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Category: Blogging (page 80 of 84)

August 18, 2006

Confronting the consequences of our privileged status . . .

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Suburban Phoenix Real Estate Broker

Author website


NAR Board of Directors, 1909

Point:

As it stands right now, MLS systems and data exist purely for Realtors and members. The public is more of an afterthought. This will continue to be true, unless people start to stand up and say, “I WANT MY MLS!”

Counterpoint:

Some may say that [David Barry’s] goal is not ethics or reform, but destroying the NAR and the privately-owned MLS’s so companies that do not share these goals, or, in some cases, even actively participate in the buying and selling of real estate, can use the privately held data (listings) for their own benefit and profit.

Those two arguments shoot across each other’s bow, but much of this debate does. Truly, the whole mess was started in 1908. It seems unlikely that it will be resolved by 2008.

I have much more to say about this…

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August 17, 2006

Is that AOL there is?

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Suburban Phoenix Real Estate Broker

Author website

Jim Cronin of The Real Estate Tomato asked me to take a look at ActiveRain, seemingly a toe-in-the-water experience for technologically-timid Realtors. My initial take, reported back to Jim, was this: “ActiveRain is the AOL of real estate weblogging…”

That’s probably pre-mature. I hit ’em with Realtor 2.0 to see who might salute. In the mean time, the conversation put me in mind of this essay, which I wrote in November of 1995. Sadly enough, it actually holds up after all this time…

Is that AOL there is…?

Well, seeing is believing, and now I know: America Online is lame.

Like you, like everyone with a computer and a mailing address, I have been deluged by America Online start-up disks. Fortunately, most of those disks have been for Windows, and I run a Macintosh. It was bracing to learn that state-of-the-art target marketing can, with pinpoint accuracy, send the wrong pitch to an unmotivated buyer 79.91% of the time. But the truth is, I was unmotivated even by the Mac disks that sometimes came by accident.

But then the Mac mail order houses started chucking in an AOL Mac disk with every order. And Staples and OfficeMax put racks of them by every cash register. We haven’t gotten to the point of extremely clean-cut kids going door-to-door or hustling harried travelers at the airport, but America Online has taken to binding start-up disks in magazines, like those horrid scratch ‘n’ retch perfume samplers.

And then the woman I hope someday to make my ex-wife sent over a two-disk installer, the very latest release. My daughter Meredith has an AOL account, so the plan was that I would install it for her benefit. I didn’t, or, rather, I hadn’t, but I was fooling around with a cool little CD-ROM that came with the December Macworld–which, of course, had an AOL installer on it–and I decided to give it a gander.

What could it hurt? It only takes up slightly more disk space than the complete works of Shakespeare, and the worst that could happen is that my vital financial information would be shared with the FBI or less officious Read more

August 17, 2006

If Zillow.com succeeds, who will have failed?

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Suburban Phoenix Real Estate Broker

Author website

Daniel Rothamel at the Charlottesville Area Real Estate Blog hauls out that heirloom Virginia horsewhip. But is it Zillow.com he’s flaying?

If a customer were to call me and ask for a property valuation, or Comparative Market Analysis (CMA), and I responded by saying, “Sure, I can do that. I think you should know, however, that there is a 38% chance that I am going to be off by at least 10%,” I would expect that person to hang up on me and find another Realtor. If I continued to do this with every customer with whom I came in contact, I would very quickly find myself looking for another profession.

The founders of Zillow.com, Rich Barton and Lloyd Frink, were also the founders of travel site, Expedia.com. Do you think Expedia.com would still exist if it told customers that sure, they can book a travel package on the site, but 38% of the time, we will tell you the wrong price of your trip by at least 10%?

More:

Zillow will never be right. It isn’t capable of being right. It can’t see properties, and even self-reported data on a subject property won’t help, because it doesn’t have equivalent data on comparable properties. This will ALWAYS be a shortcoming of Zillow. And it is just the most glaring on a very long list.

And the peroration — cover your backside:

If enough of these people buy into the Zillow lie, then I suppose Zillow could become authoritative. The people who would be held responsible for such a tragedy would be the hard-working real estate professionals who know better. It is our responsibility to educate the public about property valuations, and the danger that lurks behind Zillow. The only reason that Zillow will EVER become an legitimate authority is if real estate professionals sit idly by and let that occur.

For all of me, I can’t figure out why the appraisers aren’t leading this charge. In any case, there is much more in Daniel’s post. Read the whole thing.

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August 16, 2006

There is a case to be made for experience . . .

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Suburban Phoenix Real Estate Broker

Author website

This bit from RedFin (tipped by FoREM) reads to me like a dual agency lawsuit waiting to happen.

Why?

Because RedFin is paying an extra incentive for its buyer clients to purchase a home from its seller client before the seller’s home is MLS-listed. RedFin would surely argue that no agency has been created, but in fact what they have is a pocket listing — an exclusive — and they are representing the seller as soon as they seller decides they are. I’m not crazy about the idea of implied agency, but that’s almost certainly the way the gavel will drop if this comes before a judge.

What would be the seller’s beef? By inducing him to sell without putting his home to the full test of the marketplace, by means of an MLS listing, RedFin may be cheating him of proceeds his home might have earned for him. An exclusive listing sold in-house stinks to high heaven — and if it smells bad to a jury, it doesn’t matter how it smells to anyone else.

Say what you will about Help-U-Sell, Assist-2-Sell and all the other limited-service brokerages, at least they have experience in the real estate business…

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August 15, 2006

Zillow.com versus the truth: Why it matters . . .

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Suburban Phoenix Real Estate Broker

Author website

This was in a comment, but I’m pulling it out because I think it’s important:

A Zestimate cannot be “off” or “on”. It cannot be accurate or inaccurate. What is being evaluated is not a house but statistics and documents about that house. As I have demonstrated, the Zestimated house may not even be there. The results can have a greater or lesser correspondence to reality — which attribute is equally true of astrology — but a Zestimate is not a statement about reality. This issue is not whether or not the Zestimate is more or less correspondent to reality. The issue is whether it is wise to substitute calculations based upon statistics and documents about a house for an actual, objective, on-site evaluation of that house. This is a determination an informed party — such as a mortgage lender — can make at his own peril. To induce ordinary haphazardly-informed consumers to do so strikes me as being fraudulent.

Why does it matter? From another comment:

Here are some good ol’ boys in Texas who are using Zillow.com to milk the rubes. They’re responsible for their own behavior, of course, but who made it possible?

The fact is, this scheme is only possible because Zillow.com has represented itself as an authoritative source when the principals of the company know that is untrue. The people running this game can gull the public because the public comes to them having been pre-gulled by Zillow.com.

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August 15, 2006

Conjurers confounded: Reality is what it is . . .

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Suburban Phoenix Real Estate Broker

Author website

Joel Burslem:

If enough people believe their Zestimate to be true (consumers, journalists, realtors, whomever) – then reality really can be altered. It just shows how malleable the wisdom of the crowds really is.

Oh, good grief… Consciousness does not cause reality.

The meta-topic is interesting, however, first because it highlights one of the more pernicious aspects of Web 2.0, the idea of collective wisdom, and second because it brings out one of the better features of Web 2.0, the ferocious pursuit of canonical truth.

In the first case, the social web is largely harmless, even if its epistemology is absurd. The nonsense Joel Burslem is citing would be dangerous — and assuming that he is not actually joking — if it actually came to pass, but this seems hugely unlikely. One of the subterranean tenets of Post-Modernism is the subtly communicated dictum that nothing matters until it does. David Letterman does not chuckle when you back into his car. The owners of Zillow.com will not buy or sell real property on the basis of their own dubious Zestimates. In any real-life real estate transaction, if one party loves the Zestimate, then the other necessarily hates it. If people labor in error, in Wikipedia or elsewhere, it is because they believe the marginal cost of improving their knowledge of reality exceeds the marginal benefit of having done so — which calculation may itself be in error.

So what falls out? It is possible that people directly involved in real estate transactions may decide that the cost of pursuing a better alternative to Zillow exceeds the benefit. This seems doubtful to me, but we can stipulate the point for the sake of the argument. Even so, their doing so will not have “altered” reality. Zillow will still and always be unable to report the most important fact about the structure — is it still there? — at the time of the Zestimation. To agree to decide something by a means that is known to be fundamentally defective but which is nevertheless mutually-acceptable to the parties is not metaphysically dispositive, despite the fabulist hyperbole we hear everywhere. The Read more

August 15, 2006

Walking the rails: What to do when you miss the Cluetrain . . .

by

Suburban Phoenix Real Estate Broker

Author website

I would say that the Zillow.com’s response to recent events has been pretty lame — a vast silence punctuated by a gavotte with The Bubblette. But as clueless as they have been, I think the comment we got from one Brad Thompson takes the prize. Brad apparently works for realPING, although we can only conjecture about this because he doesn’t link back to anything.

His point is to take exception to my detailing of the reverse-engineered version I made of the realPING product. Have at it, Brad:

Even with the “Update” and “Further Notice” comments added, I believe you have grossly mis-represented both our product and the ability to reverse engineer the technology.

I do believe I misrepresented your product in my original post, which I amended when I realized my mistake. As to “the ability to reverse engineer the technology”, I think you should hold your tongue. It took me two hours to duplicate the best 90% of what you’re selling. The other ten percent doesn’t matter to me, but my son and I could get it all in a weekend, a totally clean-room reverse-engineered clone. Your “technology” is impressive only to people who don’t know any better.

RealPing is a Voice Over IP (VOIP) telephany system, not a simple e-mail-to-cell phone SMS capability as you represented. Immediately connecting a prospect (web visitor, email recipient, virtual tour viewer, etc.) with an agent (person to person live conversation)…

Check. You’re safe from me, because I think this is stoopid. I don’t take calls when I’m with clients. My entire attention is focused on their needs. This is why an SMS message, echoed to all team members, made better sense to me.

…is 100 times more powerful and valuable businesswise than an email that may or may not be answered.

Did you Zillow that stat, Brad? I can’t believe you did. Zillow would have had “100.47 times more powerful and valuable businesswise.” That shows that it’s science and not hyperbole. In any case, I don’t think it’s that big a difference, but your mileage may vary. We push our form responses out by SMS, too, so that we can Read more

August 14, 2006

And this is the Zillow-killer . . .

by

Suburban Phoenix Real Estate Broker

Author website

Right there in the Realtor’s remarks section of the listing is the conversation-stopper, the quill-puller, the objection-obliterator:

The stately home you’ve always dreamed of with a completely unzillowable view…

That’s a mean meme, mama. If it spreads, the deal is utterly undone. The concept focuses the mind, and the word calls forth the concept. The coin Sellsius&176; has struck enriches us all…

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August 14, 2006

Unzillowables: The factors that render Zestimates useless . . .

by

Suburban Phoenix Real Estate Broker

Author website

I saw the word “unzillowable” in this post by Sellsius&176; blog. I thought, that’s a great coinage. I should cite that. Life intruded, but Sellsius&176; is back today with a much fuller detailing of unzillowables:

  • Traffic noise
  • Privacy
  • Neighbors
  • Neighbor’s property
  • Neighbor’s pets
  • Unique Day & Night Features
  • Water Issues
  • Cul de sac
  • Stigmatized home
  • Exposure
  • Views
  • Offbeat homes
  • Wallpaper
  • Paint color
  • Land Pitch
  • Smell – Good & Bad.
  • “est” Homes – nicest/ugliest
  • Homes in non-disclosure states
  • Future events

That’s a buckeful, but surely there are more. Go thither and addend.

More zillification here: The real secret behind Zillow’s popularity.

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August 11, 2006

The world is larger than you think it is . . .

by

Suburban Phoenix Real Estate Broker

Author website

I had mail yesterday morning from “keith”, who is Lord of the Flies at HousingPanic. This is the first chance I’ve had to deal with it, and I might just as well ignore it. But there are issues that I think are worth addressing in a metablogical kind of way, in order to dispense with them.

Here is the entire text of the letter:

dude, you’re gonna be seen as the town fool in a few more weeks, if you aren’t already

I’d recommend toning it down a bit. Admit you were wrong, and give your clients (if you have any) good advice, not wrong-headed advice that doesn’t learn

Okay, fine.

First, I’m not going to be seen as the town anything. I get press coverage that other Realtors would kill for, and it’s basically worthless. I was cited first and most in an article in Phoenix Magazine entitled, “Where do the Valley’s best Realtors live?” I heard from one client, who was delighted to have seen the article but got the name of the magazine wrong. I have been published every Friday for almost a year in three regional sections of the Arizona Republic. I get phone calls when I’m controversial, but that’s the sole measurable consequence. We are very highly regarded by our clients, and we are fairly well known in the neighborhoods we farm, but, beyond that, we are not on anyone’s radar.

Not that I’d hate it if we were. We do very well with people who like to read — half of whom are colorful and struggling and half of whom are colorful and very, very prosperous.

Second, there is nothing for me to tone down. I believe the long-term prospects for the residential real estate market in the Phoenix are are very good, but I don’t make any short-term predictions at all. Alike unto “keith” and all those who buzz at his behest, I don’t know what’s going to happen in the future — with the only difference being that I know I don’t know it and I don’t affect to pretend to believe that I do. (Incidentally, I have no opinion Read more

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