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November 28, 2006

Ask not for whom the MLS toils . . .

by

Suburban Phoenix Real Estate Broker

Author website

…it toils for brokers.

Pittsburgh Homes Daily has news of a new IDX policy for agents: None. Mere agents will not be able to syndicate or even frame data from the West Penn Multi-List’s Internet Data Exchange (IDX). Only the main site of each brokerage will be able to feature the feed, and agents will not even be allowed to frame that on their own web sites.

In other words, if a prospective buyer wants to search the MLS, he or she will have to go to the main web site of a brokerage. As Larry Cragun points out at RealEstateUndressed, any leads captured by the broker will probably not be shared with agents for free.

Nice…

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November 28, 2006

I may soon be the weakest link at BloodhoundBlog, but I’ll always be the strongest linker . . .

by

Suburban Phoenix Real Estate Broker

Author website

Cathleen Collins, Richard Riccelli and Jeff Brown: I’m hopelessly out-classed three times in one day. And we’re adding another first-class real estate weblogger tomorrow. Nothing for it but to turn outward to the vast riches of the RE.net. Here’s some stuff that has caught my eye:

Would you like to know my secret shame? My own mother is a Luddite. Every year we talk about getting her a Macintosh with broadband for Christmas, and every year we put it off another year. All she really needs is email and the web — and she has a natural motivation in the form of a burgeoning herd of grandchildren. But she will not hear of it. Programming her VCR is as far up the technology ladder as she is willing to climb. So this little gizmo, cited on TechCrunch, is actually of interest to me. My mom has never forgiven us for ditching the film cameras — double prints! — and it’s a rare day when I think to print out and snail-mail digital photos. This might be just the thing…

Kris Berg is back, and in top form. Make time to savor her writing.

Oops! BusinessWeek says property values are up, this per Zillow.com’s Q3 Zindices and other sources. Who knows if it’s true or not, and I have no ability to weigh any but the most local evidence. But the article does highlight the essential weakness of measuring market activity by median prices.

Todd Tarson sends thoughtful notes in our general direction. In the second link he is raving about Richard Riccelli’s single-property web site for his own home in Boston, which raves I heartily endorse. This is a gorgeous expression of the single-property web site idea. Be sure to take a look at how it is put together.

Russ Cofano at Realty Objectives on a ruling an NAR motion to dismiss the DOJ anti-trust suit:

So what does this mean? As I said earlier, I believe this case will go to trial unless the parties reach compromise. NAR has been, to date, staunch in its belief that it will not settle this case if settlement means a Read more

November 28, 2006

Win-Win: A Recent Case Study

by

Real Estate Investments Broker

Author website

Win-Win is a concept that’s been popular for a few decades, especially in the real estate industry. Most of the time though it’s been talk and not much walk. Since it supposedly refers to the buyer and seller in the same transaction, many would argue it’s a cruel hoax, and in fact an oxymoronic phrase. How can the buyer and seller both win?

It can only happen when the buyer and seller agree that their goals can only be realized with each other’s help. Become a team. It must be understood that taking an adversarial position will end any chance of both sides winning. This usually happens when one or usually both sides realize the market hasn’t and probably won’t provide the same solution they can by working together. Team players on the other hand can share in total victory.
We Win!

This approach is almost impossible in the sales of homes in which the buyer intends to occupy their purchase. In that situation both sides by definition want obviously different outcomes. (The Real Estate Zebra begs to differ, saying most home buyers and sellers can team up for a mutual win.) Though they eventually can come to agreement, it’s nature is almost always adversarial. Captain Obvious lives. However, in the investment world, it sometimes happens that a buyer and seller can do something for each other that the market has failed miserably to provide.

Here is such a story.

Ellen and Rosa are my clients, referrals from family. Ellen had already executed the first leg of her Plan successfully. Rosa and I had just finished creating her Plan and were ready for the first leg, which was the sale of her condo. She’d acquired it several years ago and had well over $100k in net equity. She needed as much cash as possible in order to get her Plan going. She is 50ish and knows her retirement will not be more than marginally adequate if she doesn’t change her approach now.

Ellen desparately wanted a local condo in which she could opt to live at some future time. She was now living in a duplex that allowed Read more

November 28, 2006

Charmed, I’m sure

by

Marketing Provocateur

Author website

DC: A very charming Georgetown house in the very center of the east village…

CHICAGO: Very charming Gunderson style home located on great block…

SF: Sunnyvale charmer! Updated kitchen. Great neighborhood…

Let’s step past the navel-gazing** about why most real estate copy is so dreadfully banal, and step up to the question: What can you do in the next 10 minutes or so to make your listings more attention getting, more interesting, and most of all, more effective?

And let’s start by dispensing with the myth — if not mystique — that marketing and advertising is more difficult to understand than other professions.*** Doctor, lawyer, real estate agent: It’s all about problem solving.

“Doctor, I’m feeling pressure in my chest.”
“Counselor, I’ve been sued for divorce.”
“[Your name here], I want to sell my house.”

There is one key difference. Those professionals are looking for solutions to clear and present problems. You, however, start with the solution in hand — a property for sale. Your job is to find the problem. Advantage you, for therein lies the path to better copy.

You simply need to become a method writer. At your keyboard stop and think: “What problems do my listings solve? And for whom?” Write your answers in simple declarative sentences. One after another. Action verbs preferred. And go easy on the adjectives and adverbs — no matter how charming, elegant, and delightful you find them.

Here are two to get you started.

For that in-town condo:
The end of your two-hour commute — this is a country home in the city with the kind of kitchen that causes suburban envy.

Or that suburban ranch:
In the basement…your health club. In the master suite…your day spa. In the family room…day care. Out back…your florist. In this home…your new life.

While I can’t see your listings, I already know the kinds of problems for which you have solutions.

“I’m eating at the same three restaurants every weekend…”
“I never see my kids because I’m commuting hours each day…”
“I’m sick of taking my clothes to a laundromat…
“I’ll never meet a man living out here alone in the boonies…”
“Yada, yada, yada…”

The more specific the problems you describe, the better your copy Read more

November 28, 2006

More on Jay Reifert’s crusade to give buyers control over procuring cause

by

Realtor, Staging Consultant

Author website

In his comments on Russell Shaw’s article, Jay Reifert Is Tired of NAR Hiding the Truth, Jay Reifert warns us early on that he is

spoiling to get this fight into the public eye

I suspect this may be driving his over-the-top diatribe. Too bad, because I think he makes a valid point that the practice of acknowledging procurring cause is not (always) in the client’s best interest. And in states like Arizona, agency is all about the client’s interest, which comes first, even ahead of the agent’s self interest.

Jay describes a situation that really does happen, way too often:

Buyers, though, are screwed over by Procuring Cause, PC, all the time. Here’s how it works: They go out looking at homes,willy nilly, not having any idea that they are creating bligations to any licensees. (The Secret Contract.) They find a house. Then, they begin researching their next steps.As part of their research, they discover buyer agency. Then,they start interviewing buyer agents. Then, they discover that the buyer agents are afraid to touch them, because they have already seen the home they think they want to pursue and the buyer agent doesn’t want to risk losing his/her fee to another licensee who may file a Procuring Cause claim.Hence, the buyer-due to no fault on their own part, as PC has NEVER been disclosed to them-loses their right to representation. It happens all the time. Theft of buyer rights. It’s heinous.

I would absolutely love it if home buyers always came armed with the type of agreement that Jay suggests, putting listing agents on notice that the buyer is represented. Lord knows I try to educate my own buying clients — I explain the benefit of always having me escort them even to new home builds and open houses, I explain the disadvantages to the client that can be created if they don’t have me escort them, I give them a supply of my business cards, I even give them the American Dream Home Buyer’s Passport. Still, I find myself running interference because my buyer client just happened to stop at an Open House she had Read more

November 28, 2006

One more hound on the trail . . .

by

Suburban Phoenix Real Estate Broker

Author website

We’re adding one more contributor to our roster today:

Ronan Doyle lives in Boston and works as an advertising agency creative executive. He loves distinctive homes and is building his wealth house by house: Search, buy, improve, enjoy, sell — then repeat the process.

Ronan know more about houses — about what makes a house work — than anyone I’ve ever met. Between Restoration Hardware and the two-year capital gains income tax exclusion, he is a one-man urban renewal project.

Jim Duncan at Real Central VA wonders if I might be wrong about the audience for real estate weblogs. In fact I could be. There may be more real estate consumers out there than I suppose, and they may be more persistent in their reading than I surmise.

For my own part, I don’t see them — very much the contrary. As I argued a week-and-a-half ago:

If you’re writing a real estate weblog, you’re blogging for people who are fanatical about real estate. Who would that be? Realtors, lenders and the vendors who live off their business. Bubbleheads and people on the bubble about bubbleheadedness. Real estate investors. That’s it. There might be some peeking-in/checking-up traffic from past clients, and perhaps some dedicated fans. There will be drop-ins from people shopping for Realtors, but they will not become dedicated readers. How do I know this? Because they don’t care. You can tell who cares about your weblog by looking at your Technorati links. There are 55 million weblogs out there, but the only ones linking to you are produced by other real estate fanatics. That’s not a wave. That’s the water…

Even so, the simple fact is that we are focused the way we are because this is what is interesting to us. I don’t tell other people what to do, and I may be completely wrong about locally-focused, consumer-oriented real estate weblogs. We actually have a nascent weblog devoted to those kinds of ideas, but we don’t give it any time.

In any case, it may turn out that Ronan Doyle is our brave initiative to straddle the line. Ronan is truly a real estate fanatic, Read more

November 27, 2006

The historical preservation movement deploys a veiled theivery to create compulsory museums

by

Realtor, Staging Consultant

Author website

Richard Riccelli asks

Historic districts: Good for buyers? Sellers? Realtors? This guy??

I say: depends on what the buyer wants; maybe but maybe not; neutral; that guy was robbed!

Buyers of any property, real or personal, get to celebrate their own personal tastes by buying what they like and can afford. So are historic districts good for buyers? It depends on whether that’s important to the buyer. Some of my buying clients like HOAs, others loathe them. Some like brand-new builds, others want rambling ranches circa 1970. That’s their business. My business is to help them find whatever they want.

I happen to prefer older homes to newer ones. But I don’t believe older homes are physically better than newer ones. Better architecture and craftsmanship come at a price… then and now. A house built for the middle class buyer of 1935 is probably of similar quality to a house built for today’s middle class buyer. Similar quality but less appropriate for today’s lifestyle. Yet the historic middle class home, particularly in an historic district, is more expensive for today’s buyer than the middle class home in the suburbs. Why? Because the historic home is more rare, and in a free market that makes it more precious.

Right now there is a 3 bedroom, 2 bath house listed on 124 W Coronado Rd in Phoenix’s Willo district. It’s a plain 2,277 square foot brick ranch with stained concrete floors and a single car garage that’s been converted to a storage facility. Because of the age, I wouldn’t expect much in the way of closets or kitchen storage. When the house was new, it would have been smaller — the second bath and master bedroom walk-in closet described in the listing would have been added later — and built for the working class. The asking price on this listing is $675,000.

In Peoria, that $675,000 will buy you a 3 bedroom, 3.25 bath 3,045 square foot house with casita (separate guest quarters) and 3-car garage on a golf course lot. This house has a highly upgraded gourmet kitchen — stainless, granite, maple — with a wine room, among Read more

November 27, 2006

On the internet, everyone sees through your self-loathing . . .

by

Suburban Phoenix Real Estate Broker

Author website

New contributor Richard Riccelli has already figured out the true secret to weblogging: Get somebody else to do it. Watch as he gets me to cite this smug essay by Michael Kinsley in Slate Magazine:

Poor Joe! Had the World Wide Web driven him crazy?

If so, we are all crazy now. There is something about the Web that brings out the ego monster in everybody. It’s not just the well-established tendency to be nasty. When you write for the Web, you open yourself up to breathtakingly vicious vitriol. People wish things on your mother, simply for bearing you, that you wouldn’t wish on Hitler.

But even in their quieter modes, denizens of the Web seem to lug around huge egos and deeply questionable assumptions about how interesting they and their lives might be to others.

This is strange. Anonymity, for better or for worse, is supposed to be one of the signature qualities of the Web. As that dog in The New Yorker cartoon famously says, “On the Internet, nobody knows you’re a dog.” The Internet is a place where you can interact with other people and have complete control over how much they know about you. Or supposedly that is the case, and virtually everybody on the Internet is committed to achieving that goal.

But anonymity does not actually seem to interest many of the Web’s most devoted users. They are the ones who start their own sites, or sign up for MySpace, or submit videos to YouTube. Quite the opposite: The most successful Web sites seem to be those where people can abandon anonymity and use the Internet to stake their claims as unique individuals. Here is a list of my friends. Here are all the CDs in my collection. Here is a picture of my dog. On the Internet, not only does everybody know that you’re a dog. Everybody knows what kind of dog, how old, your taste in collars, your favorite dog food recipe, and so on.

Here’s my take: Kinsey’s insufferable vanity is sneering at the insufferable vanities of others. In the end, he is doing what they are doing, but Read more

November 27, 2006

The Carnival of Real Estate . . .

by

Suburban Phoenix Real Estate Broker

Author website

… is up at Real Estate Investing For Real — but don’t blink or you’ll miss it. Only four posts are cited this week, because Joshua Dworkin elected to impose a judging standard that — in my opinion — has nothing to do with real estate weblogging. Not sour grapes on my part: We went with a Russell Shaw entry this week.

But the simple fact is, as much as we might talk about wanting to appeal to consumers (not so much here, of course), the audience for real estate weblogs consists of real estate professionals: Realtors, lenders, appraisers, investors, vendors and technologists.

All weblogs are written by and for fanatics, and, with few exceptions — one of whom we will introduce to you tomorrow — there are very few fanatical real estate consumers. Swallow hard and get used to it.

Last week, someone at CoRE HQ had the idea of citing all the losing posts. I hated the idea at the time — too much like a “Participation” ribbon at the Special Olympics — but I don’t hate it quite as much this week. I’m grateful for the opportunity to see what I missed.

I’ll tip my hat to Joshua Dworkin for hewing to his own standards — even as I pray that no one copies them…

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November 27, 2006

Baby, you can drive my sale

by

Marketing Provocateur

Author website

Discovered in my morning paper that the parking spot behind my house is worth more than the house. (Click quick before the item goes into the paper’s gated community of unread articles).

Average cost per square foot of condo in Boston to park yourself: $561.07.

Average cost per square foot of open air pavement in Boston to park your car: $1,736.11.

Priceless. No wonder my neighbor describes our block as parking spaces with attached row houses (or in the parlance, “townhouses”).

I see it as a marketing lesson in real estate. Good advertising is not about what you are dying to sell. But about what clients are hot to buy. And how your listings solve their problems. More about that — and how it can help you write better sales copy that attracts more buyers — in a future post.

For now it’s a lesson that I, too, need to learn.

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November 27, 2006

New tricks: Just how much noise can a pack of big dogs can make . . . ?

by

Suburban Phoenix Real Estate Broker

Author website

With this post, this little puppy is making sounds like a grown-up hound dog…

BloodhoundBlog began five months ago as a Phoenix-area brokerage-oriented real estate weblog. We became a sort of hybrid group-blog when we added mega-producing Phoenix-area Realtor Russell Shaw. We stuck another paw in the water when we invited San Diego-based investment broker Jeff Brown to come play with us in the Dual Agency Smack-Down. And that went so well that we decided to grow BloodhoundBlog into a true group-blog.

We’ve always been national in the scope of our interests, but now we are truly national (or at least bi-coastal) in our reach. Moreover, the webloggers we are adding will continue the BloodhoundBlog tradition of rigorous real estate analysis — thoughtful without being dour, informative without being pedantic, disagreeing, where we must, without being disagreeable.

These are our contributors:

Jeff Brown is a San Diego-based real estate investments broker. He makes millionaires of his ordinary-investor clients. If that’s not enough to make you smile, his sage, folksy wit should do the job.

Cathleen Collins is a Phoenix-area Realtor. With a background in hi-tech project-management and a deft hand in customer service, she is building a respectable listing practice in the Historic Districts of Downtown Phoenix.

Tony Fredericks is a San Francisco-area roofing contractor who is using his surplus income to build a real estate investment empire. Tony is a wine aficionado who brings a fine discrimination to everything he does.

Richard Riccelli is a Boston-based direct marketing guru. His advertising agency specializes in magazine circulation, but here Richard will deploy his vast expertise and rapier wit to real estate marketing issues.

Russell Shaw is a mega-producing Realtor working in Metropolitan Phoenix. He and his team close approximately 400 transactions a year, consistently putting Russell among the top 30 Realtors nationwide.

Greg Swann is a Phoenix-area Realtor and real estate broker. The most prolific of our contributors, Greg is not completely happy with anything until he has picked it apart and put it back together in his own way.

Room for one more? We are interested, now and always, in considering new contributors. If you can write with style, grace Read more

November 27, 2006

Jay Reifert Is Tired Of NAR Hiding The Truth

by

Mega-Producing Realtor

Author website

Good news, Jay, I’ll take this one for $200.00. I doubt that Laurie Janik is going to respond to you (as – per you – they have “something to hide”):

You’re a riot, Steve. My contract is a proprietary document, built out of years worth of my research, experience and fine tuning. Why don’t you ask Coca Cola to post their secret recipe here? I have no intention of putting it out here for you, and your kind, to copy.

Why don’t you call Laurie Janik, General Counsel of the National Association of Realtors? over at NAR headquarters in Chicago and ask Laurie to do something about me? I am just spoiling to
get this fight into the public eye, so that the abuses endemic with Procuring Cause, the silent theft of home buyer rights,will come to the forefront of consumer consciousness.

I have no qualms, whatsoever, about the truth of this situation getting out. Unlike NAR…I have nothing to hide.

The buyer agent document you use is a SECRET that you won’t share with other agents? And you think that you are being ignored by Laurie Janik because “NAR has something to hide”? What a self-important gas bag you are. Please allow me to let a little of the air out. And to answer your burning question, yes Jay, I did Google “procuring cause””reifert”. Anyone who cares to can just hit the hyperlink.

I found your views and attitudes so self centered and oblivious of how the world works (the one everybody else lives in) that – before I reply – I am including your comments on Bloodhound Blog here in their entirety.

Thank you for the kind words, Trevor. The Procuring Cause that is of importance, here, is Realtor? Procuring Cause, hereafter–in this post–PC. Although there is a legal doctrine of procuring cause, that isn’t the breed of which any of us speak, when talking about PC. NAR hands down the guidelines on PC arbitrations, but it is up to each panel–very often composed of hard core PC trappers–to interpret the events which will determine who is actually PC in any given transaction.When Read more

November 26, 2006

Sunday real estate news: There may, in fact, truly be a day beyond tomorrow . . .

by

Suburban Phoenix Real Estate Broker

Author website

The Arizona Republic is positively ripe with real estate stories today.

First up, the amazingly ugly Chateaux on Central condominium development is being forced into bankruptcy. The homes were to sell for $2- to $4-million for apartments as many as six-stories tall — not a misprint. Freddy Krueger and Damien from The Omen took a pass on choice units, thus exhausting the entire market for this giant gargoyle of a structure.

In that same column, ace real estate reporter Catherine Reagor suggests that there might be a connection between lower interest rates and increased buyer activity. Jeepers! Who’d ‘a thunk it?!

Economist Elliott Pollack says nice things about the Valley’s growth prospects, so he must be making it all up. Cliff’s Notes: Fundamentals strong, new housing over-built, possibly still as long as two years to shake out.

One of the things I love about this place is that people are audacious. We all know about the giant fake lake in Tempe, but did you know that we have not one but two airstrip-based subdivisions? Garage in front, hangar in back with accessways leading to a private airstrip. In Gilbert, there is a boat-racing subdivision — a long, skinny lake surrounded by houses with docks. They run nationally-televised boat races there. Comes news today that we are about to get our own micro-winery. Modeled on the idea of a micro-brewery, a vintner plans to set up business in Downtown Tempe.

Finally, there is a fun story on the development problems posed by hundreds of old military bombing sites in Pinal County. The explosive charges used in the practice bombs were very small — but still plenty enough to burn down a house. The interesting thing is that we’re talking about Pinal County — too much, too soon, too often declared DOA in the housing downturn. It could be there are people in the real estate business who have heard there really was a day before yesterday, and there may, in fact, truly be a day beyond tomorrow…

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November 26, 2006

Furious fusillades of blistering BubbleHead flatulence: Foghorn Leghorn declares “WAR!”

by

Suburban Phoenix Real Estate Broker

Author website

Well.

That was even more lame than I expected. Foghorn Leghorn–er, Keith at HousingPanic has declared war by commanding his troops to… read.

And to read BloodhoundBlog of all things!

Yeah, that’ll work…

The specific marching orders are pretty stupid, but that’s hardly a surprise.

The troops are supposed to prove that the Phoenix housing market has crashed, which has proved to be a problem, given that it hasn’t.

They are supposed to “flame away, and hard,” with the objective of chasing away future clients. Do your best, boys. Anyone who will listen to you — I don’t want.

This one I love:

Dig up postings, articles and quotes from Greg Swann for all to see. Where he admits having unlicensed or out of work realtors working for him.

The specific post cited says nothing of the sort, but, of course, Keith can’t read. But most BubbleHeads are much smarter than their “leader,” so do please read all you can here. This is one of the most serious real estate weblogs on the net. If you open your minds, you’ll learn a lot.

There is more — for example, a repetition of the false charge that I have posted comments at HP — but the whole call to action is pretty pitiful.

How’s the war going? I think this comment says it all:

What a pile of excrement is here in this blog.

It’s a waste of time to try to read blood whatever.

You better go anywhere else on the web.

This site is brain dead.

In other words, the poster is fighting out of his class and he knows it.

To our BubbleHead visitors: Even if you can’t stand on your own, surely you can do better than this moron you follow so slavishly…

And to our regular readers: This will be all heat, no substance. You do not have to respond to every comment — nor to any of them. They are not paying you for your time. I tend to choose comments by people who are better-behaved and who are raising points I want to talk about.

Ultimately, this has nothing to do with real estate. This is about the wounded vanity of a vile, ignorant 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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