BloodhoundBlog

There’s always something to howl about.

Author: Greg Swann (page 112 of 209)

Suburban Phoenix Real Estate Broker

February 9, 2008

Who is vulnerable to Zillow.com? How about TopProducer.com?

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Suburban Phoenix Real Estate Broker

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I’m thinking the lending product, whatever it turns out to be, is going to involve some kind of Customer Relationship Management/Transaction Management component anyway. And what does everyone say made it worthwhile to drink the HouseValues.com KoolAde? Yep — CRM/TM.

Here’s my big-picture take: If you’re in any sort of business where the added-cost per additional increment approaches zero — all of TP’s costs are accounted for by customer #1, transaction #1; after that, they’re storing and swapping electrons — watch out. Anyone who is willing to eat your front-loaded costs can eat your lunch.

What’s the counter-measure? Price your product at zero. The plausible alternative to free is not-only-free-but-WAY-better. Otherwise, your installed-base should stay put, with all the new converts up for grabs. That’s a first-mover advantage, provided the first-mover stays nimble. Welcome to the Web 2.0 world…

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February 7, 2008

Help raise funds for tornado relief and reconstruction: Post one of these buttons on your weblog

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Suburban Phoenix Real Estate Broker

Author website

Help raise funds for tornado relief: Post one of these buttons on your weblog

Agent Genius is puttng together a fund-raising effort to provided money for relief and reconstruction for those hardest hit by this week’s tornadoes.

Below you will find code that you can use to post a button or banner on your weblog to encourage donations. All three incorporate Jay Thompson’s PayPal donation interface, so your readers can make donations online by credit card. Copy everything inside the text box and paste that into your sidebar or header file:

225 pixels wide:

125 pixels wide:

Banner — 750 x 90 pixels — not shown:

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February 7, 2008

Introducing Cheryl Johnson — finally

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Suburban Phoenix Real Estate Broker

Author website

I can concentrate. This is my gift from the gods.

The human mind is a scattered thing, flitting off at any instant in any random direction. I have the peculiar talent of being able to think about one thing exclusively — literally excluding the whole of the rest of the universe. Because of this, I can write fast, write software fast, think about things down to the last whirling atom. But the corollary is that I am exceptionally gifted at overlooking things. Cathy gets stuck with everything that I don’t want to think about.

I tend to think about things completely, to the point of tedium or even outright aggravation to other people, but I never think about something until I do. My oversights are unspeckled by anything resembling foresight.

All that’s by way of introduction to yet another “duh!” introduction:

Cheryl Johnson lives in a “how-to” world. Never satisfied with the off-the-shelf solution, she fine-tunes her tools — then teaches the “how-to” of what she’s done. This real estate broker and investor calls Los Angeles her home.

CJ has been a boon to BloodhoundBlog since we were brand new. She’s been working with me by email on a project of mine. She has actually built the holiest of holies, a viable community weblog. Add to that her tutorial talents and she’s a natural fit for BloodhoundBlog.

So why didn’t I think to invite her to join us earlier? Duh…

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February 6, 2008

The Odysseus Medal: Always check snopes.com first?

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Suburban Phoenix Real Estate Broker

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Amended: The Odysseus Medal goes this week to… no one. The post I had picked as the winner turned out to be someone else’s work. I’ve elected not to award The Odysseus Medal this week and, instead, to gargle with Listerine to clear my palate and my mind of schmaltz.

The Black Pearl Award this week goes to Mike Farmer with Real Estate in A Brave New World:

Despite the rhetoric from politicians who claim we’re on the edge of ruin, there’s a lot of wealth in this country, and it’s congregated in metropolitan areas that have outgrown, or never had, an appeal for comfort, hominess and quality of living. Baby boomers (BB) will have second thoughts about retiring in areas where road rage and pollution are the nicest things you can say about them. These places are where the money’s at, but now a large chunk of it’s in the banking accounts of BBs and will transfer anywhere their hearts desire – North Carolina, Georgia, Utah, Colorado, Tennessee, Nevada.

Many of these BB buyers will want to live in places where they can golf and shop and exercise, walk the streets and smile rather than snarl, join clubs, start a mini second career doing something they love in communities where everyone knows their names and don’t give a fig what they’re worth on a financial sheet – the easy, slow, entertaining, friendly life. I’m talking myself into early retirement, here.

These BB buyers are already net-addicted and I receive emails each day from them asking me about the area, home prices, things to do, etc. – they’re gathering information and making plans. They aren’t in a hurry and they want good, reliable, spam-free information. This has been written about many times – but what many agents don’t realize is that it’s here, now. No one’s predicting the future anymore – they’re reporting. How many are ready?

Who better to service their needs, to be their wise guides, their comforting counsel, to make information gathering and analysis painless and useful, than the modern day, internet savvy, service-oriented, friendly and efficient local realtor?

Many agents will have to change Read more

February 6, 2008

Avoiding McCain — in traffic, that is

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Suburban Phoenix Real Estate Broker

Author website

We live in the last affordable ghetto in North Central Phoenix, a little pocket of reasonably-priced homes surrounded on three sides by unreasonably-priced homes.

John and Cindy (nee Hensley) McCain used to live about a mile and a half south of us, in the Hensley family compound on Central Avenue. We bought our house knowing there was a risk that McCain could become president and screw up the traffic on Central for everyone.

Lucky us, about a year-and-a-half ago, after ten months on market and a million dollars in price reductions, the McCains sold the Hensley estate and moved into a pair of hi-rise condos at Camelback and 24th Street — the Biltmore Shopping District.

After last night, I have to rate McCain’s chances of taking first place in the Grand Prix of Megalomania as being pretty good. But if we can manage to steer clear of the Biltmore when Captain Queeg is in town, it could be that Phoenicians won’t suffer much more than everyone else.

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February 5, 2008

Q: How many razors does one guy need? A: How many free blades come in the package? Or: Why we now have two color laser printers

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Suburban Phoenix Real Estate Broker

Author website

We have a Konica Minolta 2450 color laser printer. Rock-solid performer, a good citizen on the network, true PostScript, excellent color reproduction.

And, as of today, we also have a Konica Minolta 2550 color laser printer — which is essentially the same model.

Why on earth do we have two color laser printers?

Because we needed a new drum cartridge, and we were running low on al four colors of toner. Big deal, right? It’s just consumables.

Here’s the thing: Four high-capacity toner cartridges plus a new drum cartridge would have run $471 at the best on-line price I could find.

The brand new 2550 printer, which uses the same consumables as the 2450 — and comes with them pre-installed — was $435, shipped.

I saved $36 and got a free printer in the deal. I would have bought two, except the next time I do this the spread between consumables and the full package will be even greater.

In the mean time, I have to decide if I want to try to sell the new printer new-in-box without the consumables or sell the old printer as a parts solution to someone who already has one or more of the discontinued 2450 model.

Is this insane? The idea was that you would give the razor away and make your money on the blades. But if the razor plus the blades is cheaper than the blades by themselves, we’d be fools not to buy more razors.

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February 5, 2008

Introducing Mike Farmer: Thinker, writer, buyer’s advocate

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Suburban Phoenix Real Estate Broker

Author website

We’re adding a new contributor today, real estate broker and weblogger without equal, Mike Farmer:

The mythic city of Savannah is home to Mike Farmer, a commercial and residential real estate broker. Mike puts an emphasis on buyer agency, but there is a part of the man that lives simply to write.

Jay Thompson tipped me to Mike’s appreciable talents. I read his work, nominated him for The Odysseus Medal, then invited him to join us.

That’s twenty-five, but I’m not done yet. When will I be finished? When there’s nothing left to be said. It could take a while…

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February 4, 2008

The Odysseus Medal competition — Voting for the People’s Choice Award is open

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Suburban Phoenix Real Estate Broker

Author website

Sorry to be late. I’ve worked with dozens of Macs, mine and other people’s, since 1985, and Iridium is the first one I’ve ever had fail to start up. I cleaned my desk today — idle hands — and fired up 96 Tears, a ten-year-old G3, for the first time in months, the second time in more than two years. No problem. Cameron had a IIci running on his desk for more than twelve years.

Anyway, there are 20 entries on the short list this week, out of a long list of 113 posts. News, yes, but some truly thoughtful think pieces, too.

Vote for the People’s Choice Award here. You can use the voting interface to see each nominated post, so comparison is easy.

Ahem: Please don’t spam all your friends to come and vote for you. First, what we’re interested in is what is popular among people who would have been voting anyway. And second, I’ll eliminate you for cheating. Don’t say you weren’t warned.

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

Here is this week’s short-list of Odysseus Medal nominees:

< ?PHP $AltEntries = array ( "Brendan King -- Change Your State of Mind Change Your State of Mind”,
“Dan Green — Another Rate Cut With Another Rate Cut, The Federal Reserve May Be The Proverbial \”Fool In The Shower\”“,
“Dan Green — Database Marketing In The Business Of Personal Relationships, Database Marketing Is More Effective Than SEO Marketing“,
“Dustin Luther — dothomes DotHomes Launches US Home Search Tool“,
“Geno Petro — A Mastermind of Hucksters A Mastermind of Hucksters“,
“Jeff Brown — Getting Off the Ground Principles of Flight and Real Estate — Getting Off the Ground“,
“Jillayne Schlicke — Walk Away If You Walk Away, I’ll Walk Away“,
“Jim Duncan — I hear rumors all the time I hear rumors all the time“,
“Joel Burslem — dothomes International Real Estate Search Site Makes a Move into US“,
“Joel Burslem — The New MicroHoo Real Estate The New MicroHoo Real Estate“,
“Kevin Boer — dothomes Do We Really Need Yet Another Real Estate Search Site?“,
“Kris Berg — Going Green Going Green – finally!“,
“Kris Berg — Joe and Marge Joe and Marge“,
“Marc Grayson — Are Read more

February 4, 2008

Back among the living…

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Suburban Phoenix Real Estate Broker

Author website

I’m even caught up on my email, if only because I was dealing with mission-critical stuff in Squirrel Mail, a Eunuchs server-side mail client written in 1474. Motto: It’s Pre-Colombian!

Now: 327 unread posts in my feed-reader.

The Odysseus Medal will issue forth with dispatch, honest.

How much to repair the Mac: $0.

Priceless…

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February 2, 2008

A new way to howl: Announcing “The Long List of Odysseus Medal Nominees” — the weblog

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Suburban Phoenix Real Estate Broker

Author website

Apart from the normal crush of business, I’ve been hammering away for the past few weeks on a huge project — which I’ll be announcing shortly. In the mean time, I’ve wanted to make a further elaboration on the Long List lister I made a few weeks ago. That tool will echo The Long List of Odysseus Medal Nominees as they come in, but I wanted something that could be subscribed to by feed reader, as well.

It occurred to me to push the data out as a feed on my own, but instead I decided to build a link blog. I did that tonight. You can see it by clicking here.

This is a pure link blog — no commentary and no comments. I’m just drawing attention to the 75-100 posts that are making The Long List every week. You can see what’s new by visiting the weblog, but the ideal way to use this tool is simply to subscribe to the feed.

The Long List is updated several times a day, so you’ll always be abreast of the very best writing in the RE.net.

The other end of the pipeline commands your attention, as well: If you see something you think is truly great, and if it’s not already on The Long List — nominate it.

Here’s a trick, if you’re interested. Go to this nomination form, then drag it into your browser’s tool bar or save it in your bookmarks. The when you see a post you like, open the form in a new tab, so you can swap back and forth to paste in the title and URL.

On my end, the nomination process is by now almost completely automated. I moderate for porn and spam, of course, but I can normally update both the The Long List list box and The Long List of Odysseus Medal Nominees weblog with one click.

One of the things that I like best about this new weblog is that, from today going forward, The Long List will endure, instead of evaporating every Monday.

Anyway, the new weblog is open for business. Visit the blog, subscribe to the feed Read more

February 1, 2008

If you’ve finally found your dream home — don’t dawdle

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Suburban Phoenix Real Estate Broker

Author website

This is my column for this week from the Arizona Republic (permanent link):

 
If you’ve finally found your dream home — don’t dawdle

Here’s a paradox for the ages: It’s been a strong buyers market for more than two years — and yet buyers still can’t afford to be lax about the houses they love.

How’s that? In our recent seller’s market, sellers were completely indifferent to home-buyers — as a matter of studied strategy. “We might consider your offer,” they seemed to say, “but not today. We’re letting the offers pile up until Monday or Tuesday, then we’ll take a look at them all at the same time.”

Why can’t buyers in this market approach sellers with the same bland indifference?

They can — provided they’re willing to buy just any home.

In a seller’s market, qualified buyers are essentially a fungible quantity. Each one is simply a pile of money in the seller’s eyes — some larger, some smaller, some sooner, some later. Allowing for risks and opportunities, one is as good as another.

Not so for buyers. Houses are inherently non-fungible — each one is unique in location, appearance, construction, condition, amenities and lifestyle factors. Even with so many homes for sale right now, it can be a challenge for buyers to find even one house they are completely committed to buying.

My take: If you want to get the best possible deal, pick three homes, not one, and pit the sellers against each other.

But buyers don’t do this. Instead, they look at dozens of sub-standard offerings, and then focus all of their attention on the one house they can find that is priced right, repaired and staged right, marketed right.

And guess what? Of all the houses these buyers will have seen, this is the one for which there is competition. The factors that appeal to them also appeal to the other folks out there looking for homes right now. The dirty or neglected or over-priced houses attract no offers, where the few that are truly market-ready can draw multiple contracts within a few days of being listed.

The lesson to take away: If you really love Read more

January 31, 2008

Who benefits from occupational licensing laws? The licensees, to be sure — to the detriment of the consumer

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Suburban Phoenix Real Estate Broker

Author website

Via Coyote Blog and Radley Balko, the Philadelphia Inquirer brings us a nice illustration of why occupational licensing laws really exist: Not to protect the consumer, but to protect the licensees from free-market competition:

Mary Jo Pletz was really, really good at eBay. But now the former stay-at-home mother and gonzo Internet retailer fears a maximum $10 million fine for selling 10,000 toys, antiques, videos, sports memorabilia, books, tools and infant clothes on eBay without an auctioneer’s license.

An official from the Department of State knocked on Pletz’s white-brick ranch here north of Allentown in late December 2006 and said her Internet business, D&J Virtual Consignment, was being investigated for violating state laws.

“I was dumbfounded,” said Pletz, who led the dark-suited investigator to a side patio area, where he grilled her. “I told him I would just shut down,” she said.

Mary Jo’s violation? Auctioneering without a license. Sound familiar? It should. It parallels the dumb stunt the Sate of Arizona tried to pull on Zillow.com, which was accused of doing real estate appraisals without a license.

But there are consumers who need protecting, right? Oh, you bet:

D&J Virtual Consignment had 11,000 feedback comments on eBay and 14 were negative, Pletz said, giving her a 99.9 percent satisfaction rating.

Ebay is not just perfect Capitalism, it is Capitalism Perfected — everything that has always been implicit in free-market commercial transactions made utterly transparent by means of database management. If you are looking for the complete and irrefutable refutation of Das Kapital, you’ll find it not on but in the form of Ebay.com.

So where’s the beef?

Amoros, the state spokeswoman, said investigations were a “complaint-driven” process but those complaints are confidential.

Uh huh.

It is only possible to for you to defend occupational licensing laws by ignoring the palpable harm they do to actual consumers — higher prices for lower quality goods and services. But even then, don’t get downwind of yourself. This stuff stinks.

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January 30, 2008

Big News: Ignore all that fine print, tear through all that red tape — Redfin.com supports Safari at last!

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Suburban Phoenix Real Estate Broker

Author website

Oh, wait, that’s not the big news from Redfin.com. In fact, I reported the really big news last night:

Redfin will either make money or it won’t, and, in the long run, if it endures into a long run, it will become more like traditional real estate even as traditional real estate becomes more like Redfin.

So here’s what’s changed, as of 12:01 am EST: Redfin agents are going to squire buyers around for free four times as much as they have in the past. No news on who’s buying lunch.

Online real estate broker Redfin Corporation today rolled out a 75-day trial of a new home-tours policy that allows visitors to its site to arrange four Redfin-hosted home tours without paying any money up-front or making any commitment to Redfin. The first two tours would be free, and the third and fourth tours would cost $250 at closing, with any subsequent tours costing $250 in advance.

Sounds complicated, doesn’t it? My experience is that home-buyers are not the most assiduous readers of fine print.

There’s more:

The new tours last two hours, and require the buyer to provide a mortgage pre-approval letter documenting her ability to buy the homes she is scheduled to visit. Redfin deducts the $250 charges for the third and fourth tours from the commission refund, which has averaged roughly $10,000 at closing. Customers who do not complete a purchase with Redfin do not pay for their third and fourth tours. Previously, Redfin only provided one free three-hour home tour, charging $250 in advance for each additional tour.

I’m thinking there can be too much red tape even for the INTx gnomes who find Redfin appealing. What is clear is that pay-as-you-go has a less-than-ideal gnome appeal.

I can do four houses an hour with normal buyers. I normally do 12 houses in three hours, then make the buyers stop. After 12 houses, their eyes glaze over. If we limited ourselves to two hours, that would be eight houses. Four two-hour tours would be 32 houses. This is nothing at all like the original Redfin game plan — shoving the expense of showing homes onto Read more

January 30, 2008

Obeo, Baby, where have you been all my life? Why should buyers stop at virtually moving in their furniture when they can virtually redecorate — inside and outside — as well?

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Suburban Phoenix Real Estate Broker

Author website

We are too much misled, surely. Too much miscounseled, misdirected, misinformed. Too many of the people we turn to for advice on selling homes don’t actually sell homes themselves — never have — and, in consequence, too often, they are too much mistaken.

Consider that 2006 was to have been the Year of the Real Estate Video — except it wasn’t. Nor was 2007. And nor, neither, will be 2008. Video is useful for telling stories and for communicating personality. In expert hands it can be an incomparable tool for conveying arcane or abstract ideas. As a real estate marketing tool, it is at best a role-player — and most often — owing to crappy production values and even crappier pre-planning — it serves more as a detriment than a benefit to the marketing of a home.

Good photography, by contrast, is the real estate marketing tool of the millennium. Houses sit still, and what buyers want, more than anything, are scads of detail-rich images that also sit still — so they can examine, repeatedly, every last one of those details.

We will sometimes do video in a role-playing way for our listings, but the second most popular feature on our web sites, after the photographs, is the interactive floorplan. Buyers love to see exactly how their furniture is going to fit into the home — and the more they commit their minds to the home, the more committed they are to buying it. The scientific name for this intricate process is: Salesmanship.

For years now, we have dreamed of an even more fun, more engaging, more interactive tool to put on our sites: Virtual redecorating. Change the paint. Change the flooring. Change the cabinets and countertops. “You almost love this home, folks, and you haven’t even liked anything else. What can you do to make this place your own?” The name for this again? Oh, yes. Salesmanship.

And guess what? It’s here. Obeo, about whom I knew nothing until this morning, has solved the virtual tour problem in a way I not only don’t hate, but actually like. And they have given me virtual redecorating, Read more

January 29, 2008

Want to learn how to sniff out bias in the mainstream media? Follow your nose — all the way to Yosemite

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Suburban Phoenix Real Estate Broker

Author website

John Cook fingered this mash note to Redfin.com in Forbes Magazine. More of the same four-legs-good, two-legs-bad crap we expect from the mainstream media, but it’s short enough that the bias is almost too obvious.

Consider the attributions for quotes:

  • “says Kelman, 37”
  • “Kelman says.”
  • “one Redfin representative wrote recently”
  • “read another posting”
  • “says Steven Del Bianco”

These are all people of whom the writer approves.

But you can’t write a morality play without a villain, so take note of this item, quoted in full:

“In our area the consumer is savvy enough to know that they want value and a high-quality agent,” sniffs Gary Bulanti, a Realtor with Alain Pinel Realtors in Menlo Park, Calif.

Did you sniff out that “sniffs”? Kelman says, then says again. Redfin’s minions write and post. Even investors in past failed discount brokerages get to have their “say,” as it were. But if you are anti-Redfin in even the smallest way, you sniff — you bloated, soul-sucking, counter-revolutionary pig!

It’s all one, really. Redfin will either make money or it won’t, and, in the long run, if it endures into a long run, it will become more like traditional real estate even as traditional real estate becomes more like Redfin.

But just stop for a moment to take account of this:

In a national forest near Yosemite National Park someone affixed fake Redfin bumper stickers to signs, trees and rocks to make the company look like a shameless promoter and defiler of the environment. After Redfin staffers removed the stickers, which they have never used to pitch the Seattle company, the trickster started tossing the signs, attached to weights, into branches of sequoias.

First we have some some kind of demented, Edward Abbee-like monkey-wrenching counter-revolutionary pig of a Realtor, who traipses off from densely-populated Seattle to a national frolicking forest to smear Redfin. And then we have a yellow school-bus full of happy, happy Redfinions — red caps, blue kerchiefs, khaki tunics and cargo shorts — racing off to that same forest to repair this horrendous damage to the natural world, praying all the while to Gaia to heal the deeper wound. On the way home they sing Read more

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Inventing Real Estate 2.0

Welcome to BloodhoundBlog, the national real estate industry marketing and technology weblog written by, for and about real estate professionals. Better yet, welcome to the wired world of real estate. We are busily inventing Real Estate 2.0 – technology, marketing, service and salesmanship. Like all Bloodhounds, we are smart, frisky and fiercely independent. We've built a spot on the earth – beloved over all – where each one of us can be who we are, no matter who that might be. We are committed to an idea of excellence that will flush the bums, the con-men and the crybabies out of the real estate industry. If you yearn to have your failures excused, your moral lapses absolved or your boo-boos kissed, seek elsewhere. But if you are sick to death of mediocrity – welcome home. Read all about us, subscribe to our feed and steel yourself for the hunt. We work hard, we play hard, we learn everything we can – and we bow to no one.

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