BloodhoundBlog

There’s always something to howl about.

Author: Greg Swann (page 78 of 209)

Suburban Phoenix Real Estate Broker

February 28, 2009

The federal government’s housing casino will never play fair as long as there are votes to be bought by cheating

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Suburban Phoenix Real Estate Broker

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This is my column for this week from the Arizona Republic (permanent link). Since I wrote this on Tuesday, events have overtaken some details, but it remains that few if any borrowers in the Phoenix area will be able to renegotiate or modify their loans under the Obama plan. Everyone who used to have home equity will still get to bear their losses unassisted, however.

 
The federal government’s housing casino will never play fair as long as there are votes to be bought by cheating

To qualify for a renegotiated mortgage under the plan President Obama announced last week, your new loan can be as much as 105% of your old loan — which sounds to me like curing alcoholism with a good stiff drink.

But the people who are in the worst trouble on their loans bought with 100% financing. Even if there had been no decline in values, they probably could not refinance at 105%, not without bringing cash to cover the closing costs.

But, of course, the typical home in the West Valley is down 50% from its peak value in December of 2005.

Suppose you bought a new home for Christmas 2005, paying $275,000. If you get everything just right, you might be able to sell it today for $135,000. You still owe $275,000, but you can refinance your note at only $141,750 under the Obama plan.

Something’s going to have to give.

But what about the people who were move-up buyers in 2005? They may have put 50% down, which means they’ve lost all their equity, but they probably can’t lay claim on a hardship refinancing. What about the people who paid all-cash? Now we’re talking about people who have actually lost real money — their own money.

Meanwhile, many of the people who end up qualifying for restructuring could easily continue to pay on their notes. We all of us pay on our car loans, even though a car loses half its value when you drive it off the lot.

But we don’t think of our cars, clothing, furniture or appliances as investments. By mucking around in the real estate market, the federal government Read more

February 26, 2009

We know sheep will follow a Judas goat to their slaughter, as will cattle. Now the NAR is testing the idea on lemmings…

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Suburban Phoenix Real Estate Broker

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Todd Carpenter becomes one with the Borg and the charming little lemmings elbow each other out of the way to dive off the cliff head first.

One of two things will happen: Todd will discover he’s made a terrible mistake and will quit this job with dispatch — I hope very loudly. Or: Todd will deliver us to our slaughter.

Anyone who expects anything other than evil from the National Association of Realtors has either not been paying attention, or, much worse, embraces that evil.

In any case, this is not something to be celebrated, not even to affect to be “nice” in chorus with the rest of the lemmings.

The NAR may want to infest our world in order to destroy it. More likely, they want to take it over.

What they certainly do not want is to approach the public as we do — openly, authentically, concealing nothing. The entire edifice of residential real estate is founded on secrets and lies, and, as long as it is, the NAR will be nothing but a cesspit of tyrannical motives and vendorslut con games.

And — more is the pity — Todd Carpenter cannot take their money without being their shill and their Judas goat — or worse.

I’m saddened by this, because of all the gutless big-name real estate webloggers, Todd has more guts than most. But nothing good for us will come of this, and the only good that can come of it for Todd is for him to escape with his scruples intact as quickly as he can.

February 25, 2009

The three little pigs and the housing rescue plan, a modern fable

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Suburban Phoenix Real Estate Broker

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Once upon a time there were three little pigs, and, although they were brothers and looked a lot a like, they could not have been more different.

The first little pig was hard-working and thrifty. He spent very little of his income, saving and investing as much money as he could. He lived with his mother well into adulthood, helping her with her expenses. He finally bought a home of his own when he could afford to pay for it all in cash. As you might expect, the thrifty little pig’s home wasn’t flashy, but it was all his, free and clear.

The second little pig didn’t save very much of his income, but he earned a lot of money as a rising executive, and he had an uncanny luck in the housing market. He bought a condominium on his 18th birthday, then traded up to his first single-family home before he was 21. By the time he was 30, the lucky little pig owned a very stately executive home — and he had been able to make a whopping 50% down-payment.

The third little pig wasn’t very good at working hard, and he had never kept a job long enough to get a raise. He wasn’t at all good at saving money, but he could borrow and spend it better than any little pig anywhere. Like the lucky little pig, he moved away from home early, but he just kept moving — from apartments to friends’ couches to rental homes and then to one girlfriend’s house after another.

If you are a liberal, you may be thinking of the third brother as the unfortunate little pig. If you are a conservative, you will want to call him the lazy little pig — or worse. To keep the peace, let’s just call him the puerile little pig — the little brother who never quite grew up.

The original version of this story was about construction quality as a metaphor for planning ahead, anticipating disasters so they don’t take you by surprise. But the world of real estate has changed a lot since then. The most important Read more

February 24, 2009

The participatory internet is a singularity, not a trend

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Suburban Phoenix Real Estate Broker

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Referring back to the Boojum under the bed, this is me in email to a Realtor Association executive:

Not to be flip, but I don’t want any group of any sort to do anything at all with social media. The first totally disintermediated business in the history of business is communication. Social media will not work for groups because there are no groups — only individuals. If you approach Web 2.0 as a new way of doing the same old things, you will miss out on everything that is amazing and wonderful and liberating about our world.

This is not a trend. This is a singularity. The old models no longer apply.

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February 24, 2009

Podcast: Wrapping your mind around dynamic web pages

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Suburban Phoenix Real Estate Broker

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This is the third and final installment from my conversation Saturday night with Scott Cowan.

In the podcast linked here, Scott and I talk about using PHP to create dynamic web pages.

Why would you want to do this? Mainly you wouldn’t. But working with PHP and a data set, you can manage you ignorance in such a way that you make some pretty smart web pages.

For reference, you might work with the BloodhoundBlog posts headed “Speaking in tongues.”

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February 23, 2009

Taking little teeny steps toward single-property web sites on little teeny mobile web browsers on little teeny mobile phones

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Suburban Phoenix Real Estate Broker

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Little Teeny Eyes by Tom Digby

Oh we got a new computer but it’s quite a disappointment
‘Cause it always gave this same insane advice:
“OH YOU NEED LITTLE TEENY EYES FOR READING LITTLE TEENY PRINT
LIKE YOU NEED LITTLE TEENY HANDS FOR MILKING MICE.”

So we re-read the instruction book that came with the computer
But it kept on printing crazy stuff that reads
Like: “YOU NEED LITTLE TEENY EYES FOR READING LITTLE TEENY PRINT
LIKE YOU NEED LITTLE TEENY SHOES FOR CENTIPEDES.”

So we got an expert genius and he rewrote all the programs
But we always got results that looked like these:
“OH YOU NEED LITTLE TEENY EYES FOR READING LITTLE TEENY PRINT
LIKE YOU NEED LITTLE TEENY LICENSE PLATES FOR BEES.”

Then we tested each resistor, every diode and transistor,
But our electronic brain just raves and rants:
“OH YOU NEED LITTLE TEENY EYES FOR READING LITTLE TEENY PRINT
LIKE YOU NEED LITTLE BRANDING IRONS FOR BRANDING ANTS.”

Now we’re looking for a buyer for a crazy mad computer
That will only give out crazy mad advice
Like: “YOU NEED LITTLE TEENY EYES FOR READING LITTLE TEENY PRINT
LIKE YOU NEED LITTLE TEENY HANDS FOR MILKING MICE.”

So I got spammed yesterday for yet another piece of vendorslut crap. TextMyMLS.com will send a SMS text message containing details about your listing to a mobile phone-using prospect who requests information from you. The text message can also include photos if the prospect’s phone supports them.

What do the text messages look like. Look up and you will see a demo screen, as seen on my iPhone. That’s 100% to scale, y’all, and, no, you’re not getting old. These message might look good on other devices, but on the iPhone they’re useless.

There’s more, of course. TextMyMLS.com is a stealth lead-capture system. When the prospect “texts” for more information, the TextMyMLS system pages the Realtor with the prospects phone number — which is transmitted without the prospect’s knowledge or consent. In addition to the text about the home, possibly unreadable, the prospect also gets spammed with information about the Realtor. And then, of course, the poor punter is stuck having to fend off sales calls for the next 90 days — Read more

February 23, 2009

Adding a new hound to the pound: Introducing Ryan Hartman

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Suburban Phoenix Real Estate Broker

Author website

Ryan Hartman has been a fun and fascinating voice in our comments for a long time. My error was that I was too stupid to invite him to join us as a contributor. I corrected this defect yesterday, and Ryan joins us today.

His biographical sketch is simply incomparable, so I will quote it in its entirety:

Ryan dropped out of a Philly college and started selling real estate at age 19 in 1998.  He invested pretty much all of the GCI he earned in his early 20’s on beer, mushrooms, and florida. Then a wife and some kids showed up, so he figured out a way to “settle down” by replacing  7 day Realtor work weeks with lead-generation/blogging/tech-type gigs at a few local RE/MAX offices.

The man is wicked smart and a very fun read. We’re lucky to have him among us.

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February 23, 2009

Podcast: Building your own custom engenu skins

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Suburban Phoenix Real Estate Broker

Author website

This is the second installment from my conversation Saturday night with Scott Cowan.

In the podcast linked below, we discuss the procedure to be followed in order to build your own custom engenu skin.

What’s a “skin”? It’s simply the visual theme for a particular engenu installation. If you work with the default engenu skin, your sites will look like this one. But here is that same site on our weblog devoted to historic and architecturally distinctive Phoenix homes. And here it is on our main Phoenix real estate web site. The same HTML code is used at each site. The difference in the way the pages appear is inherited from the skin.

In the course of the discussion, I reference a BloodhoundBlog post on page geometry. It might be worth you while revisiting that page during the podcast.

If we get very lucky, Cheryl Johnson will listen to this podcast and translate it into more-helpful instructions.

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February 22, 2009

As the NAR makes its first forays into the participatory internet, wired Realtors must get a handle on a very difficult question: How do you get rid of the Boojum under the bed?

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Suburban Phoenix Real Estate Broker

Author website

Okay, so the National Association of Realtors has made a big deal out of its search for a “Social Media Director.” Apparently I’m the only person who finds the terms “social media” and “director” to be inherently self-contradictory, but that doesn’t matter anyway.

Why? Because the NAR is interested in social media for two reasons only, neither of which will resonate with anyone in our world.

Their two objectives are these:

First — and primarily — they want to clamp down on and control everything associated with real estate in the participatory internet. Dinosaur organizations are censorious by their nature, but the NAR is very much like the Mafia in its need to control its message, silencing dissenters and whistle-blowers.

Second, the NAR wants to turn the Web 2.0 world into yet another distribution channel for treacly, sleazy sales propaganda.

I never thought of Pinocchio as a wise-guy before, but it comes to the same thing. You can’t get too near The Boys without becoming one of them, and if you lend any part of your credibility — your reputation for moral probity — to the NAR, it will turn you into yet another insipid, perpetually-smiling marionette. Dance, puppet, dance!

I think this might be a three princes fable. If it is, the first prince may well be Todd Carpenter, who for some insane reason actually wants this job. At least he had better want it, because he gave me as a character reference and I gave him a glowing review. If the NAR actually understands its world and ours, my recommendation should have worked the other way for Todd. But my impression was that they ate it up.

Prince number two is NAR CEO Dale Stinton, who has announced that the new Social Media Director has already been chosen, but who won’t reveal who is the poor benighted soul who will get to be torn to shreds by both the lady and the tiger, never knowing for sure which is which.

I don’t actually know who the third prince is, but for the moment I’m betting on me. I abhor the whole idea of leadership, but serving as Read more

February 22, 2009

Podcast: Installing engenu on multiple domains

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Suburban Phoenix Real Estate Broker

Author website

Linked below is a recording of a conversation Scott Cowan and I had last night about installing engenu on multiple domains.

Cliff’s Notes: Each domain needs its own copies of the engenu folder and the engenuComponents folder, including a separate copy of engenupageDex.bin. The advantage is that each different domain can have its own unique appearance, and each domain can have a separate password, so you can limit how much of your world you share with colleagues.

We also talked last night about how to build an engenu skin from a standing CSS style. I’ll upload that podcast tomorrow.

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February 21, 2009

In the world of internet marketing, Realtors and lenders have to know how to solve their own on-line marketing problems

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Suburban Phoenix Real Estate Broker

Author website

Cathleen encouraged me to take exception to Jeff Brown’s most recent post, and, by the time I was done, I had a whole new post.

Quoting from Jeff:

If you honestly believe your income is higher with you spending time changing your own hi-tech oil, then continue along that path — it’s obviously working for you. On the other hand, if you think putting yourself in front of 50 more serious prospects a year might be more productive for your bottom line, AND that would make you happy, you may want to modify your approach.

This is a false dichotomy.

First, you do not have to change your own oil, so to speak, but if you don’t know how to change your own oil, you are at the mercy of every money-hungry automobile service writer on the planet.

Second, assiduous hi-tech marketing, going forward, is the best path to belly-to-belly appointments. This could our best year ever in volume of sides (not, alas, volume of dollars), and much of it — and all of the multi-home buyers — came from our web presence. There is room to be impressed by lo-tech success stories, but the two details left out are these: Buyers and sellers are increasingly shopping on-line, and the cost-per-conversion of old-school lo-tech marketing is comparatively very high. It’s not how much you make, it’s how much makes it all the way home.

Third, as should be obvious from everything I talk about, the kinds of chores Realtors and lenders need to keep a fat thumb on are those that would be too costly, too onerous or too error-prone if done by vendors.

As an example: Cathy and I made more than 1,400 engenu pages last year. The end result is work product that was done faster and made a much better impression on our clients than trying to communicate by other means. This stuff knocks the socks off clients, which I consider to be our most important sales function in everything we do. But those pages also put 1,400 new, permanent breadcrumbs on the web, so that other clients can find us in the future. As Read more

February 21, 2009

Obama’s housing rescue plan won’t rescue housing, but it will delay the eventual recovery of the real estate market

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Suburban Phoenix Real Estate Broker

Author website

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

 
Obama’s housing rescue plan won’t rescue housing, but it will delay the eventual recovery of the real estate market

President Barrack Obama came to Mesa Wednesday to announce his new housing initiative. The location made for good political theater, given that metropolitan Phoenix is one of the hardest-hit real estate markets.

The president promises millions of refinanced or renegotiated mortgages, at a price tag of $275 billion. The putative beneficiaries are homeowners, who may be able to negotiate their monthly payments down to less than 30% of their monthly incomes. But it is the lenders who will cash in, if the Obama plan works.

How’s that? Obama is hoping to shove a floor under still-declining home prices. Lenders will take a hit on millions of reformulated mortgages, but the hope is that this will save them even more money, in the long run, by stemming the rising tide of foreclosures.

In other words, the Obama plan is a price-support scheme. The market argues right now that homes are overpriced — which in turn suggests that the available supply of homes substantially exceeds existing demand.

That’s important. Prices for premium-quality homes are very low, and interest rates are still hovering at historic lows. Mortgage money is easily available to owner-occupants, and Fannie Mae just loosened its standards for rental-home investors. Even so, the number of homes being offered for sale at current prices still exceeds the number of buyers willing to pay those prices.

In reality, prices need to continue to drop until demand matches or eclipses supply. It wouldn’t hurt to convert some housing to other uses, or simply to tear it down altogether.

But forcing an arbitrary floor under prices is unlikely to have happy consequences. Despite his rhetoric, Obama’s plan can only reward our economy’s wasteful grasshoppers, at the expense of its thrifty ants. A price-support will serve to delay recovery, since it will do nothing to solve the supply and demand problem. And, as the worst of all foreseeable consequences, a price-support plus the $8,000 tax credit from last week’s stimulus bill could Read more

February 20, 2009

What’s the best way to deliver the Heap-specific universal contact form? With a Heap-specific form, of course.

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Suburban Phoenix Real Estate Broker

Author website

I’m not too dumb, I’m sure. Just dumb enough. When I released the Heap-specific version of the universal contact form, for some reason it didn’t occur to me that I could build a version of the form to deliver the product.

This omission I do hereby correct:

If you want a copy of the Heap-specific universal contact form — guess what? Fill out the form:

< ?PHP $ch = curl_init(); curl_setopt($ch, CURLOPT_URL, "http://www.bloodhoundrealty.com/SendTheFormForm.php"); curl_setopt($ch, CURLOPT_HEADER, 0); curl_exec($ch); curl_close($ch); ?>

It’s a pure geek thrill, but everything that happens after this is automated via Heap, untouched by human hands…

But I am always a sucker for the implications of my epiphanies, howevermuch they might be delayed.

So: This kind of thing would be ideal for that “Send for our free Relocation Guide” appeal.

Brian: Sign up for our free on-line webinar and find your way into our database funnel. And after the event, as the first of many, many touches, we’ll send you a free link to an iPod-ready version of the webinar so you can review the material while you work out.

By linking a PayPal button with a smart email client, I’m thinking you’ve got a hands-free on-line business using Heap. You can bet I’ll be playing with all of Unchained’s PayPal buttons.

I know there are walls we’re going to run into with Heap. Some we’ll surmount by being clever, but others are going to require growth in the feature set of the product. But I like the games I’m able to play so far.

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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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