User profile

Status:
Name: Robert Gray Smith
Nickname: Robert Gray Smith
Member since: 2006-01-20 20:00:08
Website URL: http://www.robertgsmith.com
About me: What do I know about Washington Real Estate? I’m a native Washingtonian – I grew up in south end of Seattle, in the Seahurst neighborhood, where my parents still reside. My twin brother and I are the youngest of 6 children (5 brothers, 1 sister) all of whom live in the local area. I attended the University of Washington where I majored in Business Administration with an emphasis in Finance. I come to Real Estate as an escapee from the high-tech industry. I spent 15 years in that industry, starting out with 4.5 years in marketing at Microsoft. I went on to run my own consulting company for 12 years and then helped start a second company, Resolute Solutions Corporation. During my high-tech years I invested in rental properties and did pretty well at it. So after 15 years in high-tech I decided to make a change and joined Coldwell Banker Bain.
 

User comments

Affordable Condos or Cheap Apartments -- Who's choice is it?

January 23rd, 2007 at 5:53 am

Mark / Herb – Let’s start with that yes, “I’m exagerating and ranting a bit here” as I stated in my post. :) Nothing is actually stopping the development but it would increase the costs signifigantly. Going from there, I am curious to see the actual bill or perhaps one of you can clarify it’s intent.

My comments are based upon the newspaper article (ohh..that’s always a risky option), most specifically the objective of requiring the property owner to delay construction until everyone has moved out. Time is money as the man says, and requiring an owner and/or developer to tie up all their funds in a property and wait until the final day of the final lease is very costly. Most projects all based upon a rolling schedule — as leases expire they start in renovating units and going to market.

So let’s be conservative and say your project is on a 10-unit building at an amazing 6.5% rate with 20% down purchased at the tri-county average of $115K per-unit — your looking at $4900+/mo interest while the building sits there. That’s counting the opportunity cost of your 20% down. I suppose you could argue you are still recieving rents — but that’s going down as tenants move out.

Future of the Real Estate Industry?

July 27th, 2006 at 10:02 am

I wonder how long until we start seeing “registrations” for individual listings similar to new construction. How well will Redfin do if SOC is cut in third for agents that do not visit the home with their buyer client.

2 Reasons to Avoid Putting Ads on your Real Estate Blog

June 22nd, 2006 at 2:41 pm

That’s funny. I’ve got a better one for you Dustin, have them click here and I’ll represent them. :)

Brokers and Agents - a perplexing business model

June 10th, 2006 at 9:30 pm

Marlow/Ardell – yes, CB Bain is the one that gets all the Cendant leads for Microsoft and other corporate-relo clients. However, you have to have been with the company for 2 years to qualify to recieve those leads and then they are distributed at the office brokers discretion. I’ve only been there one year so don’t qualify. The flip side of that is I see quite a few agents whose whole business depends on those leads. “Dependency” isn’t one of my strong suites, so while it would be great to get some of my business from that I’d hate to have my whole practice based on it.

The My Home Planner I think actually is a nice system for passive lead generation from the internet. The crux of the problem is how many people pass through CB Bain’s (or any other major broker’s) site per day and don’t register? Last month I had 872 visitors to one of my sites with 16% as returning visitors yet less than 2% actually registered to contact me. I can’t imagine what the ratio is for a site like CB Bain.

That’s were I love the technology like LivePerson — it presents the possibility to engage those visitors proactively. If you see they are browsing Medina homes than jump in and engage them about that area. It’s the difference of walking into Nordstorms and being asked if they can help you with anything vs going to Target and not being acknowledged until you are ready to make a purchase.

Chief Errand Boy – I agree, anyone coming into this business relying on the broker to generate all thier leads is in trouble. What I have issues with is the brokerages passively letting the HomeValues of the world become the leaders of grabbing those internet sourced customers. Starting my own team to do this is certainly on my list of possibilities I’m considering. :)

Fremont: the Center of the Universe!

March 18th, 2006 at 6:40 pm

How I miss Fremont. Back when I had my IT consulting business we had our offices in Fremont — great place to work. I distictly remember when Adobe was moving into their offices that several businesses had signs in their windows that said “Relax – don’t be so Adobe”. Having come from Microsoft I was amused that Freemonster’s thought the Adobe folks were going to be uptight. I think they’ve fit in nicely.

I haven’t been over there in a while — are they still putting out bumper stickers about Susie Burke ruining Fremont? I totally disagree and just ran across an interesting post on that issue while googling her name for spelling

California realtors make a call for higher standards...

March 17th, 2006 at 11:26 pm

Max – love the reference to the dummies guide. Let’s hope things don’t go that direction. :)

Corporate Personalities on Display at the MIT Forum...

March 16th, 2006 at 4:14 pm

Ardell
I was working with my client (a buyer) until 9:30PM last night and missed the MIT forum dinner — for which I had already paid. Bummer.

Hmm…let’s compare that to Redfin’s hours which are 10AM – 6PM (they don’t indicate a time zone though they are here in Pacific Time zone). They may be the right fit for many buyers but don’t think the full-service agent is going to disappear anytime soon.

Good to see everyone’s comments

Crossing the MLS moat

March 10th, 2006 at 11:21 am

Derek,
the MLS castle walls has been a major source of irritation for me. I wanted to create an Excel spreadsheet to query MLS directly and create analysis of available multi-family properties. When I found the ezRETS ODBC driver I thought everything was great.

Unfortunately, the NWMLS limits this access to just a view vendors (Lightning, Tarasoft Titan). So even though I’m a licensed agent and paying MLS member with access to this same data via their web interface, I can’t create any USABLE solutions because of their policy.

So even though the National Association’s Center for Realtor(r) Technology exists to “develop a technology agenda for its members to assist in transformation of the real estate industry through adoption of advanced technology” including creating the before mentioned driver, the Northwest MLS stands boldly in the way of any innovation.

Are real estate agents an endangered species? -- upcoming article

March 5th, 2006 at 8:42 pm

I was discussing this topic with a friend of mine last night who runs a hedge fund. I think he had an interesting insight — “comparing real estate agents to travel agents is the wrong analogy. What they should be compared against is stock brokers. Everyone predicted that the internet would eliminate all the stockbrokers. Well it didn’t…it just eliminated the order takers who thought they were stock brokers. The true professionals that provide good advise are making as much money as ever if not more”.

I thought his analogy was dead on. There will always be a segment of the population that will value the services of a professional agent. As I said in an earlier reply to Glen, I’m rather hoping this disintermediation of data will drive out the 20% effor agents.

Also, I do admit to adding the “dodo” remark to spark some feedback. I’m actually a little more optimistic about the future for those agents (like Ardell and I’d like to think “me”) who treat their job as a profession.

Are real estate agents an endangered species? -- upcoming article

March 3rd, 2006 at 3:33 pm

Glenn,
in reality I don’t think the technology will eliminate agents…particularly the good ones. But it does foster an interesting coversaton. What I rather hope is that services like Redfin, Zillow etc will actually weed out the agents that put in the 20% effort. The flip side is that I hope it doesn’t drive revenues so far south that it drives the good agents out of the market. Those who hope for “cheap realtors” may end up ruing what they ask for — cheaper commissions at the cost of superior service.

The Lame List - Real Estate Web Sites that Suck

February 20th, 2006 at 11:10 pm

All-in-all I agree that the real estate industry is way behind on the consumer experience. I think the problem may be that they are still focused on it as a medium for brand awareness and a “check box” of “yeah, we have a website too”.
My brokerage, Coldwell Banker Bain, is investing a lot of money this year in updating their site and improving the user experience. For example, you can pick which agent you want to work with online, save search profiles and have daily emails sent of new matches.
Even with this, they are missing the point. As the agent that gets picked, all I receive is an email with their contact info. No information about what they’ve looked at, desired neighborhood, etc. It’s a total disconnect.
As to agent sites — well, most are not that technically savvy on SEO, website development, SFA(sales force automation), etc. They are generally directed to a vendor that spins out templated sites. Nobody is educating them that they are spending a lot of money for a site that will generate zero SEO benefit because it has the same content as 200 other sites.
Now I’m all for hearing any constructive criticism about my site, but it’s also an evolving beast. It’s primary purpose at the moment is branding and positioning on search engines for target market. As that kind of site, it’s there to meet my goal of expanding my client base.
Blogging comes next. Then at some point, an SFA system where my clients can login to check status of deals, summary of homes I’ve previewed, signed documents etc. Ahhh…I’d have it all done now…except at some point I still need to get out and sell houses. :)

Speechless on eminent domain

January 20th, 2006 at 1:31 pm

Fortunately, Washington State’s Constition is more restrictive on this isssue.

In June 2005, Attorney General Rob McKenna issued a statement regarding Kelo v New London, Connecticut stating that “The Washington State Constitution prohibits the use of the power of eminent domain to condemn private property for private use and reserves to the judiciary the role in determining what constitutes a public use.”

Press release available at: http://atg.wa.gov/releases/rel_EminentDomain_062405.html