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And BloodhoundBlog’s Eric Bramlett breaks the news:

Drumroll please……

Team Eric!

Eric Blackwell and his merry band of SEO’s/bloggers truly proved the spirit of SEO - it’s all about the relationships.  Jennifer Karlan, Greg Swann, Ken Smith, Wayne Long, Judy Orr, Cal Carter, Mike Damman, Charles & Jacqueline Richey, and Matt Scoggins all need to take a collective bow.  Through the use of teamwork and some very strategic use of assets they individually & collectively own, they were able to control #1 from the second month of the contest to the finish line.

There was a LOT of stiff competition here.  Ardell DellaLoggia ran it tight all the way to the finish line.  Greg Boser was in it, and then disappeared off the map w/ a few weeks to go — everyone was anxiously waiting for the SEO Dark Lord to pop his head back in at 11:59 on April 30th.  The guys at newhomessection.com finished #5, w/ Mike Damman’s site PropertyHogs.com, Ryan Ward, Justin from hismove (ranking well, though he dropped out early,) and then Jay Thompson rounding out the top 10.  Wouldn’t you know it?  My post ended up at the top of page 2 - the story of my life.

I’d like to thank everyone for participating, and especially thank Morgan Carey of Real Estate Webmasters for sponsoring the event.  Team Eric has decided to auction off the prize & donate the money to the Eco Preservation Society of Costa Rica (a favorite of Mike Damman’s.)

Eric Blackwell told you he was going to win. I told you Eric was going to win. But the truth is, Eric won because he assembled a great team of very smart people who were shooting Google juice his way until the very last minute.

Take a moment, if you would, to leave a comment to Eric’s winning post. This is a remarkable achievement, and we all got to be a part of it.

Bravo, Eric! And remember: Nice guys link back!

Technorati Tags: blogging, real estate, real estate marketing, technology

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Want to be the greatest real estate agent in the world? You’ll need a solid plan, a lot of hard work, a little luck — and a web site. For the latter, you can compete for the site Eric Blackwell won in the “Greatest Real Estate Agent in the World” SEO contest.

Three important real estate questions for an early Monday morning

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I posted a piece early on in my blogging experience entitled The $800,000 House. Six months later, after discovering I could actually have a little fun with this medium and that people were actually visiting my site on an occasional basis, I wrote a second post called The $4,000 House. I even embedded the same funny picture of a lean-to shack, with good old location x 3 (Real Estate Fodder 101) and literary flashback (English For Amateurs 101) being common threads between the two essays. At the end of the year I was a little disappointed (but not at all surprised) when the Pulitzer commitee didn’t include me on their long list of nominees for my literary tongue-in-cheekiness. Come to find out, more would eventually be revealed…

And now, several more months hence, and fresh off a whirlwind tour of buy-side advocacy (driving internet clients around in my car and showing property every day for the past two weeks), I am finally able to kick back, relax at my writing desk, and fire off the third and final part of a real estate trilogy I envisioned 18 months ago when this whole real estate blogging thing began to make sense to me. My spellchecker is dusted off and the dog is at my feet. I’m wearing my LA Dodgers cap on backwards and my coffee cup is well within reach.  Now, if I can just get my Right Brain to cooperate…

The $800,000 Buyers; Where Have They Gone? ……Wait….I’m stalling. Allow me to digress for a few paragraphs as a brief, temporal decompression seems to be in order.

You see, I can’t write and sell at the same time. Apparently every other notable real estate blogger I read can. Ardell can. The likes of Greg Swann and Russell Shaw certainly can. But I can’t. I am right brained and left footed when it comes to combining these two (to me) incongruous activities. In other words, I have to sell real estate to support my lifestyle but what I really yearn to do on a daily basis is sit at my computer,  write about what I see,  and listen to the radio. When I try to do both (selling and writing, that is), I end up doing neither worth a plugged nickle. I disappear for days at a time, like Ray Milland in that horrible movie except no one tries to save me from myself and thankfully, no alcohol is involved.

I wandered off in a bohemian direction early in life straddling either side of that unprofitable path until the fear of financial insecurity woke me up in a cold sweat one night and partially paralyzed my artistic future forever.  I was 27 with a 5 year old daughter, a wife who would eventually be ex-filed, and a 12 year old Buick Riviera with a bad muffler, empty gas tank and expired registration.  Meta-phor…duh!

Five years later I made $100,000 for the first time in a 12 month period. Everything hanging in my closet either had a Brooks Brothers tag attached to the lining or a white guy on a horse playing Polo. My wingtips all had wooden shoe trees tucked neatly inside. My rep ties were all silk, of the proper width and belt buckle length. I leased my first BMW, bought a car phone the size of a toaster oven, and began buying houses instead of renting apartments. If it wasn’t motivational, I didn’t read it and if it didn’t pay a decent commission, I didn’t sign it. I was soon made manager of my peers and became loved and hated at the same time by everyone within shouting distance of my second from the corner office. “Put that coffee down…coffee is for…”

The only thing I actually wrote, that required any creativity at all (besides universal life insurance policies and corporate expense reports), in that entire period was one well thought out letter to the editors of Fortune Magazine, which they in turn published. It was about ‘Salesmanship’ and how I fancied myself a modern day Horatio Alger. For one week, in national print, I was almost famous. Someone even commented on my letter and I was re-quoted again the following week. Ten minutes after that I was forgotten forever, back in the car with my sales trainees, chasing my Left Brain through the uninsured streets of Baltimore and into the abyss of…

Where have the $800,000 house buyers gone? I don’t think they’ve gone anywhere. I think they are safe at home in their $400,000 condominiums nesting and spooning with each other and coveting whatever precious equity they’ve accrued over the past 4 or 5 years, afraid to part with either lest they awake cold and sweaty in the middle of a sub-prime Riviera night; bad muffler, empty gas tank, and everything else that goes along with that particular nightmare.

Eighteen months ago it was hard to find an $800,000 house in Chicago that wasn’t a tear down. Today, it’s hard to find a serious $800,000 buyer… period. My clients these days, mostly from the internet,  seem to hover consistently (and significantly) above or below this oddly even price point. Ironically, the best single family deals in this city can be found right there.

My wife and I are the only people I know of who actually un-spooned long enough to put our own nest on the market, march boldly into the middle of the housing glut, and cherry pick (without contingencies and only St Joe as a Plan B) a single family Victorian we would never have gotten two years ago when it was lingering on the market for $200,000 more. Maybe this is why writing is so tedious for me these days. My brain is pulling me…

… to the left…and in a presidential year, to boot. (Yikes!) What if I never get it right again? Maybe it’s because I should be out there trying to sell something instead of drinking coffee at midnight, listening to my fat dog snore, afraid to fall asleep myself, lest I awake once again in a cold, sweaty…

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12 comments

Wait…you’re still here?

Why?

====

I’m still a blogging outlier. I don’t pay enough attention to my own blog, let alone BHB; I read blogs and love to write, but it’s never been obsessive. I write when I’m inspired, not when I’m on deadline; when I’m short on time I scan enough to get the gist and mostly ignore links. In doing so I occasionally miss the gist entirely. One of the reasons I’m really looking forward to Unchained is to learn from those I like and respect to channel the process productively.

So not until yesterday morning, when I got the feed to Cathleen’s post, did I have any clue as to what was going on in RE.net. Not until this morning did I have a chance to read the more than four hundred comments here, here, and here. I’ve had to go back to the last week’s posts here to put them in proper context. (Russell: My apologies.)

Whew. As I said in my comment to Teri, people love to be offended; sometimes they wallow in it. (Note: I’m a people, too.) It brings the warm glow of righteousness, especially if it can be shared with fellow travelers. Objections to the contrary, ‘mob’ is a perfectly apt descriptor; “they’re a mob, but I’m thinking on my own” just doesn’t wash. Hiding behind the vitriolic din brings the false feeling of no consequence.

Since this is all new to me, some observations:

1. I spent more time on Sellsius this morning reading comments than I’ve spent in the entire last year. Ferrara is a terrific writer, and argued his case well, though I’m not sure it’s the case he meant to argue: The genesis is his snit at being locked out of BHB. Whether or not Greg’s post was in fact offensive, that was only a vehicle to unload.
2. Everyone else - including Dustin - followed. And Dustin - whose sites I like and read and who I’ll continue to like and read - used an approach that was particularly small. Petulance is never a winning tactic.
3. I learned Mike Farmer is a terrific writer as well.
4. One of the things I like about Greg - there are many things I like about Greg - is his understanding of consequences, that he’s willing to say what he believes even in the face of knowing others may not want to hear it. I suspect being liked isn’t one of his great motivations, just as I suspect that he knows in the end it’s infinitely kinder to look someone in the eye and tell him he has bad breath, while others - most - would avoid hurt feelings and let him stink forever.
5. Writing carries the danger of misinterpretation, often because of the bias colored glasses of the reader. It confused me that Ardell, as ancedotal evidence of malice, used this post as an example of insult to Kris; I thought then - and still think - it the highest form of veneration.

Not to disappoint, Kevin et al, but BloodhoundBlog is going to be just fine. Unchained will be a huge success, and of profound value to those who attend.

And in the wonderful world of consequence, I think in two or three weeks a number of people are going to wake up with a hangover.

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13 comments

Dave Barnes, may the gods cherish his every atom, offers up this observation in a comment to another post:

Ardell wrote (on another blog): “Greg blacklists and deletes comments when anyone chooses to argue a point on BHB. You can’t have a conversation there or call them out there. That’s the joke of the whole “let us teach you about WEB 2.0″ thing. AS IF!”

Is this true?

Do you blacklist and delete?

Oh, you bet! We have to.

We don’t blacklist. In all of our thousands of pages, there is no black-bordered list of unpersons. But our comments policy is carefully defined and elaborately documented:

Comments policy: Everyone disagrees with us about something, and we welcome this: It’s how we learn. We encourage a free and spirited debate about the issues we raise here. We police comments with a very light hand, deleting comments and banning commenters only for extreme obscenity, flaming or flame-baiting, plagiarism, spam, impersonation (sock-puppetry) or copyright infringement (a fair-use quotation with a link is fine). This warrants emphasis: We are all about ideas, and, because of that, we are very strict about bad behavior. If you get the notion that your fear or anger or rock-ribbed moral fire accords you the right to abuse or insult or brow-beat the other guests in our salon, you will be ejected with dispatch. Nota bene: When you’re done, you’re done. Anyone can make a mistake, but if your behavior is palpably malicious, you will be banned from BloodhoundBlog forever.

I think I’ve probably told you this before, but I have a great respect for you, Dave. I’ve always found you to be open minded, and I don’t think you are one to be swayed by what one might call political considerations — looking good (or bad) in someone else’s eyes. I don’t think this was intended to be a softball question, but, who, practically speaking, tolerates intolerable behavior on his or her own property?

Even so, Brian Brady and I are each playing our own variations of a game we call What would David Gibbons do?, so I am going to take some pains to answer every implication of your question that I can think of, if for no better reason than to have this post to point people back to in the future. If you get bored and want to go do something productive, I will understand completely. As far as I am concerned, this is all entirely obvious — and therefore irredeemably boring.

So: Is Ardell DellaLoggia banned from BloodhoundBlog? No. She has around 130 comments on the blog, the last one posted eleven days ago. I do think she is grandstanding, for what that’s worth, but she wouldn’t be Ardell if she weren’t grandstanding.

On the other hand, I have demonstrated in the past that John Lockwood is lying when he insists he is banned at BloodhoundBlog — albeit his last comment was over a year ago — but he persists in repeating the lie.

Have Ardell, Lockwood and other people had comments deleted (or not released from moderation) at BloodhoundBlog. Oh, you bet. Why? Flaming, in both of their cases. During the ActiveRain/Move fiasco, Ardell took it upon herself to flame Brian Brady in words that I thought were beyond the pale. Your own opinion might be different, incidentally, but this is my property; it’s worth keeping that in mind every time an objection pops into your head. Lockwood’s second comment here was deleted for what I thought was palpable malice — ironically against Dustin Luther. I actually did ban him at the time, but reinstated him that same day as a courtesy to Jeff Brown, who had befriended him. John doesn’t come around very much, and I certainly don’t miss him, and now that he has been exposed — factually and beyond all possible caveats in his defense — as a bald-faced liar, I expect we will be seeing even less of him. (Another reason to be grateful to you for bringing this up!)

The next question would be: Why does BloodhoundBlog have such a elaborately detailed comments policy?

Is it because I find insults abhorrent? Obviously not. For all of me, well-crafted satire is the essence of Western art — the primordial expression of independence by the nascent Greeks toward the hegemonic Persians. To the Greeks and later to the Romans, to be of the East was to be docile, obedient, subservient — a domesticated animal in the guise of a homo sapiens. (They’re not talking about particular people, they’re talking about categories of behavior.) To be of the West is to be wild and free, a truly human being. To deliver a scathing insult to the powerful is to defy the very idea of one person having power over others. This idea I absolutely love.

Does BloodhoundBlog have a comments policy so that I can squelch debate? Or so that I can prevent people from disagreeing with me, particularly? If you will take some time to read our comments threads, you will see that neither of these propositions is true. I do almost all of the moderation, but I don’t care if someone disagrees with ideas — mine or anyone else’s. I love it that so many smart, thoughtful people comment here. One of the things I detest about the kind of calumny you quote above is that it may tend to make smart people afraid to speak out here. As a matter of policy: If you want to talk about serious ideas, no matter what your position is, we want to hear from you — me at least as much as anyone here.

So, Greg, if you don’t think insults are necessarily wrong as a device in the rhetorical arts, and you embrace disagreement — why does your comments policy forbid, specifically, “extreme obscenity, flaming or flame-baiting”, “sock-puppetry” and “palpably malicious” behavior? Is that a question that a thoughtful mind — a human mind actively engaged in its only proper function — can even entertain? I police commenters — and not our contributors — in order to protect the “guests in our salon.”

Flame wars are unpleasant, but that’s not the reason for the policy. We didn’t have a comments policy before we became a group blog. I instituted the policy, at first, to protect the contributors I had asked to join us. I felt that, since they were invited guests in my home, it was my moral obligation to shield them from injury. I am a Greek to the core: In the public arena, the debate is everything. But in my home, guests are sacrosanct. That notwithstanding, as an unintended consequence our comments threads changed overnight, going from slurs, threats and epithets to the vital intellectual marketplace you see here now. Truly astounding to me, but, after all, the moral is the practical: Doing the right thing is almost always equivalent to doing the best thing. By making an effort to shield our guests from poisonous bile, we attracted a much better-quality population of guests. Should have been obvious to me, in advance of these events, but it wasn’t. Live and learn.

Now, if you’re still with me, what part of this is not completely obvious? As Alice the consumer discovered earlier today, I auto-moderate the first posted comment from anyone. This is to frustrate sock-puppets and trolls like Keith Brand, who are constantly trying to sneak in to vomit on our guests. For our commercial real estate weblogs, we auto-moderate all comments, to make sure that nothing that would be offensive to a client leaks in unnoticed. I would recommend this as a matter of policy to all commercial webloggers. The conversation is important, but so is your reputation. (Practical nuts-and-bolts advice even here!)

So what is this really all about, Dave? My take is that Ardell and other largely-decent folks — including Dustin Luther, incidentally — are being manipulated, stage-managed in a political game being run by Joseph Ferrara. Ferrara is permanently banned from BloodhoundBlog — for being palpably malicious, this many more times than once. If your immediate rejoinder is, “Jeepers! He’s not that bad,” permit me to remind that this is my property, and the people who come here are my invited guests. I will keep my own counsel as to how I husband my financial resources, protect our contributors’ intellectual property and discharge my duties and obligations as a host. If it means anything to you, I am already extending to you the same courtesy with respect to your property. In the deserts of Arizona, we call this minding your own business.

But: You asked — do you regret having done so?

This is my further elaboration of the praxis behind our comments policy:

We don’t have many problems, but the problems we do have are almost always flaming or flame-baiting — essentially just bullying. Even then, most of the problem cases are so outrageously malicious that I don’t even bother with them. I set the moderation bot to ban the commenter, then forget all about them.

The interesting cases are the gray areas, situations where I think the commenter may not have intended to offend. In those circumstances, I’ll send an email pointing out the offensive text and offering to let the comment go through if that copy is excised.

What happens next is always an eye-opener.

Most people will say something like: “Dang! You’re right. My apologies.” Or: “I am so glad you killed that! I hit post and instantly regretted it.” Or simply: “I didn’t know I was in the wrong. I’ll do better from now on.” Those folks I don’t worry about, not ever again.

The rarest few will instead mount the nearest high horse and say something like: “How dare you try to censor me?!” Or: “I have a First Amendment right to say whatever I choose!” Or simply: “Go [omitted] yourself!” Those folks I ban forever without a backward glance.

The point and purpose is simply this: We have built an important, useful and stimulating intellectual salon. It works as well as it does because we maintain high standards for our contributors and guests. I learned early on that bad behavior drives out the good, and so I am very careful to make sure that people who strive to dominate debate with obnoxious behavior are excluded from our soiree. Good ideas are always welcome. Bad behavior, never.

And even though — when you are building your own real estate weblog — you ought not emulate BloodhoundBlog in the large, many real estate webloggers have used our About page as the model for their own. You don’t have to be quite so snarky, if you don’t want to, but our comments policy is a good way of making sure that misanthropes don’t hijack your weblog and chase away all your guests.

I have Ardell DellaLoggia’s particulars set so that, when she posts a comment, it is always held in moderation, this since her flaming incident. I don’t believe Ardell is malicious, but I know, by now, that she is impulsive, and I’m not going to take a chance that she might abuse another guest in my home while I’m occupied with something else. The instant hot-headed rejoinder to a disclosure like this is, “How dare you try to control my behavior?!” This I am not doing. I am simply setting standards for what Ardell and my other guests can do while they are guests in my home.

My categorical exclusion of Joseph Ferrara seems to have caused him to come completely unglued. I know of this only by inference, since I don’t read his weblog. But, apparently, the only audience to which Ferrara can ever express himself with complete satisfaction is the audience that we have accumulated here — by mixing our labor with our minds — the physical substance of which is paid for from the proceeds of my own laboring. In other words, there cannot possibly be any justice in Ferrara’s universe until he gets free reign over my property. You might buy winter clothes when they’re on sale, because hell will have frozen over before anything like that happens.

Ferrara — and anyone else similarly inclined — is at perfect liberty to abuse me, BloodhoundBlog, our contributors or our guests anywhere else he or she choose — and do you have any doubts at all that many people are expressing this freedom with careless, reckless, wanton abandon? But despite Dustin Luther’s dictate, it’s still a free country. They are simply not free to do it here. I am by long odds the most libertarian person you will ever meet, but this has nothing to do with free speech. The overriding issue is my absolute right to manage my private property as I choose.

Here’s an irony: Ferrara’s actual complaint is that I am managing my property properly — doing exactly the right things to take the best possible care of our contributors and guests. This is why our comments threads are so interesting, and this is why the BloodhoundBlog comments policy has been adapted for use by so many other real estate weblogs.

Here’s another choice bit, less ironical than tragic: An astounding number of otherwise decent people have allowed themselves to be manipulated into being, to say the brutal truth, political stooges in Ferrara’s campaign to usurp this audience. Simply looking at things indifferently, which is never hard for me to do, this all would be astounding — if I hadn’t seen the same sort of drama play itself out so many times before.

In any case, here, Dave Barnes — because you have always been a straight shooter with me — is a full and comprehensive answer for you:

Question: Why does BloodhoundBlog have a comments policy?

Answer: Because it is my property.

And again, for the benefit of all the other people reading this post: My property. If you find yourself second-guessing me, if you are reading Ferrara or some other demagogue calling my management of this weblog into question, if you just happen to wonder, “Hey, what if…” — remember: My property. The contributors and commenters writing here are my invited guests, and I am beyond ecstatic about all of the great work we have done together. But I built this, I pay for it, and I am responsible for its upkeep. If you have time to kill and want to indulge yourself thinking about what you might do differently if you were in charge around here, go right ahead. But even then: My property. I will keep my own counsel — always. This may not be satisfying to you if you happen to be riled up at me or another BloodhoundBlog contributor, but it can serve you as a good example of how not to cave into to mob pressure when other people are riled up at you. Two simple words: My property.

Inlookers: I will be happy to entertain any other What would David Gibbons do?-type questions. You can email me; I’ll shield your identity. Or you can use the “Ask the Broker” button — if you fudge the email address field, it’s completely confidential. If your question is obnoxious, don’t waste your time — because I don’t waste mine. But if you have a sincere question about BloodhoundBlog or me or whatever — perhaps, like this question, incited by some unwitting agent of Ferrara’s seemingly boundless malice — fire away. I am surely also the most forthcoming — and loquacious! — person any of you are ever likely to meet. If you want to know something, just ask.

And: Because I personally think all of this really, really boring — a complete waste of any productive person’s time — I am creating a category called “Dirty Laundry” for these kinds of posts. If you really need to understand what’s going on here, read away. If your appetite is aroused by the scent of festering gossip — ew! — dig in. If you’re busy and you just want to learn how to do a better job on the job, skip these posts.

My thanks to you, Dave, for asking the hard question. I’m in your debt — and not for the first time.

Technorati Tags: blogging, real estate, real estate marketing

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68 comments

Last week Marcie Geffner, a real estate reporter in Los Angeles, penned an article for Inman News titled, “Web2.0: Where’s the beef?” (unfortunately, now behind Inman’s subscriber wall).

In her article, Geffner points out that, “an overly heavy reliance on blogs, social networking and video as a business strategy is a questionable proposition since no one has demonstrated that Web 2.0 works as a marketing tactic.”

Granted, there has been no large scale study or analysis of the success (or failure) of “Web 2.0″ in real estate. I can attest from my personal experience that blogging has resulted in numerous prospects and more importantly clients — ie: closed transactions that resulted in food on the table and shoes on the children. Many other agents reading this have similar experiences.

However, many would also be quick to say, “I’ve blogged my ass off and received nothing.”

Is blogging/Web 2.0 the answer to all real estate agent’s woes? ARDELL, arguably the “Godmother of Real Estate Blogging” is on the record as saying that she believes that “all agents should blog”. Normally Ardell is spot on in her thoughts, but I have to respectfully disagree with her on this. Blogging is not a panacea, nor is it the right tactic for every agent. Yes, blogging’s Web 2.0ness results in transparency, it allows agents to see things from the consumer’s perspective and it is, bar none, the best way for an agent to demonstrate their personality and expertise to the masses. But blogging is hard work. Writing is an excruciating process for many. I happen to love blogging, I’m sick that way, but many people will despise the time and effort it requires.

That doesn’t make them any less an agent than one who does blog. Just as my refusal to door knock, cold call, or “farm” in more traditional methods doesn’t make me any less an agent. We’re just different, with different approaches.

I can’t begin to estimate the number of times I’ve been asked, “how many prospects/clients/closed deals have you got from blogging?” And I can’t answer that question. Yes, I could prove quantitatively SOME of the results. I have received the coveted “Come list my house” emails or phone calls. But far more often Web 2.0 results are much more difficult to quantify. Does getting quoted in the paper, being on television, or getting invited to conferences lead to business? Probably not directly, but clearly there is an “indirect goodness” that comes out of things like this.

Geffner asks, “What was the cost in time and money to generate those leads and close those transactions? And were those per-unit costs cheaper than traditional forms of advertising?”

Great questions! The out-of-pocket expense of blogging is minimal. WordPress is free, and my hosting costs on the order of four bucks a month. Time however, is another story. I spend several hours a day reading blogs. The knowledge I gain from this is, to me, priceless. There is a vast expanse of knowledge surrounding all things real estate out there, just waiting to be absorbed. Marketing tactics and strategies, local and national market conditions, networking opportunities — all of these things are difficult (impossible?) to quantify in terms of “dollars earned”. Actually writing posts for me comes fairly easily. I type pretty quickly and the words flow out of my head in some semblance of order. I “edit on the fly” and don’t have to fight for words. Lengthy posts are not an issue (as evidenced by this very tome). I’m lucky that way (though I’m sure some, if they’ve read this far, are rolling their eyes and screaming FOR THE LOVE OF GOD MAN, WRITE SHORTER POSTS!).

Geffner questions whether “Web 2.0 the next big thing for real estate” and says, “What’s needed is reliable data from proven sources that can track, measure and analyze the results of Web 2.0 in hard numbers that contribute to the bottom line.” She ponders “whether Web 2.0 is a short-term fad in the history of leisure activities or a true paradigm shift in lifestyles”. Given the nebulous nature of defining tangible results from Web 2.0′ing we will likely never have a large scale analysis of the results. Anecdotal results may well be all we ever get. But if I may go back to something Ardell said that I can completely agree with, “Web 2.0 is good for everyone. It gets more information than ever before, out into the open where it belongs.”

A fad? I think not.

Hat tip to Connie Clark for pointing out Ms. Geffner’s article. If you are an Inman subscriber, you should read it as it provides much food for thought.

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23 comments

Okay, it’s my turn.

I generally leave the loftier industry fodder for other, more qualified (if not more committed), real estate bloggers to cull over. I commend visionaries like Greg Swann for single handedly forcing readers across the R.E. Web (okay, me) to look up such words as disintermediation, Quixotism  (just making sure), and even Odysseus, although the latter was only because Dan Green told me he thought it was Latin and I was pretty sure it was Greek. At age 51.5 (I know, I know…I don’t look it) and deteriorating, I think I’m just growing tired of thinking, these days.

There are enough talented writers in this medium, I believe, to address all the cutting edge commentary leaving me free to throw lawn darts and lob softballs at all the easy targets, usually people who didn’t buy a house from me.  But something Kris Berg wrote about recently got me up off my rocking chair to go searchin’ for my literary shotgun…as it were.  I think I’m gonna hunt me some Redfin…if there are any left.

This oddly named varmint (or is it a fish?) is not indigenous to these here parts of Chicago but I do know one thing—I don’t think I like the taste of it. I hear it smells a little gamey, and the presentation is…well, a little like a wolf in sheeps’s clothing for my liking. But most of you already know this. You’ve blogged it onto the endangered (if not protected) species list from what I’ve read. And like I said, I ain’t really seen one up close … just yet.

I have, however, perused everything I could find posted on the company, archived and otherwise; essays, interviews, comments–Ahh, the comments and the commentors of the Blogosphere. Talk Radio doesn’t even hold a candle. It was Redfin’s implied (cleverly discoursed in the second person–’Uncle Sam Wants YOU!’) mission statement though, that forced me to finally weigh in on the subject, placing reasonable restraint of tongue and pen aside for now.

(sic)

Redfin is an online real estate brokerage that puts you      

in charge of buying or selling your home:

• We combine listings direct from every broker with data on past sales & days on market.
• Our local agents guide you on price and negotiate the best deal.
• Our online tools make the paperwork easy.

You get results, not a sales pitch because our agents are paid on customer satisfaction, not commissions. And you save on fees, usually more than $10,000….

Hmmm. I’m always skeptical when I hear a sales pitch that claims to be otherwise. And that’s exactly what it appears to be to this lazy, middle of the road, recently adopted bloodhound; the old hidden ball trick. It’s just another thinly veiled sales pitch flying off the fingers of an internet savvy knuckleballer, just under the radar gun of an already distrusting public, and right into the mitts of the press box unintelligentsia. Holy Cow!

Hey, you either are or you aren’t a hawker in this free enterprise system we call The Market Place. At the very least, you’re a free agent looking to negotiate a better contract for yourself. If a property mongering Evangelizer is going to stand in the ‘pulpit’ of this (until recently, at least) generally callow congregation and preach transparency to the masses then he’d better be prepared to strip down naked himself (Redfin agents and investors alike) and let it all hang out in the opiated breeze of the people. Open the heavens and the good books, as well. I want to know how much everyone makes, and stands to make this year. And next year, too. I want to see tax returns. Not making money yet? So what. They plan to.  And to tell you the truth, I couldn’t care less what the margin is if they do turn a profit. Just don’t proport to be a sanctimonious advocate against the trillion dollar teet from which thou sucks, implanted or otherwise.

I want to see (actually, I don’t) the prospectus of the initial start-up and the projected ROI for the venture money people. Attack an industry for the way it pays its agents then turn around and make billions from the same industry? Or is it only hundred millions?  Mere millions, perhaps? It certainly is not thousands or hundreds, to be sure and this is precisely my point.  They ain’t doin’ it for nothin’ (or the prospect of nothin’). And while most Parson types are indeed, holier than thou and definitely holier than me (Jimmy Swaggart, Ted Haggard, and poor Jim Bakker notwithstanding), they still have human needs and the required earthly tethers of food, shelter, clothing, and American Express. But is Redfin simply ‘working for food?‘ For mere shelter? For Rewards Points? Or maybe it just ticks me off when someone else feels complelled to count my money.

It doesn’t matter, though.  In this country we all have the right to be as prosperous as we can possibly be. It’s just that I really want to empty a load of onomatopeatic buckshot–BAM, HISS, BOING– into someone’s keister when he publicly avows taking a higher road to the holy ground while performing the forbidden act of guttural proselytization in the bushes behind the church.

I’ll tell you what I see. I see a few internet savvy nickle bag opium pushers (fully clothed, of course) trying to make up in volume what the rest of us…

a) admittedly greedy pig slaughterers 

b) professionally designated consumer advocates

c) free range tract housing direct mail farmers

{Choose one of the above}

… hope to yield from a few fat hogs within the same fiscal time frame. I see a 21st century, high-tech clan of bizarro Willie Lomans having their Holiday party in a Seattle coffee house, sipping decaf skim machiattos, and conspiring to make paper voodoo dolls out of the real life Ardell DellaLoggias of this world to hang on their tree (good luck there). I see dull people. Dull people counting my money.
 

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Broker-controlled blogging was a hot topic this weekend. I tried to raise some eyebrows (and awareness) with my speculation about the internet land grab the employing brokers and banks might try.

I think a few things might have gotten lost in the translation. While I said that the brokers and banks will claim that it is a compliance issue, I believe that the REAL reason will be that they want to control the marketing channel to the consumer. Here’s what I said, over on Active Rain:

That will put pressure on the large companies to provide higher compensation to the more effective sales agents. That, will be the problem. Large real estate brokers and banks will severely curb the weblogging efforts of the individual sales agents in the name of “compliance”. In short, the behemoths will say that they can not adequately protect the consumer from the unsupervised local messages being offered by its sales agents. That, will be bunk.

The end-game play, the brokerage firms and banks will make, will always be about the money. Control of the customer has always been a competitive advantage for a large broker or bank. If that competitive advantage is lost, the value proposition of a large firm is lost. They won’t tolerate that loss.

What I’m saying is “The Compliance Argument is Crap- They Just Want Your Money“. I’m telling you this so that you are prepared when the NAR comes at you with the “Internet Compliance Memorandum” from their convention next month. I have no inside information, it’s pure conjecture on my part. This is, as Greg Swann would say, “evil dressed up in a Brooks Brothers suit”. My opinion isn’t biased against big brokerage firms, it will be even worse for the mortgage originators. Our evil is dressed up in custom made suits with Italian loafers- there is no way the big bank Presidents will allow their “salespeople” to live better than they do.

Look at the follow up articles on Active Rain:

A Florida broker suggests that brokers need to clamp down so as to avoid SRO intervention :

My first reaction was “I think you need to find another Broker.” This has been on my mind ever since. As a Broker myself, I am responsible for my agent’s actions. It is my legal obligation to make sure all of their advertising is compliant. If I had dozens or even hundreds of agents working under my license would I want them blogging? If I’m honest with myself my answer would be a strong NO! Unless, everything they wrote and posted was approved by me

A NAR insider suggests that bloggers need to curtail their efforts before the SRO mandates it:

This is a pretty important issue for Bloggers and next month I think we’ll see some sort of policy come forth from NAR.

Guidelines, that I think on one hand is much needed. Just take a look around here on AR and out in Blogosphere…plagiarism galore, bad mouthing left and right. I’ve seen fair housing violations, inappropriate commission rate discussions and so forth.

The web and blogoshpere is sort of like the wild wild west…anything goes attitude no matter who or what gets hurt. Problem is we’re hurting ourselves.

What will you say if Your broker tells you to stop blogging? Have you thought about it? Maybe you should.

It’s a matter of time before Big Brother steps in to “protect” us.

Have you thought about the consequences of an “Internet Compliance Memorandum” from the NAR? The argument will be that they established a free blogging platform, hosted by Move.com. They will mandate that all REALTORs confine their activities to that platform and assess an “Internet Compliance Fee” to the users. Platforms like Active Rain will disappear, Real Web 2.0 communication through cutting-edge technologies like Zillow.com and Trulia.com will dry up- REALTORs will be scared to comment.

Who will benefit from this internet land grab? Why, the non-REALTORs, of course. Glenn Kelman and Ardell Della Loggia will be laughing all the way to the blog- and they should. They had the courage to stand up the the tyranny before it got oppressive.

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Vote here.

The short list just keeps getting longer. I’d apologize, but I’m cutting ruthlessly. We’re just getting a lot of truly excellent entrants.

Voting runs through to 12 Noon PDT/MST Monday. I’ll announce the winners of this week’s awards soon thereafter.

Here is this week’s short list of nominees.

• Jim Duncan, What if I see something the inspector doesn’t see?
• Dan Green, Why LIBOR Will Not Impact Your Adjustable Rate Mortgage This Year
• Jay Thompson, Putting it in Perspective
• Darren Rowse, 9 Lessons You Can Learn about Blogging By Watching Me Sell My House
• Jeff Brown, Does Poor = Stupid? Of Course Not — But Stupid Is As Stupid Does
• Michael Wurzer, How similar are the music and real estate sales industries?
• Jonathan Dalton, Sell Your Phoenix Real Estate in Two Weeks
• Sondra Johnson, When Is The Right Time to Sell A Home?
• Michael Price, Help Right The Wrongs of Writing.
• Shailesh Ghimire, Mom, Dad, Look What I Found on Craigslist
• Tanta, Mortgage Origination Channels for UberNerds
• Brian Wilson, Challenging the MLS Data Access Assumption
• Jeff Brown, Real Estate Investing For Retirement — Timing The Market — And Fools
• Greg Tracy, The Fallacy of an “Average Sales Price”
• Kris Berg, How to Select Your Agent (Sort of)
• Dan Green, More Signs That Liquidity Is Returning To The Mortgage Markets
• Jonathan Dalton, Your Home Isn’t Worth What You May Think
• Renthusiast, The Bush initiative may actually save US housing
• Daniel Rothamel, 3 More Things You Can do to Make Sure Your House Doesn’t Suck
• Brian Wilson, Discovering the Real Estate Internet Community as a Mental Distraction during Evenings in Baghdad - Part 2/4
• Greg Tracy, There are no Good or Bad Markets
• Dan Green, Measuring The Statistical Insignificance Of The Monthly Jobs Report (September 2007 Edition)
• Ardell DellLoggia, Buyer Beware - Seller/Seller Contracts
• Russell Shaw, I Want My Half
• Kris Berg, News You Can Use - Real Estate is a Business
• Brian Brady, ARMs Look Scary Before They Look Good or (How Wall Street Dupes the Little Guy)

Technorati Tags: blogging, real estate, real estate marketing

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I am not a towering figure, for sure. At 5′ 4 3/4″ inches, I can typically find my way through a crowd with some stylish heels in the equation.

Last night, I felt like a Hobbit. And 360-Marlow (Harris) was right there with me. Who knew Zillow’s Drew Meyers (shown here with Marlow and Uber-Mike from Ubertor) was so tall?

(Correction: Alert reader Steve Jagger from Ubertor pointed out that this is actually none other than… Steve Jagger, although I still say he was channeling Drew. Sorry, Uber-Steve. Now, put my Ubertor website back online).

Beer with Bloggers was a kick in the proverbial britches. The infamous and utterly delightful Ardell was there with her entourage of strapping men including her charming and striking husband, her Project, Kevin Tomlinson (who I think moonlights as an Abercrombie model and assures me he is of legal drinking age), and the Rain City Boys (Dustin also assures me he is of legal drinking age, though the jury is still out).

And speaking of tall, Noah brought his super-model caliber wife. Now I’m a Hobbit and I feel the sudden need for Botox.

I schlepped the camera to the Thirsty Bear, the site of the Suds Fest, and the subsequent Trulia bash with the best of intentions. Unfortunately, I returned to my room with mostly pictures of the floor, my purse, and the lens cap. I was distracted, by the Who’s Who of the crowd for sure, but also by Mortgage Reports Dan (Green) who kept spilling my drinks, one resulting in glass shards. And, don’t let him tell you otherwise.

Kevin Boer was there, as were the Sellsius boys, Boise Phil Hoover, and about four hundred thousand others. Apparently, somewhere between the two events, 872 new blogs and bloggers were born, as the Trulia event was stifling and reminiscent of a Stones concert. I bailed early and, Steve will appreciate this, unable to find the bread crumbs I had left throughout the streets of San Francisco earlier in the evening, returned to my hotel one hour later via Albuquerque.

Last night was fun. Today I am on a mission to identify the biggest expense account. A girl’s gotta eat. And, this morning I am off to learn how to Blog. Let’s see if I can pick up a tip or two.

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During all my running around today, I had meant to buy a silly little party hat for Odysseus to wear to celebrate BloodhoundBlog’s first birthday… but I never got around to it. And by the time I had picked up Ophelia from doggy-day-care, I’d missed my opportunity… can’t leave a dog in a 110&176; car. So on the way home I thought of the balloons Kris and Steve had sent us to commemorate the occasion (and show off their slick marketing swag… oops shouldn’t have said “show off”… didn’t I read that showing off is bad?). Anyway, when I got home, Greg voiced what I was already thinking, but he in a much more practical way, “Don’t be silly! Don’t go out any more tonight! Use Kris’ balloons, take your picture, write your post, then let’s raise a couple of glasses of Bushmills!” You see, I needed some sort of prop to take a photo of Odysseus because I love photos of my pets, and didn’t I read somewhere that you should always use photos on your blog posts? ‘Course neither hat nor balloon could guarantee a good picture, not when we’re talking about getting one dog to look into the camera long enough without other dogs and cats breaking his concentration or outright getting in the way. Anyway, here’s the best we could get:

(Sorry Kris and Steve, we couldn’t get one that shows your phone number, but you can see “erg” and the castle.)

All this just to illustrate (poorly I fear) my pure joy with being a part of this wonderful site and fabulous group, as we enter Year Two. If you’ve put up with me this far, I ask you to stay awhile longer as I share my favorite moments during the pup’s first year.

Yesterday, Greg wrote about our humble beginnings, so I’ll fast forward from there to my first honor here… being featured in Zillow’s inaugural edition of the Carnival of Real Estate. During the next few months Greg wrote a lot, I wrote a little, and Greg incorporated posts from an earlier failed blog by attributing them to Odysseus.

By September, Greg had earned a reputation among real estate bloggers as being a prolific and interesting writer, and when Ardell DellaLoggia challenged him to a “blog-off,” I encouraged him to accept. I’m not certain about Ardell nor Greg, who each posted over 100 articles in less than 24 hours, but I had a blast! The challenge was especially funny through the Property Monger, Jon Ernst’s, play-by-play chronicle.

Another gift that this pup has brought is Russell Shaw. I was tickled to sit down to chat with him, and thrilled beyond words when he agreed to become a contributor on BHB. This led us directly into the Dual Agency Smack-Down. Because he had commented in opposition to Greg’s and my view on dual agency, we asked Jeff Brown, from BawldGuy.com to join BHB as a guest, arguing on the side of Russell for dual agency, against Greg and me. Jeff honored us by staying around.

Once there were five of us (including Odysseus), we asked a few more friends of ours, who are interested in real estate, and who were sharing really interesting ideas with us via email, to contribute. Most notably, Richard Riccelli, a direct-marketing guru, wrote some brilliant articles on marketing.

In October, BloodhoundBlog hosted the Carnival of Real Estate for the first time. I think we made a lasting contribution to the CoRE that week. Being the judges was so much fun, we got to continue our campaign for more meaningful judging when we hosted the CoRE again in February.

Also in October, Greg heard from Mark Nadel, from AEI-Brookings Joint Center, who had written a white paper on real estate commissions.

Soon afterward, Greg Defended Zillow in an article that made me very proud of him, especially after his article Debunking Zillow had brought so much attention to BHB. Both articles demonstrated his veracity, with no concern about whose ox might be gored.

The energy of the group blog was exhilarating. We wanted more! Greg, who doesn’t shrink from anything (except housework), reached out to some of the most inspired bloggers in the nation, and soon we were joined by Kris Berg and Doug Quance, and then Dan Green!

Now that the Bloodhounds were a minority on BHB, we agreed on making our home a more civil one. Greg and Russell can take all kinds of heat, but I always hated what I considered graffiti in comments. So I was really pleased when BHB instituted a rigorous Comments Policy, which made it clear that we welcome guests to share their opinions, but ruffians are not welcome. With all the differing opinions that exist among our authors, a different point of view is not an insult, but an insult is…

For Christmas we got a wonderful gift: Brian Brady! And the New Year kept on giving with Michael Cook. Jeff Turner and Norma Newgent joined us briefly to leave some real gems in this treasure chest.

Then just when we really needed him, Allen Butler came on board as we began exploring podcasting. Just in time to pull Kris’ music out of her interview of Glenn Kelman from Redfin. Just in time to capture the gifts that Russell gave us with his Sales Success Seminars.

And on the tail of sound came movies! Starting with Greg’s interview on Fox News Channel, complete with a Director’s Cut!

And our family continues to grow. James Hsu lends us his technical views, Morgan Brown is our mortgage industry crusader, Lani Anglin gives us the down-home point of view of the consumer, and Jeff Kempe gives us yet another, fresh rebel-Realtor point of view.

And then there’s Teri Lussier. What an inspiration she’s been. So much so, that the work she has done with Greg evolved into the web’s first BlogBook, Real Estate Weblogging 101!

As I say goodnight to our baby blog on this celebration of its first birthday, there’s one last note I want to congratulate it on: I love the serendipity that on BHB’s first anniversary, InmanNews announced that we are among the finalists for this year’s Most Innovative Blog.

It’s been a great year. Thank you all for joining us!

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Trevor Smith’s answer to Dual Agency?

Let the buyer represent himself, and give him the commission regularly paid to the Buyer’s Agent. (Granted, this would still leave the buyer relatively unprotected, but at least if something goes bad, its his own fault and not the agents).

Your obvious question is, “Where are the customary apostrophes to indicate a contraction or possessive noun?” No, wait, that is just me. What you are really thinking I suspect is that this sounds suspiciously like a Redfin philosophy, but then, Trevor is not so coincidentally a Redfin agent from Seattle.

By the way, according to Trevor, Redfin’s Blue Collar Spokesmodel, they are gaining market share there at warp speed. In 2006, it was reported that Redfin closed over 200 transactions. Now, it seems they are putting those deals to bed at a clip of 90 a week. I feel a press release coming on!

In light of Trevor’s recent remarks, I’ll take the opportunity to open old dual agency wounds. Is dual agency truly the root of all evil? It depends on who you ask. Even here at the Kennel Club, we have two camps. Now, let’s make that three.

I fall somewhere in the middle on the subject. Steve and I have acted as dual agents in many transactions. We do not like it, and we do not seek it out, but at times it is so very appropriate that any argument suggesting we are compromising our agency duties is simply ludicrous.

BITING THE HAND THAT FEEDS ME

Greg Swann is a well-known critic of dual agency transactions.

Disclosed Dual Agency cannot possibly be effected — in reality — without repeated, overt agency violations.

I will offer one example of how this statement is not only wrong but offensive to those of us that bend over backwards to protect the rights and interests of our clients - all of them. We closed escrow recently on a transaction involving our listing and our buyer. The reasons dual agency worked in this situation relate back to Russell Shaw’s contention that we have less control over our client’s decisions than one might imagine.

The idea that the agent somehow controls what a buyer will pay and what a seller will accept only indicates a disconnect from reality.

In our particular case, I had been showing past clients homes -many of them. And by past clients, I mean that we had an established relationship; we represented them on the sale of their last home over a year ago, and they most recently had been in my car for three consecutive weekends looking at properties. They were very qualified to purchase a much more expensive home than those at which we had been looking, but they were very disciplined. They established a maximum price limit and were committed to standing by it, as evidenced by the two offers we submitted that died because of their unwillingness to go a penny beyond this number. Enter new listing. This listing was what Steve and I have come to refer to as an SOS (save our sale). It had previously been marketed by a “relative” for six months to no avail. The sellers were anxious, to say the least.

This particular home did not meet the buyer’s prescribed “needs”, yet I have learned that a buyer’s true needs are a moving target. I suggested they take a look, as it was in their price range. The bottom line is that the buyer instructed me to write a take it or leave it offer. They buyer had seen enough homes to perceive value at the offered price; the seller had been on the market long enough to perceive value in the offer submitted. The interests of both sides were served.

Certainly, negotiated items in a transaction involve more than price, but it is a fallacy to suggest that the price issues does not eclipse all others. Greg commented recently:

The buyer is wise to close near the end of the month to avoid pre-paid interest. The seller is wise to close on or near the first of the month to avoid making another loan payment. If I advise either of them of these facts, I am working to the advantage of one over the other.

This is minutia and, while there are arguments to make against dual agency, this particular argument is weak. The bottom line is the bottom line. Pay me now or pay me later. From the seller’s standpoint, I can make that last mortgage payment and get a bigger check at closing, or I can pay it out of my proceeds and receive a smaller settlement.

TINKERS AND TEA

Ardell DeLoggia had a dream about the negotiating process becoming more civil and, therefore, more productive. She proposed long ago (and I am too lazy to look up the link) that, with the parties really working toward the same end game, the process just might be more productive if the principals talked it out over a cup of tea. I challenged the idea at the time as being more than a little utopian, and yet if there was ever an opportunity for this type of approach, the dual agency transaction may provide the best environment. Success in a real estate transaction should not be measured by how much you have beat up and bullied the other party; it should be measured by the outcome. As agents, we are both advocates and functionaries. Either role can be more or less important in any given circumstance.

PERCEPTION IS REALITY

Jeff Brown correctly acknowledged that the issue of perception is perhaps the greatest barrier to successful dual agency, and perceptions of favoritism and compromised advocacy always pose a liability threat. This is why a dual agency role should only be assumed under the proper circumstances and with the maximum of care and caution.

At the risk of oversimplifying, an agent’s duties can be loosely lumped into three categories: Entry, negotiations and transaction oversight. And there are really three categories of buyers that could throw you into the dual agent role:

• Buyer as established listing agent client;
• Buyer as accidental client; and,
• Buyer as listing agent shopper.

The listing agent shopper (LAS) is perhaps the perfect candidate for the dual representation scenario. I’ll call him Redfin Direct. He either doesn’t want representation or doesn’t think he needs it. He has accepted responsibility for access and he has mentally taken on the role of negotiator, so he is going to be the least concerned with agent loyalties. His perception is that he only needs a functionary, and his primary motivations are control and money, mostly money. His perception is that by approaching the listing agent directly, he will negotiate a credit in terms of price or actual monetary concession in escrow, and he is often correct. Variable commission structures to the seller are not uncommon (the fee is less if the agent represents both sides), and absent a variable commission, the LAS is in the position to negotiate directly with the listing agent. Either way, he sees money up for grabs, and the biggest issue is who the lucky recipient of the windfall will be.

The case of the accidental client, that buyer who has wandered in unrepresented as a sign- or ad-caller is the most likely candidate for reassignment to an uninvolved agent. With an established relationship between seller and agent, and absent an established trust between buyer an agent, dual agency in this situation begs for perceptions of conflict of interest down the road, both real and imagined.

The established listing agent client is a sticky wicket. Surprisingly, we find ourselves in this situation often. The established client won’t want to be reassigned to another agent to represent him, as he is presumably working with his agent because of the past relationship and earned trust. With the agent having a clear loyalty to and familiarity with both parties, the agent would be wise to expect the “Mom always liked you best” charges. Reassigning the established client could simply exacerbate the perception of favoritism, at least in the mind of the buyer. To continue to represent both sides successfully and leave the impression that both were loved equally will likely cost the agent.

DUAL AGENCY AT A COST

The cost of successfully performing as a dual agent is huge, in terms of both time and money. Each and every time we have accepted this role, the effort has been logarithmically greater than that of the single-side transaction. To ensure that both sides leave the transaction feeling that their interests have been served requires the utmost of attention, care and finesse. Then there is the money. Even if the dual agent is able to make it through the price negotiations with their fee intact, they had better expect to have that checkbook poised at all times. When it comes time to negotiate repairs, for instance, guess who is most likely to cut the check?

DIVIDE AND CONQUER

So, I am the middle man on the issue. Depending on the circumstances, dual agency can make all the sense in the world or no sense at all. As a not-so-trivial caveat, if Steve and I were not a “team”, it would never make sense (unless of course we enjoyed the inside of a courtroom). With two bodies, we always choose to share custody in these circumstances. At the first sign of a potential dual agency situation, and only with full knowledge and consent of both parties, we agree to an amicable separation. He will represent one side, I will represent the other, and we will reconcile as one big, happy family only once all contingencies have been removed.

So, I don’t see dual agency as inherently evil, just inherently risky business. Arguments against the practice are based on a potential compromise of agency and fiduciary obligations. As Trevor suggests, what better way to avoid blurring of the agency lines than to eliminate agency for one side altogether? At least then, if something goes bad, its his own fault and not mine.

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Ardell over at Rain City Guide has been posting some good, consumer-friendly stuff about lending. It’s refreshing to see an agent work through the lending process.

In an earlier post, Ardell and I exchanged comments about hard money lending where she claimed ignorance; that couldn’t have been farther from the truth.

Ardell wrote a consumer post about pre-payment penalties. In the third and fourth paragraphs, Ardell explains the essence of private mortgage lending.

It really is that simple.

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Project Blogger is officially under weigh, so I thought now would be a good time to go read the rules. I had read an earlier version and hated them, but, at a certain point, I decided it wasn’t worthwhile to stand on principle. There is an extent to which this is what I would characterize as a Goofy Drive-Time Radio Stunt, and we have to assume that that extent extends at least as far as $5,000 worth of value to Our Sponsors.

If the new rules are actually less nebulous than the old rules, they are still nebulous enough that I cannot for the life of me determine what would qualify as a laudable achievement, much less the stroke of genius that denotes a decisive win. Fully fifteen percent of perfection consists courting good opinions at Active Rain, which will probably work out well for competitors who are actually active on Active Rain.

But: I don’t care. I decided to do this not because I expect Our Team to win, but because I wanted to talk about real estate weblogging. I have a lot of ideas, as we’ve seen so far, and we haven’t even gotten to the good stuff yet.

That changes now. Here is a vitally important idea about real estate weblogging that you should read, learn, mark and inwardly digest:

Real estate weblogging is very likely to be a very low-yielding prospecting activity, especially at first.

Say what? Almost any sort of real world, voice to voice, face to face, flesh to flesh prospecting will return more, better, faster, more-predictable and more-profitable results, at least in the short-run, than real estate weblogging.

Say what?!?

What’s the point of all this, if the fishing is better elsewhere?

There are two points that I can see. The second is that, if you’re doing it right, your yields should improve in the long-run. But the first is much more important, I think: Real estate weblogging is work you can do when you can’t do voice to voice, face to face, flesh to flesh prospecting.

What are the implications? The first is that if you let weblogging come between you and money work, you are probably costing yourself more than you will make up in later earnings. And second is that you should confine your weblogging to times when you cannot, practically speaking, do money work.

I do like the idea of at least one new post a day, but your posts don’t have to be definitive texts. For one thing, the time commitment will kill your earning power. For another, your goal is to connect, not to define.

So: You can pound things out late at night, like me right now. Or you can knock ‘em out in the untenanted hours of the morning — which might help, since the morning papers can furnish post ideas. But if you’re writing weblog posts instead of taking and making calls, going on appointments, showing, listing or cashing paychecks, you’re probably going to run short on paychecks to cash.

Even so, I think the heart of the matter is forging relationships. As Teri noted yesterday, I told her to stop paying attention to other weblogs. The would go at least quintuple for BloodhoundBlog, because we are the worst kind of example for forging warm and fuzzy relationships. We are all about defining things, and we are not necessarily not about pissing people off. This is not what you want to do.

But I think it’s a bad idea to attend too much even to currently-active local real estate weblogs. A huge number of them — the ones I like — are half or more devoted to national, industry-related issues. This is BloodhoundBlog kibble, and I eat it up. How does that kind of content play to ordinary consumers? My guess is not so good.

But there is another kind of local real estate weblog that is truly locally-focused. I tend not to read these — because the fare is not BloodhoundBlog food — but even then I think the content might be too definitive, too goal oriented, too broadcast-like.

Here’s the deal, and it’s a lot easier to define than to do: Web 1.0 was about broadcasting, essentially paper publications expressed in electrons. I’m the teacher, you’re the class. I’m the reporter, you’re the audience. I’m in charge. You’re not.

This is wrong. Why? Because Web 2.0 is about conversation, not lecturing. If I’m writing well for a locally-focused real estate weblog, I’m writing in a way that includes, enfolds, envelopes the reader in a fuzzy blanket big enough for both of us. I’m certainly not the right writer to do this, and you may not be, either.

Here’s an interesting example: Steve Leung, of Silicon Valley Real Estate Blog, approached me to be my protege in this contest. I think Steve is a great writer, an amazingly great communicator, to the extent that he has a standing invitation to join us at BloodhoundBlog whenever he wants. At the same time, even though he is a relatively new weblogger, I regarded him as being way too experienced to be plausibly presented as a novice weblogger. What’s interesting is that only just lately has Steve generated his first real estate lead from his weblog.

By the idiotic otherly-brilliant rules of this contest, I qualify as a novice real estate weblogger:

The only criteria regarding experience of apprentice is that they have not generated any business or leads from blogging before the start of the competition.

Steve Leung is an INTx. I haven’t tested him, but he doesn’t have to tell me it’s so. It’s all through his writing. His work appeals so strongly to me because it resounds in harmony with my own INTxtreme sensibilities. In the long-run, Steve may attract a lot of business through weblogging, from a lot of really prosperous people. In the short-run, they’re going to wait and see if he can deliver consistently.

As a good counter-example, consider Ardell DellaLoggia, who writes on her own weblog and on Rain City Guide. Ardell gets most, possibly all, of her new business from real estate weblogging. How does she do it? With an empathy that seems to me to be infinitely maternal. You have to be careful when you read her, because she is often talking to industry junkies like me. It’s when she’s talking about true justice for the consumer that she forges client relationships. It’s not so much what she says, nor even the way she says it. What matters is that her readers believe that she believes in the high standard of customer service she upholds.

So is that what you should be doing? Ardell is sui generis, non plus ultra, as fundamentally convinced of her internal rectitude as St. Jeanne d’Arc. If you regard what she is doing as schtick, a performance, you won’t be able to pull it off. Ardell glows from the inside out, and so must you to follow your own sword into Holy War.

But the difference between Steve and Ardell is important. Steve connects intellectually, which is a slow process likely to be effective on only a small, but inordinately wealthy, subset of the population. Ardell connects, emotionally, even viscerally, and she can make clients out of her readers before they get to the second paragraph.

Which style is more likely to produce results for you? Unless your locally-focused weblog is focused on Lower Manhattan or Silicon Valley (like Steve’s is), I think you need to learn how to connect emotionally, viscerally — as a neighbor, as a friend, as family.

Not as a teacher. Not as a reporter. Not as someone who is ostentatiously In Charge. The connection, if it can be made, has to be as an equal, as someone you’d invite in for coffee at the kitchen table, as someone in whom you would confide a funny but embarrassing secret. That is everything a conversation is, and everything a lecture is not.

Is there homework? Write!

When? When it is the only profit-seeking work you can do.

What? You figure it out, but think of the problem of what to write about from the point of view of your hypothetical prospect. Not, “What do I want to tell him or her?” Not even, “What might he or she need to learn?” How about this, instead: “What will make me, as your prospect, feel more completely like myself as a consequence of having gotten to know a little bit about the world we share?” Your objective, I think, is to make them feel at home — and more at home when you’re there with them.

And this is why real estate weblogging can pay off very well in the long-run. Your long-tail search hits will pile up as you accumulate content. But that’s wild, unpredictable, over-the-transom stuff. If you can connect in an emotional, visceral way with a steady population of long-term readers — neighbors, friends, family — you should be able to do an astounding amount of business in the long-run.
 

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Our story so far: If you’re studying Real Estate Weblogging 101 from home, be sure to peruse these mission-critical posts:

• Apprehending Realtor 2.0: Seven essential skills of the 21st century real estate agent…
• Real estate weblogging is a journey, not a destination…
• Think globally, blog locally: If you want local leads from your real estate weblog, pursue local interests…
• Podcast: Local results in real estate weblogging will come from making local connections, not SEO results
• Feed guarding: Protecting your weblog content from theft — or worse fates…
• Weblogging as if it really mattered: How to write with integrity and passion
• What is the difference between a weblogger and the press?
• Webloggers and the press, Part II: Oversight and S.W.A.G.
• Perfectibility in weblogging: Revising yourself to genius
• Can yet another easy-blogging local-content solution beat community-building local real estate weblogs?
• Hi. I’m Teri…And I’m aghast.
• Got Voice? And other questions for which I have no answers.
• In Case You Just Tuned In
• Neighborhood-level real estate weblogging: Traffic is not about traffic, traffic is about conversions
• Scale your locally-focused real estate weblog down to the size of a good time. Why? Because there’s no place like home…
• How to make Google your weblog’s best friend…
• Resource recourse: For the budding real estate weblogger, opportunities for self-improvement are everywhere — and every where is right here
• Want to make sure you can defend yourself from internet bad guys? Aim for the body, not the head…
• TheBrickRanch.com: As warm and fuzzy as an Easter Bunny
• Advances, none remarkable.
• Profitable real estate weblogging: Burning the midnight oil to make family out of your farm
• An insanely great hyper-local real estate weblogging strategy: Be the community
• Real Estate Weblogging 101: Our story so far
• Exploding Heads
• Dancing on bridges: Understanding great real estate webloggers
  

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Your profile can include an embedded YouTube video.

Your profile photo is going to be reduced to 66 pixels in width, so if you scale it to that size before uploading, you’ll get marginally better quality. (Or is it 100 pixels tall?)

In general, photo scaling seems pretty fuzzy to me. For your own listings, it’s worth your while to scale to their width (267 pixels?) before you upload. (Or is it 200 pixels tall?)

The text editor for your profile is blog-like except that UTF-8 high order characters are being dumbed down to 7-bit ASCII, so you might as well dumb them down yourself — again to keep quality control.

The Wiki text editor will smart paste, like the ActiveRain editor, but it won’t retain your CSS. That means you’ll probably have to blow in an extra return between paragraphs. I don’t know if you can past in raw HTML, which would be my preference.

How’s business? Zillow.com’s David Gibbons:

Site traffic is definitely up though it’s not as much of a vicious spike as say when the WSJ story suddenly hit in February. It’ll be interesting to see what MSM pickup there is through the rest of the week. Early activity around Q&A and EZ Ads looks great with a fair amount of “testing” going on — I’m impressed by how quickly some questions were answered. EZ Ads in particular is looking surprisingly good. A few advertisers are testing ads in multiple (>10) zip codes. Too early to tell the impact on for sale postings but it looks like a bunch of homes have already been reported for sale.

A bunch from me. I’d love to be able to do this with a tab- or comma-delimited file. Even typing into a form would be faster. If the house is already listed, Zillow can ignore me.

Page loads do not seem to me to be inordinately slow.

 
Further notice: I said: “I’d love to be able to do this with a tab- or comma-delimited file. Even typing into a form would be faster.” In retrospect, this multi-step, manual entry is a passive barrier against the kinds of vandalism Jonathan Dalton and Ardell have expressed concerns about. Whether your motives are sweet or foul, you really gotta wanna make a change in the Zillow database. A malevolent whim just won’t get the job done.

Best hands-on coverage: BloodhoundBlog’s Brian Brady for Realtors and lenders.

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Here’s the news. We’ll circle back for details and implications.

Zillow.com, the national Realty.bot growing out of the popular automated home valuation service, is releasing a new version of its popular web-based real estate portal tonight. Dubbed Zillow 5, the new functionality comes in three broad categories:

• Any user of the system — not just homeowners or their real estate agents — will be able to report that a particular home is for sale and at what price. Only owners and/or listing agents will be able to create more elaborate listings for homes for sale.
• Any user of the site will be able to ask or answer a specific question about a home, whether or not it is listed for sale. The questions and answers will be stored with the record for that home, and each user’s questions, answers and Real Estate Guide (formerly known as the Zillow Wiki) contributions will be recorded on that user’s personal profile page on the system.
• Agents or other users wishing to promote either themselves or their homes listed for sale will be able to do so through a new “EZ Ads” system. In appearance, the ads will look like a cross between a button ad and a Google AdWords text ad: a headline, two lines of text, an outbound link and an image — a logo or a photo. Unlike AdWords ads, the billing will be pay-per-impression, not pay-per-click. The ads will be sold by the zip-code at a cost of one-penny per impression. Ads targeted at a particular zip-code will rotate at random to exhaust the advertiser’s pre-paid spend over a pre-set span of time.

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BloodhoundBlog features extensive coverage of tonight’s announcement from Zillow.com:

• A broad overview of the new functionality and its implications (this post)
• Zillow.com’s press release announcing the new software release
• A podcast with Director of Community Relations David Gibbons

BloodhoundBlog contributor Brian Brady will also be covering the story at these sites:

• Active Rain
• America’s Most Opinionated Mortgage Broker

BloodhoundBlog has published more about Zillow.com than any other weblog or publication.

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“With this release, Zillow becomes a community,” said David Gibbons, the company’s Director of Community Relations. That’s true, but it’s somewhat opaque. Web 2.0 is about community more than anything else, and yet most Web 2.0 communities are rich in everything except people. What Zillow.com is doing is giving people — particularly buyers and real estate professionals and other vendors — incentives to join its community.

How is that?

• As a Realtor, if I announce on Zillow.com that a house — listed by another agent or for-sale-by-owner — is for sale, I get to associate my name and my recorded profile page of system contributions with that home. What does Zillow get? A massive and immediate increase in the quantity of inventory for sale, which in turn will attract buyers to what has until now been an inordinately seller-attractive Realty.bot.
• Similarly, if I answer questions about homes listed for sale in my farm area or make targeted Real Estate Guide contributions, I enhance my reputation as a neighborhood expert, serving to attract both buyers and sellers to me, with my value-added content giving end-users added incentive to return to Zillow.com.
• That farming philosophy is replicated in the EZ Ads strategy: If I am willing to farm zip-code-sized pieces of Zillow.com’s vast territory, the site will reward me in two ways, driving organic and pay-per-impression traffic to my page of presence on the system — or to my own web site or weblog.

Taken together, what Zillow.com is doing is creating a community not in the sense of Web 2.0 but in the sense of a magazine: A target-marketed community of content consumers who are also interested in products and services conjoined with a community of vendors of those products and services. Zillow goes most magazines one better by giving the vendors the incentive to create much of the content at their own expense.

Realtors who had worried that Zillow might be building a national automated real estate brokerage — much as Zillow founders Richard Barton and Lloyd Frink built a national automated travel brokerage in Expedia.com — can relax. With this release of its software, it becomes clear that Zillow.com is building an advertising portal. The competitors most likely to be affected by this move are horizontal search advertising systems like Google.com and various types of lead vendors. In the long run, other Realty.bots and lead-pursuing mega-weblogs (such as ActiveRain.com’s new Localism.com system) might also be affected.

The food chain looks like this: Zillow wants agents (and possibly lenders) to bring it at least limited-data listings, which will in turn bring it buyers, which will in turn reward sellers and listing agents for inputting full-data listings and other information, which will in turn provide a stickier and more satisfying experience for buyers. By giving agents credit for their contributions to Zillow’s content database, agents have the incentive to drive the process, since content creation becomes a cheap form of prospecting. Assuming all this works, the agents will have the added incentive to buy EZ Ads, which is Zillow.com’s end goal. In the abstract, it’s a self-contained eco-system, a self-sustaining Bourse of residential real estate vendors and consumers.

After getting off to a slow start, Zillow.com’s manually-entered listings now top 100,000 homes, although about a third of those are relatively slow-moving “Make Me Move” listings. With this release, the company still does not have an automated system for entering listings such as is used by listing.bots like Trulia.com and Propsmart.com. Gibbons speculates there may be some type of inbound listings feed later this year. He confirms that listings are policed to make sure the information is current and that the listing is removed from the system when the marketing effort ends. Keeping the new, more-informally-entered limited-data listings current may be more of a chore, especially since a home listing works just as well as “buyer-bait” whether or not it is truly available. This is why MLS systems fine members for not removing off-market listings in a timely fashion.

As a part of the Zillow 5 software release, a new page called “What’s a Zestimate?” will be linked off of every page in the system, including every page where a Zestimate — Zillow’s trademarked name for its Automated Valuation Method results — is shown. A thoroughgoing disclaimer, the page discloses in easy-to-read language what a Zestimate is and is not, what an AVM can do and what it cannot do.

Details and implications

We’ll start with the Home Q&A feature, because much of the new functionality turns on that. The actual Q&A content is presented in three places on the Zillow system:

• On the standing record pages for individual homes
• On the individual user’s profile pages
• On the Real Estate Guide (nee Zillow Wiki) pages

Only the latter are true wiki pages, but it is a useful metaphor to think of all three types of pages as exhibiting wiki-like tendencies: Content is permanent and accretive in wikiesque fashion.

When I wrote about the Zillow 4 software release last December, I pointed out that Zillow had effected a paradigm shift in the idea of a real estate database: Instead of a permanent application operating on temporary data, Zillow envisions a host of temporarily deployed applications acting upon a permanent and constantly-improving database of home — and now user — information.

So: Anyone can ask a question about a particular home, and anyone can answer that question, and both the question and the answer — or answers — will be stored in perpetuity with the database record for that house. Moreover, the questioner and any subsequent visitors can rate the quality of the answer in the style of user evaluations of Amazon.com book reviews. And: Every question that I answer, with its associated ratings, plus any contributions I make to the Real Estate Guide, will be recorded on my personal profile page. If I can establish myself as an expert about a particular farmed category of homes, the link to my profile page will show up again and again on the database records for those homes, potentially driving traffic back to my profile page.

There’s more: I can take it upon myself to report on the for-sale status of every home in my self-selected farm — reporting on my listings, on other agent’s listings and on for-sale-by-owner homes. If a seller or listing agent inputs the much richer full listing content, I can nevertheless associate myself with the record for that home by answering questions or supplying other supplemental content.

Still more: I can answer questions no one has asked about particular homes. If I wanted to provide contemporary — or historical — photos of every home on a particular street — whether or not they are for sale — I will have associated myself with every record for every home on that street.

We are BloodhoundBlog, and we live and die by dog metaphors. Our name for this kind of farming is “peeing on the tree.” If I pee on every tree in my territory, I will have “marked” it as being mine. Anyone searching for anything in the homes I am farming will run into me again and again — in a completely organic and non-salesmaniacal way.

Plus: I will in due course come to dominate the long-tail search terms for my farm on Google and other search engines, again reinforcing my dominance of that farm.

Plus, again: I can buy Zillow EZ Ads that will put a finer point on my presumptive ownership of that farm. The end user will see my organic contributions to the records for the home, and may at the same time see my ad promoting my expertise. Either of these will link to my profile page, which present my accumulated expertise. Peeing on the right trees will tend to lead prospects back to me again and again.

Who is doing this work? My guess is buyer’s agent’s and new or underemployed agents generally. As I have complained in the past, adding a detailed listing to Zillow.com is a pain in the butt. The site has more than tripled its quantity of listings since I wrote that post, but listing.bot Trulia.com still has about ten times as many listings. This should change fairly quickly with this software release, since anyone can now assert that a home is for sale. But an intrepid buyer’s agent could make a special effort to pee on just the right trees — homes listed by other agents who have not themselves entered their own detailed listings.

There is a side issue here, one that need not matter to Zillow.com but may well matter to working Realtors: MLS rules and the NAR Code of Ethics colorably forbid the type of activities we are talking about. From the Arizona Regional Multiple Listings Service’s rulebook: “A listing shall not be advertised by any Participant, other than the listing broker, without prior written consent of the listing broker.” From the NAR Code of Ethics: “Realtors shall not offer for sale/lease or advertise property without authority.” Subject to a specific ruling to the contrary, my take would be that whether a home is for sale, the price at which it is offered for sale and its physical appearance from a public street are material facts, not listings or advertisements. MLS or NAR officials may ultimately rule otherwise — but nothing they say will prevent lenders — or landscapers! — from farming for business by reporting on homes for sale.

In any case, if an agent — or a hungry lender — wants to lead-capture actively-searching buyers on the cheap, Zillow 5 provides the means. What does Zillow gain in return? Scads of fresh, new highly-buyer-attractive content. Agents looking for buyers create content for buyers looking for homes, and to gain access to those homes, the buyers contact those agents. If this works at all, it should work synergistically to turn Zillow.com into a site as attractive to buyers as it already is to sellers.

It seems plausible to me that other vendors, beyond Realtors and lenders, may avail themselves of these new capabilities in Zillow’s system. Local merchants, landscapers or home improvement contractors, as examples, may want to purchase zip-code-targeted EZ Ads, or even answer questions or supply Real Estate Guide content as a means of peeing on their own trees, as it were.

Moreover, we’ve seen a host of real-estate-related social sites crop up, some with amazingly limited market appeal. It’s not that no one is interested in details about a particular street in Phoenix, for instance, but simply that no one will make a special trip to a special site just to investigate a street — or to report on one. The Web 2.0 answer to this dilemma is: Mash-up! But it seems to me that Zillow.com is — or at least is becoming — that mash-up. People will ask and answer questions about streets as a function of asking and answering questions about everything else.

In the same respect, I see the proliferation of Realty.bots as a barrier rather than as an opportunity. To promote a listing, I must either navigate to and negotiate with each one, or dumb my listing down to some lingua Franca apprehensible to all. Just as there are many search engines, none of which mean anything in the Googleized web, I think that Zillow.com can become the ne plus ultra of vertical real estate search. This is not a necessary consequence. Another vendor could rise to the challenge. But Zillow so consistently out-thinks its competitors that it will be hard to beat. And the advantage for buyers, sellers, brokers, lenders and other vendors of having one real estate marketplace — Planet Zillow.com — is crystal clear.

Nothing happens as quickly or as dramatically as I expect it to, but, again and again, the Zillow management team seems to come up with completely unpredictable innovations that, in retrospect, seem to be completely perfectly-matched to the true needs of the marketplace. Where other Realty.bots are making corporate partnerships with vast brokerage franchisors — putting more and more middlemen between Realtors and their clients, even as they make it harder and harder for buyers to obtain vigorous representation — Zillow.com implements a system that puts people in direct contact, with no intermediaries at all. And who stands to gain the most from this change? Buyers and buyer’s agents.

Will it fly? Everything depends on buyers identifying a need to come to — and to keep coming back to — Zillow.com. If users supply enough enticing content, if buyers express enough interest, if listers and sellers enhance their content, if the quantity of available listings surges, if Realtors and other vendors advertise on the system and if that advertising turns into profitable click-throughs — if all of these things happen, more or less simultaneously and synergistically, then we will have witnessed the first — and possibly only — grand slam home run in the Realty.bot epoch. Clearly there are no guarantees, but if you could have a one-percent pre-IPO stake in any of the extant Realty.bots, would you bet against Zillow.com?

Elsewhere: TechCrunch, Drew Meyers, Jay Thompson, More from me: A screen-shot tour, Joel Burslem at tFoREM, Robbie Paplin at RCG, Webware, ClickZ, Brian Brady: Farming Zilliow, Brian Brady: Zillow for mortage lenders, Brian Brady: “Ask Questions, Share Answers”, Jonathan Dalton, Ardell at RCG, Zillow Blog, Seattle Post Intelligencer, Reuters, Inman Blog, TechMeme, Marlow Harris at 360Digest, FBS Blog, Jim Duncan at Real Central VA, Greg Sterling at Screenwerk, Realty Baron, VentureBeat.

Visitors: BloodhoundBlog is a national real estate marketing and technology weblog written by, for and about real estate professionals — Realtors, lenders, investors. A team of 14 webloggers cover real estate industry news and trends in great depth, exploring details and implications often missed in other media. If these topics are of interest to you, consider adding BloodhoundBlog to your feed-reader or blogroll.

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