A Treo without the antenna and a variably-transparent garage. The phone will be available soon.
Technorati Tags: real estate, real estate marketing
Author: Greg Swann (page 198 of 209)
Suburban Phoenix Real Estate Broker
The other week I had a warm call off of our web site from a potential seller. I took his information over the phone, then talked a little about objectives and time-frames. I told him we would get back to him later in the day. I comped the house and read the listings history, including a cancelled listing earlier this year. My gut feeling was that the seller was way over on price, especially for this market, but I hadn’t seen the home to know for sure (ahem).
I had to show, so Cathy did a drive-by on the home, and on the basis of that, she decided that we could not do the listing: Non-homogenous use of the land, over-improved and over-priced.
She called the seller to tell him we were taking a pass, and he was shocked. He didn’t quite come out and say so, but it was clear to Cathy that he had been under the impression that a Realtor would take just about any listing. In brutal language — that all Realtors are whores.
We are not. We turn down more listings than we take, and absolutely everything has to make sense before we will take a listing. We spend a lot of time and money to make our homes sell, and we lose a lot in reputation if they don’t. This is marketing, not peddling — and not pandering.
That leads to this: Joel Burslem reports on Zillow.com’s latest conquest: Prudential California/Nevada Realty. Joel offers this:
Does this mean the real estate industry is prepared to accept Zillow as the final authority on home values? I’m sure Greg over at BloodhoundBlog will have something to say about all of this.
In answer to the question, of course that is not what they’re doing at all. As with the daily newspaper, a citadel of fact except for the horoscope column, what they’re doing is pandering to the masses — whom they regard as morons, which opinion is betrayed by the pandering.
The truth is, I have no problem with Zillow.com if it is properly understood as an Automated Valuation Model, to be used with Read more
Notes at random:
Safari is saving the .kml files as *.kml.xml, which has to be manually corrected before Google Earth will eat them. Everything works fine in MSIE on Windows — although the sentence as a whole is an oxymoron.
AgentEarth.com has my vote for coolest gross concept — with caveats.
As in: Google Earth is all toy, no tool. What we have is a front end into Google Base real estate listings, and that by itself is very, very cool.
But: Google Base is a retarded way to feed real estate listings. It actually make Craig’s List look useful, which ain’t easy.
Plus which, the Google Earth interface for dealing with search results is an Olympics of egg-sucking. If you’re looking for just about anything, you’re sure to find it. If you’re looking for something specific, be prepared to hunt.
Nevertheless: The mapping rocks.
Give me more search power on the front end — more specificity — then show me everything, as with ShackYack.com, Trulia.com, etc.
Give me a better database to begin with. It may be that Google Base will grow up to be a real real estate database. For now, if I had this mapping on Trulia.com, Redfin.com would be a filleted fish with no CheezWhiz left in the can…
Still: Amazingly cool.
Final thought: The competitive viability of any one of these incredible tools is measured in microseconds… Yikes!
Technorati Tags: disintermediation, real estate, real estate marketing
I want my Agent Earth API…
Technorati Tags: blogging, real estate, real estate marketing
I’m sure this is what they want: Go to AgentEarth.com.
Two words: Too cool…
Technorati Tags: disintermediation, real estate, real estate marketing
That’s a debatable point, but Angela Cara Pancrazio of the Arizona Republic has a sweet feature in today’s paper on how cranes are remaking the skyline of Phoenix:
Phoenix is rising again. And the cranes have arrived, reaching into a city and stretching its torso upward. With the exception of the sports arenas and a couple of skyscrapers, there hasn’t been such a vertical climb all at once since the real estate market crashed in the late 1980s.
The ubiquity of construction cranes is altering perceptions of the skyline from downtown Phoenix to Sky Harbor International Airport to Tempe Town Lake and beyond.
The praying-mantislike machines are doing the heavy lifting on two 12-story towers at Hayden Ferry Lakeside in Tempe and on the new air traffic control tower at Sky Harbor.
In downtown Phoenix, they’re in constant motion, erecting a 31-story Sheraton hotel, the Biosciences Center and Phase 2 of the Phoenix Convention Center.
And Mack is at the helm of a tower crane at one of three residential high-rises.
Technorati Tags: arizona, arizona real estate, phoenix, phoenix real estate, real estate
Probably the whole world knows about this amazingly cool site where you can create virtually any type of graphic atrocity, but it was new to me. I want to see that chrome effect over a desert sunset on a Realtor’s business card.
(Know thyself, though: As goofy as it is, I want to kern the damn thing…)
Technorati Tags: real estate, real estate marketing
Act I — Why Realtors hate discount listings…
People think ordinary on-the-ground Realtors hate discount listings because of the discount. That’s may be true of many real estate brokers, but real-life Realtors have two much better reasons to hate discount listings. First, the Buyer’s Agent will have to do all the work for both the buyer and the seller. And, second, in so doing, the Buyer’s Agent might well inherit the liability of being an Undisclosed Dual Agent. The Buyer’s Agent has the choice of either answering every question from the seller by saying, “I do not represent you” — thus causing the transaction to grind to a halt (which is a violation of the Buyer’s Agent’s fiduciary duty to the buyer) — or by saying, “Even though I don’t represent you, here’s what you do.” If the seller later decides he was ill-advised, it won’t be the discount Listing Agent who gets sued.
Act II — The hidden secrets in MLS listings…
Given that IDX systems (like ours) are ubiquitous, precisely what is it that the NAR and all the brokers are fighting so hard to keep secret in MLS listings. I’m sure things differ among MLS systems, but the two big secrets the NAR wants to keep from non-MLS-members are these: 1. The number of Days on Market. That’s the Listing Agent’s secret. And 2. The contact information of the Listing Agent. That’s the Buyer’s Agent’s secret. In the latter case, you might think what is implied is that Buyer’s Agents in general believe that they stink so bad that their clients would betray them in a heartbeat if only they knew how. That’s only half the issue, though. The other half is the fear that, if the buyer knows how to approach the Listing Agent directly, the Listing Agent will make a sweetheart deal with the buyer in order to double-dip on the commission while disintermediating the Buyer’s Agent. This is why MLS systems have rules regarding Variable Commissions, since, in that circumstance, the Listing Agent is disclosing to Buyer’s Agents (but not to their clients; this is another secret datum) Read more
Maybe not. BusinessWeek has the Phoenix/Mesa metropolitan area as the seventh healthiest real estate market in the country — but since their analysis is based on year-over-year appreciation, that news is not nearly a momentous as it portends to be. Using our own numbers, yearover-year through July we’re up 0.57% — essentially nothing. That number may go negative for August. The good news is that the homes listed by loosely-motivated sellers seem to be coming off the market. The new home builders will have cleared their surplus inventory within a few months, so we may settle down to something fairly normal relatively soon.
Technorati Tags: arizona, arizona real estate, phoenix, phoenix real estate, real estate, real estate marketing
From Google Blogoscoped:
Google released the Google Base Data API. This allows you to programmatically create new items, and edit or delete existing ones. You can also query for items with specific attributes.
I read this as Google looking for open source or proprietary apps to extend the power of the Google Base DB to end-users. Those applications will be the skunk works for a more consumer-friendly Google Base.
Technorati Tags: blogging, disintermediation, real estate, real estate marketing
With a solemn nod to Dustin, the First Man of real estate weblogs, I wanted to cite posts of merit that have been bouncing around in my brain. I’m not as ambitious as Dustin, though, so I want to go to one place only for now: The Real Estate Tomato. Weblogger Jim Cronin is a vendor, and this might ordinarily put him on my suspect list. But he is so forthcoming with valuable information that two things come across very clearly: He cares more about you getting results than his getting a sale, and, in consequence, he’s probably just the vendor you want if you do decide to make a purchase. I’m not his cheerleader — nor even his customer. But I have been enriched by his generosity on his weblog, so I’d like to share some of those riches with you, if you haven’t seen them.
(Sotto voce: I’m taking this to ActiveRain, too, where Jim is alike unto Saint Francis Xavier, a warrior missionary.)
With that, Tomatillos, little tomatoes:
- Google Base expands its role as a real estate listings aggregator.
- A California brokerage is trying to restrict agents’ right to maintain their own web sites.
- e-Pro may be the best waste of time and money in the NAR’s arsenal.
- Peas and tomatoes? Ick! Even so, here are some great blogging tips.
- That website your brokerage gave you as a perk? It’s worth every penny you paid for it.
- Tips for using free on-line services to get listings out to the national listings aggregators.
- Why serious Realtors need a multi-function phone like the Treo 650 or 700.
The titles are mine, so don’t blame Jim. There is much, much more to be explored, including excellent SEO resources. How far back did I go? August 1st. There is plenty more in the archives of The Real Estate Tomato…
Technorati Tags: blogging, disintermediation, real estate, real estate marketing
But what does the agent do who has signed a TOS Agreement with their broker indicating that the Broker owns the listings and the broker does not want their listings advertised on Trulia? Z57, Advanced Access, Number 1 Agent and many more website developers have submitted their feed to Trulia, to allow them to display their listings, in violation of many of these individual agents TOS agreements. Winderemere, J.L. Scott, Coldwell Banker Bain, and many other local and national companies have NOT authorized their listings to appear on Trulia, but they do, under the auspices and with the consent of these website developers, but not the agent’s brokers.
Trulia dilemma for everyone involved.
It’s a plus for individual agents as all leads are sent directly to them. But it’s an unauthorized use of listings. Most of these website designers provide an opt-out box if the individual agents want to do so, but how many even know it’s there?
As more individual brokerages realize that their listings are being shown on this (and other similar portal sites) without their permission, I wonder if they will be more persistent in enforcing their copyright.
The other end of this conflict is that the seller has the reasonable right to expect that the broker will promote the listing by all available means. And in the case of feeds generated by web-site vendors, it’s hard to complain about the onerous burdens imposed by those feeds being automatic and free.
But Marlow’s larger point stands. An MLS is a club composed of self-selected, dues-paying members. Its lawful existence should be protected by the Free Association clause of the U.S. Constitution. But I agree that a real estate listing is the unique work product of the listing agent and should be protected by copyright laws.
We end up with babies and bath-water, I expect. The entire Googlified model of the internet consists of stealing copyrighted material, aggregating it to draw eyes, then selling those eyes to advertisers. This is a perfect Tragedy of Read more
I wrote this when I first got my real estate license, five-and-a-half years ago. I still get mail about it from freaked-out pre-licensing students.
The Math of Real Estate Sales…
I got my real estate license in May of 2001. It took a lot of time to study for it, a lot of work. I spent months agonizing about the license exam, particularly the math part of the test.
This turned out to be unnecessary for the test. And it has turned out to be much more than necessary for the real-life job of being a real estate agent.
Consider this math problem, which was one of dozens I tackled prior to taking the test:
Dave and Sandy buy a four-plex apartment building as an investment. The purchase price is $385,000, of which $78,000 is attributable to the land. For tax purposes, they take a straight-line depreciation on the building over 27-1/2 years. Of course, the property actually appreciates in value by four percent a year. Assuming they make no property-improvements, when they sell the property seven years later, what are the tax consequences?
I can do that problem. It’s just straight plug-and-chug calculator math. To actually come up with an answer would take a while, and I’d want to check my numbers three times — at least. But this is a doable problem, and people have to solve this kind of problem every day.
What’s ironic is this: After doing dozens of math problems this complex, this is the math problem I got on the Arizona State real estate license examination:
Starting at the northwest corner of Section 3, proceed in a southwesterly direction to the northeast corner of Section 8. From there proceed east 2 miles to the northeast corner of Section 10. Procced from there in a northwesterly direction to the point of origin. What is the total acreage of the parcel described?
That sounds complicated, but it’s actully very simple. What we have is half of Section 4 plus half of Section 3. There are 640 acres in a section, so the pink half of Section 4 is 320 acres. The blue half of Section 3 Read more
…is up at The Pine Needle Lawn. Sorry to be so late saying so, but this dreadfully slow real estate market has us coming and going…
We’re also featured in this week’s Carnival of Business.
And: We have decided that when we host the Carnival of Real Estate (deadline October 8, 2006), we’re going to judge entries according to this theme: “Changing the way real estate is done.” You decide what change would reap the best benefits — and we would love to hear from our dot.com brethren on this subject. So plan ahead now. Think of something dramatic and get scribbling…
Technorati Tags: blogging, real estate, real estate marketing
“Hi, Nick. Come on in. Sit down. Sorry to keep you waiting.
“How long have you been here, Nick. Sixteen months! Wow, it seems like just yesterday that I turned my back on you and forgot all about you.
“It seems like you’re doing pretty well for yourself, Nick, two or three houses a month. It looks like you’ve got three houses in escrow right now, plus three listings, is that about right?
“No, Nick, that’s wrong. I’m your designated broker. I have those houses in escrow, and I have those listings. The employment contracts are with me, don’t ever forget that.
“But here’s what I asked you in here to talk about, Nick. I see you’ve got yourself a nice little web site. I like that. It shows that you take initiative.
“But, see, the thing is, Nick, your little web site is robbing traffic from my web site — our web site, the brokerage’s web site. I’m supposed to tell you this is all about legal liability issues, but the truth is, my SEO guy says we can get more traffic on the brokerage web site if we shut all these little agent web sites down.
“There’s more to it that that, though, Nick. I have referral relationships with lenders, title companies, insurance brokerages, home inspectors, exterminators — all kinds of vendors. If my agents are referring business every which way, our preferred vendors don’t get as a big a piece of the pie. I get a little bite out of every one of those pieces of pie. And, as you know, it has always been our policy to brush a few crumbs the agent’s way, so I’m sure you’ll agree that it’s better for everyone if we all speak with one voice.
“Oh, you don’t agree, Nick? Gee, that’s too bad…
“I wonder if you’ve ever made time to read that policies and procedures manual I gave you when you signed on with us. I don’t think anyone ever reads it, at least not until times like this. But the thing is, Nick, you signed an affidavit that said you had read it and agreed to Read more