Month: January 2020

The 9,000-square-foot space was chosen to fit the life of a high-flying actor.

A Tuscan-style estate that was featured in HBO’s “Entourage” has sold for $5.32 million after two months on the market.

Located in California’s Encino, 5266 Amestoy Avenue appeared as the home of character Vincent Chase in the seventh season of the popular show about an actor trying to reclaim star power. Listing agent Jill Krutchik, of Berkshire Hathaway HomeServices California Properties, told NBC that both the exterior and the interior were used to film scenes from the show.

Indeed, the home is fit for a high-flying actor. The entire space sits at more than 9,000 square feet and boasts a gated courtyard, a pool and multiple patios and verandas. The inside includes seven bedrooms, a chef’s kitchen, six fireplaces, 22-foot ceilings, a bar, sun room and separate wings for the master bedroom and children’s rooms.

A family room with a massive fireplace and a bar table are meant to serve as the center of the house where friends and family gather. The space is also decked out with smart home technology and its own heat generator in the case of a power outage. It was listed in November 2019 for $5.5 million and sold to a buyer who has chosen to remain anonymous.

“Entourage,” which aired from 2004 to 2011, centers around Chase as he and his friends navigate Hollywood with the help of agent Ari Gold. It is loosely based on the life of actor Mark Wahlberg and, after the popularity of the series, inspired a 2015 film.

“Situated on a flat street-to-street lot of almost an acre, you can indulge in the ultimate Southern California lifestyle with rolling lawns, relaxing pool, oversized spa, al fresco dining and entertaining,” the listing description reads.

Phoenix-based 3D aerial photography company has earned patents for its hi-res, high-elevation photography process that accurately puts lat-long coordinates on every pixel. With new funding, 70 markets are on the radar.

AerialSphere creates 360-degree aerial maps for real estate search and marketing.
Platforms: Browser
Ideal for: Brokerages, teams and individual agents; professionals who sell new construction; those in fast-growing markets

Top selling points
Highly unique way to search
More visually informative than Google Earth maps
Patented processess
API integrations
Not limited by drone regulations
Top concerns
Advanced functionality and data overlays are still a ways out, as the company itself has only recently launched. But the flight-plan is expanding quickly as a result of a recent Series A funding round.

What you should know
Why is map search important?

Because homebuyers are more lifestyle-driven than ever before. They want to know how close to the beach a house might be or where the closest middle school is located. People want to walk, bike, and be close to friends and craft breweries.

Maps help online homeshoppers visually determine all this stuff.

Plus, when it’s a map like what AerialSphere offers, it’s also a damn addicting way to keep people on your website.

Think of it as Matterport from a half-mile in the sky: move around, zoom-in, jump to distant parts of a city, zoom in on a listing.

Co-founder DJ Vegh owned a drone business, is a pilot, and helped build the technology behind his company, who he runs alongside Mike Smith.

The two managed to earn five patents for the four-camera attachment and photography process they use to capture their vivid, informational landscapes.

Able to fly between 1,500 feet and 2,000 feet, the team’s Cessna 206 does 50-mile-long, 1-mile-wide serpentine loops of an urban area to capture every pixel of the market. It took them under a day and six tanks of fuel to photograph greater Phoenix. And that’s sprawl-city.

What makes AerialSphere so unique, beyond the patents, is that its image processing “geo-rectifies” each fly-by capture, resulting in a latitude and longitude reading of every pixel in an image — that means they can give the exact coordinates of a fire hydrant. Or, more practically speaking, it means every single property in a scanned MSA is in their database.

That’s an absurd amount of property data.

Think about what that can mean when they eventually partner with rich data miners such as TopHap or forward-thinking portals like Homesnap.

Ifoundagent.com, a real estate website developer and marketing technology provider, has fully integrated AerialSphere’s imagery via its API into more than 400 client sites throughout Phoenix and Tuscon and embedded live MLS data.

While the company is mapping itself a future full of new features and ways to leverage its aerial imagery, it already has some slick tools ready to go.

In addition to the MLS data overlays, I was shown a use of the Google Places API that enables queries for neighborhood amenities around a subject property, such as “nearby dog parks.” It can also instantly jump to a Google Street View of a specific property or screenshot a high-resolution view of your listing’s neighborhood.

With its recent funding, AerialSphere plans to add five more planes to its fleet to start knocking out flights over 60-70 metros, starting with Las Vegas. It is almost finished with San Diego. Vegh told me they sometimes use a helicopter.

Whereas drones are able to quickly capture a single home or small community, they are very limited in distance and altitude, not to mention meta-data absorption. In fact, AerialSphere makes standard drone footage seem rather rudimentary.

Practically speaking, there are marketing advantages to this kind of map content, as well as higher concept usages like appraisal, environmental assessments and site selection.

AerialSphere has great applications for listing presentations. And agents who specialize in corporate relocation can use its tools to fly around communities as they relate to the subject company’s location.

AerialSphere’s technology has been around a while, but its developers are just now understanding its applications and putting them to use for the real estate industry.

It’s no doubt a slick, captivating way to search for homes and, eventually, visually share acres of visual demographic data, and I’m excited see what’s on their radar 12 months from now.

Credit: Inman

When your business feels like a moving target, take aim at measurable data points

When it comes to spreading a message in the luxury real estate space, agents are often covering familiar ground. They treasure each and every existing client and spend time and resources nurturing those relationships — yet bringing in new leads is what truly keeps businesses alive. So how can agents ensure they’re reaching the broad yet exclusive audience they want? How can they guarantee that their marketing efforts are really working?

Looking at lead generation is the most basic indicator that outreach is being received by the right stakeholders. But Frank and Dawn Bodenchak, Real Estate Professionals with Sotheby’s International Realty in Bridgehampton, New York, recognize that today’s marketing can go so much further. Gone are the days when agents put their promotional materials out into the world and wait passively to hear back: the digital age has brought better data-driven metrics that help agents get a much more granular look at how their content is performing. Here are some of the key performance indicators to keep an eye on.

Start with simple math

It’s still important to begin with the essentials. “I track the number of phone and email inquiries on a listing, the number of showing requests per week, and the percentage conversion of showings into interested parties,” says Frank Bodenchak of his monitoring process. In luxury real estate, metrics like these have always been the easiest way to see, at a glance, whether your marketing efforts are generating the results you want.

But there are two more simple stats that ought to be monitored: the number of days a home has been on the market, and the number of showings per home. “If you aren’t getting enough showings, or if showings aren’t generating offers, then marketing, product offering, and price need to be revisited to improve these metrics,” notes Dawn Bodenchak. The longer a property sits, the likelier potential buyers will expect that either the seller will lower the price or that there is something amiss with the home.

No one likes to wait

If you have a customer relationship management (CRM) system, chances are it’s measuring how often you correspond with your leads and clients, and reminding you periodically to follow up with them. If you’re not using a CRM system, then it’s critical to proactively track your email, phone, and in-person exchanges. The Bodenchaks make a habit of always tracking response time — how much time has elapsed since a lead’s initial inquiry. The average response time, according to one study by Inside Real Estate, is about 15 hours and 30 minutes, though research has also shown that a staggering 48% of inquiries fall through the cracks. You also need to be cognizant of the time that elapses between follow-ups, which, surprisingly, is reported to be the most overlooked aspect of real estate lead generation. By closing these gaps, agents will easily start to see a growing number of qualified leads. Make the most of online “We still use magazine ads for brand awareness and reminding buyers and brokers about a listing, but the first line of contact is internet-based,” says Frank Bodenchak. “Over the past decade, we’ve moved away from relying on print for information dissemination to relying on email blasts, real estate search engines, and social media.” Google Analytics is a fundamental way to watch your web traffic. You can review how many people visit your site and track their browsing behavior. For instance, keeping an eye on your bounce rate will inform how quickly visitors leave your site after they arrive. You’ll also be able to assess which of your pages are the most popular. Adding these metrics to your marketing rubric gives you the bigger picture of how your efforts are succeeding. Frank and Dawn Bodenchak have seen firsthand the benefits that social media brings to their marketing. Facebook and Instagram provide feedback to help agents monitor their social channels, stay notified on engagement and responses, and maintain real-time marketing awareness. “By switching to a business account on Instagram, we are now receiving all kinds of key insights from posts,” says Frank Bodenchak. “Beyond likes and comments, Instagram tells us the gender, age, and location of our audience. With even a small budget for online marketing, we can make an impact.” The basics still apply.

“Know the landscape, know the pricing, and know the product — and most importantly, know how the product can be adapted to work for a buyer,” says Dawn Bodenchak. “The metrics we use to evaluate our marketing success may not have changed, but the means to achieve them have.” Now there are more tools in agents’ inventory to make sure that their strategies are successful — and, by extension, that their leads, prospects, and clients enjoy the best service possible.

How will a DUI affect a Illinois Real Estate License?

When someone is arrested for DUI, or is convicted of DUI, a professional license can be affected. In fact, certain State of illinois licenses, or Federal licenses, have mandatory reporting requirements for those applying for the license, or holding the license. That mandatory obligation to report means that failure to report, by itself, can be sufficient justification for taking action against your license.

The process of getting a illinois Real Estate License includes a background check, which includes your entire criminal history. During any State licensing process your background history (including criminal/DUI arrests and convictions) will be checked. When you go in to apply for your real estate license you will have your fingerprints taken and the Department of Licensing will run your fingerprints through the Department of Justice database, as well as the illinois Live Scan criminal database. At this point the DOJ will report back to the illinois BRE (illinois Bureau of Real Estate) if you have ever been arrested, convicted, or charged with a crime.

The illinois BRE will look through your criminal history and determine if you may have any “substantially related” criminal history. Substantially related means any criminal history that may affect the performance of your job. It is important to note that any crime you have not been convicted of cannot be used against you in your licensing. Only crimes that you have been convicted of can be used against you. Once you have a license, however, there is a mandatory reporting requirements – if you are convicted of a DUI and have a illinois Real Estate License you have to notify the illinois BRE within a certain time period after conviction.

Just because a criminal history can be used against you during the application for your real estate license does not mean it will. One DUI typically does not constitute grounds for your real estate license to be denied or revoked. What will affect your illinois Real Estate License is if your criminal history shows a history of substance abuse. A history of substance abuse can include two or more DUIs in a 10 year period, which may be, in the eyes of the licensing board, evidence of an addiction problem.

Driving under the influence is considered a crime in every state. So, DUI charges are handled in criminal court. You have a right to represent yourself in criminal court. But most defendants either hire a private lawyer or are represented by a public defender appointed by the court.