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Category: Real Estate (page 231 of 266)

November 16, 2006

I’m all in

by

Mega-Producing Realtor

Author website

I’m all in.

Meeting Greg and Cathleen was good for me too. I really enjoyed the time we spent together. As all of the regular readers here already know they are very cordial and intelligent people. And isn’t that the whole idea for the individuals who congregate here – find people with those qualities to help and be helped by?

I need to wrap up some loose ends – respond to several posts that have been left hanging.

Benjamin wrote:

Hey Russell

I’m with a fairly new (just one year young) Keller Williams office in South Western Ontario, and we currently have the highest average commission out of offices in the area, averaging over 5%. The ‘normal’ commission out here is 5%, and increasingly we’re seeing 4.5 and 4 become normal for listing residential; many realtors in my office still are signing people up at 6% because we do offer more value and service than other firms. Does KW have the perception in the US of being a ‘discounter’?

No, they don’t. KW – from the top down – does not want to be perceived that way. There are KW agents here promoting 4% total commission listings (as there are agents with Re/Max and the company I am with, John Hall & Associates). But those agents are in the minority – advertising a low commission. I personally think that advertising a low commission is stupid and the agents who do it (thinking it will bring them more business) are doing a poor job in the area of strategic planning. They are not thinking very far into the future. 3% is what would be considered a “competitive co-broke” percentage in my market. In a market like Greater Los Angles that number is probably more like 2.5% – based on their much higher sales price. If the listing agent is only getting 1% they have set themselves up for failure.

Listing agents who work that cheap are doomed to failure. Why? Because a successful operation will actually spend more than the failure agent grosses on PROMOTION OF THEIR LISTINGS. It costs money to sell a lot of houses – a Read more

November 15, 2006

Meeting Russell Shaw: It turns out there is no topic of conversation except real estate . . .

by

Suburban Phoenix Real Estate Broker

Author website

Years ago, when I lived in Boston, I knew a computer programmer who had no interest in computers outside of work — not even to use, much less play with. I thought this was so weird, because my work completely dominates my attention. It’s all I think about, it’s all I want to talk about, it’s there in the back of my mind no matter what I’m doing.

When Todd Tarson came to visit us, we talked about real estate for every minute he had to spare.

Last night Cathy and I met Russell Shaw in person for the first time. We closed a Mimi’s Restaurant. We got together at 7:30 p.m. and left at midnight, just before they called the cops on us. No liquor, mind you — iced tea, cappuccino and ice-water. But we were drunk all the same, awash in ideas.

We talked about real estate the whole time. Russell is very smart, and very forthcoming with information — as you know from reading him here. We covered a vast horde of topics, from tiny marketing details to big-picture analysis of the NAR/DOJ/FTC fiasc-o-thon.

It was an amazingly wonderful evening for me — my birthday, by chance — entirely my style of living. Cathy has been making notes from memory all morning.

Here’s one concrete plan that came out of our scheming:

We’re going to debate Dual Agency in BloodhoundBlog, with Russell on the affirmative and me on the negative.

Russell is all over the idea that, while forbidding Dual Agency with buyers can make sense for us, we should not rule it out for sellers. He makes a very compelling case, and he may yet carry the day.

But, as the the great Arizona patriot Sam Steiger used to say, we’re just a wave, we’re not the water. The issue is bigger than either one of us can cover. I know there are many stout defenders of Dual Agency from whom we have heard nothing. Opponents may have arguments we have not yet considered. Either way, marshall your positions and tell us what we’re getting wrong.

I’ll post something in the next day or two. With Read more

November 14, 2006

Realty Reality: How Jake, Jurij and Tatiana Pawlenko wove their way into our hearts . . .

by

Suburban Phoenix Real Estate Broker

Author website

This is a shaggy dog story…

It begins with Jake, the world’s most playful Yellow Labrador Retriever, and Jake is a thread running all through this tapestry.

And that’s the way to think of it — as a tapestry. The clients we love best — and we love to love our clients — weave themselves into the tapestry of our lives. They are with us for years — for life we hope — and they show up again and again in all sorts of unexpected places. For, while this is a Jake story, it’s also a Ronan Doyle story and a Richard Riccelli story — it’s a story where many of the threads of the tapestry of our lives meet and merge in beautiful, unplanned designs.

But this is most fundamentally the story of the work we did with Jurij Pawlenko — himself a shaggy two-legged dog — and his lovely wife, Tatiana. And the thread of their story runs all through BloodhoundBlog, so much have they meant to us.

Begin at the beginning: Cathleen Collins was previewing houses for Robert and Lisa Pageler, and one that she looked at was 922 West Culver St, a 1936 Ranch-style home in the F.Q. Story Historic District of Downtown Phoenix. This was Jurij and Tatiana’s home at the time, and Jurij and Jake were home when Cathy arrived.

I like dogs. I’m indifferent to cats. Cathy loves any creature with fur. She and Jake hit it off immediately, especially since Jake loves to play so much. His favorite game is fetch, and he will play it forever. Cathy threw her arm out throwing grapefruit for Jake to fetch — thus endearing herself forever to Jurij.

This was the Summer of 2005, and Cathy wrote about this part of the story earlier this year.

In January of 2006, we listed Ronan Doyle’s home at 1102 West Culver St for sale. If you go to our About BloodhoundRealty.com page, you’ll see that our brokerage consists of Greg Swann, Cathleen Collins, Cameron Swann and Odysseus the TV Spokesmodel Bloodhound. That’s true day-to-day, but there are two other key players without whom none of Read more

November 13, 2006

Once more unto the breach: Assailing home-buyers from a different direction . . .

by

Suburban Phoenix Real Estate Broker

Author website

We are forever indebted to Richard Riccelli. The ad shown below is another attempt to persuade buyers to think about what they’re paying for buyer representation, and how they might pay less. This approach was suggested by Richard, and he out-and-out wrote about half the copy. If we had to pay him for these efforts, we would have to sell our own house!

Sometime very soon, I’ll write the full story of our work for the Pawlenkos — which is involved — and from that I’ll revise the landing page for this ad.

Splitting our bets, here’s a completely different take, commended to us by Jeff Brown. As I’ve discussed, we list very hard, but we’ve been very careful taking listings this year. If a house isn’t A+ in all categories it won’t sell, and we don’t list to not sell. But Jeff is convinced that the worm will turn with the calendar, and we’re inclined to agree. And, unlike buyers, sellers care a great deal about value propositions.

The real push for an approach like this is door-to-door, and we’ll begin that in earnest in early December…

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November 13, 2006

How I almost wasn’t an e-Pro: Why you shouldn’t wait to the last minute to do your homework . . .

by

Realtor, Staging Consultant

Author website

Shhh. Come closer. I have a confession to make. This past week I became an e-Pro! It took me an entire six months to become one — not because it was so difficult, nor because I was so very busy, but because I wasn’t motivated. Then why, you might wonder, particularly if you are in the techno-crowd who subscribes to RSS feeds and reads this weblog, would I have spent $359 and any precious time at all to earn my tinfoil badge?

About the time I enrolled Greg and myself in the e-Pro program, I was finishing up my GRI courses and Greg had just earned his CRS and ABR designations. I had taken the ABR courses with Greg, but couldn’t earn the designation yet because I didn’t have enough buyer sides. In fact, the only NAR-recognized designation left to me at that point in my career was e-Pro. And, as I explained to Greg while twisting his arm to join me in getting the designation, it was just plain silly for the two of us to not be able to promote ourselves as being technologically astute. Other Realtors who hadn’t even known email basics before taking the e-Pro course were able, with NAR’s blessing, to promote themselves as

highly skilled and continuously trained professionals who provide high quality and innovative online-based real estate services.

Further,

Consumers can identify the e-PRO through the exclusive e-PRO Internet Professional logo.

Now, I can’t come close to Greg or even Cameron when it comes to IT proficiency, but I left a job as an IT consultant at PerotSystems when I began working as a Realtor. So if a consumer of real estate services wants someone with technology skills to help buy or sell his house, and believes that the e-Pro designation is the industry’s endorsement of a Realtor’s IT competence, and we didn’t have the designation, we might be missing the opportunity to meet the very type of people whom we could serve best.

So, I enrolled us both in the e-Pro course, and by the end of the week Greg had begrudgingly earned his designation. He just sat Read more

November 13, 2006

Avid AVM aversion extends only to Zillow.com: NCRC off-shoot starts competing on-line valuation service . . .

by

Suburban Phoenix Real Estate Broker

Author website

Curiouser and curiouser. Could it be that NCRC’s motive is not to shake-down Zillow.com but to sully its reputation, in advance of going into competition against it? From InmanNews (fingered by Jim Duncan of Real Central VA):

Zillow officials say their valuations should also be seen as a starting point for consumers who want to learn more about the value of their homes.

But the National Community Reinvestment Coalition, a Washington, D.C., nonprofit, has filed a complaint with the Federal Trade Commission alleging that Zillow does not adequately disclose the degree to which its free automated home valuations can over- or underestimate a property’s value. The site is “likely to cause substantial injury to consumers who rely on the inaccurate representations made by the company,” the complaint alleged.

Zillow officials called the allegations groundless, saying they make every effort to explain the site’s role as a starting point for research, and display accuracy rates for every area covered by the site.

In a confusing twist, a nonprofit group formed by NCRC to promote best practices in the appraisal industry has hired another company, Eppraisal LLC, to provide a service similar to Saris Technologies’ eppraisal.com.

The NCRC offshoot, the Center for Responsible Appraisals and Valuations, is contracting with Eppraisal LLC to operate its www.BuySmartProgram.com Web site, which offers consumers appraisals using an automated valuation model in conjunction with the services of an appraiser.

NCRC vice president David Berenbaum said there is no contradiction in NCRC’s complaint against Zillow and CRAV’s use of an AVM on the www.BuySmartProgram.com Web site.

“The product being offered is an appraisal involving a site visit. It is not limited to an AVM,” Berenbaum said. “We do not have a problem with accurate AVMs, especially if they are combined with (the services of) an appraiser.”

Berenbaum said Eppraisal LLC is a subcontractor with no influence over policy decisions at NCRC or CRAV.

Based in Mayfield Heights, Ohio, Eppraisal LLC offers access to a network of 10,000 appraisers through its Web site, www.uappraiseit.com.

Scott said the term eppraisal has not been trademarked, and that Saris and its www.eppraisal.com service have no ties to Eppraisal LLC.

Another unrelated company with a Read more

November 13, 2006

This is not to suggest that all Realtors are “professionals”

by

Mega-Producing Realtor

Author website

Electronic Mind ControlThe well informed and logical Kaye Thomas wrote:

It never ceases to amaze me that REALTORS are blamed for prices going up and down in the real estate market. Really, do you think if we had that type of power the market would be where it is now?

Here’s a secret known only to greedy, unscrupulous REALTORS we have nothing to do with the ups and downs in the real estate market. Buyers and Sellers are responsible. Buyers actually have more power then sellers. Basic market principles of supply and demand determine the market not agents. In the current market Buyers stopped buying when they determined that prices had gone too high. You can’t sell something if no one is buying. Sellers have two choices. Take their property off the market or reduce the price to a point that a Buyer finds value.

Believe me if I could “make” someone buy or sell real estate whenever I wanted I would make Bill Gates look like a pauper. I would be in my private jet somewhere between Maui and Hilton Head and would always be playing golf on the best courses in the world.

Then “Pop” rudely responded with the following:

Your statements are lies. Clients generally have day jobs, and rely on professionals for good advice when making a purchase. Realtors don’t disclose, and most clients don’t realize, that increases in transaction volume and transaction price are the realtors lifeblood.

Realtors generally are more than willing to recommend financing sources, especially for that sub-prime buyer.

Realtors also advised their clients during the multiple contracts spending spree of the past several years. Statements like, “Real estate never goes down.” or “You’d better get in before you get priced out” have strongly contributed to buyers decisions to over-extend themselves. After all, to the average schmuck, Realtors are the experts.

Realtors certainly know appraisers that will make sure the property meets or exceeds it’s finance target.

And, most importantly, Realtors (being in sales) certainly have a ripe understanding of the role that emotion and buyer psychology have in setting a price point. Appealing to greed and fear at the margins of the Read more

November 12, 2006

Dustin says, “It’s time for a New Name for ‘Blog'”

by

Suburban Phoenix Real Estate Broker

Author website

Indeed! Blog is an ugly word. Weblog is an ugly word.

The relationship I will have with Russell Shaw — blogfather and blogson or blogchild — is delimited by ugly words.

The ultimate ugly word associated with wegblogging, itself an ugly word:

Blogosphere.

It sounds like something Uncle Chester had to hack up every morning before his day could get started.

How soon will these words change?

Right after they fix the HVAC system in Persephone’s winter home…

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November 12, 2006

Beat the Devil Sunday: What’s the highest buyer’s agent’s commission you can find in your market . . . ?

by

Suburban Phoenix Real Estate Broker

Author website

Let’s print up a junk mail envelope: Doug Quance may already have won!

Witness:

I think I might have found a winner…

I searched our MLS yesterday, and found a co-broke of 20%! New construction 4 bed 2.5 bath listed at $270K.

http://brokersfirstrealty.com/2006/11/12/commissions-incentives-and-ethics/

It’s no typo… the listing agent spelled it out in the public remarks…

Dave Barnes dropped a dime on this one, not as high in percentage terms but a huge amount of money.

Can you beat these? I know of a bunch of 10% deals, but nothing this extreme. How about you?

(Inlookers take note: We come not to praise excessive commissions but to damn them.)

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November 11, 2006

Links for a very busy Saturday . . .

by

Suburban Phoenix Real Estate Broker

Author website

I’m selling at least two houses this weekend, so I’m catch as catch can. I want to write a very involved Realty Reality story, too, so my Saturday is much enriched. Here are some other riches:

Realty Thoughts ponders the differences between the Inman shows and NARdiGRAS. Here’s one that pops out at me: So far, almost no news has broken at NARdiGRAS.

Both The Real Estate Bloggers and Real Central VA draw attention to The Real Estate Journal’s expose on agent bonuses:

The best defense for buyers may be to insist that agents disclose the compensation being offered on any property under serious consideration. That way, consumers could negotiate ways to share anything that goes beyond a normal pay day for the agent — or at least take the incentives into account in assessing the agent’s advice. But few consumers raise such questions. Daniel Ruben Odio-Paez, a broker in the Washington, D.C., area who operates a real-estate search site, www.tbhse.com, says he believes “most buyers have no clue how their agent is being compensated.”

“‘Ethically, if you are representing the buyer and taking the buyer to a place where you are getting an increased commission, the right thing to do is tell them,’ says Danny O’Sullivan, a senior vice president with Long & Foster Real Estate Inc. in Fairfax, Va.” Ya think? In September, I wrote on Arizona’s laws regarding agent bonuses.

Jim Duncan at Real Central VA is in love with the improvements to GoogleBase announced at NARdiGRAS. I’ll withhold judgement. Even so, its seems inevitable that we are to be XMLated by The Borg. This bodes ill for smaller players, I should think.

Marlow Harris at 360Digest is trading maps for money in a very astute analysis. How hi is Seattle’s tech?: I don’t know of a single map interface at a Phoenix brokerage.

Joel Burslem at The Future of Real Estate Marketing doesn’t like Cyberhomes. Who can blame him?

Finally, The Real Estate Tomato is spreading the spaghetti sauce: Jim Cronin has started TomatoBlogs.com, a turn-key real estate weblog vendor. Pre-launch blogs: The Realty Doctor, The Silver Bee and Sacramento Real Estate Voice. All WordPress, Read more

November 10, 2006

Writing better descriptive real estate copy as a path to building character . . .

by

Suburban Phoenix Real Estate Broker

Author website

I read some copy for a real estate listing, and I thought, “Wow, this is game and lame at the same time.” Game because the Realtor was really trying to stretch beyond typically insipid real estate copy. Lame because, well, even so — the copy was lame. It led with a cliche, then jumped immediately into EduSpeak, the unreadable argot of academia. Within a scant few seconds, we were right back in Realtorville, an unending list of features without a benefit — nor a beneficiary — in sight. In the end, it was game-by-intent, an attempt to attempt to do something different — without actually doing anything differently.

Here’s my take on the same theme:

What you notice first is the quiet — but you don’t even actually notice it. The air is so still and the silence so complete that you don’t truly hear the quiet until it is interrupted.

What was that?! That scampering sound. You peer into the underbrush and there it is — a Whiptail lizard twenty yards away — and you were actually able to hear its tiny footfalls.

You don’t feel the breeze as much as you see it in the lazy skirling of the Redtail hawks overhead. The sun is omnipresent, but you feel it best in the tingling on your skin. You breathe deep, relishing the crisp, clean scent of creosote slowly baking in the heat of the afternoon…

This is the desert — the desert you came here to find but lost somewhere in a vast, overpacked parking lot.

This is the desert — untamed and illimitable, alive and thriving against all odds.

This is the desert — not a day trip, not a camping trip, not a now-and-then excursion.

This is home. Your home, from now on…

That’s an introduction. I’m not selling a house. I’m selling a life. In this case, a life with some negatives — the commute to Phoenix is at least 45 minutes, and the buyer is going to find snakes and scorpions in the home several times a year. But what I want to sell about this property is the unique life that this home Read more

November 10, 2006

Excessive buyer’s agent’s commissions at new builds: “Killer deals often come with payoff . . . “

by

Suburban Phoenix Real Estate Broker

Author website

This is my column from today’s Arizona Republic (permanent link). I don’t write the headlines, and I don’t think this one is terribly representative of the article, but it is what it is. I asked the paper to change the attribution to use BloodhoundBlog’s web address rather than my phone number, so maybe the poisonous phone calls will turn into poison-pen letters instead.

 
Killer deals often come with payoff

I have clients who are closing escrow on a new-built home soon. They’re moving from a house of about 1,725 square feet to a home of about 2,100 square feet.

Because it’s a new build and because of when they’re buying it and, most especially, because it’s a spec home — a home specified by and started for another buyer who has since canceled the purchase — they’re getting a smoking deal.

The builder is trying to close on absolutely every spec home, so it’s making great deals. It’s giving my buyers a $75,000 upgrade package, plus throwing 6 percent of the purchase price toward their down payment.

If the Valley’s real estate market gets back to normal soon, they’ll have a ton of equity fairly quickly. And even if not, this home is an incredible bargain — an unrepeatable opportunity.

Here’s the kicker: The builder’s sales rep told me in private that the buyer’s agent’s commission is 8 percent. Unbelievable!

I strive to be a vigorous champion for my buyers, but builders leave precious little room for a Realtor to effect any meaningful buyer’s representation.

In effect, taking a party to a new-home subdivision is a referral. That could explain why so many builders and Realtors treat it that way.

For my part, I’m doing everything I can to defend and protect my clients’ interests, and that still won’t be very much.

So how much should I get paid for doing not very much work as capably and professionally as I can?

Surely not 8 percent. I won’t even take 3 percent on new construction.

Here’s what I did for this home: I conceded 6 percent to my clients, keeping 2 percent for the brokerage.

They didn’t have to ask for this, nor should Read more

November 9, 2006

Zip Realty and a Press Release

by

Mega-Producing Realtor

Author website

It never ceases to amuse me (amaze me?) what the press finds “interesting” for a real estate “news story”. Of course it is totally predictable what Inman News finds newsworthy – hacking away at Realtor commissions. Brad Inman has been on a mission from God on this issue for some years. So please don’t get the idea that only obviously crazy people are the only ones working on this vital issue. Here is a link to post I made on Inman’s blog last week. If you are interested, here is the link to the video on CAR’s website. Allan Dalton’s comments, especially the stuff in the last twenty minutes, are well worth any Realtor’s time. I especially liked his idea that yammering on about “we give great service” is NOT productive – and that no one really gives a crap. You will see what I liked so much if you watch it. The first part is quite boring but once Allan starts to talk – turn the volume up and listen.

Zip Realty Logo

Zip. A stupid name? I think so. But damn are they good at using the press! Here are some numbers they just released:

ZipRealty Inc. (Nasdaq: ZIPR) today announced third-quarter net income of $600,000, down from net income of $2.9 million in third-quarter 2005. For the first nine months of the year, ZipRealty reported a net loss of $386,000 compared with net income of $2.57 million for the first nine months of 2005.

The company employed 1,747 ZipAgents as of Sept. 30, compared with 1,383 at the end of third-quarter 2005 and 1,669 at the close of second-quarter 2006.

ZipRealty also announced that the total value of real estate transactions closed decreased about 11.8 percent in the third quarter to $1.2 billion, compared with $1.36 billion in third-quarter 2005, while the number of transactions closed fell 6 percent to 3,467 compared to the same period last year.

Please keep in mind this is a NATIONAL company. In my area (greater Phoenix area) there are privately owned real estate companies that have better numbers than Zip.

Local companies here that have about that many agents (just here 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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