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April 13, 2008

Zillow.com’s Mortgage Marketplace brings anonymous apples-to-apples mortgage rate quotes to consumers, free consumer leads to lenders

by

Suburban Phoenix Real Estate Broker

Author website

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

 
Zillow.com’s Mortgage Marketplace brings anonymous apples-to-apples mortgage rate quotes to consumers, free consumer leads to lenders

Wouldn’t it be great if you could get a broad array of mortgage quotes without having to make dozens of phone calls? And what if you could make a true apples-to-apples comparison among quotes? Better still, what if you could remain anonymous, making yourself known to the lender only when you are ready to do business?

Seattle-based real estate start-up Zillow.com last week released its long-anticipated mortgage lending product, called the Mortgage Marketplace, and it offers all those features and more.

Unlike Zillow’s “Zestimates,” the loan quotes are generated by real people, working lenders. Zillow will basically be acting as a hands-off intermediary between borrowers 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 estimated 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 will be 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 lenders on their performance.

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

What’s in it for Zillow.com? When you fill out a form requesting a loan quote, Zillow will be writing “cookies” to your local browser. They won’t be storing your financial details on their own servers, but they will be able to access those cookies in the future to target specific ads at you according to your demographic characteristics. Zillow will also be selling access to these cookies to other ad-supported sites.

So, just as with free-TV, in exchange for looking at advertising, you will get free anonymous Read more

April 13, 2008

Doom and Gloom Win Again: Real Estate Is Dead

by

Real Estate Broker

Author website

It is now pervasive, whether fact, fiction, miscalculation or a misunderstanding of economic adjustments — doom and gloom has colored our lexicon and everyone’s on board. The “realists” are merely pointing out facts, the politicians are merely offering a big hand to help all the little people in this troubling time, the agents are merely accepting fate, the lenders are merely going broke, the pundits are merely predicting a dour future — it’s over, real estate is dead.

If you don’t believe it you are an idiot, a Koolaid drinker, a liar, a naive babe in denial or an unscrupulous player preying on the unsuspecting. When someone asks you about the real estate market, tell them it’s dead and getting worse. Tell them there is nothing positive in sight, that it might go for years, decades, a century, who knows, just tell them it’s dead.

We’re doomed, and gloom is our tomorrow and the next day and many after that. Close your doors, lock up shop, sell the Mercedes, real estate is dead. Foreclosures will climb, and after the sub-prime, the leveraged will crumble and then the middle will fold and the highest of the high will fall like tin men one and all. No one will be spared, real estate is dead.

The builders will watch their half-built McMansions sit like bones in a graveyard; realtors will be playing guitars in the park for nickels and dimes; a huge swooshing sound will be heard as the last of the ill winds blow over the rubble that was once a great industry and renters will rule the world and lord over those who once were lords of land. Real estate is dead.

Brokers and lenders will flip burgers or work as city clerks while builders cut grass and investors shine shoes and players of all stripes sing the blues — real estate is dead.

Obama will help the least fortunate, but the ones who rode high will meet their just rewards, for, afterall, it was greed that brought us low. In the wasteland of RE web 2.0 there will be blogs written by the depressed and dispossessed, mashups showing a combination of sorrow, charts showing Read more

April 12, 2008

There Is No Joy In Law School; Marty Ummel Has Struck Out

by

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

Author website

Remember Marty Ummell? She’s the lady that sued Mike Little, a REALTOR with RE/MAX in Carlsbad, CA. Her attorney ripped a page from the ambulance attorney play book and accused Mr. Little of misrepresentation, breach of fiduciary responsibility, and fraud.

From the New York Times, back in January:

Ms. Ummel claims that the agent hid the information that similar homes in the neighborhood were selling for less because he feared she would back out and he would lose his $30,000 commission.

Real estate lawyers and brokers say the case, which goes to trial in the north county division of San Diego Superior Court on Monday, is likely to be the first of many in which regretful or resentful buyers seek redress from the agents who found them a home and arranged its purchase.

I poked a bit of fun at this frivolous law suit, with my satirical post. In the comment thread, I had learned more about the plaintiff:

FWIW, the Ummels put down $900,000 on this home and borrowed $300,000. I’m guessing they didn’t need a full appraisal (1004) but had a drive-by w/o interior inspection (2075); that report requires no valuation but proof that the property is standing. Pure conjecture on my part.

I would think that a couple that has owned property(ies) in the Bay Area, for an extended period of time, who has $900,000 to invest in a home, and holds in a family trust, is sophisticated enough to forfeit the “ignorance” defense.

Of course, the accusation was extremely watered down by the time it went in front of a jury, last week. Fraud and misrespresentation were thrown out and only the charge of “breach of fiduciary duty” stood. The jury ate lunch, did a quick crossword puzzle, and ruled for the defendant (within 2 hours).

Marty Ummel is “devastated” while Mike Little is essentially out of business. From the same Voice of San Diego article:

The Ummels contended their agent had misrepresented a reasonable value to pay for their house and had breached his fiduciary duty to them, acting to protect his commission instead of Read more

April 12, 2008

Preview the New “FLEXMLS” System Coming to Arizona in July 2008

by

Realtor, Audio Engineer

Author website

Just got an email today with this link to a small tutorial of some of the new features and layout of the new MLS system coming to Arizona’s ARMLS system. The new features are absolutely exciting to me, as they appear to be a whole world better than the one we use now. Check out the new system here:

Arizona’s New MLS System (Coming in July)

Special thanks to Bob Bemis, CEO of ARMLS, for sending me the link.

April 12, 2008

Big News on Data Standards

by

CEO, PA Association of Realtors

Author website

Creative Commons License photo credit: wfyurasko


I’m guessing that the main purpose of BHB is not to spread the news – especially NAR news.  Being the resident NAR insider on BHB, I promise I will not use this site to spread NAR propaganda…er…news.  But this quiet piece of information is actually VERY big and I doubt it will get much attention outside the hallowed halls (or ivory towers, if you prefer) of the REALTOR® organization.  

On Friday, April 11th, NAR announced that the Real Estate Standards Organization (RESO) had unanimously approved a “draft standardized data format for distributing real estate listing information.”  Okay, I expect that most of you NAR skeptics are not particularly impressed by that bit of news, but let me try to explain why I think this is important.

First, you should understand this was not a group of NAR leaders in a back room filled with cigar smoke that agreed to this draft.  Yes, NAR helped organize this group, but check out this list of organizations/companies that UNANIMOUSLY agreed to a set standard:

The standard was drafted and unanimously approved by a RESO working group composed of NAR’s Center for REALTOR® Technology and many of the real estate industry’s leading publishers and consumers of real estate listing data. They include MLS Assistant, MLS Listings Inc., MLSPIN, New Jersey MLS, TREND MLS, Move Inc. (operator of Realtor.com®), Bridge Interactive, Bainbridge, Cevado Technologies, CLRsearch, eNeighborhoods, eShowings, FBS Data Systems, Google, Homescape, Marketlinx, Oodle, Point2, PropBot, Prudential Preferred CRE, RealEstate.com, Realtracs, ThreeWide, Trulia, Vast, Yahoo! and Zillow.

Now approving a “draft” means there is likely more work to do, but this is an important first step in making listing data seamless on the Internet and between MLS systems.  What’s the next step?  According to the news release:

The draft standard will be implemented immediately by several of the partner organizations. Following their feedback, a final draft will be presented and voted on during a meeting of the partners in August.

This agreement has far-reaching and mind-boggling implications for listing data on the Internet, but there is more to the story.  This whole process was in danger of imploding recently Read more

April 12, 2008

What Would You Do?

by

Real Estate Broadcaster and Investor

Author website

Real Estate Radio USA | What Would A Real Estate Agent Do to Help A Homeowner In A Foreclosure Mess?

Here’s the scenario. A consumer calls you based upon a blog post that you have recently made. He is in dire NEED of the services of a competent and professional real estate agent.

He must sell his house quickly. He is in foreclosure and he does not want his credit damaged. He already has had a short sale denied by his bank because he has too many other assets. His only alternative is to sell the home.

Here are the vital signs:

1. The home is worth approximately $300,000.00 as determined by comparable analysis
2. He owes $208,000.00 on his first and second mortgage combined
3. He has a Federal Tax Lien in the amount of $22,500.00
4. He has a municipal lien for not maintaining his pool (it’s a green slimy mess) and it has been running since October 2007 at the rate of $1,000.00 per day
5. He has not paid the County Property taxes in 2 years and he owes the County $12,500.00
6. He has not listed the property because he thinks he can not afford to pay commission and he’s not willing to sign a listing agreement that he can not terminate at will
7. His wife is on title with him but she’s now in Chicago living with her parents and wants $5,000 from the sale of the house
8. He needs at least $5,000.00 himself to be able to move on with his life
9. He will also need to stay in the house for 30 days AFTER the closing because it will take him that long to move because he can’t move until he gets the money from the closing
10. The house has pretty good bones but will need:
a.  basic cosmetic work
b.  new landscaping
c.  the pool drained, cleaned and refilled as well as a new pump
d. the roof needs to be replaced (estimate from local roofer is $8,500.00)
e. the garage door needs to be replaced

Other than what has been stated above, the home is located in an upper middle class neighborhood with good schools and is in close proximity to great amenities like a major mall, fine restaurants and exciting nightlife activities. It is Read more

April 12, 2008

The Anatomy of Generating a Lead Using an E-Book

by

Realtor, Internet Entrepreneur

Author website

svhbb.pngIn what must be dog years ago by now, Greg and I had a virtual conversation which sparked an idea that was successful for me, so I wanted to share some of the real-life insights I gained, with him and the rest of the Bloodhound readers.

The idea itself wasn’t completely new but there were some details in the execution that helped the campaign along since its inception May 2007. These techniques have proven useful many times over throughout the years and they’re what I’m hoping to communicate here.

The first step was to build credibility — and to test if the download was actually useful to my readers. See, the idea was to create a downloadable home buyers’ e-book from the existing content on my real estate blog.

I thought readers would like the convenience of a book with “chapters” on how to buy a home, arranged in step-by-step order. In turn, I would get a viral marketing piece that readers could forward to their friends, which not only had my contact information but linked back to my site within the content on every page.

Originally, I didn’t ask for any information in return for the e-book. The reason for this was because it was important for the credibility of the project to start with a large number of downloads. That and frankly if “no one” downloaded it, I would chalk one up for experience and move on.

The first month produced exactly 1,001 downloads. I advertised this number and began requesting a name and an email address (where an automated system would send a download link), effectively raising the price from free to legitimate contact information.

Since the price had gone up, it wasn’t a huge surprise that downloads dropped to 47 the next month. That averages out to a little over one lead per day. All but 3 registered using their real names (at least ones that closely matched their email addresses and the first step in building a relationship), two used their first name and last initial, and the third was fake. The Read more

April 11, 2008

Unchained Melodies: Tom Waits performing “Clap Hands” and “Time”

by

Suburban Phoenix Real Estate Broker

Author website

Youtube let me down tonight.

I thought James McMurtry doing Choctaw Bingo would have been a treat for Sean Purcell, and I would have loved to have latched onto videos of Tom Waits’ Falling Down and The Part You Throw Away for Geno Petro and Russell Shaw.

Struck out in three pitches.

Instead, we have this, Tom Waits doing Clap Hands and Time, two radically different pages from the man’s catalog.

Tom Waits is an acquired taste, and he goes well out of his way to make it hard for people to figure out why they should listen to him. This particular clip is from “Big Time,” which is second only to Bob Dylan’s “Renaldo and Clara” as the most stupidly self-indulgent rock movie ever made.

And yet… The first time I saw “Big Time” I loved it despite hating dozens and dozens of painfully stupid moments. I’ve followed Tom since I was a teenager — since he was barely old enough to drink. This is the art of brutality, and it’s not for everyone. I love Clap Hands, and I’ve forced poor Cathleen to listen to it thousands of times. But, whatever you do, be sure to hang in there for Time. Despite the PoMo performance, it’s a beautiful, heart-breaking song.

April 11, 2008

Nordstrom, Dave Liniger, RE/MAX and Web 2.0

by

Realtor, Associate Broker

Author website

I’m just not a rah-rah guy. The most trouble I was ever in at Nordstrom – it almost got me fired – was my refusal, as a men’s shoe buyer in a suburban Portland mall store, to participate in an Anniversary Sale employee pep-rally-fashion-show, in which the men modeled the women’s apparel and the women modeled the men’s. When the store manager asked me why I wouldn’t want to be a team player, I told him shoe dogs – at 8.75% commission – tend to get much more excited by having enough of the right product to sell than my walking around in a dress; that would be my focus. I was saved by the increase.

So when I heard several weeks ago that Dave Liniger – Chairman and cofounder of RE/MAX International –would be in town for a three hour seminar, with the jingoistic “Be Great in 2008” title, my first thought was “Uh oh.” But I’d read the fabulous Everybody Wins, and think Dave Liniger’s brilliant; one has to be to go from nothing to building one of the most recognized brands in the world. So I and about a thousand others went.

He had me with the opening: “Don’t believe any crap NAR tells you.” That was followed by three hours of substantive (and riveting) advice on how to deal successfully in a real-world down market. I found myself every so often closing my eyes and thinking: he sounds exactly like Russell Shaw.

The number of mentions of Web 2.0 in that three hours: 0.

===

When I left Nordstrom in 1979, starting a 24 year career as a manufacturer’s rep, I drove four NW states, and called on two or three independent shoe stores in every small town. Nordstrom had a shoe buyer in every store; what sold in one didn’t necessarily sell in another only a few miles away. The focus was entirely on the right product, the one customers actually wanted to buy, and I made a good living planting seeds in a few stores, then expanding based on success. We had a four day trade show every six months Read more

April 11, 2008

A Sign of the Times

by

Real Estate Renaissance Man

Author website

Dear Sis,

Thought I would catch you up while you are away at college.

You know how I LOVE FAMILY GATHERINGS, especially the BloodhoundBlog family.  Well it has been an interesting couple of days lately.  That crazy cousin Barry showed up; remember him?  He’s the one that tries to agitate everyone over the dinner table.   This got Uncle Russell going.  You know sis, he has become so successful that we all look to him for approval.  Anyway, he doesn’t talk much but when he does he brings the thunder and – you can probably see it coming – he thundered all over cousin Barry.  Finally, Dad had to give everyone a time out.  We never even got to have dessert.

In the past I have found there is no better way to bring the family back together than by uniting them in a common enemy.  So I suggested we direct our vitriol where it belongs… AT THESE TWO GUYS! 

Think of the efficiency:  Everyone you love to hate – under one roof!

Lenders and Dentists

That’s it from the home front.  I enjoyed the text book you sent me:  The Rise and Fall of Real Estate: A Case Study in the Application of Discriminate Disintermediation.  The funniest text book I have ever read.  Keep up the studies.

See you in the funny papers,

Your loving older brother.

April 11, 2008

A deeply philosophical discussion of the flame war that will not be happening at BloodhoundBlog

by

Suburban Phoenix Real Estate Broker

Author website

Oh, good grief…

I can credit both sides of the rancorous dispute that is not going to happen.

I agree with Russell Shaw that Barry Cunningham can run roughshod over opponents in debate, and I knew without having to be told that Russ was steaming over this.

I agree with Barry on the factual prognosis for real estate. I watched it happen in the graphic arts, and I’m watching it happen in dozens of other industries.

I was laughing with Brian Brady on the phone last night that I have inadvertently introduced a second standard on ad hominem comments: Zero tolerance for everything else, but a wider latitude on Barry’s threads. I’ve stepped in when things seemed to be trending a little too flamey, but, for the most part I haven’t had huge objections.

Gentlemen, I want for you both — and for everyone reading this — to understand something that, like the oceans of air I am immersed in, is too obvious to me even to notice most of the time:

Weblogging is theater of the mind.

What we do is entertainment. It should be interesting, fact-based, persuasive — all that serious stuff. But we are competing for attention with radio and television, not Oxford University. I certainly want to talk about things that matter to me, and I have huge goals for real estate and for the world at large that I would like to see effected. But none of those things is going to happen overnight — and none of them in response to a blog post.

If Barry Cunningham paints the world with a broad brush and that makes you hot under the collar, the most interesting question is this one: Are you angry because he’s outrageously wrong — or because he might be right? When an argument is absurdly off the mark, we ignore it. Ha, ha. Who cares? It’s when things are too irritatingly right that we get irritated. Your emotional reactions tell you almost nothing about the world outside your mind — and almost everything about the world inside your mind.

But more importantly, all you need to do to defeat an erroneous Read more

April 11, 2008

Barry Cunningham is Full of Crap

by

Mega-Producing Realtor

Author website

I mean that in a really nice way. I am just trying to help. Just like Barry is just trying to help Realtors by pointing out various things that are wrong with Realtors,Barry Cunningham-Turd I am trying to help Barry. I mean no insult.  None. And should Barry get even a little bit defensive that would be wrong. He shouldn’t get defensive, I am just talking about Barry MOST of the time since he arrived on BloodhoundBlog. Naturally, I think Barry is wrong about everything he believes and that he charges people way too much money for the mindless, stupid and completely unnecessary things he does for them. He isn’t really a professional, the way he acts. All of his customers could all do a much better job than he does and don’t need him at all and they most certainly don’t need to pay him the outrageous fees he charges. No insult intended. Barry’s business won’t even exist in a few short years, he will fail and go broke. I say this to help Barry. We should be able to discuss this idea like adults. Openly looking at and discussing the idea: is Barry Cunningham completely passive-aggressive towards real estate agents or does Barry Cunningham sincerely believe the half-baked gibberish he writes. Again, no insult intended. None, really. I just feel it is vital to bring this up so we can all join in the discussion.

April 10, 2008

Consider “24: The Unaired 1994 Pilot” and then tell us in detail how the world is going to work 15 years from now

by

Suburban Phoenix Real Estate Broker

Author website

I get a huge kick out of this because I remember what tech.life was like in 1994. Everyone rebelling against Barry Cunningham’s pronouncements has very detailed ideas about future portents — and each one of those ideas is almost certainly hugely wrong.

See more funny videos at CollegeHumor

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April 10, 2008

Just Like Tom Waits’ Blues

by

Chicago Broker Owner Realtor | RE 2.0 Blogger

Author website

I was wandering through a funky used record shop the other week, checking out the price per square foot in the 1890’s boutique storefront (but really hoping to get lost in my distant past), when I heard the voice for the first time in a decade, maybe longer. It was a voice that has been famously described as sounding “…like it was soaked in a vat of bourbon, left hanging in the smokehouse for a few months and then taken outside and run over with a car.” I stood without motion as I was drawn in by the familiar guttural sonnets dripping through the scratchy piped-in speakers of the tiny alley store with its 14 foot tin ceilings, whose lease, according to my listing sheet, would expire in less than a month. At that moment, I have to admit, I felt more like a nostalgic sap with a $50,000 line of credit than a realtor on a due diligence assignment.

An acrid Chex mix of sad, ironic and romantically laced phases cured in a molasses melody of piano riffs, circus tent trombones, and tubas thickened the air for several minutes at a time before being snuffed out between tracks into an imaginary ashtray of half-smoked Chesterfields.  And then, like the unnamed but ubiquitously published critic wrote so many years ago,  ‘run over by a car.’  More than likely, an Ol’ 55, if you’re still following my drift. 

The young guy behind the antique glass counter wanted to sell me an evenly worn Tom Waits vinyl disk, just like the one I used to own, for “$20 US.”  I told him I didn’t have a turntable anymore, or a tape player of any kind, or even a decent set of speakers worth mentioning although I did have a CD player in both of my rides. He shook his head and gave me a funny look as if to say, “Dude, nobody listens to CDs anymore.”  Or maybe he was just high. I know I probably was at his age. He was talking very loud because I was wearing those ear buds tethered with white wire that everyone walks around with these days and probably just assumed I was simultaneously listening to my iPod while checking out what was left on the picked over record racks; you know us 50-something, multi-tasking, Baby Read more

April 10, 2008

The Anatomy Of A Realtor-Less Transaction

by

Real Estate Broadcaster and Investor

Author website

Will realtors be needed in the near future?

Over the last couple of months we have spoken to hundreds of agents who when asked, most can not easily articulate what they do in a transaction. Yet worse, justifying why they receive 6% commission on the transaction is even harder to define.

More often than not their answers have been based upon mantra-like rhetoric that centers around the ignorance of the consumer. One of my favorites, “I don’t get paid for what I do, I get paid for what I know” is representative of the kind of inanity surrounding an industry whose players for the most part are reluctant to provide great detail into what they do.

In this Web 2.0 world, many who are resistant to a culture of transparency and fear disintermediation believe they are beyond reproach and that the technologically savvy consumer could never do without a Realtor’s involvement in a transaction. The misguided belief that “there will always be a need” for a Realtor is ignorant at best.

While true, there may be quite a great number of consumers who DESIRE to have an agent involved in a transaction, much more for convenience sake then anything else, it is big mistake to think that they are NEEDED in a transaction.

The former implies that an agent’s services are thought of by some to be much like that of a “real estate concierge”,while the latter implies some form of prerequisite dependence. This article is written to dispel the rumor that an agent is needed in a transaction.

So from start to finish I will outline a recently closed transaction.

1. Property Selection: A property was found online through tax records as being owned by a bank. The bank had not as of the time of contact contacted or retained an agent. The bank was contacted and the decision maker at the bank communicated their willingness to receive an offer.

2. Due Diligence: Data was reviewed and it was concluded that this would be a great buy. All of the vital signs were reviewed online and required about 2 hours of time. It only took this long because it was located in another state that 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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