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…at least not yet.

On Sept 24th when the Google Blog announcement of Google Places was posted, there was no mention of Place Pages for Real Estate:

“A Place Page is a webpage for every place in the world, organizing all the relevant information about it. By every place, we really mean *every* place — there are Place Pages for businesses, points of interest, transit stations, neighborhoods, landmarks and cities all over the world.”

Notice they didn’t say “addresses” or “real estate listings”, but today over on SearchEngineLand,  there is a post by Matt Mcgee titled Google Builds out a National Real Estate Search Engine which features a “Real Estate Listing Place Page”, and several other outlets have picked up on it.

The Place Page that Matt uses as an example does indeed show that there are now Place Pages for listings that Google knows about via Google Base.

A closer look reveals that, at least at this point, this isn’t very different from what Google has done up to now.

The content on the example that Matt from SearchEngineLand used consists of photos from PrudentialProperties.com and redundant basic information from that site and two others.

As Real Estate listing pages go, its a hodgepodge with little added value, such as an AVM, or local market info, that you would find on a good IDX site for the same listing. Even Realtor.com’s basic listing page is better. If you want that detailed information Google, as it always has, provides the links back to the original real estate sites.

That makes this an extension of Google organic results, nothing more.

As a stand-alone listing detail page as opposed to the beefed-up search result page that it is, this “Real Estate Listing Place Page” is pretty half-assed by Google’s standards, which may be why Place Pages for real estate are currently hard to find.

I tried entering the address from Matt’s example in Google Maps, without putting the /realestate after the address, and was not offered the “more info” link that leads to the Place Page, even though we know it exists.

Then I tried entering the address on my new Droid (yes it rocks!) and, again, no real estate listing information was provided.

I also tried the address of a listing near me here in Newport RI — same thing, no link to a Place Page.

But when I tried the name of a business that operates on the street level of my building, Infant Interiors in Newport RI,  the “more info” link pops right up. I did not have to go to some sub-site of Google Maps, like /business, that no consumer has ever heard of.

And this is where it gets interesting, because Google provides business owners with a procedure for claiming and then editing information about their businesses right on the Place Page.

The “edit this place” link is conspicuously absent on the Real Estate listing Place Page.

Now HERE is the blueprint for how Google could, if they wanted to (and it is not clear that they do), make life miserable for NAR, local MLSes, Realtor.com, Trulia, franchise operated sites and IDX vendors.

Business owners who click on the “edit” link that is offered on Place Pages are taken to the “Local Business Center” — which is where you go if you want to correct information that often appears at the top of Google organic results:

OK, now let’s make this the first step in the Google MLS process:

1. This becomes “Edit my Property”
2. In addition to the address, this could summarize the asking price, basic details, and perhaps agent info if the property owner chooses to give an agent access to this profile in much the same way you can add users to a Google Analytics account.
3. This is the current validation scheme. Snail mail. Really, Google? Clearly, they could come up with something better and faster (SMS to a wireless # whose billing address matches the property perhaps?)

Notice that on the Place Page for Infant Interiors, people can add reviews, like the one I just wrote there.  If Google went this route for real estate, I doubt they would allow a homeowner, or agent, to have any control over the content anyone else adds, just like they aren’t giving the owner of Infant Interiors a way to delete bad reviews.

That is quite the opposite of the asinine opt out of 3rd party comments and AVM  that NAR just added to IDX policy, isn’t it?

What’s to stop Google from aggregating all the public data that Zillow or RPR use and adding that to the mix? Maybe they would just buy Zillow and be done with it.

Given that option, it’s easy to see how people, who are as distrustful of real estate agents as they have ever been in the wake of housing bubble, might migrate to a real estate information platform that is outside the industry’s control and has the added benefit of the familiar Google user experience.

When Google puts something like this out there, THEN its time to freak out if you are NAR, a local MLS, Move Inc, an IDX vendor, etc..

Until then, enjoy the borrowed time.

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I attended the NAR convention in San Diego over the weekend and this banner caught my eye. It just seemed oddly Orwellian to me, as if NAR were subliminally planting the idea. As it turns out, that was not far from the truth.

The IDX rules have been updated to explicitly allow indexing by search engines, defeating the Indianapolis BoR’s attempt to use the old rules to prevent brokers and agents from using IDX data in SEO.

This time around, apparently, there was no parliamentary chicanery to delay the obvious. On the other hand, they did add an explicit opt-out for sellers who don’t want AVMs or third-party comments, or links to that content, associated with their listings.

It would be funny if it weren’t so frustrating: Obviously, they are aware that there is this technology called a “search engine” that makes it easy to find stuff, because they just endorsed a rule that acknowledges what the rest of the world figured out in 1995 — that search engines are useful.

Then they pivot and give sellers the right to censor information about their listings, but only on sites that use IDX data, meaning that those AVMs and third party comments are just a quick search away on sites like Zillow and Trulia. All this does is give people a reason to leave the broker or agent’s site to go and find the information they want on a site that is not bound by these idiotic rules.

Not that it will matter for much longer. With RPR, NAR itself is getting into the AVM game and, if you believe the nightmares of some local MLS directors, taking a concrete step towards a national MLS. If the reality matches the spin, they may be able to improve AVMs by adding information contributed by the membership, an idea they call the “Realtor Valuation Model”.

What’s missing is MLS data, at least for now. Done right, blending current and historical MLS data in with all the public data and combining that with an ability for brokers and agents to add their 2 cents would produce a much more accurate, and consistent, picture of real estate value, which means that MLSs have a choice to make: Play ball or don’t.

I’m fully aware of Greg’s opinion of NAR and its origins as a “criminal conspiracy against consumers” and he has a point, but if NAR has decided to hobble the ability of local MLSs to use their rule-making authority to fend off technology that they fear, then that is a good thing . As it stands, the end result of the current MLS system is the balkanization of real estate data and all these internecine squabbles like the MIBOR thing that do nothing to help brokers, agents, sellers or buyers.

Maybe, just maybe, the NAR has come to the conclusion that the MLSs, like the Sunnis in Anbar, need to make a choice — either you are with us or you are a terrorist. If you are with us, there will be benefits, if you are against us, not so much.

As Brian Boero points out, there are so many layers to this that, if it were an onion, it would be the size of Rush Limbaugh’s head, but one thing was obvious this weekend in San Diego and it was the extra padding that some of the MLS people had in their pants from the diaper they had to wear to prevent their loosened bowels from embarrassing them at the Reba concert.

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and on Zillow’s Mortgages Unzipped Blog and on the Straight Talk About Mortgages. I was asked that question the other day and the answer I gave surprised the person who asked it.   I found that intriguing, so I thought I’d share both the question and the answer.

Why do I write on these blogs?   The person who asked it reads a lot of what I write on these blogs and other places, so they know that even though writing comes rather easy for me, I do spend a lot of time on it.

Here’s my answer:

• I write on these blogs because the mortgage world can be terribly confusing and I want to try to help educate people, and that’s true even in the best of times.
• I write on these blogs because sharing my understanding and knowledge of what’s happening and what it means helps to elevate the professionalism and expertise of the mortgage and real estate professions.
• I write on these blogs because we are in horrendously confusing times and the full ramifications of what’s happening won’t be truly felt for decades.
• I write on these blogs because there are a lot of people who have experienced and are going through severe financial disruptions and need someone to help them understand what’s going on.
• I write on these blogs because the economy is going through what I believe we’ll see to be “seismic shifts” in consumers attitudes toward credit, saving, investments, banking, and real estate.  I’ve based my entire mortgage career on helping people manage their money wisely and making solid decisions and this is a logical extension of that.

The person who asked the question was surprised at my response.   He said, “I would have guessed that the reason you write on these is to write more loans!”

Have I written more mortgages that I wouldn’t have otherwise?   Yes.   Is that why I’m doing it?   Nope.

And that brings me to the main point of this post.   I’m working on something new.   Let me explain:

• There are a lot more facets to people’s financial condition than just mortgages.
• There’s a lot of people who are struggling to understand what’s happening with real estate, with the financial markets, with the stock markets and trying to answer the question, “Will I ever be able to retire?”

So what’s the new thing I’m working on?   I’m joining forces with two of the experts in these other areas of the financial perspective (BHB’s own BawldGuy for one) and we’re setting up a new website that will offer in-depth writing and analysis of the issues that are facing investors, homeowners, stock market participants and anyone who is concerned with handling their money well.

There are many stories and news items that, as they unfold, make me say, “There’s a lot more to the story than what you read in the mainstream media.”   Our goal behind the new site is to provide an opportunity and a location for people go to get solid, rational, well thought out interpretations and discussions of the issues that are facing us all.

I’ll have more information for you about it soon.   Stay tuned at Straight Talk or at BawldGuy Talking to keep up on the details as they unfold.

Tom Vanderwell

P.S. The other reasons that I write on Bloodhound are because Chris Johnson called Greg Swan and urged Greg to bring me onboard and because it’s just a really great bunch of people to “hang out with.”

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Note to Zillow: You have, in my opinion, been scraping traffic and (either accidentally or on purpose- I cannot know) in the process getting tons of irrelevant traffic via SEO. You have also been APPARENTLY been charging your advertisers for those same views. (For those who wonder what I am talking about, go to their home page and scroll to the bottom. They currently are featuring the largest home in the US and something about one of the Real Housewives of New Jersey. Or you can Google “largest house in US Ira Rennert”.

I have long had the thought that some of us bloggers ought to do a similar thing and drive you from the front page and ease my annoyance at your apparent practice. It has been bugging me for months. Clever? Maybe, but not something that I’d want a “partner” doing. (grin) Of course, I don’t “partner” with you, but you get the idea.

The home in the beginning of the movie Rainman is actually located in Cincinnati. The East Walnut Hills home on Burnett Avenue was featured at the beginning of the movie and the owners are now facing foreclosure. It was once valued at $1.5 million.

Let’s learn from the principle. It is one that Brian Brady taught us with Elliot Spitzers hired lover. These types of terms build TONS of irrelevant traffic because they are carried on the current media. It is a tactic that many SEO types use currently as well.

We all see foreclosures all the time in this business. I wish the current owners as well as the bank who will apparently soon own the home a speedy dispatch and sale of the property to a new owner.

To Zillow. Guys I hope you are not “milking” traffic to aid your profitability by billing CPM to unsuspecting advertisers who are losing because they are not getting relevant eyeballs in exchange for their dough. That is THEIR call and not mine. I wish you guys well and would be happy for you to join this conversation and set me straight. As I said above, I cannot judge intent. I can only look at what is, and what is seemingly apparent to me.

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We use the term “drive-by listing” to refer to the kind of listing you get with almost no human contact: “The key’s under the doormat. Look it over and tell me what we can get. Email me the paperwork.” I have five of these right now, investor-specials that came in over the transom.

DriveBuy Technologies makes a cooler use of the “drive-by” sound, though. BloodhoundRealty.com is an official DriveBuy client as of yesterday. I had built a sign on Wednesday, and I put the ad for that sign together today.

Here’s the sign for the property:

We’re in a sign-restrictive HOA, so we had to do things differently. On our normal signs, the DriveBuy ad-code would go on the big sign, along with the phone number and the URL for the web site.

The editing process on the DriveBuy web site was a piece of cake. Everything is template based, so, while your choices are limited, so are your opportunities for screwing things up. If you’re more adventurous than I’ve been, so far, you can learn the DriveBuy CSS and build your own mobile-browser pages.

But: If you do work with the templates, adding or revising your SMS ads and their respective web pages is a chore you can offload to whomever is already doing your Zillow and PostLets stuff. There is nothing there to to flummox your assistant.

This is the main web site for 1946 East Vista Drive, and this is the DriveBuy site I built this morning. Obviously, the mobile-browser site is a lot more limited (and you’ll note that it looks a lot like the demo page Ian Greenleigh of DriveBuy made for us). But Cathleen had no trouble pumping in a dozen photos, and the page features all the mission-critical information, along with a link back to the main web site.

I’m in love with this already, and the DriveBuy folks are interested in hearing ideas about how to improve the product. Over the weekend, I’m going to play with building a page for my investor-special listings. My rating so far: Totally rocks.

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Not for me — for our lenders…

Until lately, lenders and title people never really lived in our world. You could get ‘em on the phone all day long — so long as it wasn’t Sunday, so long as it wasn’t 9:30 at night.

That’s changing, thank goodness, especially with lenders.

But: If I need a Loan Status Report (that’s Arizonan for a pre-qual form) at 9:30 on a Sunday night, I need it.

So here’s what I want for one (or more) of y’all to make for lenders:

1. Give them whatever kind of pre-qual calculator they need — with internet access, of course.

2. At the lender’s option, issue the pre-qual information in any extant state association of Realtors form, along with something generic and an auto-generated cover letter.

3. Email as a PDF or send an e-page with a URL to a PDF on your server.

As dumb as these forms are, and as perniciously useless as they sometimes can be, it’s getting to be impossible, in Arizona at least, to submit a contract without one.

So: If you would, please make it easy for lenders to make loan commitments.

Feel free to charge ‘em for the app, of course. We all know they’re loaded…

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I just recently realized that Realbird offers the syndication based total IDX solution on the cheap for Real Estate Agents that I was talking about here a little while back.

Considering the whole MIBOR thing that went down a few months back, here below is how we might expect some local MLS board officials to be reacting to the product?

[Click to play obnoxious but hilarious vid in new tab/window....]

Caption: Local Boards React To Free Real Estate Data For Real Estate Agents

 
Shouldn’t the freak of nature that is a free, framable, “google based” solution for displaying all that precious real estate property data have a whole lotta folks up in arms somewhere?

Oh well…doesn’t matter. Dead horse maybe… The important thing is this. I found a relevant way to share that video.

That and…

The Realbird search can likely replace your current idx solution, and is pretty darn feature rich for the money. An ad supported version is free, and to remove ads and allow tight, framable integration with your website costs an easy $99/year (That’s $99/12 per month, if you’re doing the math.)

Sure, I know… it’s not every listing in the local MLS system. Even though Realbird’s property search results appear to be limited to what’s available in google base, it’s enough in my opinion. All our search page needs to do these days is keep my visitors engaged for a while until they fall into one of our nifty lead capture traps, right? I’d argue that the day has pretty much arrived when a 3rd party providing a partially complete snapshot of local real estate market inventory based on data provided by syndication partners is pretty much as good as what most fully populated with local board data idx solutions have to offer.

To see what I mean, check out Central Pa’s cheapest and arguably most comprehensive Real Estate Search portal at Central Pa Living.Com.

And keep in mind just a few of the features on that page which the local board prohibits from being displayed on that page:

• The ability to display property description remarks within the listings!
• RSS feeds for Search Results…
• Keyword Search!

That and … I didn’t have to pay the local board for the feed. In fact, I’m not even a local board member yet….Which highlights perhaps one of the coolest features of Realbird’s property search. If you live in an area with a lot of different boards, all with their own special nonsensical data requirements, you can bypass all the noise, membership fees, and confusion by truly adding “millions of listings to your website.”  Go ahead, try searching Phoenix Real Estate on CentralPaLiving.Com… A whole lot of it will be there…

So… will agents everywhere  catch on pretty quick that Realbird’s free idx alternative is the way to go? Will Trulia and Zillow soon follow with a framable something of their own?  “99 a bucks a year, or you and your site visitors have to see our ads.” – Good call Realbird…

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So Goggle thinks it’s going to win the real estate search game.  As far as I’m concerned, there is no more meaningless a result in an online property search than a red pin designating the location of a property on a map.  Take the map above in the example - a snapshot of the the greater New York City area with little red dots designating search results.  New York’s a big city with alot of little neighborhoods.  Help me understand how this solution is any better than any of the others? How has Google upped the ante in providing a better solution?

They haven’t.

What I find interesting about the online search game is how many players fail to understand what makes a particular property unique - desirable - a one of a kind.  How does a little red dot convey the weighty significance of LOCATION, LOCATION, LOCATION?  I just read Joe Burslem’s post over at FOREM, regarding how Google is now getting serious about real estate.

Should Zillow and Trulia be worried?  Not if they view search as a value added activity.  SEO juice isn’t necessarily the fuel that runs an effective or valuable search.  The content around the search is key.  What makes a location important?  When consumers seek a home - not a house - what evokes the emotional response?  A view?  The possibility of walking to a farmer’s market on Sunday, while passing a Starbucks?

A street view is a “window” into a location, but it doesn’t define it’s personality.  Location has an identity.  Zillow has already done the homework to identify the boundaries to neighborhoods.  Perhaps a valuable next step may be to better identify a neighborhood’s identity - its personality - or maybe link the characteristics of a location to the attributes of a property.

If a search result can personify a property’s location, consistent with how a consumer lives, the red pin comes alive.  Search is meaningful.

Google - you’ve got your work cut out for you.

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In response to Greg’s request for innovative ideas from BHB, I thought that would list a few real life examples of how the contributors here have impacted my personal evolution in mortgage marketing and Web 2.0 world domination.

While I believe success is merely a component of innovation, I also agree with the people who need to see proof of results in order to determine a true measure of value.

Since it is too difficult for me to pick one or two innovative or game changing ideas for Greg’s contest, I’ve embedded links to some of the BHB articles that have inspired me over the past few years.

Where did BHB begin for me?

I have been an avid reader of BHB for a couple of years.  This place use to scare me (still does), but I eventually gained the confidence in expanding my own online presence as a result of the education that I gained from reading and participating in the conversations on this blog.

As a loan officer back in the boom days, I only cared about the web because one of my Las Vegas real estate agents was feeding me with leads that he generated from his site.

I basically just helped contribute content and pay some of the expenses in our joint marketing venture.

When I did find time to pay attention to what others were saying online, I’d read about bubbleheads and doom pundits, real estate agents blogging about blogging, how the housing slowdown was only going to last for another 6 months, and how Zillow didn’t have accurate estimates.

However, when the market really did shift as Brian predicted, I was faced with the options of either becoming more involved in our online marketing agenda or walking away and getting a new job.

I kind of did a little bit of all three by developing a game plan for the industry that focused on a more sustainable purpose and different priorities.

The early innovation:

One of my first successful web projects was a FSBO campaign that combined single property web sites, highly visible yard signs, Craigslist, Call Capture, and a solid listing presentation.

My pricing model was based on Greg’s listing fee, and I was even able to get my real estate agents to do the dirty work of selling and marketing my program.

We had over 40 FSBO listings in a matter of months that generated about .25 loans, 3 real estate buyers,  and almost .5 full listing contracts per property.

It was a complete win win for everyone until the market was overrun with REO inventory.

Lesson learned - don’t take listings that won’t sell.

The evolution:

I either own, participate in or am in the process of developing over 17 real estate and mortgage blogs.  My purpose is to build perpetual equity in an online presence that will create residual wealth for my family and friends.  Its a call to arms, but I’m keeping my mind on my mission.

Am I rich yet?  No, but I’ve got a sense of peace and security knowing that I no longer have a publishing problem.

Innovation from Bloodhoundblog:

My biggest challenge is finding the time to execute all of my ideas.

1)  We’re working on Ryan Hartman’s 404 genius for our Las Vegas property management web site.  Combine strategic landing pages with targeted online comments, and I think we’ll be able to connect with the right audience at precisely the moment they need us.

2)  Brian Brady’s Twitter Media Mogul works well with the help of Domus Consulting Group’s Breaking News project.  I’ve already built three of those sites, including a Twitter Mortgage Rate feed.  All I have to do is customize Chris Johnson’s Twitter prospecting and sales program, and I should have an easy system built for my agents and loan officers to thrive from.

3)  After reading Mark Green’s article on creating warm leads through GoToWebinar, I’ve implemented a permission marketing system into my short sale posts.  Brian’s articles about his experience on Wall Street has helped me research and write valuable content for my readers.  As long as we watch what we say and how we say it, the message is always well received.

4)  Eric Blackwell’s advice about SEO and social media was right on, which is why we created a real estate social network.  However, we should have paid more attention to his advice about the business model and need to produce income.  Either way, even if Inman’s News didn’t find our innovation exciting this year, WordPress and BuddyPress did.

5)  How about taking this social media talk to the street?  Not sure if this is considered innovation or common sense, but there are thousands of Las Vegas real estate agents that would probably love to learn how to integrate a little more Web2.0 into their weekly business routines.  I could also create a group blog for them all to participate and learn on.  Maybe I’ll have time to start putting together monthly social media classes beginning in Aug.

6)  I’d like to take it a step further though and help these agents get their own Google profiles, blogs, maps and single property web sites up and running.  At that point, it is as easy as streaming my mortgage blog content to special pages on their sites like Kevin Sandridge is doing with the Scenius strategy he learned at the Orlando Unchained.

7)  While video and podcasts are great ways to build trust, I’m working on a first-time home buyer e-book that easily articulates and organizes all of the valuable information that my real estate partners and I have put on the web.  The printable version will also have a co-branding area and be useful folder filler content for new clients.

I’ve got several more examples, but these are the most noteworthy that I could come up with on the fly.

Who should win Bloodhoundblog’s innovation award?

Regardless of who wins Greg’s little contest, I’d like to sincerely thank all of the contributors and participating readers here for making be better.

I could probably spend another 9 hours going through BHB and pulling out all of the great articles that inspired innovation in my own business and life, but I’ll have to settle on the following link as my final decision:

Here is my vote

________

Happy 3 years of innovation, Bloodhoundblog!

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Yesterday I upgraded my iPhone to version 3.0 of the operating system software. So far, a pretty big yawn. Typing is plausibly easier, though still not easy. Cut and paste were not on my list of must-haves. Zillow upgraded its app to allow push notification, so your phone can tell you if one of your saved searches has popped up a new candidate. Okay…

I wasn’t unhappy with the iPhone before — quite the contrary! — but I don’t think I have any new reasons to be happier from this upgrade. Safari 4, by contrast, is totally killer, and I could not be more pleased with suddenly-faster-everything on my iMac.

One thing I played with right away on the iPhone was the new voice recording app. Not that impressive. It records losslessly at 44khz, which means the saved files are huge. They can be transferred only by email or hard-wired sync — no BlueTooth, no WiFi — and almost everything is too big to move by email. This is the kind of dumb, useless software I expect from Microsoft, not Apple, so one may hope it will get better in future versions.

Anyway, as a test, this morning I made a short little audio greeting card for Rian Lussier, who is about to undergo surgery. The file is a monstrous 25 megabytes, and it took over an hour to sync to my iMac (no hope of emailing a file that large).

Even so, the recording quality is not awful (there’s a buzz in places from me speaking too loudly), and the sentiments are what they are.

Godspeed you well, Rian.

 Enhanced Podcast: Play in Popup | Download

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When I was looking into whether or not Realtor.com was publishing scrapable rss feeds based on searches a few weeks ago, I also took a look to see if Trulia was doing the same thing.

Sure enough, they are, but of course the quality and the diversity of the types of feeds they’re offering are way juicier than Realtor.Com’s. Not surprising.. absent a Move/NAR type hook up, these guys actually have to innovate, right…

So, with all this fuss over local boards and NAR trying to control the “misappropriation” of property data by regulating idx feeds, I’ve been wondering if one couldn’t just turn Trulia into a personal, free idx solution using the same method I used to tap R.com…

The ingredients?

• Self Hosted Wordpress
• Exec-PHP Plugin
• Simple Pie Wordpress Plugin
• Simple Pie Core
• WP-Omatic Plugin (Optional)
• A few code snippets and some basic html knowledge for use with really getting freaky.

At the end of the day one would have:

• Lotsa fresh goog juicy dynamic content.
• Not all, but enough mls info to make your visitors at least hang around for a little while.
• Sales Transaction, REO, Pre-foreclosure data and any other information not available in local idx data either because of local
  board regulations or limitations in the fields available in the mls software.
• And more…

In short, you could probably “scrape” your way to a more informative site then your competitors have without the need to wrestle with the threat of an absurd Mibor type situation.

[An Example Start Here For The Curious]

But It’s A Half Measure…

Sure…that could work, sorta. But Trulia’s info isn’t all that comprehensive to begin with and you’d be offering your visitors a half-assed hacked up version of true idx. So we’re back pretty much to square one, with some extra dynamic content but no free idx via Trulia.

[Aside: Shouldn't these guys do the right thing and disclose to their visitors that their's isn't a comprehensive "search engine?" I'd buy ads on trulia in a minute if they could say something like: "Yo, we don't have all the listings, but we're real good at roping you in, so why don't you click this guy's freaky face for the real deal"]

Another Way…

But why give up so fast?

What if all agents, NAR and Non NAR members alike agreed to provide Trulia with listing info, but not give it to the local MLS?
Even where providing listing data to the board is a membership requirement, we could still only give the local MLS 1 photo and limited descriptive info, while giving Trulia like 20 photos plus a big ole juicy remarks write up?

Hmm…

I know. This would require participation on a large scale from a whole lotta realtor folks. Could never happen right? Well…

Hey Trulia! Why not make something like this happen? Why not innovate a product that’s so incredibly valuable to real estate agents that they’d pretty much all gladly line up to provide you comprehensive listing data while even paying you a monthly fee?

What am I talking about?

What about an idx solution that every agent in the country could use free of charge? You know…something that
would “brand” to each individual agent, meaning the leads generating from that agents pages would route automatically to the agent. And why not make it both:

• Framable on our own websites…

and/or

• Part of individual agent web/blog pages, something like ryanhartman.trulia.com maybe.

And you could offer 2 pricing options.

• $2/month for ad free (ok, I’ll give you $5 or even $10 if you do it right)

or

• Free with ads?

I’d gladly pay for a product like that, complete with all those juicy graphs, foreclosure data, sales transactions, heat maps,
lead capture stuff, etc. And…Trulia’s pre-packaged google clout to boot! Yeah, I’d take it in a heartbeat. I wonder if there aren’t a million or more like me out there who wouldn’t also hop on this one?

A fully functional idx + website for $24 year and we could all just forgo the $500 or so in local board + NAR dues? I mean idx is the only rational reason for paying those dues any more, isn’t it?

So Trulia, are you ready to make an insanely profitable switch over to idx vendor? Or maybe Zillow, will you help bring us all closer to “N/A R?”

Or more obviously… Move/NAR!

Couldn’t you guys have something like this delivered pretty quickly and have a product on your hand that’ll sell itself and be much more profitable than your current offerings will ever be? (Without completely ripping off your membership with ads that never provide valuable ROI..)

Yeah, IDXRealtor.Com. — I’m thinking this last option is probably the closest to what’ll actually end up coming of all this abzurdity?

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Okay, first, I have a confession to make.   The bank that I work for chose to be proactive and we began implementing the Home Valuation Code of Conduct on mortgage applications taken on or after January 12.   Why did we do it so early?   I’m not going to attempt to read the minds of the corporate people on that one.

I am going to share what I’ve learned about the Home Valuation Code of Conduct and what it means for lenders, Realtors and consumers.   Please remember this is not a formal analysis of the rules of the HVCC, this is strictly my personal experience of what it means:

The Five Most Important Things About the Home Valuation Code of Conduct:
1. For consumers - it means that the cost of an appraisal has gone up.   6 months ago, a standard appraisal in my area would cost between $275 and $300.   Now, that same appraisal is going to run $375.  What does the consumer get for his additional $75?  Basically, he gets one thing.   He gets a bit more comfort that the appraiser isn’t necessarily a friend of the Realtor or the lender and he doesn’t need to be as concerned that the appraiser is being pressured by someone to “meet a number” so the deal gets done.

2. For Realtors - it means that they can’t rely on “a friend” to get the deal done.   The days of working with the local appraiser who knows pretty much the entire market are over.   Now they have no impact on who does the appraisal.  So what does that mean?  It means that they are probably going to be getting some appraisers who don’t know the market as well.   What does that mean?  It means the Realtor has to not only know the market, they have to have the data available and be able to pass that information quickly and easily to the appraiser.   I don’t believe that it would violate any rules if the Realtor were to look up what they feel are the 6 best comparables, print the information and have it waiting at the house when the appraiser went through. 

3. For Lenders - the days of calling up an appraiser to “see what they think” about the value of a house are gone.   I was talking to a prospective refinance client the other day and he didn’t qualify for the “Obama” loans because he was pulling cash out to pay off a rental property.   Whether the deal would do what he wants would depend on the appraisal.   I used to be able to call an appraiser and discuss the deal with him and give the client a “good feeling” about whether it would work or not.   Not any more.   Now I had to tell the customer to check www.zillow.com or talk to a local Realtor and do their own research to determine whether it was possible to get that value and whether it’s worth spending $375 to “try it.”   The opportunity to help with advice and counsel in that way is now gone.   On the flip side, consumers don’t need to worry about an unscrupulous lender pressuring the appraiser to get a “higher” than true value so the deal would close.

4. For Everyone - time.   This is probably the biggest difference with the HVCC.   I remember a transaction where we got the appraisal done in 24 hours so that the buyers could take possession of the house when they got back from their honeymoon.    That wouldn’t happen any more.   Plain and simple, the layers of management, administration and quality control that have been put between the front line lender and the appraiser are making anything less than a 2 week turn around time somewhat miraculous.  Oh, and it makes it very important to make sure when you are writing a purchase agreement and/or locking in an interest rate that you give it enough time for today’s realities.

5. For Everyone - coordination.  Nope, I’m not talking about the ability to dance or ride a bike or anything like that.   I’m talking about coordinating the details on a file.   The client, the Realtor and the lender need to be in constant contact between when the purchase agreement gets signed, inspections done and the appraisal ordered to make sure that not a day gets missed.   I had a file earlier this year where I talked to the Realtor in the transaction two days before inspections were to be done.   I said, “Let me know when inspections are done so we can order the appraisal.”   He neglected to let me know and I didn’t follow up with him for a number of days.   Long story short, it was a bank owned property, the delay due to the appraisal cost the buyer $100 per day and I made $300 less on the deal because I felt at least partially responsible for the delay.    Those type of delays are not tolerable in today’s market and you need to work with people who are organized enough to avoid them.

Is the HVCC a good thing?   I’m not so sure that it is.    But, is the HVCC the end of the world?  Nope, it’s not that either.   It does prevent the unscrupulous lenders and Realtors from blackmailing appraisers, but it also adds a layer of bureacracy and red tape that is hard to work through.

So, let’s all take a deep breath, work with the system and make the necessary adjustments.

We’ll be fine.

Tom Vanderwell

If you are organized, patient and plan ahead, the HVCC is an obstacle that can be overcome.

Home Valuation Code of Conduct

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Have you heard of the Home Valuation Code of Conduct?  New York Attorney General Cuomo forced Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac to adopt the measure, in what can only be described as a Machiavellian scheme.  Essentially, mortgage brokers are forbidden from direct contact with residential appraisers; all appraisals for agency loans (not FHA or VA) must be ordered by a lender-approved appraisal management company.

What’s an appraisal management company? Exactly.

The intended result is to keep all loan production personnel (broker or banker) from undue influence on the independent appraisers hired to perform the valuation report.  You see, rather than to cease doing business with rogue mortgage brokers or unscrupulous lenders, a minority of appraisers felt it necessary to encourage Attorney General Cuomo to “put the arm” on the lending industry to protect their past ethical trangressions.

Wholesale lenders, realizing that the appraisal would now be THEIR property, clamored to the idea.  This was just another chance to restrict the value proposition of mortgage brokers (portability) and lock up some business.

Big Banks 1 Consumers 0

Wait!  That’s not all!  If the assigned appraiser is backed up, tough crap!

You see where I’m going with this?  The lender pipelines are ALREADY clogged up because the volume has spiked and the employee count is down.  Soon, we’ll be adding loan applications from the Obama refinance/loan modification plan and a further drain will be put on the overloaded appraisers.  Can I choose to deal with appraisers who won’t do refinance transactions?  Nuthin’ doin.  Ya takes what ya gets under HVCC.

Big Banks 2 Consumers 0

Still, I persist like Mr. Magoo negotiates a maze.  I took a loan application last week, checked Zillow for the Zestimate, closed my eyes and ordered the appraisal from the selected lender.  I locked the rate for thirty days and uploaded the loan submission.  I expected 10 business days in underwriting; surely, the appraisal would be uploaded within a week.

As Meatloaf might say “Stop Right There!  Before we go any further…”

I received an e-mail from the lender instructing me to immediately extend the rate lock for another 15 days…at a .25% fee.  For this $417,000 loan, the added cost to the borrower is $1042.50.  I rejected those terms, cancelled the rate lock, and demanded the $350 appraisal fee to be refunded.

Sorry…there ain’t no refunds.

Big Banks 3  Consumers 0

My customer is stuck with a $1042.50 premium to account for the inefficiency of the appraisal management company, to assign a $350 appraisal….BUT

..the lender said the loan looks like a slam-dunk approval.

Big Banks 4  Well-Qualified Consumer (-$1,392.50)

It just keeps going, and going, and going…

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Earlier today, Louis from HomeGain posted about them having an A-plus BBB rating. I will buy that. I think HomeGain has come a long way on his watch and think they have earned it. But since I had not looked at BBB ratings in a LONG time, I was intrigued enough to check out some others in the Real Estate Sector:

The Brokerage where I work: A plus (woot! see you and raise you Louis! )
Most of our local competitors: A to A plus (well done!)
RE/MAX Intl: A
RedFin: A minus (kudos, Mr. Kelmann…an accomplishment in a tough industry.
Zillow: Z for yourself. Yikes. But Zestimates can be a tough thing to keep people happy with, no? And that can affect your Zcore.
HouseValues: C

BBB ratings are supposed to be about a business keeping it’s commitments to its customers and living up to its agreements. I would also go so far as to say that it involves customer service. Going the extra mile to take care of people is an important piece of that.

In the end it is not about a rating but rather a commitment to do the right thing…thoughts?

I’d invite you to drop by the BBB.org and see how you or your brokerage or business rate! Ratings are not everything, but the idea that the better we serve our customers and their needs, the better we will be is a solid principle in my opinion.

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Thanks to Ryan’s earlier post, I have spent the morning digging into the NAR’s attempt to label the Google Search Engine a “scraper”.

Clearly, the intent is to stifle Realtor.com’s competition.

There is no other explanation for a rule that specifically targets SEO by dictating that we cannot put the content that consumers search for (addresses, MLS#s, the names of developments, etc.) in the places that Google looks for it (page titles, URLs, etc.), while Realtor.com continues to publish that same information in those same places.

How stupid is this? Let me count the ways:

1. It’s legally stupid: The DOJ went after the NAR during the BUSH years and decided to settle last year. Do they really think the Obama DOJ is going to ignore such a blatantly anti-competitive (not to mention technologically indefensible) rule?Does the NAR really think the Obama DOJ would side with a cartel over the consumer when even the Bushies were like, “You know, we normally stick it to the little guy in favor of Republican donors but you guys are just ridiculous.”?

   The instant one of the boards we deal with tries to enforce this rule, I will be filing a compliant with both the FTC and the DOJ and mine will be one of many.

2. The timing is stupid: Obviously, Real Estate is at the center of the economic storm that all Americans are weathering right now. Real Estate professionals are already distrusted (one study in the UK found that less than 10% of Britons trusted Real Estate agents).Such a ham-handed attempt to control information for their own economic benefit just feeds this perception, making the NAR (and, by extension, Realtors) an even more attractive target for the Obama DOJ.
3. Trying to “protect” content is stupid: Ask the Recording Industry or newspapers how well clinging to an obsolete business model by “protecting” content works.Information wants to be free in a networked society. The Internet itself was built to re-route traffic around roadblocks, like a city that used to have phone lines getting nuked by the Russians.

   As roadblocks go, whatever the NAR throws up will be a joke. Ryan has already demonstrated that it takes about 2 seconds to set up an “illegal” site.

   Sure, the NAR and the MLSs can go the route of the RIAA and try to litigate the issue to death, but that will just turn into legal whack-a-mole. Not to mention the utter brilliance of the NAR suing members for advertising listings.

4. Refusing to learn from your mistakes is stupid: The original deal the NAR did with Move Inc. was an attempt to “control” market data. Fighting the lawsuit in Austin TX that was eventually joined by the DOJ was another attempt to control market data.By the time the courts got around to hearing the case, the NAR settled with the DOJ, and why not? In the meantime, their own members went out and made the issue of controlling market data moot by giving it away to sites like Trulia.

   Consumers HATE it when web site owners put their agendas ahead of the consumer’s agenda. The NAR’s decision to pimp out Realtor.com for a profit created a user experience vacuum that companies like Trulia and Zillow were more than happy to fill.

   The irony (as Russel Shaw has pointed out) is that Trulia wouldn’t exist if Realtor.com was designed to benefit consumers instead of being designed to annoy them while extorting money from agents and brokers for “featured placement” of their listings.

   In other words, by being tone deaf, willfully ignorant, greedy, or all three the NAR created Trulia, Zillow.com and countless other aggregators and Real Estate Web site vendors (including yours truly). All of these companies would have found it much harder to gain traction if the NAR had used member’s dues to build a site designed to offer a consumer service instead of a site that is designed to offer banner ads from 1-800 Mattress.

5. Putting NAR’s priorities ahead of its member’s priorities is stupid: There is already plenty of doubt about who the NAR really works for among brokers and agents who pay $500+ a year for the privilege of putting an “R” that means next to nothing to consumers next their names.Making it harder for Realtors to out-rank Realtor.com, and other sites whom they must pay for leads, in Google for their own listings proves to the NAR membership that, whoever the NAR works for, it sure as hell isn’t them.

   Isn’t that sort of like “taxation without representation”? Americans have a proud history of refusing to put up with that sort of thing, and this will not be any different.

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