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January 19, 2007

INTERVIEW: Broker Bryant of Poinciana, FL

by

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

Author website

bbBryant Tutas, the most well-known author on the Active Rain Real Estate Network, was kind enough to grant me an interview. I have known Bryant since I signed up for Active Rain some six months ago. He is a serial contributor there, posting, commenting, and offering both insight and encouragement. Bryant and his wife (The Lovely Wife) are the owners of Tutas Towne Realty in Poinciana, FL. Bryant is the broker and sole practitioner while “The Lovely Wife” manages their properties.

Bryant, you were involved in commentary with Candybags, on Bloodhound Blog, some time back and followed up with a post asking “So, What Do You Do To Justify Your Commission?“. How do you think Realtors who host or comment on weblogs should prepare themselves to answer this question?

Brian, I think the question, “What do you do to justify your high commission?” is a valid question. REALTORS? need to be prepared to answer it. In this age of disintermediation, it is time for REALTORS? to really think about what it is that we do. We need to be able to communicate this to the consumer. We are paid for what we bring to the transaction and not what we do. I bring my reputation, experience, knowledge of the market, ability to be a calming force, skill at keeping folks focused on the end result, willingness to tell people what they need to hear (not what they want to hear) and my expertise at pricing properties correctly. None of these attributes can be received via the Internet. That, is what our value is. These intangibles cannot be quantified by a dollar amount.

How do you think the commentary could have been handled better here on BHB?

Candybags was rude and very hostile towards REALTORS? but he did ask a reasonable question. I prefer to try and win people like this over than to further instigate their aggression. I have learned over the years that aggression is best handled with patience and reason. I never take someone’s comments personally. There is always a reason why people act the Read more

January 19, 2007

Ask the Broker: An undisclosed verbal easement?

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Suburban Phoenix Real Estate Broker

Author website

This is one for The Hardy Boys: The Case of the Stolen Dirt.

As a buyer what rights do I have in the following scenario? I purchased a tract of land in 08/06. Closed on the deal 10/06. Visited the tract in 12/06 to find extensive excavation was performed for road building material without my approval. When questioned, the Broker/owner informed me that he forgot to mention that the developer (real estate agent that works for the Broker/owner) had a verbal agreement with the individual that sold the agent the 1/2 section for subdivision that if any material was needed to complete a road project further up the road and on a separate subdivision that it would come from the existing parcels. The agent owned and was attempting to sell two remaining parcels that she could have taken material from. She however gave approval to excavate mine. As a buyer I was never informed of any verbal agreement regarding this and there were no disclosures to this agreement. What rights do I have short of taking this disingenuous realtor to court?

The bad news is, your recourse is probably a lawsuit. The good news is, at least in Arizona, you will almost certainly win.

In Arizona, there is no such thing as a verbal easement. If a previous owner had given a developer verbal permission to remove dirt from your parcel, that verbal permission lapsed when you closed escrow on the land. The person removing the dirt since you took ownership is guilty of trespassing, theft and, reasonably, is liable for damages.

Having said that, I’ll bet you can guess the next part: You need to take this up with an attorney. You are aggrieved, and you have a right to be made whole, but this won’t happen without at least a little saber rattling.

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January 18, 2007

From forty links to infinity: Apprehending the full scope of the RE.net

by

Suburban Phoenix Real Estate Broker

Author website

Okay, here’s the meme game I mentioned yesterday.

I want to build something like a canonical list of every weblog in the RE.net. By this I mean weblogs created by Realtors or other real estate agents, including commercial brokers; lenders, appraisers, investors or other real estate professionals; mainstream media real estate weblogs; and vendors marketing to real estate professionals.

I’m giving things a kick start by citing 40 weblogs from the BloodhoundBlog blogroll. Here’s your challenge:

1. Add to this list by linking to real estate weblogs not listed here. Please be judicious. We’re interested in true webloggers — helpfully informative and not too self-promotional — not blog-based spammers.

2. Link to those blogs on your weblog, repeating the text from this challenge.

3. Add your links to a comment to this post, as well, since I may not see them by trackback or Technorati citation. (The moderation bot will eat your comment, but I’ll pull it out.)
Permanent link to the original post on BloodhoundBlog:

From forty links to infinity: Apprehending the full scope of the RE.net

If you can send more than 40 unique links, you’re my hero. I’ll build all of these links into a page on BloodhoundBlog, with a link to the source HTML if you want to mirror the list.

Note: This is not quite a tag game. Just because you’re not listed below, it doesn’t mean you can’t play. The goal is to leverage all of our information sources to get to a highly-comprehensive, strongly-vetted picture of the RE.net as it exists right now.

Once we’ve assembled everything, Cameron or I will put together a form for adding new weblogs. And if someone should want to volunteer to organize and maintain this list, your link will come first, lexicology be damned.

Here are my 40 links:

January 17, 2007

Digital real estate photography: Which photographer? Which camera?

by

Suburban Phoenix Real Estate Broker

Author website

The current issue of The Specialist, the official magazine of The Council of Residential Specialists, insists that “99 percent of home buyers say that photos are the most helpful feature on a Realtor’s web site.” I’m pretty much convinced that 47% of all statistics are made up on the spot, but I suppose that recalcitrant one percent is visually impaired or something.

In any case, I have two things to say about photography:

First, Karl Hoelscher is starting a real estate photography business in North Phoenix, and he would love to have some help honing his marketing message. Give him a look at HomeSnapz.com. Even if you use your own photos for your web pages, super-hi-resolution professional photography can work wonders for your printed pieces and MLS listings.

Second, the article I mentioned in The Specialist is a wonderful example of really bad advice. As we talked about in BloodhoundBlog months ago, the two most important features in a camera to be used for everyday real estate work are a wide-angle lens and a fairly small image size:

Except for print reproduction, the best size for a real estate photo is 640 x 480 pixels — which is 0.3 megapixels. Ideally, your everyday camera should be able to produce that size image without post-processing. The photos on your web pages can be bigger than this, but not by much. If you try to load 20 images on a page, with each image weighing in at one megabyte or more, you’ll overtax most web browsers — well after you’ve overtaxed the patience of your audience.

What you want from a lens is not a long zoom but the widest possible angle. Most digital cameras have their widest angle setting at 45 – 55mm, if the lens were on a 35mm film-camera equivalent. A few cameras get down to 38mm. This is inadequate. What you want is 28mm or less — with reservations.

The features camera-makers advertise, megapixels and zoom lenses, are mostly useless for taking photos of homes.

So what does The Specialist suggest you buy? Cameras with long zoom lenses and massively megapixelated images — just exactly the Read more

January 17, 2007

Celebrating the spirit of transparent real estate weblogging: BloodhoundBlog can and will do more . . .

by

Suburban Phoenix Real Estate Broker

Author website

I’m thinking that I should take a much larger role in the growth of the RE.net. Many people are convinced that hundreds of agents and lenders will be starting real estate weblogs in the coming year. That may or may not be so, but it is a certainty that the sharks are circling in the water, looking for another pound of flesh. I don’t absolutely hate vendor involvement in the real estate blogging world, but I’d like to do what I can to make sure people are getting what they’re paying for — and not paying to have smoke blown up their… noses.

Moreover, I am very concerned that new entrants will miss the forest in a quest for leads. There is nothing wrong with forging business relationships through weblogs, but we will kill everything if the RE.net comes to be seen, in consumers’ eyes, as just another spamvertising channel. Weblogging is about the good, the true and the beautiful first, and only secondarily about commerce. If we screw this up, it won’t work — not for commerce and not for anything.

I’ve talked with Brian Brady about doing blogging seminars, and I’ve traded email with other RE.net luminaries on the subject. For the moment, I feel like this is overkill. Arranging an event is a logistical nightmare, and, even then, it’s tough to get enough people together to make a dent in the problem. Worse yet, somebody has to pay for a seminar, either the attendees or a sponsor.

But what’s really needed is already here: Weblogs, podcasts and video podcasts. For now, I’m going to start putting together a basic set of tools in weblog and podcast form. As these materials start to gel, we’ll go buy some video studio time and commit the more important ideas to video podcasts. Maybe in the long run, we’ll produce a DVD or CD, but my thinking, for now at least, is that the best medium for discussing the world wide web is the world wide web.

But wait. There’s more. I’m going to start a meme game that we can use to catalog the RE.net Read more

January 16, 2007

NAR & DOJ – Russ & Russell Part 2

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Mega-Producing Realtor

Author website

Russ Cofano responded:

Russell,

I appreciate the opportunity to chat with you on this subject.

First, my comments should not be taken to mean that I support the DOJ’s position and hope that they win. Nor do I necessarily support the NAR position with its rulemaking. As I have said before, I do support innovation and think that brokers need to spend more time finding new ways to deliver value to consumers.

Second, let’s define a couple of terms.

“Broker” means any person or firm that has been licensed as a real estate broker under applicable state law.

“Traditional Broker” means a Broker who either directly or through agents, actually assists buyers and seller with buying or selling a home.

Third, this is a VERY long post and I apologize in advance as I usually don’t like posts of this length. Proceed with caution and a good cup of coffee…. )

Regarding the definition of MLS Participant, you said:

“And that is the most logical definition possible under the circumstances. It is important to keep in mind what the MLS actually IS – a communication system set up by brokers for offering and accepting offers of compensation…..to fail to define a real estate broker (the only people ever originally intended to have access to the MLS) any other way than someone who is actively working with buyers and sellers makes no sense.”

Here is the problem from the DOJ’s perspective. Before this rule change, a licensed Broker could join the MLS and open up a store front with no intent of helping a seller sell or a buyer buy. They could call it “Referral Realty” and have full access to the MLS database for purposes of cultivating potential buyers to refer on to “traditional” brokers in exchange for a referral fee. This is allowed by most state license laws. In fact, this type of situation occurs today in some areas where retiring licensee hang their licenses with a Broker in hopes of leveraging their referral base despite having no intent to actually assist a buyer or seller. The problem with this business model is that the referral business Read more

January 16, 2007

In a Rent vs Buy Bind Right Now

by

Mega-Producing Realtor

Author website

Eric writes:

Hi Greg!

I am writing because I really enjoy your blog. I’m licensed, but haven’t worked with realty in years due to being back in IT (which you also seem to have a passion for), so I enjoy hearing from the experts. I’m in a rent vs buy bind right now. I have someone that can help with a rent-to-own (agreement for sale I believe?) situation, but the main reasons I have for buying a house is that I can take deductions for home office and mortgage interest.

Owning is several hundred more, but temping. However, if during this rent-to-own deal, I’m not able to take those deductions.. I think I’d prefer to save the money, rent something equally as nice, and watch the market, rates, and my credit very carefully.

Are you familiar with this? I see plenty of rent-to-own/lease option etc. wording on craigslist rentals, but do you know if the tax man allows you to take deductions on places you are “renting to own”?

Appreciate any feedback, have a GREAT week 🙂

Eric

Hi Eric, Russell here. The Ask the Broker questions get passed on all of us – so I’ll toss my hat into the ring on this one.

It is my understanding – and also logical, if you think about it – that you can only deduct the interest if you are actually paying the interest. With a rent to own agreement you aren’t liable for the interest, aren’t actually paying it and therefore can not deduct it. So, based on your question, you would be better off renting. But that isn’t the only reason you would be better off renting. There is probably some exception to just about any financial “rule” one can write and I’m sure there are some who will disagree with what I’m about to say here – but I’ll go ahead and say it anyway.

Combining a lease with a purchase agreement is, for most people, the worst of all possible worlds. If you are the tenant/buyer you usually wind up paying more in rent than you ever would if you “just rented”. As most agreements of that Read more

January 16, 2007

Sure I’ll Show You That House – For A Hundred Fifty Bucks

by

Associate Broker

Author website

You gotta love how they do things in the New York / New Jersey area.

They don’t mess around.

I called a very experienced agent in the NY/NJ area yesterday to discuss her experience with one of her online service providers… as well as the usual real estate chit chat.

During our conversation, I asked her if she has had any experiences with the Redfin type of buyer brokers… you know, the kind that rebate money to the buyer.

According to her, the rebate is outlawed in New Jersey.

It’s the next item that just killed me (hence the title):

“Around here, if a buyer wants to see a house, they need to pay $150 and enter a buyer brokerage agreement. If and when they actually make a purchase, the $150 is given back to the buyer. It keeps the buyers from jumping from agent to agent,” she said.

Now that’s a shock. What a concept!

“And buyers go for it?” I asked, in disbelief.

“They have to. Everyone does it. It helps to compensate you for running around – and keeps you from dealing with buyers who aren’t serious. Show ten houses in a month, and you have $1500 to pay some of your expenses,” she replied.

I am not sure that I, as a seller, would approve of this…

I know you guys will have an opinion on this. 😆

January 16, 2007

ShackPrices.com: Anything but ORdinary . . .

by

Suburban Phoenix Real Estate Broker

Author website

Responding to my kvetching last night, ShackPrices.com today launched itself into a new ORbit among map-based real estate search pORtals — with OR without MLS access. Not satisfied with ORdinary searching, the Seattle-based company yesterday added a loosely-structure keywORd search. The search suppORted the AND and NOT logical operatORs, but the OR operatOR was left on the cutting room floOR.

Until today, that is. This is email from ShackPrices.com co-founder Doug Cole:

Doug here (the other half of ShackPrices), thanks for the kind words, just thought I’d let you know we just added the OR operator to ShackPrices, so now something like “fixer or tlc” works. Also to clarify we don’t have a way to group words together yet, so the example in your post the search “waterfront, -shake roof” actually goes through more like “waterfront and roof, not shake”. It’s something I’d really like to fix soon, but we have to pick our battles since there are only two of us, and that one missed the first round.

So: I immediately put the booger to the test. This is from my FindTenants bot, which runs on the Arizona Regional Multiple Listings Service. The actual bot is much more stringent than this, but what is shown here is a search that is run into the Realtor’s Remarks section of the listing to determine if a potential investment property is in fact tenant-occupied:

rented OR leased OR renter OR long term renter OR long-term renter OR tenant OR lease ends OR lease agreement OR tenants in place OR rented OR leased OR lease until OR lease til

What did ShackPrices.com turn up? Rain, snow — and tenants…

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January 16, 2007

Compounding, Return On Investment, & What Matters To Investors — Invest $1 Get $2 Back

by

Real Estate Investments Broker

Author website

The miracle of compounding is what it’s called. The ability to earn interest on interest is the simplest way to put it. Start out with a hundred bucks at 8% annually and beginning the second year you’re earning 8% on $108. Keep that up for about nine years and you have $200. So if at age 30 until age 65 you put away $4,000 yearly, compounding annually at 8%, you’d end up with just under $690,000. And if it was in an IRA or 401k that money is taxable as it comes out. Of course, if for some reason you don’t need it, and wish to have it continue compounding, tough luck. Uncle Sam will force you to begin taking it out and paying taxes on it. But I digress.

What does return on investment mean? Try getting three investors together to decide the answer to that one. Is it cash flow? Do tax benefits come into the picture? Is it simply a function of money in and money out? Cash on cash? All the above? None of the above? I’ve heard all kinds of definitions.
Does it really matter?

If you invest $100k today and upon selling receive your original capital back plus another $100k in four years, do you care what your ROI is? No, you’re too busy bragging to your brother-in-law, who wouldn’t go in with you at the beginning, how you doubled your money in 48 months. Your ROI is the pained look on your sister’s face, right? 🙂 All you care about is you put $100k in, got $200k out, and you’re ready to rock ‘n roll again.

But what does it take to accomplish that? In rough numbers, if you bought $455k in income properties at 20% down, with about 2% closing costs, you’d have needed $100k to close the escrow. If for four years those properties increased in value at 7.6% each year they’d be worth in the neighborhood of $610k. (And yes, there are places where properties are going up at that rate.) If your total cost of selling was 8%, you’d have roughly doubled your money Read more

January 15, 2007

Mapping, schmapping — ShackPrices.com is keyword searchable . . .

by

Suburban Phoenix Real Estate Broker

Author website

ShackPrices.com has added keyword searching to its map-based real estate searching tool. In addition to searching by location, amenities or price, home shoppers can search for any text that might appear in the MLS listing made available to ShackPrices.com: Subdivision or neighborhood names, types of architecture, roofing materials or anything that appears in the remarks section of the listing.

Vide licet:

  • Any words in the agent description
  • Project name (Emerald Court Townhomes, Madrona Annex, etc.)
  • Status (subject to inspection, active, etc.)
  • Waterfront (lake, ocean, creek, etc.)
  • Parking (carport, garage, etc.)
  • Architecture (colonial, craftsman, etc.)
  • Site features (hot tub, cabana, disabled access, Fenced fully, etc.)
  • Terms (variable price, lease/purchase, owner financing, etc.)
  • View (sound, golf course, mountain, etc.)
  • Exterior (brick, stucco, wood, etc.)
  • Interior (2nd kitchen, sauna, high tech cabling, etc.)
  • Style (split entry, townhouse, etc.)
  • Pool (above ground, indoor, etc.)
  • Flooring (slate, carpet, etc.)
  • Roof (cedar shake, composition, metal, etc.)
  • Appliances (double oven, dishwasher, etc.)
  • Energy Source (electric, natural gas, etc.)
  • Heating/Cooling: (heat pump, radiator, forced air, etc.)

So far, there are two logical operators in the text search function, AND and NOT. So “waterfront, shake roof” (omitting the quotes) would find listings which had the word waterfront AND the phrase shake roof in the listing. But “waterfront, -shake roof” would find listing that had waterfront but did NOT have shake roof in the text of the listings. (I believe I am misrepresenting this; your mileage may vary.) I have already started the wheedling campaign for an OR operator, because many true MLS searches are highly OR-dependent.

Here’s my take: ShackPrices.com started good and is getting better at a nice clip. I want them in Phoenix…

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January 15, 2007

It turns out we ain’t nothin’ but a hound dawg . . .

by

Suburban Phoenix Real Estate Broker

Author website

If you bet on Brian Brady’s “Predatory Lending” post to take the real estate blog carnival trifecta, you could be sleeping in the dog house tonight — or perhaps “Heartbreak Hotel.”

Brian won the BloodhoundBlog Carnival by a unanimous vote.

He placed in The Carnival of Real Estate Investing, held this week at Sadie’s Take on Delaware Ohio.

But Elvis left the building without taking note of Brian’s effort at The Carnival of Real Estate at Marlow Harris’ 360 Digest.

Oh, well. By now we know the formula at Marlow’s places: A little more bite and a little less bark, a little less fight and a little more spark. We’ll do better next time…

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Welcome to BloodhoundBlog, the national real estate industry marketing and technology weblog written by, for and about real estate professionals. Better yet, welcome to the wired world of real estate. We are busily inventing Real Estate 2.0 – technology, marketing, service and salesmanship. Like all Bloodhounds, we are smart, frisky and fiercely independent. We've built a spot on the earth – beloved over all – where each one of us can be who we are, no matter who that might be. We are committed to an idea of excellence that will flush the bums, the con-men and the crybabies out of the real estate industry. If you yearn to have your failures excused, your moral lapses absolved or your boo-boos kissed, seek elsewhere. But if you are sick to death of mediocrity – welcome home. Read all about us, subscribe to our feed and steel yourself for the hunt. We work hard, we play hard, we learn everything we can – and we bow to no one.

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