Lilburn ‘car guy’ uses social Web sites to sell homes

For most real estate agents, the most important part of a house is the living quarters. But to Lilburn real estate agent Lane Bailey, the living space may be important, but it’s the big ol’ garage that gets him humming a tune.

Bailey has carved out a niche selling real estate to car buffs. He counts himself as one and spends part of each week talking about real estate and cars on his blogs and several social networking platforms.

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Sean Drakes/Special

Lane Bailey of Diamond Dwellings Realty is a car hobbyist who filled a niche by matching car-loving house hunters with the garage of their dreams. Social networking sites, he says, have promoted friendship and have also been a source of prospective clients.

THE LANE BAILEY FILE

• Residence: Mountain Park (Stone Mountain)
• Family: Married seven years to Gail, with 41/2-year-old and 10-month-old sons, Garrett and Jackson
• Hobbies: "Cars ... I have a Jeepster I am trying to find time to restore. And we love to travel."
• Favorite destinations: Moab, Utah, and Walt Disney World
• Favorite book: Ayn Rand's "Atlas Shrugged"
• Favorite movie (all-time): "The Best Years of Our Lives"
• Expensive toy: "My welder ... OK, my tools. If my wife knew how much was in all of that stuff, she would flip."

It’s all part of a changing real estate landscape that Bailey says agents need to master to survive the housing market’s collapse.

Q: You have an interesting professional niche … “real estate for car people.” How did you get started in that specialty?

A: I am a car guy and have been on the other side of that search. So many real estate agents don’t know what goes on in the garage of a car nut. I do. And, since many of my contacts are also people that share the automotive hobby, I found that I was selling a lot of homes to people that were concerned about the garage.

Q: Do people looking for big garages really seek you out?

A: Yes, some. I have run ads in car magazines and posted property on hobby-related Web sites, so that draws some traffic. Also, since I blog about cars, I get calls based on that as well.

Q: You do a lot of blogging, Twittering and other social networking. Is that primarily a marketing tool or a creative outlet?

A: It is some of both … and it is a social outlet, too. I communicate with friends, clients, prospective clients and other real estate professionals through my blogs, Twitter, Facebook, ActiveRain,

Flickr and other social networking sites as well as automotive forums. I am lucky because I have had the opportunity to actually get face to face with many of the people I communicate with, both locally and nationally.

Q: What impact has it had on your business?

A: I have made some great friends in the real estate business, some locally, some not. I have also been able to cement a reputation as being somewhat on the leading edge of social networking strategies in real estate.

Q: When do you see the housing market recovering?

A: Honestly, I don’t know. If I did, I would be in high demand on all of the cable financial channels. But I do think I see the beginnings of a turnaround, or at least a market bottom. The problem is that it takes a while to see a trend develop. I am hopeful for this year and don’t see much more downward mobility on prices. I would say that if we aren’t at the bottom, we can see it from here.

Q: And how will it be different than it was before the bubble burst, or is today?

A: I think it will be different in a lot of ways. Of course, at some point all of the lessons learned in the last few years will be forgotten. But for the next few years, we will see banks actually making sure people can afford the property and that the property is worth the loan value. Buyers will be more cautious and won’t assume that the house will appreciate drastically to cover any shortfall. Owners won’t be nearly as tempted to use their homes as cash machines.

Q: Is the profession of real estate agent changing, too?

A: Absolutely. Agents and brokers are having to come to grips with not being able to hide information behind their locked doors. In the past, real estate agents and brokers were gatekeepers of listing information. Now, that information is freely available online through multiple sources. Just a couple of years ago, an agent could bank on having access to information that the buyers or sellers didn’t. They could make a living on that gap. The gap is a lot smaller now. So instead of our value proposition revolving around access to information, it is moving to interpreting information.