Author Archives: Dustin Luther

About Dustin Luther

Founder and original blogger on Rain City Guide, Dustin has since started #InterestedIn Marketing where his team provides content and social media services that helps industry experts earn recognition as thought leaders. You can find me on Twitter (@tyr) and LinkedIn (/DustinLuther)

I’ve created a monster!

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Despite my adamant protest, many Rain City Guide contributors have gone off and created their own blogs. (what are they thinking???). However, as each and every one of these people have been very good to me, I thought I’d let you know where you can find more of their writings:

  • Russ Cofano — Realty Objectives [link removed]. While Russ is a real estate lawyer, I can tell you from our many conversations that his true love is innovation. His blog is a reflection of his interest in understanding real estate technology. (Check out his Speaking Opportunities [link removed] section to see something I might blog about soon…)
  • Ardell DellaLoggia — Ask Ardell. I don’t know about you, but I could NEVER get enough of Ardell’s writing… Where does she find the time???
  • Craig Blackmon — Real Estate Law Blog. He’s been keeping up a great real estate blog mainly geared to FSBOs.
  • Robert Gray Smith — Lake Sammamish Living. All kinds of good stuff about life on the Eastside.
  • Galen Ward— ShackBlog. He’s been out of town for a while, but when he’s around, he’s always sharing interesting stuff.
  • Marian Crkon — It’s a Feature. This might sound a little like it is coming out of left-field, but if you’re interested in Oracle applications, this blog is as good as they get!

As I often enjoy following the comments on RCG more than the posts, 🙂 I thought it also might be fun to highlight some of the great contributors (via comments) that regularly appear on Rain City Guide:

What to Look For In Your Real Estate Blog Stats

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I’m sad to report that we weren’t made an unbelievable offer for RCG, and we have no plans to change our name to either “Google’s Rain City Guide” or “Rain Zity Guide”. 😉

And now that it is April 2nd, I thought I’d get back to work by giving some advice on what to look for in the stats of your business blog.

It can be useful to know answers to questions like: Who is visiting my site? Where they are coming from? Am I giving them what they want? And (assuming you’re running a business blog), is anyone buying the product/service that I’m selling? To get at these answers, I turn to one of three different stat programs (all of them free!):

  • awstats came installed by my internet service provider (ISP) and offers the best look at long term trends for me because I’ve had has been running the entire time I’ve had RCG. It always shows slightly higher stats than the other programs because it picks up everyone who visits the site and not just those who load the whole page and/or have javascript installed. For better or worse, my host only updates the awstats once a day, and they get aggregated by month so that I can’t really make head’s or tails out of what is going on “right now” using this stat program.
  • MapStats has some interesting features that make it very useful for blogging. It not only maps all of the users out based on their IP address, but it also let’s me know where the latest visitors are coming from (i.e. what links they clicked on and/or what search term they used to get to RCG). It is updated every few minutes making it very useful in seeing what’s happing in the hear-and-now.
  • Google Analytics is an amazingly comprehensive stat program that is probably better suited for sites 100 or 1000 times bigger than RCG (or at least sites that have a staff with time to pour over all the information it gives!). It includes tons of interactive charts and you allow you to reference and cross-reference by date and referrer (and ad program if you do that kind of thing). Like awstats, it has the disadvantage that it only updates once a day, and like MapStats it misses out on people who don’t have javascript installed and running. But the charts are amazing. To give you an idea of some of the things you can see with Google Analytics, I’ve included a chart of the “loyalty” of RCG readers:

[photopress:rcg_loyalty.jpg,full,centered]

(You can read the chart as saying “In March, 10,254 visitors came only once while 743 visitors have been to Rain City Guide more than 200 times.)

Interestingly, the loyalty chart reminds me of something said by Niki Parekh of HouseValues at the MIT Forum that has resonated with me. The topic was how real estate agent using HouseValues system have to be patient because it can take months, if not years, between the time when a home owner contacts HouseValues looking for a home valuation report and the time when when they are ready to sell their home.

The relevance to the loyalty chart is that I have this not-too-small hope that more and more of the home buyers and sellers who read Rain City Guide regularly will begin to take advantage of Anna’s referral service when they are actually ready to buy and/or sell a home. While a dozen or so people contacted Anna in March, there is still plenty of room for this service to grow, and I was glad to hear Niki highlight the importance of keeping a long-term view of things.

More Stat Fun
On a related note, I’d feel like I was hiding something if I didn’t give an update on our statistics at the beginning of the month (jan, feb). Here are the same two stat charts updated to include data for March:

[photopress:unique_visitors_march.jpg,full,centered]

[photopress:total_visitors_march.jpg,full,centered]

One last thing
And finally, Happy Belated Birthday to Merv’s blog in Virginia . If you want a little background on why Merv has been so successful at real estate blogging, check out the interview I did with him back in December.

Can we create THE Real Estate Guide for Seattle?

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I’ve been playing around with wikis for quite a while, and I finally got around to installing one (that I’m happy with) on the Rain City Guide server. But before I tell you what you can do with the wiki, I should probably give some background…

What is a wiki?

In the simplest sense, a wiki is an editable webpage. Have you ever read something and thought “I know more than the person writing this!” Well, a wiki gives you this option as it is designed to allow readers to edit webpages.

[photopress:hanging_tree.jpg,thumb,alignright]The most popular wiki is, without a doubt, the Wikipedia. The Wikipedia is essentially an encyclopedia made for the web. It allows anyone to update any page. This might sound like a mess waiting to happen, but in practice, the concept has worked well because there are more good people than bad on the site and the results is an amazingly comprehensive listing of public knowledge. While running a wiki takes a certain amount of faith in the “goodness” of contributors, all public wikis tend to have really good “roll-back” features that allow an users to “undo” unhelpful comments and block IP addresses from spammers (including the wiki I installed!).

So what am I up to?
In my quest to create the best resource for real estate information in Seattle, I’ve created a wiki that will complement this blog. Whereas the blog best serves timely updates, the wiki will hopefully become a wonderful way to present information that can benefit from continuously improvements over time.

So what am a really up to?
I want to create THE real estate guide for Seattle. It will take time, but I think that if we keep plugging away, we can harness the knowledge of the Rain City Guide community to create a truly unique resource. As I really do plan for this to become “the” real estate guide for Seattle, I’ve named the site: the.raincityguide.com.

What are some uses for the wiki?
In my mind, the low hanging fruit is a real estate directory for Seattle. If you are a real estate professional in Seattle, feel free to add yourself to the real estate directory that I’ve created. Adding yourself to the directory is easy and just meant to get you comfortable with editing a wiki, while also qualifying yourself as a web-savvy real estate professional. 😉

In terms of the directory, I’ve added the following categories: Appraisers, Construction, Escrow, Handymen, Mortgage Brokers, Real Estate Photographers, Real Estate Agents, Real Estate Lawyers, Real Estate Technology, and Title Companies. But the beauty of a wiki is that if I missed your line of work (assuming it is within real estate), simply edit the page and add your profession. (By the way, I haven’t added separate webpages for any of the people in the directory yet, but if you’d like to add a page to expand on yourself and the services you provide, feel free to create a page by putting your name in brackets, as in [John Doe].

Another idea I have is almost definitely ahead-of-its-time, but could be interesting, is that anyone selling a home is free to create a webpage that describes their home on the.raincityguide.com. It will cost you nothing but time, and if you are creative enough, it might get you some interesting publicity.

Of course, I have even more ideas for how a wiki could be useful for better understanding real estate in Seattle, so don’t be too surprised if I reference wiki articles in future blog posts! With that said, I’m a huge fan of the “release early and often” philosophy (and this feature is definitely released early), so don’t expect too much from the wiki and you likely won’t be disappointed!

Also, if a wiki seems a little bit intimidating to you, feel free to play around in the sandbox. You can’t mess anything up in there, so edit away and I think you’ll quickly see how easy it is to create and edit webpages with a wiki.

New-home sales take a tumble

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The Seattle Times reports that new home sales are dropping nationally:

New-home sales fell by the biggest amount in almost nine years last month while home prices declined for a fourth straight month, raising concerns that the once high-flying housing market could be in for a rougher-than-expected landing.

The Commerce Department reported Friday that sales of new single-family homes dropped by 10.5 percent last month to a seasonally adjusted annual sales pace of 1.08 million homes.

It was the second straight monthly decline after a 5.3 percent fall in January, and marked the biggest one-month drop since April 1997.

Why Google Base Matters

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If you are building a real estate search site and you didn’t hear the warning shot fired by Google today, then you don’t really deserve to be in business much longer. While just about anyone building a real estate search tool should be concerned, I’m going to focus this article on my friends over at Zillow…

Zillow: be worried… Be very worried.

Here’s some background… Yesterday I was playing around with some google searches when I noticed a new box that shows up when you do a real estate search… as in [Seattle+real+estate]:
[photopress:google_search_box.jpg,full,centered]

This takes you to a simple (and kind of ugly) results page:
[photopress:google_result_page.jpg,full,alignright]

Where you can also go to a simple (and not very user-friendly) map of listings:
[photopress:google_result_with_map.jpg,full,centered]

My impression of Google’s latest features is that the data is VERY incomplete and the interface is ugly.

So, why should the people behind Zillow be worried?

Three reasons:

  1. You are not sticky. I’m a hard-core real estate user and after satisfying my Day 1 voyeurism, I’ve never had a good reason to visit your site again. I’ve talked with your staff about this and I know that you are not geared toward a user like me, but I recommend you find a way to create stickiness if you really are planning to be an ad-based media company. Why? See reason #2…
  2. A super-sticky site only has to be half as good at proving a home valuation to decimate your business. People who start their home search on-line do not start a home search by typing in [www.zillow.com] or even [www.realtor.com]. People start a home search (and especially people moving to a new city) by typing a query into a google search box. From now on, those people are ALL going to see Google’s offerings, and should Google decide to add a valuation tool, the tool will likely be “good enough” so that they never even both going to Zillow. Google only has to be good enough at providing a valuation in order to capture most of your market. Why? See reason #3…
  3. People are lazy. People don’t use your site to get the “exact” price of their home since you don’t even try to provide it. If you asked 10 appraisers to value a typical Seattle home, you would get 10 different answers and at least a 5% standard deviation in their answers. Even if you can improve your answers by 2% more to match the variability inherent in the emotional decisions associated with buying a home, that is still not good enough. Don’t waste much more time trying to improve your appraisal methods. You’re good enough and soon others (like Google?!?) will have a service that is good enough as well. Instead, find something sticky. You have a very talented team, so I doubt you’re suffering from lack of ideas. Nonetheless, it is clearly time to develop something that will bring me back to your site on a regular basis.

To everyone else creating real estate search tools, I’m not convinced that a vertical real estate search will ever beat Google’s offerings UNLESS they have a much better database of homes than Google. Right now, Google is seriously lacking in quality inventory. However, if the consumers go there (and they will), then you can expect brokers (and someday brokerages!) to follow with their listings.

The Living Barge Project

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Barge? Life? Art?

Enter the Living Barge Project.

The Living Barge Project is a large-scale, temporary public art installation by Sarah Kavage and Nicole Kistler that will be moored on Seattle’s Duwamish River for the month of April 2006. Native plants will be installed on an industrial barge, creating a temporary floating island full of ferns, shrubs and tree seedlings.

[photopress:BargePostcard.jpg,full,alignright]We want to use this project to create a lasting, positive dialog about the history and future of the Duwamish and the neighbors and businesses that surround it. We also want to raise citywide awareness of the Duwamish and invite people to participate in its restoration.

For years, I’ve been working with Sarah Kavage in a completely different context, so it is a lot of fun to see what she is up to in her “art” life.

Considering the opening day tour to the barge scheduled for April 1st is already sold out, this looks to be an extremely popular (yet temporary) art project. Check out the schedule of events to find out how you can experience the Living Barge.

DOJ, Copyright and Real Estate Listings

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I just noticed an interesting article published in the Inman News by RCG contributor, Russ Cofano, that provides an interesting perspective on the extent to which a listing broker can copyright a listing (requires a subscription after today).

In a recent news publication, attorney J.T. Westermeier, partner in the firm of DLA Piper Rudnick Gray Cary US LLP, said that copyright owners of property listings content are not subject to compulsory licensing and that brokers can refuse to allow their listings to be displayed publicly by third parties even if the third parties are competing brokers. In Westermeier’s view, NAR’s online listings display policy being challenged by the DOJ is consistent with the broker’s exclusive copyright rights.

Like many of the arguments that have supported the use of copyright laws to protect listing data, I believe that this argument is misguided. First, Westermeier correctly addressed only copyright rights associated with the photographs and the expressive comments to the listing. As we all should know by now, there can be no copyright to the property facts contained in a single listing. In the perfect world, I might agree that a broker could limit the use of copyrighted photographs and listing comments if indeed the broker owned all of those rights. That is when reality sets in and we realize that the multiple listing service/broker/agent interrelationship is anything but perfect.

Russ goes on to say under the current listing arrangement, most agents are independent contractors who have not given up the ownership of their text and photos associated with a listing. While some agents may have agreements with their brokers that gives up their copyright, this practice is not universal (and I assume that the practice is not even common).

If, within a single MLS, there was uniformity that led to the broker owning the copyright in the copyrightable elements of each listing, Mr. Westermeier’s argument might be a good one. The reality is that within most MLSs, and even within many brokerages, there is no such uniformity. Because of this lack of uniformity, the argument of broker copyright to support an MLS listing display policy that applies equally to the entire MLS membership just won’t work.

Cool Real Estate Search for Investors

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I noticed that Robbie has been playing around with the back-end of the home search tool he has developed for Rain City Guide, and it reminded me that I’ve been wanting to highlight one of the cool feature. The search tool allows you to sort your listings based on the price per square foot…

And why should you care? Well, here is a search of the “cheapest homes in Seattle” in terms of cost per square foot. (note I had to put in values for the low end of a home and the low end of square footage in order to eliminate all the “zero” values.) If you’re the type of buyer who is looking for a good deal this would be a great place to start. I’m not aware of any home search site in Seattle that allows you to filter things in this way so easily!

Create your own search here: Seattle Home Search.

Corporate Personalities on Display at the MIT Forum…

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Brief overview of the event…

Moderator:

Panelists:

Jim did an excellent job leading the discussion. I didn’t take notes, but in general the questions were all pretty predictable and the answers were spot on… With an exception of a “woman-related” comment by Nikesh, no one made any major gaffs, and there were no real surprises… But that is not to say the event wasn’t informative…

My initial reaction is that the four panelists did a wonderful job and all represented their companies well. I’d even be willing to go further to say that they personified their respective companies. As in:

Nikesh had a hard time sounding real and often ended up sounding like he was recording an infomercial, which is (for better of worse) my picture of HouseValues.

David made some great points, but came off at times like he hadn’t completely thought through his business model. I wish Jim had pushed him to answer the question: What if a listing agent refuses to show one of your buyers a property? Or better yet, what happens when that listing agent who DOES show a Redfin buyer a property and then sues Redfin claiming they were the procuring cause of the sale. Talking about this issue, I wish someone had pushed either Gordon or Jim to answer if they would knowingly show one of their listings to a buyer who openly said they were going to use Redfin. Agents out there: Would you?

Spencer played the role of beta tech guy. He obviously understands the real estate industry and no one really forced him on any issues so he kept from saying too much of interest (like: What comes next?).

Gordon played the role of elder experienced broker really well. He obviously knows the industry inside-and-out, and considering his interest in technology (he is also a Director at Zillow), he came off as someone willing to explore new business models.

If you were there, what was your take on the MIT Forum? Did you learn anything new?

UPDATE 1:
Niki from HouseValues has a collection of interesting reflections on the forum…

UPDATE 2:
Spencer added his thoughts on the MIT forum (and a few other conferences he’s been to recently) on the Zillow Blog.