Two years ago, I started paying MLS, NAR, CA, and SDAR dues.\u00a0 Since my wife Debra was taking on more of the lending responsibilities, I spent the bulk of my time working with the real estate agents.\u00a0 Having MLS access allowed me to hold broker opens for my agents, hold open houses for their listings, and act as a de facto “buyer’s agent” for them when they were out of town.<\/p>\n
I had a few “orphan” clients and, in the past 30 months,\u00a0 I represented about a dozen buyers and listed and sold two properties as a real estate agent.\u00a0 It’s not something I love<\/em> <\/strong>but understanding the brokerage side of the business enhanced our knowledge as lenders.\u00a0 We understand contracts, deadlines, contingencies, and conversations with our agent clients better.\u00a0 Throwing mom and dad in the station wagon, showing homes, writing offers, meeting property inspectors, negotiating repairs, and closing deals has made us better lenders<\/strong> <\/em>so I’m grateful for the experience.<\/p>\n Eight years ago, a local hedge fund type started an online real estate auction site.\u00a0 I wrote about it here<\/a> and was tangentially involved but it never really took off.\u00a0 I think it was more because of the online component and less of the auction component.\u00a0 Generally speaking, when tech types and hedge fund guys try to disinternediate the local brokerage, they lose.\u00a0 Greg wrote about the next flop <\/a>yesterday.<\/p>\n I have always been intrigued with auctions so it shouldn’t surprise you that I have followed Harcourts, the New Zealand real estate brokerage’s entry into the Southern California market.\u00a0 Harcourts has been holding non-distressed auctions for two years now with tepid results.\u00a0 I had a few thoughts about why its results are mediocre so I started to form a new firm; California House Auctions.<\/strong><\/p>\n We are a vendor.\u00a0 We have an exclusive agreement with one of the top auctioneers i<\/a>n California.\u00a0 He’s held over 600 auctions in the past thirty years and is well known in the community.\u00a0 We’ll be helping ANY real estate brokerage to sell their (non-distressed) listing through a live auction.\u00a0 We’ll charge a fee for each successful auction (paid at Read more<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Two years ago, I started paying MLS, NAR, CA, and SDAR dues.\u00a0 Since my wife Debra was taking on more of the lending responsibilities, I spent the bulk of my time working with the real estate agents.\u00a0 Having MLS access allowed me to hold broker opens for my agents, hold open houses for their listings, […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":15,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_crdt_document":"","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[2,379,6,5],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-16548","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"hentry","6":"category-general","7":"category-innovation","8":"category-marketing","9":"category-real-estate","11":"no-featured-image"},"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":2181,"url":"https:\/\/www.bloodhoundrealty.com\/BloodhoundBlog\/2181\/a-consumers-guide-to-the-divorced-real-estate-commission-will-the-negotiating-their-buyers-agents-compensation-make-buyers-more-practical\/","url_meta":{"origin":16548,"position":0},"title":"A consumer’s guide to the divorced real estate commission: Will the necessity of negotiating their buyer’s agent’s compensation make buyers more practical?","author":"Greg Swann","date":"November 8, 2007","format":false,"excerpt":"Part II: How buyers can finally take a seat at the grown-up's table When a potential home-seller calls me to set up a listing appointment, very often the first question I will hear is, \"How much do you charge?\" A motivated seller is done with the house, and now all\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Marketing"","block_context":{"text":"Marketing","link":"https:\/\/www.bloodhoundrealty.com\/BloodhoundBlog\/category\/marketing\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":236,"url":"https:\/\/www.bloodhoundrealty.com\/BloodhoundBlog\/236\/how-to-exterminate-a-cowbird-a-comedy-in-three-acts\/","url_meta":{"origin":16548,"position":1},"title":"How to exterminate a cowbird — a comedy in three acts . . .","author":"Greg Swann","date":"August 23, 2006","format":false,"excerpt":"Act I -- Why Realtors hate discount listings... People think ordinary on-the-ground Realtors hate discount listings because of the discount. That's may be true of many real estate brokers, but real-life Realtors have two much better reasons to hate discount listings. First, the Buyer's Agent will have to do all\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Disintermediation"","block_context":{"text":"Disintermediation","link":"https:\/\/www.bloodhoundrealty.com\/BloodhoundBlog\/category\/disintermediation\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":2202,"url":"https:\/\/www.bloodhoundrealty.com\/BloodhoundBlog\/2202\/a-consumers-guide-to-the-divorced-real-estate-commission-cataloging-benefits-starting-with-a-complete-catalog-of-available-homes\/","url_meta":{"origin":16548,"position":2},"title":"A consumer’s guide to the divorced real estate commission: Cataloging benefits — starting with a complete catalog of available homes","author":"Greg Swann","date":"November 10, 2007","format":false,"excerpt":"Part IV: Divorcing the real estate commissions will result in benefits not just for buyers but also for their agents and for the real estate market as a whole The National Association of Realtors is embroiled right now in a protracted anti-trust suit brought by the United States Department of\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Marketing"","block_context":{"text":"Marketing","link":"https:\/\/www.bloodhoundrealty.com\/BloodhoundBlog\/category\/marketing\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":2179,"url":"https:\/\/www.bloodhoundrealty.com\/BloodhoundBlog\/2179\/a-consumers-guide-to-the-divorced-real-estate-commission-why-buyers-and-sellers-each-paying-for-their-own-representation-is-the-most-significant-reform-that-can-be-made-today-in-residential-real-estat\/","url_meta":{"origin":16548,"position":3},"title":"A consumer’s guide to the divorced real estate commission: Why buyers and sellers each paying for their own representation is the most significant reform that can be made today in residential real estate","author":"Greg Swann","date":"November 7, 2007","format":false,"excerpt":"Part I: How we got into this mess in the first place Can we be straight with each other? I'm not a soft and subtle kind of guy, and my working assumption is that you are sick to death of being hustled -- handled -- lied to. We yammer all\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Marketing"","block_context":{"text":"Marketing","link":"https:\/\/www.bloodhoundrealty.com\/BloodhoundBlog\/category\/marketing\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":1880,"url":"https:\/\/www.bloodhoundrealty.com\/BloodhoundBlog\/1880\/the-very-best-alternative-to-the-national-association-of-realtors\/","url_meta":{"origin":16548,"position":4},"title":"The “Very Best” Alternative to the National Association of Realtors","author":"Cooksquared","date":"September 2, 2007","format":false,"excerpt":"There has been a lot of talk about how to fix the National Association of Realtors or even how to supplant the organization completely.\u00a0 As an outsider looking in, I have one simply question:\u00a0 Why are realtors paying good money to an organization that they hate?\u00a0 As an investor I\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Marketing"","block_context":{"text":"Marketing","link":"https:\/\/www.bloodhoundrealty.com\/BloodhoundBlog\/category\/marketing\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":2801,"url":"https:\/\/www.bloodhoundrealty.com\/BloodhoundBlog\/2801\/zillowcom-makes-its-first-mls-wide-feed-agreement-and-in-the-process-disintermediates-its-first-idx-cartel\/","url_meta":{"origin":16548,"position":5},"title":"Zillow.com makes its first MLS-wide feed agreement and, in the process, disintermediates its first IDX cartel","author":"Greg Swann","date":"March 19, 2008","format":false,"excerpt":"Here's the PR, which the vendor cheerleaders will have reported:*Leading real estate Web site Zillow.com and MLS Property Information Network today announced a partnership to feed listings from the New England area MLS to Zillow.com on a daily basis. This partnership initiates the first participation at the MLS level in\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Disintermediation"","block_context":{"text":"Disintermediation","link":"https:\/\/www.bloodhoundrealty.com\/BloodhoundBlog\/category\/disintermediation\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]}],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bloodhoundrealty.com\/BloodhoundBlog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16548","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bloodhoundrealty.com\/BloodhoundBlog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bloodhoundrealty.com\/BloodhoundBlog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bloodhoundrealty.com\/BloodhoundBlog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/15"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bloodhoundrealty.com\/BloodhoundBlog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=16548"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.bloodhoundrealty.com\/BloodhoundBlog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16548\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":16550,"href":"https:\/\/www.bloodhoundrealty.com\/BloodhoundBlog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16548\/revisions\/16550"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bloodhoundrealty.com\/BloodhoundBlog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=16548"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bloodhoundrealty.com\/BloodhoundBlog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=16548"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bloodhoundrealty.com\/BloodhoundBlog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=16548"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}