The Malibu Real Estate Blog

A few weeks ago I filmed a segment for Good Morning America and it finally aired today! The focus of the story was about agents hosting over-the-top open house parties to attract other agents and clients to a home. I have a few comments about this whole experience that I’d like to share with my blog’s readers.
In one aspect, selling real estate is a marketing game where the agent’s job is to expose the home to the world using any means possible. Some agents think they only need to put up a sign and throw some money at a magazine or newspaper for some ads. I come from a different school of thought. One that mixes a little P.T. Barnum from the promotion and publicity stand point, and a little Seth Godin and Gary Vaynerchuk in the marketing department. Mix in an excellent understanding of SEO and online marketing and the entire world is now my target demographic.
So when I got this listing, I started thinking about first how I must reach the agents. I wanted every agent in town to know about the listing. The idea of giving away Botox popped into my head and at first I thought for sure I’d offend the homeowner or the Beverly Hills agents. I remember calling my client on the phone and saying, ” I’ve got an idea I want to bounce off of you.” She’s a smart lady and immediately was game for it in a “hell, yes!” kinda way. Then I asked a few agents who, let’s just say, likely know how many units it takes to look 10 years younger than they are. They too responded with a “just let me know when and where” and with a whisper confided in me that they were due for a treatment and hoped to win. We did a bunch of other stuff shown in the video below which I hope you watch after reading this.
Let me cut to the chase on the event. We had nearly 70-plus agents show up to a home located up a hill that is hard to get agents to come to. The LA Times, AOl.com, The Sun UK, and about 20 other media outlets, newspapers, and blogs all picked up on the story. Many of them provided links to the property website which gave us a huge spike in traffic from around the world. Then GMA called to do the segment and two production companies called me in for interviews.
Agents were talking about it for weeks and when I recently spoke at a conference in San Diego about half in attendance had heard about the open house. Yes there was a lot of publicity to me, the agent, but there was also a huge buzz about the house the came with the package. 70 agents was double the number I was considering a success for the open house and I can only imagine the conversation that morning agents had when deciding on which houses they were going to see on caravan.
If you have a home for sale and want an agent who really loves just thinking of ways to promote and market a home, give me a call. I need a new listing to try my next big idea on. Interview me for your home’s listing and I promise to give you at least 20 things I can do better than any other agent.
-Malibu Real Estate Agent Mike Gardner 310 699 8428

Early in the week you could tell something different was in the air. It was hot and humid, and the cool northwesterlies were absent from the shores of Zuma. By Wednesday there were rumors of rain but the skies above Malibu were free from the tell tale cumulus nimbus clouds. Late Wednesday some unusual clouds started coming up from the south. I ran down to the beach and shot a few sunset pics. Still no rain. Around 11 pm I started to hear some thunder and a few minutes later saw some faint blasts of lightning. Over the next few hours the storm built in strength and was right on top of Malibu by 1 am. I was already in bed but the dog was acting up and I soon realized I would not be sleeping until the storm passed. I went online to wunderground.com and looked at the storm track function and could see that the system was going to move right over Point Dume and up the shore along Zuma beach. I grabbed the camera and headed up to Encinal above El Pescador beach and here are the results. These images were shot around 2am. Exposures were between 2-3 minutes long. Limited edition Prints will be available. Please email me at Maliburealestate@mac.com

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