are looking for homes
2. Sellers are confirming the value for a list price
3. Buyers are confirming the value before making an offer
4. Folks are “checking out” a potential real estate agent
5. Pictures, maps, neighborhood info

The dirty low down:

Number 5 is easy: Zillow harvests photos and data from numerous sources and provides it for your viewing pleasure. Enjoy it. Even if the photos are not current, you aren’t going to make too big of a mistake just from looking at them.

Number 1 is also easy: Not everything you see on Zillow is actually available for sale. There are dozens of reasons why properties are shown when they aren’t for sale. This company exists solely to lure viewers and collect information to sell to real estate agents. The data doesn’t have to be accurate; it just has to be attractive.

Numbers 2 and 3 can be lumped together. Value. Zestimate. Automated Valuation. Pricing. Whatever you want to call it, you can’t trust it. It is wrong. My blog Your Home Valuation is Wrong from July 30, 2018 goes into more detail. https://jimsweat.wordpress.com/2018/07/30/your-home-valuation-is-wrong/

Number 4 can be a real problem. It’s a problem for the buyers and sellers, and also for the real estate agents. I sell two or three times as much real estate as the average agent, but you can’t tell that from looking at Zillow. They say that I have not sold anything in the last 17 months. https://jimsweat.wordpress.com/2018/09/20/really-zillow-again/

Yes, I can go in and manually update it, but that doesn’t mean it will be accurate next week. Here today, gone tomorrow is reality with these guys.

They were happy to use my photos, my descriptions and marketing remarks on my listings they used as “bait” to attract potential buyer and seller leads, but when those homes sold, Zillow conveniently “forgot” to credit me with the sale.

Blog post January 16, 2015 titled Real Estate Misinformation and Extortion tells how after 20 years in real estate, Zillow showed me completing 2 (two) total transactions. Two. After I had been a full time licensed real estate professional for twenty years! I had owned a real estate company part of that time. I had obtained my ABR, CRS, GRI, CDPE, e-PRO and ILHM designations – many of which require a certain level of production to qualify. But the big gorilla of real estate information credited me with two sales!

https://jimsweat.wordpress.com/2015/01/16/real-estate-misinformation-and-extortion/

You can’t make this stuff up!

And again:

My blog post Boom! Yes That Was My Head Exploding! from August 6, 2015 tells when I found out Trulia and Zillow wiped my slate, again. After over 20 years as a full-time licensed real estate professional, part of which I was broker/owner of a real estate company, Trulia credited me with 1 (one) total career sale and Zillow showed me having 2 (two) sales in my entire career!

https://jimsweat.wordpress.com/2015/08/06/boom-yes-that-was-my-head-exploding/

You don’t have to make things up, they prove every day that danger lurks if you blindly follow.

The thing to remember is that Zillow exists purely to make money from real estate brokers. If they have decent information on the website, great. If not, it doesn’t matter as long as they can lure people there, collect the contact info, and sell them to an agent.

There are thousands of companies that do the same thing: provide real estate information for the sole purpose of collecting leads to sell to real estate agents. Zillow just happens to be the biggest, and therefore can do the most damage.

Zillow has some great ads: A wonderful mix of emotional heart-tugs and perceived factual data.

Too bad people make important life decisions based on the fake news and false information.

http://www.SweatSellsFlorida.com

All the Best!

Jim Sweat, ABR, CLHMS, CRS, CDPE, GRI, e-PRO, ILHM

Featured in Scene Magazine’s Men on the Scene 2016 issue

Author of REAL ESTATE CSI: CONTROVERSY, SECRETS, INSIGHT (coming soon)

Jim Sweat – Helping Buyers & Sellers Choose Wisely Since 1995 ™

Re/Max  Alliance Group

1314 E. Venice Ave, Venice, FL 34285

Mobile: 941-306-7384

http://myfloridahomesmls.com/JimSweat (Home Search)

https://jimsweat.wordpress.com/ (Blog)

www.linkedin.com/in/jimsweat (LinkedIn)

A Proven Professional Working for You!

23 Years Experience

BOOM! Yes, that was my head exploding!

Warning: Informative Rant regarding Zillow-Trulia

This is why the public needs to be careful of the sources they use to make important decisions!

Things that make your head explode!

The DMV at Secretary of State office; Trulia; Zillow; getting “help” from a government agency.

Let’s just grab one of these, and let ‘er rip!

(For the record, I wanted to type the whole thing in BOLD CAPS!!)

I just sent Trulia a message not to renew my PRO subscription. And followed up with a phone call, because they plan on billing me again in just two days, and I want to make sure it doesn’t happen. So, what do they try to do?

Sell me advertising!

I have had profiles on Zillow and Trulia for @ 9 years, have been a full-time Realtor for over 20 years, and still Trulia only credits me with one sale.

Ever.

Total career high of… one!

Zillow was hardly any better: they had me credited with a career high of two (2) sales! So I started manually entering sales into Zillow. You would be shocked at the number of homes that are not in the Zillow system at all.

Our previous home: 100 years old, 2 blocks to downtown, 3 blocks to city hall and neither Zillow nor Trulia have it in the database as a home I can claim a sale on. Really?

I sort of understand some of the properties I sold in gated waterfront communities that they may not be able to access easily. Wait! Those homes are all deeded properties readily available on the county website, so why can these data-mining behemoths not locate the information?

Not even a zestimate for 412 Michigan Ave in South Haven, Michigan. Interesting. It’s not that zestimates have any bearing on reality, it is that so many people THINK the information they are getting online is trustworthy, and it is NOT!

So, today the Trulia rep told me what I needed to do is pay for advertising in my chosen zip codes, and buyers and sellers will then see my profile. I explained that my profile makes it look as if I am a useless slug that can’t sell anything (including my own house!) and I am NOT interested in paying them to send people to my profile for proof that I am worthless after 20 years in the business!

Boom!

How many times will my head explode and I continue on?!!?

Zillow bought Trulia this year, so they now are merging their faulty databases. The rep today said that I will likely see issues with my profile during the merger.

Not likely to get any worse for me, is it?

She confirmed My Florida Regional MLS feeds into Trulia, so the information should be automatically updated. That was after I explained that our MLS goes from Fort Meyers, north to Tampa, east through Kissimmee to the Atlantic Ocean. It is a big MLS! Not the Podunk system she assumed wasn’t feeding into Trulia.

So why, after 9 years, can’t they get it right? Or even close? They could credit me with a couple hundred of my sales and I probably would never even look to see if they were all there. Maybe even 100 would keep me from looking.

But only ONE?!?! I might notice that!

Several times through the years Trulia has said they will fix the feed to my profile. And I have even added some of my sales manually. But, time and time again, this is what I get. The rep said she has hundreds of Realtors in Florida who don’t have issues with their feed.

What makes me so special?

My recent sales range from a $90,000 condo downtown to a $3 Million bay front manse on an idyllic Florida island. I have worked the listing side, the buyer side, and even one with both sides. Trulia even sent me updates on my listings (that sold within days at full price or higher with multiple offers). How can they not at least have the properties they were emailing me about!?!?

Don’t get me started on the agent ratings, recommendations and testimonials! That is a whole other ball of… wax!

So here is my open letter to Trulia, and it will suffice if someone from Zillow would also like to take a look:

I do not want to renew my PRO subscription, that I have had for eight months. I have not gotten any leads from it. The only branding I will get from this is negative! I have had profiles on Zillow and Trulia for @ 9 years, have been a full-time Realtor for over 20 years, and still Trulia only credits me with one sale.

I have recommendations, but no ratings because the customers filled them out before ratings were a feature. I can’t remember if it is Trulia or Zillow, but at least one told me I have the old version of profile, and if I move to the new one I will lose the testimonials that I already have. Great.

Trulia was more useful to me when the blog and Q&A were being utilized. Now, I just don’t see the value of it.

Trulia-Zillow, surely you are working on cross-populating ratings and testimonials, right? Oh well, I’m not paying to see how it turns out.

Please let me know what additional information you need to set up my NON-renewal request.

Rant over. I feel better. Hopefully you are now better informed, and this is a win/win!

Respectfully,

Jim Sweat, ABR, CRS, CDPE, GRI, e-PRO, ILHM

REALTOR

Jim Sweat – Helping Buyers & Sellers Choose Wisely Since 1995 ™

Author of REAL ESTATE CSI: CONTROVERSY, SECRETS, INSIGHT (coming 2015)

American Realty of Venice, Inc.

700 W. Venice Ave

Venice, FL 34285

941-484-8080

http://myfloridahomesmls.com/JimSweat Home search

www.linkedin.com/in/jimsweat LinkedIn

https://www.zillow.com/reviews/write/?s=X1-ZUyz3incawqo7d_93ahq Zillow