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Category: Real Estate (page 126 of 266)

April 3, 2008

Black Pearl Marketing Minute: Want to learn how Zillow.com bakes a sweeter, tastier browser cookie? Scratch the FUD from your recipe

by

Suburban Phoenix Real Estate Broker

Author website

I wanted to expand on my post from last night on Zillow.com’s use of web browser cookies with its new Mortgage Marketplace free loan quotes software.

So you know going in, I have a huge contempt for people who try to sow FUD — fear, uncertainty and doubt — about new technology. In the podcast linked below, I’ll give you the grand tour of the browser cookie bakery:

  • What cookies really are
  • Their implications for privacy and secrecy
  • How Zillow is implementing browser cookies
  • And, most importantly, how you can deploy browser cookies in your own marketing

If you insist upon living in a demon-haunted world, you’re probably not going to get much out of this. But if you understand that, as a side-effect, Zillow is teaching you a great deal about hi-tech marketing, then put on your thinking cap and think.

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April 3, 2008

NAR News From the Legal Front

by

CEO, PA Association of Realtors

Author website

Over the years, NAR has had its fair share of legal battles.  Currently, there are a few big and interesting cases involving NAR that could have dramatic impact on the real estate industry.  Here’s an update on three cases that are in the works. 

US vs NAR

This is the famous case brought by the Department of Justice (DOJ) against NAR’s Virtual Office Website (VOW) and Internet Data eXchange (IDX) policies.  (Note: NAR has changed the name VOW/IDX to Internet Listing Display or ILD.)  There are two main issues at the core of this suit which is likely to go to trial this summer.

  1. The IDX opt-out policy is what started the case.  The policy allows brokers a blanket opt-out option to keep their listings from being displayed any competitor’s web site.  NAR policy also allows brokers a surgical opt-out option where a broker can opt-out of a particular competitors IDX feed (e.g., I will not allow my listings to appear on Swann Realty’s site).  The DOJ thinks there should be no opt-out option and that ALL listings should be available for ALL brokers to display. 
  2. NAR policy, as proposed, only allows ILD privileges to brokers actively engaged in real estate sales and leasing.  In other words, anyone who simply gets the ILD data for the sole purpose of generating leads and is not otherwise involved in real estate would be banned from ILD.  The DOJ wants listing data to be like the water that flows from your tap – available to all.

(My prediction: split decision.  NAR wins on #1 and loses on #2)

David Berry vs the Entire REALTOR® Organization

I am NOT talking about Dave Berry the fabulous writer for the Miami Herald.  This is David Berry the lawyer who has made a career of suing NAR.  He has tried to have the term REALTOR® declared generic, attacked MLS membership rules, and numerous other wacky lawsuits.  Recently he tried to get a ballot initiative in Maine to legally require all listed properties for sale to be placed in his Open MLS system.  NAR and several state associations have fought many legal battles against Read more

April 3, 2008

Heard on Broad Street: “Zillow.com may in fact be reinventing — and perfecting — Capitalism”

by

Suburban Phoenix Real Estate Broker

Author website

Back in the 19th century, when the stodgy New York Stock Exchange was already ensconced in the lap of luxury, the traders who would one day form the American Stock Exchange were stuck out in the rain.

Literally. Stock brokerages that couldn’t afford a seat on the NYSE instead rented offices on either side of Broad Street near Exchange Place. Clerks hanging out of windows would communicate bid and ask prices by hand signals to the traders working outside on Broad Street. Rain, sleet or snow, the traders effected their exchanges.

Last Summer I poked fun at Zillow.com’s CEO Rich Barton for a vision he had of a 19th century marketplace. This is Barton’s quote:

“I see an old-style marketplace formed, a city market like Pike Place Market. I actually dug up an old photo — Pike Place Market at the turn of the last century. People were gesticulating. People were buying things. People were gossiping. Negotiations were happening. Big billboards were advertising things above the marketplace. That’s the picture I have in my head.”

Give the man his due. I’m thinking Zillow’s Mortgage Marketplace is more like Broad Street than the Pike Place Market, but it definitely is a true bourse — the maximum flow of information between buyers and sellers with the minimum of friction — or even overhead!

I wrote last month that Zillow.com is leading us toward the realization of Capitalism’s promise. Everything we claim as a defect of Capitalism is in fact the confluence of two other systemic defects:

First, a small few people want to behave badly, which fact permits other sleazy people to malign honest traders who are themselves innocent of all wrong-doing.

And second, physical impediments to the flow of information prevent the overwhelming majority of overwhelmingly honest people from distinguishing the innocents from the crooks.

Software systems like Ebay and Zillow’s Mortgage Marketplace mitigate the second defect, leaving the bad actors fewer and fewer places to hide.

The Mortgage Marketplace is a small thing, so far, and, as with everything in the RE.net world, it looks much larger to us than it really is. But consumers — and lenders! — have Read more

April 2, 2008

Zillow.com takes advertising demographics to never-before-seen places

by

Suburban Phoenix Real Estate Broker

Author website

The other bit of news to come out of Zillow.com is this: The real estate start-up is collecting, deploying and reselling advertising demographics in unique and interesting ways.

The vast quantities of demographic information — income, property values, credit scores — that will be collected in the new Mortgage Marketplace software will be stored in browser “cookies” on the user’s own computer. In other words, Zillow will not be storing this information in its own databases, but will retain control over it by means of software that will be able to access the cookies in future sessions on Zillow.com.

What this means is that Zillow will be able to deliver highly-targeted advertising to its users, zeroing in on products and services that would be most appealing to that user’s sex, age, income and other demographic characteristics.

This by itself will make Zillow extremely profitable to advertisers, who seek assurance that their promotional efforts are aimed at the right prospects.

But Zillow is also making these cookies available to other advertising vendors, such as Google’s Adwords system. By this means, other advertisers will be able to deploy the demographic information Zillow is collecting to target their own ads.

Obviously, the reselling of this demographic information is also a profit-center for Zillow.com — reports of whose financial demise may turn out to have been premature.

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April 2, 2008

Zillow.com’s long-awaited mortgage lending service offers anonymous customized loan quotes to consumers, affording loan originators the opportunity to compete transparently for free mortgage leads

by

Suburban Phoenix Real Estate Broker

Author website

Seattle-based real estate start-up Zillow.com tonight releases its long-anticipated mortgage lending product. We’ve known for nearly a month that Zillow’s offering would include working loan originators in some fashion. What becomes clear tonight is that Zillow will basically be acting as a hands-off intermediary between mortgage-seeking clients and loan originators.

Consumers using Zillow’s new Mortgage Marketplace will be able to anonymously solicit bids for loans from participating lenders. The consumer will fill out a detailed form disclosing all pertinent financial details.

The form will be submitted anonymously to participating lenders, who will, in their turn, produce quasi-pro-forma loan quotes, submitting them, through Zillow, to the consumer. The consumer will then have the choice to make direct contact with particular lenders to decide whom to do business with.

To a very large degree, the information asymmetry between lender and borrower is done away with, since the loan quote will detail every fee associated with the loan. Moreover, Zillow will be implementing a reputation-management system whereby borrowers will be able to rate their lenders on their performance.

In return, the lenders will receive Zillow’s mortgage leads at no cost.

The new service is expected to come on-line at 9 pm PST tonight. I made screenshots in the product demo teleconference I attended today, but my expectation is that these will be obviated very shortly.

 
Elsewhere: Todd Carpenter, Rich Barton, John Cook, Drew Meyers, TechCrunch, Rhonda Porter, Spencer Rascoff, Joel Burslem, Kevin Boer, Jay Thompson, Rhonda Porter (again), Pat Kitano, Morgan Brown, Trace Richardson.

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April 2, 2008

Black Pearl Marketing Minute: How did Brian Brady get to be Canada’s Favorite American Mortgage Broker?

by

Suburban Phoenix Real Estate Broker

Author website

If you search on Google.com for canadian real estate american mortgage what do you find?

Brian Brady, of course, Canada’s Favorite American Mortgage Broker.

In the podcast liked below, Brian discusses the strategy he deployed to dominate many Search Engine Results Pages for Canadian investors looking to pick up American bargains while the loonie is near parity with the U.S. dollar.

Here’s the battle plan in miniature: Be found, be food, be funded. You have to write content that will score well on search pages or over-the-transom clients will never find you. Once they’ve landed on your site, you have to feed them the information they’re hungry for — all they can eat. And once they’ve decided to do business with you, you have to be able to deliver your product when and as promised.

Are we talking about underwriting rental property loans for prosperous Canadian investors? Or are we talking about your business? Listen to the podcast to find out.

BlackPearlMarketingMinute040208.mp3

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April 2, 2008

Blogging other Realtor’s listings: Selling houses by selling history, details, ideas, lifestyle — selling the story of the home

by

Suburban Phoenix Real Estate Broker

Author website

I was in an historic home on Monday that made me think it had been built by an important home-builder in the very early days of the suburbanization of Phoenix. With the permission of the lister, I went back yesterday and took dozens of photos of the property.

I built an engenu web site for 718 West Moreland Street, then I wrote a weblog post summarizing the web site.

My primary interest, to be honest, was simply to document the home in its current pre-furbed condition. But, if by telling a plausible back-story about the home I can bring it a buyer who will give it the love it needs and deserves, either through me or directly through the listing agent, so much the better.

We’re interested in real estate. We’re interested in engaging people who are interested in real estate. Not to beat a dead horse to a bloody pulp, but it seems reasonable to me that blogging about real estate is a laudable way to achieve our weblogging objectives.

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April 2, 2008

I am not a blogger

by

Commercial Real Estate Finance Expert
Structured Debt and Equity
Licensed Real Estate Broker in AL, CA, and FL

Author website

This is an article I wrote on Active Rain, about a month ago.  I’ve since deleted it because it was behind the “Members’ Only” wall and the rules there state you can’t “out” a private post because of the comments:

I am not a blogger.

I’m a marketer, a social media marketer. There’s a difference between the two. Blogging is often portrayed as an “art form”. I am no artist. If you’ve ever seen my drawings, or heard my singing, you’ll quickly verify that.

Why do I blog? It’s part of my overall branding strategy within my social media marketing plan. I want to be a ubiquitous presence, in plain sight of consumers, giving them what they want. If I give consumers what they want, they’ll give me what I want; a chance to fund their mortgage loan. It’s simple economics if you think about it. Consumers demand; we supply that demand.

Consumers want to see houses and mortgage rates. How do I know this? I write on Long Beach Real Estate Home, Laurie Manny’s blog. Laurie has had tremendous success with blogged listings. Her readers (and subsequent buyers) want to see homes for sale. Her readers started calling me when I wrote the Long Beach Mortgage Rates report…AND put my contact information on the post! Readers want to see homes for sale and mortgage rates available.

Todd Carpenter takes it one step further:

I bet most of you didn’t realize that I had a second mortgage blog. That’s okay because it flies under the radar. When I talked to Brian Brady about it a couple weeks ago, he called it a Trojan Horse. I like that definition. The secret is, my other mortgage blog is cleverly disguised as a blog about Modern Homes in Denver. Yep, it’s a mortgage blog that never bothers to mention mortgages

Todd jokingly recalls the expression “Real Estate Porn”. The most successful real estate blog, Curbed.com, is laden with real estate porn. Consumers LOVE it. Alas, Todd reports that blogging theoreticians don’t:

Blog experts like Dustin Read more

April 1, 2008

State-mandated licensing of interior designers is our only possible protection from life-threatening color clashes

by

Suburban Phoenix Real Estate Broker

Author website

Via Coyote Blog, Clark Neily of the Institute for Justice argues against occupational licensing for interior designers in the Wall Street Journal:

Imagine you were a state legislator and some folks asked you to pass a law making it a crime to give advice about paint colors and throw pillows without a license. And imagine they told you that the only people qualified to place large pieces of furniture in a room are those who have gotten a college degree in interior design, completed a two-year apprenticeship, and passed a national licensing exam. And by the way, it is criminally misleading for people who practice interior design to use that term without government permission.

You might stare at them incredulously for a moment, then look down at your calendar and say, “Oh, I get it — April Fool!” Right? Wrong.

These folks represent the American Society of Interior Designers (ASID), an industry group whose members have waged a 30-year, multimillion-dollar lobbying campaign to legislate their competitors out of business. And those absurd restrictions on advice about paint selection, throw pillows and furniture placement represent the actual fruits of lobbying in places like Alabama, Nevada and Illinois, where ASID and its local affiliates have peddled their snake-oil mantra that “Every decision an interior designer makes affects life safety and quality of life.”

Legislative analysis by a half-dozen states that rebuffed ASID’s attempts to cartelize interior design — including Colorado, Washington and South Carolina — has failed to support ASID’s claim that the location of your couch or the color of your bedroom walls is literally a matter of life and death. As the Colorado Department of Regulatory Agencies put it, there is “no evidence of physical or financial harm being caused to . . . consumers by the unregulated practice of interior designers.”

Lacking any factual support for its sweeping public welfare claims, ASID and its supporters often resort to fear-mongering.[…]

If there were any credible evidence that unregulated interior design presents a genuine risk to consumers, ASID would certainly have found it by now. They have had plenty of time (more than three decades), resources (dues for Read more

April 1, 2008

As California Goes, So Goes the Nation

by

Real Estate Renaissance Man

Author website

Sometimes local news is national in nature.  This is often true when it comes to California.  With such a large population and a history of “active” politics, many of the laws and regulations that California passes eventually migrate to other states; sometimes this is reminiscent of a rainbow spreading across the land and sometimes it resembles more of a virus infecting people at whim.  Get ready to feel sick.

The California legislature is currently voting on AB0401, a seemingly innocuous alteration to the licensing regulations that govern real estate here.  But, as usual, the ramifications will be unexpected and monstrous.  The stated purpose of AB0401 is to clarify the relationship between RESPA law and non-monetary remuneration between licensed real estate agents and non licensed participants in real estate transactions.  Here is the key section

All transactions falling under the penumbra of RESPA shall heretofore be subject to review and restatement. No value shall pass or be caused to pass between a licensed broker or licensed sales associate of said broker and any non-licensed agency before or after such time as a real estate transaction may occur. Transfer of value is to include, but not be limited to: all forms of currency, any property or asset of value, any service of value and any intellectual property of value. (emphasis mine)

I am already reading pundits this morning here in California describing all online websites and blogs as intellectual property of value.  So what does this mean to the average agent, loan officer, title rep, etc?  It means that if you are syndicating your posts to another person’s site, or posting on another person’s site and that site has the stated or implied purpose of generating real estate business, you are in violation of RESPA regulations and subject to fine and/or loss of license.

This from Assemblywoman Debra Brady (R-Del Mar): “I believe this will cast a chill across the Internet and is nothing short of Big Brother clamping down on the free exchange of ideas.  We must defeat this and we must take a stand for the First Amendment rights of every citizen, no matter what business they conduct.”

I am Read more

April 1, 2008

The Odysseus Medal: “I feel like I too, am losing market share quickly in this wildly out of control time warp where one second I’m a kid and the next, I’m in my 50s selling real estate in a down market.”

by

Suburban Phoenix Real Estate Broker

Author website

The Odysseus Medal this week goes to Geno Petro for Geno’s Wrong (bang a gong):

My mother brings in a ham sandwich on a kaiser roll from the kitchen. It has mayo, mustard and a pickle on it. Onion, too. I rarely eat any of those things but I dare not say a word for fear of offending her.  “Diet Coke?” she asks.

“No mom…you know what Paris Hilton says about Diet Coke, don’t you?”

“Oh, I don’t like her.” declares Mitzi.

“What?” my dad pipes in, apparently with a different opinion of the media icon.

“Only fat people drink Diet Coke,” I say.

“Fat people?”

“Yeah, it’s a joke I think.” I say,  now wondering myself if it’s even funny. They don’t get it and now, I don’t get it either. My wife Mona, is taking a nap upstairs, belly full with as many sandwiches as she’s probably eaten in a month. The volume is turned down on the television and closed captions are streaming across the top third of the screen, covering  the faces of everyone on the Fox News Network. My parents read, watch and comment unfavorably whenever someone bashes Hillary or Obama and hiss in unison when anything positive is said about Bush or the War. I ask them why they even watch Fox at all if they are Democrats but they don’t really get the question. I guess I don’t really get it either in this particular election year. Perhaps they just have trouble working the remote and are afraid to mess with the Dish. There are Post-it notes taped to everything electronic in the house and most things static, as well.

And despite what I have just witnessed, I feel like I too, am losing market share quickly in this wildly out of control time warp where one second I’m a kid and the next, I’m in my 50s selling real estate in a down market.  In 10 minutes, I’ll be my father looking for any small victory I can muster. I sometimes feel as if I’m lagging behind all the youth and technology in my chosen industry of real estate. I have to read something three times before it makes sense, lately. I can only Read more

March 31, 2008

Black Pearl Marketing Minute: A sneak peek at a BloodhoundBlog Unchained promotional radio spot

by

Suburban Phoenix Real Estate Broker

Author website

Barry Cunningham asked me to make a 60 second promotional spot for BloodhoundBlog Unchained, to be used in the regular rotation on Real Estate Radio USA. What can one say except, “Hell, yeah!”

Even so, I’m just not that comfortable in the do-what’s-expected waxed fruit world, so I came at the thing from my own angle. I made a podcasty kind of in-your-face kind of commercial. Who knows if it will pass muster.

Anyway, you can have a sneak peek by clicking on the podcast link below.

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March 31, 2008

Hounds on the hunt: “You have created a monster…”

by

Suburban Phoenix Real Estate Broker

Author website

Racing around like a blind cat at a butterfly ranch. Cathy sold her $60,000 listing in two days — for cash, five day closing. I chased down signatures for her this morning and ran to open escrow. We made a new internet relationship yesterday, and I wanted to run comps on nearby homes to try to get a feel for prices. Meanwhile, a gateway that Cathy built a long time ago produced yet another internet relationship, so I pulled listings and showed seven houses. Back in the office now to put out fires, and then I have to go look at that first set of comps.

Waiting for me in my inbox was this email:

I don’t know what kind of synergy is going on at BHB, (it’s that kool-ade!) but I can no longer keep up with the volume of posts, ideas generated on posts, comment streams to posts… You have created a monster. I’m almost afraid to visit for fear time will slip away. 🙂
 
Congratulations!

We had dinner with Russell and Wendy Shaw last night, always a treat. Russ kept mentioning blog comments I couldn’t recall. I’m not senile, but we’re definitely getting to be encyclopedically interesting.

I’ve understood all along that, just as Bebop came into existence because of a musician’s strike, the golden age of real estate weblogging came about because of the market slowdown. Those of us who survived the downturn are going to get busier. But the interesting thing is that we have gotten so much better.

It’s a plain-spoken fact, though, as much true for me as for anyone: This place is a wonder to watch…

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March 31, 2008

NAR Will Channel Data

by

CEO, PA Association of Realtors

Author website

I’m thirsty, but not drinking the Kool-aid just yet 

The NAR project formally known as the Gateway, a mash-up of all real estate data in the country, has now been relabeled The Real Estate Channel (TREC).  There has been a new “interim” report issued by the Presidential Advisory Group (PAG), but still there is very little detailed information about NAR’s plan.

The new report makes it clear that the intent of TREC is NOT to be a national MLS or have a public access point (other than REALTORS®).  These two clarifications will ease the fears of many local MLS systems and REALTORS® who were worried about the Gateway project.  For others, the idea of a national MLS is appealing and they are still thinking that eventually TREC will become a national MLS, but they are keeping quiet about the prospect for now.

Not making the data publicly accessible is a similar situation.  If you are against public access to data (read: still haven’t made the shift to reality), you will feel good about the new clarification.  If you don’t worry about your clients having access to data, you will be happy with the report because you know that eventually such a massive mash-up will become available to the public. 

So, what the current report says is that NAR will set aside the controversial aspects of the project for now.  This seems like a good compromise to keep things moving forward although is does not feel particularly honest.  So I find myself struggling between integrity and progress – between trust and fear – between belief and skepticism.  Someone referred to the issue in terms of the Wizard of Oz – is there really anything behind the curtain?

The difficulty with this issue is that NAR does not have the details/answers to the questions because this is still a work in progress.  This lack of answers causes fear because it is human nature to fill in information voids with negative beliefs.  There is so much still unknown about TREC, that there is a lot of negative stuff being made up or inserted into the general thinking on Read more

March 31, 2008

ROI For 2.0/Social Media Marketing? So Many Questions So Few Answers

by

Real Estate Investments Broker

Author website

Joe over at Selsius published a piece the other day — Show Me the ROI: Is Web 2.0 a Load of Hooey or Who’s Making Hay? in which he links to some pretty interesting posts on the same subject. So much of this is what has made me crazy since I first turned onto the onramp of the 2.0 freeway.

ROI? What’s return, if it’s not measured in money, yenom, cash, closing statements, origination fees, bank deposits, or fill in the damn blank? This is silly at it’s best, and embarrassing at its worst. I don’t mean anything Joe said, just the idea. In fact I thought Joe’s observation was right on the money — pun intended.

He noted some folks have decided it might be time to ask the question, “How big is yours?”

This goes back (Please Lord, protect me.) to what I’ve always wondered about the whole SEO thing. It fits into this topic as if it was custom tailored. What’s the ROI on 2.0/SMM? What’s the ROI on all those leads yer gettin’ from your website and/or blog? I’ve simply stopped turning to the experts out there, ‘cuz I’m tired of being ignored when I ask them to please let me know what their clients’ conversion rates are.

I finally ran into an upfront, plain talkin’ expert, whose name I will keep to myself.

When I emailed them privately, asking about leads per day for RE clients, and their subsequent conversion rates, the answer was a breath of fresh air, invigorating by its naked truthfulness.

Here’s my email to this expert.

‘Blog/SEO/Lead generation expert’,

I’ve been tryin, in vain, to find out what the batting average is for real estate bloggers who’ve been successful in generating a reliably consistent number of daily/weekly/monthly leads.

I’ve heard of, and keep reading about blogs bringing in 10 a day 20 a day, even 30+ daily. What I’m not hearing is how many closed escrows are resulting from all those leads.

Whenever I ask this question, especially to those who are experts, (in reality, not just in their minds) I become invisible.

You’re one of the 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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