Category Archives: General

Local Treasure: Welkom to Ballard!

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As some of you may have noticed, I’ve been taking a break from writing to take care of my beautiful baby boy. During this time off the Ballard community has been so wonderful to me and my family, I thought it would be fun to highlight one of the aspects that makes Ballard a wonderful place to raise a family. Interestingly, this will likely give a different (although hopefully complementary) view of life in Ballard than the video that Dustin linked to the other day.

Ballard is known for having one of the largest Norwegian populations outside of Norway. But the Nordic influences are not limited to Norway as there is a huge Scandinavian influence all around. Along with the Nordic Heritage Museum, there are many local specialty stores that sell things like pickled herring, specialty breads and other traditional Nordic foods.

In addition, the Leif Ericson Lodge plays a wonderful role in uniting the local population through a ton of community events. Lief Ericson Lodge was first organized on May 13 1903 and currently has 2,000 members. Just this past Saturday it had a large bazaar with lots of music, dancing, singing and wonderful food.

We became involved in the community through a wonderful dance class (called Barneleikarringen) that Dustin attends with our daughter every Tuesday night. The class is taught by a wonderful elderly couple who dedicate their time and effort in order to share their cultural dances and stories with the kids. Despite the fact that neither Dustin or I have Nordic heritage (that we know of anyway), everyone at the lodge has been wonderful to our family. (By the way, anyone with children is invited to attend this great dance class… It starts at 6:30pm every Tuesday and the suggested donation is $5/month, which probably doesn’t even cover the cost of the treats that pass out after each class.)

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There are a bunch of benefits to taking part in this dance class that the kids simply love. For starters, they get to walk in the Norwegian Constitution Day Parade as well as dance at a slew of community functions.

(By the way, they also have dancing lessons geared toward adults, but I don’t know much about that… yet!)

The strong Nordic roots are just one more reason that Ballard is a wonderful place to live.

Lots More than Just the Sexiest Real Estate Agents

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It’s been a while since I had a real “ramble” post, but considering the occasion, hopefully people will forgive me for trying to cover a lot of ground in one post.

Happy Birthday to Rain City Guide!!!
It’s been one year since I wrote my first post (Hello World, of course) on Rain City Guide. I probably would have taken down the first post since it was just a test except we got a comment right off the bat and I’ve never been very good at deleting comments…

I have no (clear) idea where RCG will go over the next year, but considering the real estate industry is clearly in a pivotal position and I’m extremely excited to have front row seats.

New Broker For Anna
LTD Real EstateWe’re excited to announce that, as of today, Anna has officially switched her broker to LTD Real Estate. This major change for Anna began when I struck up a conversation with a broker at LTD, Jon Ribary, after noticing that we were both developing tools to map Seattle listings this past summer (who wasn’t???). Just like my gHomes tool, his search tool hasn’t kept up with some of the amazing tools that have been released recently (including ours!). However, our similar interests led to many conversations and ultimately a much stronger bond between Rain City Guide and LTD. Anna and I look forward to working closer with Jon and his staff in the days, weeks, months and years to come. If you’re wondering, don’t expect much to change here at Rain City Guide based on Anna’s move to LTD (besides the logo on our sidepanel!). Anna’s move is really related to the fact that she was searching out a broker who understands that the real power of marketing on the internet is when you use the tools to communicate with potential clients as oppose to talking at them. About the only thing you can expect to change is that Jon and I have some ideas for side-projects that will allow RCG to continue innovating so that we can achieve our mission of being the best resource for real estate information in Seattle.

Ride Home from the MIT Forum
The MIT forum is tonight and it is sold out in a major way. I definitely plan to attend, but I have a minor issue in that we’re a one-car family and Anna has something else that she must attend. Getting between my work in Downtown Seattle and Downtown Bellevue tomorrow afternoon without a car will be easy. The part of the trip that I’m not sure I can handle is the trip to my home in Crown Hill this evening. Is there someone attending who wouldn’t mind giving me a lift home after the forum is over? Found a ride home! Feel free to email me directly.

Sexiest Real Estate Agents
I was checking my log files earlier today when I noticed that someone came to Rain City Guide based on the Google Search: [sexiest+real+estate+agents]. I was deeply saddened to find out that we are ranked a dismal #2 on this all-important search. So, if you are a blogger interested in helping us celebrate our birthday in a zany way, consider linking to this post with the phrase “sexiest real estate agents”. I’ll bet it won’t even take a full week for us to be rated #1! Okay, it is obviously getting late, so I’m going to go to bed and try to sleep off the celebratory Champaign that Anna and I cracked open tonight!

Interview with Jonathan Miller of Matrix

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[photopress:jonathanm.jpg,thumb,alignright]Jonathan Miller is definitely one of the hottest real estate bloggers around. With a constant flow of interesting insights, Matrix has quickly gained a national following. For me, he personifies the image of a blogger who is able to demonstrate their expertise through blogging.

What inspired you to start blogging?

Actually, it was podcasting. I got excited about podcasting last year and toyed with the idea of starting my own weekly podcast. Early podcasts like Slacker Astronomy, Evil Genius Chronicles and Rock and Roll Geek Show (before commercial media entered the arena) showed me that given enough passion toward your craft, the average person can develop a following without a whole lot of funding. That’s democracy in action. I still listen to various podcasts everyday and very little radio. With a wife and 4 kids and a business, the whole idea of time slicing is very appealing to me. However, when I sat down to actually do it, I realized this would not be a practical venue to deliver information to my clients and the public on a regular basis. I wanted a more spontaneous medium and I love to write. All the while I had been reading a few blogs up until that point, but I hadn’t considered doing my own blog. At the point I realized that running a blog was the way to go. In fact, I run two. Matrix which covers the national real estate economy and Soapbox which covers the real estate appraisal industry. On Soapbox, I have two appraisers who contribute some posts every week (not unlike RCG).

Are there any special topics or issues that you enjoy covering?

Lately its been real estate jargon – the communication of real estate information. For such a big investment, communication is not really standardized and its pretty low-brow. Basic terminology, broker speak, media characterizations of the market, etc. Its all fair game. Prior to that, I was all jacked up about the stats that we rely on from NAR, OFHEO and the Commerce Dept.

What have you done to personalize your blog?

Well, for one thing, I insert my own personal experiences as they relate to the post to let the reader know the level of my familiarity with the topic. I took the photo on the masthead of the post and I try to use my own photos as much as possible. Myself and my firm collect photos of New York and put some of them in our photo gallery on our company web site. One other thing that I enjoy and helps personalize Matrix is the title of each post. To be contrarian, I make them long and show contrast with a little sarcasm. Its the highlight of each post for me and the last step.

Do you have any favorite posts?

Definitely. My favorite post was done as a result of the release of my 3rd quarter market report which was covered in the front page of the NY Times. That story was largely credited with signifying the change in the market from frenzy to stable (so I am told). I was so inundated with calls for several days from government agencies, Wall Street investment banks, lenders, appraisers, real estate brokerage owners that I wrote this post so I didn’t have to say the same things over and over. The surge in traffic was an amazing. Manhattan After The Hoopla Over A 12.7% Drop: What Really Happened In 3Q 05? A number of brokerage firms printed the post out and distributed it to their brokers to help them answer questions about the market and Big media linked to it. Very gratifying.

What are some of your favorite blogs (real estate or otherwise)?

There are simply too many real estate blogs to name all of them here. I check in with about 100 blogs every morning using bloglines.com. Of course, RCG has become a daily read. Curbed gets special mention because they have been very supportive from the very beginning and opened my eyes as to how creative you can be in the delivery of real estate information. I write a weekly post for them called Three Cents Worth which has been a lot of fun. For New York stuff, I like the Gothamist for general NY activities, The Real Deal for NY Real Estate News and Property Grunt for his insight. For bubble sites, I like Housing Panic, Housing Bubble and Northern NJ Housing Bubble. For Big Media, I enjoy The Walk-Through (NYT) and Businessweek’s Hot Properties. For financial/business/markets I like Big Picture (amazing volume of content), The Stalwart (very sharp insight), Daniel Gross’ moneyblog (always great content), underthecounter (for perspectives on the financial markets), Calculated Risk (the best charts on the internet). For humor I like: Dave Barry (The king of short but hysterical posts) and the Dilbert Blog (amazing volume of content and insight). For marketing I like Seth Godin’s blog and Guy Kawasaki’s – full of common sense insights.

What tools/websites do you find most helpful in putting together your blog?

Nothing in particular. My developer took care of setting the sites up in WordPress and I requested certain tweaks to the features.

How does blogging fit into the overall marketing of your business?

It fits very well as far as indirect marketing goes. It extends the reach of my expertise which then benefits both my residential and commercial valuation forms. But honestly, that is a fringe benefit. I just like the idea of being able to share my ideas on a topic I never grow tired of.

What plans do you have to improve your blog over this next year?

On the technology side, I plan to upgrade to the new version of WordPress which will add more admin controls. On the user side, probably more user interaction, but I am not sure yet. I suspect most changes will come on impulse rather than some type of strategic plan – that’s the fun of it. Its really all about the content though – fresh insight rather than regurgitating what’s already out there..

What is the one tool or feature that you wish your site had?

I’ll know it when I see it. I think I am set for now.

What do you think real estate blogging will look like 3 years from now?

I imagine there will be a crash and burn of a large number of sites as their owners lose interest or market conditions change. They will be replaced by a slew of new sites. I can see how many webmasters make it their life’s work for a short period of time and then lose interest. For example, whether or not there is a housing bubble that bursts, I can’t see bubble blogs leading the way 3-4 years from now. It will be old news. New real estate topics or causes will take their place. Thats the beauty of blogging. There is virtually no startup costs other than time, so the response to various issues can be immediate.

Your Credit Score has Changed

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Just as I was getting use to the old algorithm, now a new algorithm!

The nation’s three consumer credit reporting companies – Equifax, TransUnion and Experian – announced a new credit scoring system designed to simplify and improve the credit process for both borrowers and credit grantors.

By combining cutting-edge, patent-pending analytic techniques with a highly intuitive scale for scoring, VantageScore will provide consumers and businesses with a highly predictive, consistent score that is easy to understand and apply. VantageScore uses score ranges from 501 to 990.

There is more information on VantageScore here: VantageScore.

There has been much talk about providing borrowers and business with a more consistent method of evaluating credit. For even the most experienced people in the lending industry, credit scoring is a confusing subject. A few weeks ago I gave a presentation with Mark Armstrong, American Reporting Company to a group of real estate agents, and my impression was that they seemed starved for accurate information on the subject of credit. In the next few days, I will post parts of that presentation here.

UrbanDigs has more.

What do real estate industry people talk about?

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My 10-12 weeks of “blogging” have been quite interesting for me, in that for 15 years I mostly have talked about the real estate industry with other industry people, and talked about local real estate with my own clients and local agents. Blogging opens up talking to consumers generally about the industry, which is in and of itself, quite a revelation.

Given I will be attending the MIT dinner event tomorrow, I am contrasting the speakers of that event with the participant theories of my normal industry discussions. Tomorrow’s event will be “the newbies” Zillow and Redfin plus HouseValues, whom I wouldn’t call a “newbie”.

I am “lifting” this discussion of the past few days from the forum that has been around since 1995 or so, and I have participated in since 1998. I thought this particular discussion was a huge complement to whatever I may hear tomorrow night. For the benefit of those attending tomorrow night, you might want to read this beforehand for “balance”. I have removed the names, except mine, since I am “lifting” it out. I think at least Robbie’s interest will be peaked by that part of the discussion that suggests that the MLS may cease to exist as an end result to all of this.

*******************

Agent A says:

I would guess that there is not a large brokerage in the country that doesn’t have plans to withdraw from MLS depending on the outcome of the DOJ suit. I believe that many large brokers are considering withdrawing from MLS REGARDLESS of the outcome of the DOJ suit…

All across America, in every major city there are 3 or 4 large brokers who control around 80% of the inventory. If COURT mandated MLS rules don’t make competitive sense to those brokers MLS will END.

Even if you and Attorney Barry and the rest of the majority of the NAEBA are victorious your victory will be pyrrhic– MLS will be run YOUR way but it won’t contain enough listings to be a market force.

“Ardell” wrote:

What I am asking everyone one to focus in on is what “should be” as opposed to what “has been” since before buyer agency existed.

and

My major beef with the industry is that buyer agency was set into a system, parts of which should have been revised accordingly, and still need to be revised.

Agent B says…

Could it be that buyer agency will be given as the justification for the large brokers pulling out of the MLS? As Ardell notes, the whole system is a carry-over from a time before buyer agency. Does it really make sense to “cooperate” with other brokers in an adversarial relationship in the same way as when it was a subagency relationship?

One could argue that a listing agent is not truly acting in their seller’s best interest by making the property available to buyers working with their own agents until they have made every effort to find a buyer themselves. If a buyer agent is really going to save their buyer money, help them get more concessions, etc, isn’t it in the seller’s best interests for their agent to find an unrepresented buyer?

Consider this hypothetical situation:

Large brokerage with a state-of-the-art website and large advertising budget decides that they will take all of their listings as exclusive, non-MLS, non-cooperating listings for 45 days. No lockbox, the listing agency will conduct every showing, and there will be no showings to buyers who have not gotten a mortgage pre-approval. During this period, they will not do dual agency, and will attempt to find buyer customers for their listings. If they do not sell in 45 days, the listing will then be entered into the MLS. Their justification for this is that they believe that this maximizes the chances that the seller will get an offer that is in their best interests. Is there anything that would be illegal or unethical about this?

I think it is very easy to come up with scenarios in which the MLS becomes the dumping ground for the bottom of the barrel properties and over-priced dogs. It’s also easy to see scenarios in which MLS entries are very bare bones affairs with just enough info to generate a lead from Realtor.com, but not enough to be useful for other agents anymore. I find it very hard, though, to picture a scenario in which the large brokerages will just happily keep providing data-rich, picture-laden MLS entries for all of their listings, if they lose control over how and where these listings will be used and displayed.

I thought this might be food for thought for those who have not considered how the industry might change in order to counteract the events currently taking place with regard to mls access.

Interview with Jim Duncan of Central Virginia Real Estate

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[photopress:jd02a.jpg,thumb,alignright]There are not too many real estate professionals that understand blogging as well as Jim Duncan of the Central Virginia Real Estate blog. He obviously “gets it” in that his blogging style is top-notch at fascilitating discussions (i.e. great use of quoted text and links). I happen to think he strikes a great balance between exploring new ideas and technologies, while still demonstrating his expertise in real estate.

What inspired you to start blogging?

I started blogging because I read an article a few years ago that said that blogging was going to be the “next big thing.

Interview with Noah Rosenblatt of UrbanDigs

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Back in December I ran a series of interviews with the real estate bloggers who most inspired me. Seeing as how I missed a few great bloggers that round, I thought I would revisit this topic and interview a few more great real estate bloggers! As with the previous interviews, I’ll keep my own opinions out and let the bloggers speak for themselves! Keep coming back for a post each day this week featuring an interview with a great real estate blogger!

[photopress:noah.jpg,full,alignright]In less than a year of covering NY real estate, Noah Rosenblatt has turned his blog, UrbanDigs, into a must read for quality real estate content as he tends to leave out the fluff and focus on in depth analysis and advice while still providing plenty of color on his site. Even though his focus is on New York, there’s enough meat in each of his posts that even us west coasters are likely to see a jump in our IQ after a visit to UrbanDigs.

What inspired you to start blogging?

To educate New Yorkers on the most important aspects of profiting from NYC real estate. It’s really targeted to buyers/sellers of this very different market.

Are there any special topics or issues that you enjoy covering?

Yes. I love covering Interest Rate’s and some of the macro signs that the fed looks at when deciding where to go with monetary policy. It’s such an important aspect of the real estate industry, especially in this city where premium existing apartments are selling for over $1,000/ sq. ft..

What have you done to personalize your blog?

I really gave it a facelift to make it visually appeasing to my readers. I also added a Live Chat session every MON – FRI from 10:00 – 12:00PM for anyone to stop by and ask their questions; first time buyers seem to love it.

Do you have any favorite posts?

Sure do. I love my post on Maintenance Charges: The Hidden Devil.

I like the little formula that is at the end of the post that every buyer should look at and calculate the #’s for a property they may be. It allows them to see how the total monthlies should affect the asking price as they review comps and currently active listings in the same building.

I also like my posts on A Buyer Broker and How To Find Good Value In A Sellers Market.

The latter talks about what to pay for and what NOT to pay for when the inventory is tight! Good advice to use in general when looking to buy a new apartment in NYC.

What are some of your favorite blogs (real estate or otherwise)?

Besides RCG? I love:

Last one is not a blog but a must in my mind.

What tools/websites do you find most helpful in putting together your blog?

I like Movable Type software and would recommend them to any future blogger. Its very easy to use and pretty advanced. I like Feedburner for feeds, and Technorati for exposure. Also submit to Yahoo Directory and all the major blog search engines; too many to name.

How does blogging fit into the overall marketing of your business?

I devote about 3-4 hours a day to blogging; which includes the 2 hour chat session. Its difficult sometimes to do really in depth analysis and post on it, but overall, I expect my time devoted to UrbanDigs to compliment my residential sales business model that I am building for myself in NYC. Buyers/Sellers here love honesty and passion. UrbanDigs is an expression of me to that respect and my clients love it. I do NOT market my exclusives on UrbanDigs though.

What plans do you have to improve your blog over this next year?

I have plans to introduce a number of virtual calculators with my own formulas (I love math!) that I think will be very useful for buyers/sellers of NYC real estate. They will each have its own focused application; such as a RENT vs. BUY calculator that is far better than bankrate.com’s or any other one I’ve used. These tools are vital for this fast paced market and should be very helpful. A few should be live by the end of March.

What is the one tool or feature that you wish your site had?

I would say Virtual Calculators. Since we don’t have them yet, I wish I had them now! I’m not really interested in putting any sales system into the site as I don’t think that is the point of UrbanDigs.

What do you think real estate blogging will look like 3 years from now?

I think it will be a integral part of buying a home; not so much selling a home. I think there are tons of people out there that use the internet to educate themselves about everything. Real Estate is no different. I think real estate blogging will grow, more brokers will launch sites, topics will be expanded, and that only a few will really make it to their pre-determined goals. On the flip side, the general public will be rewarded with a virtual encyclopedia on many cities real estate markets that offer street level information. Thats pretty useful.

New Construction Warranties

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I recently had a conference call with an agent and his buyer who was purchasing new construction from a small builder. In the course of the conversation, we started talking about the builder’s warranty (which there was none) and the agent chimed in with the following: “Well, even without a written warranty, the buyer will still get the one year warranty that is required under state law.” Unfortunately, I had to correct Mr. Agent in front of his buyer by letting him know that the only warranty that a builder provides by law is the Implied Warranty of Habitability.

[photopress:oldhousecrunch.jpg,thumb,alignright]Good news was this warranty is an implied warranty in the contract and the statute of limitations on bringing a claim under the contract is 6 years, not one (subject to a bunch of other issues too complex for this post). Bad news was that the Implied Warranty of Habitability is very limited and basically means that the home can be lived in. In recent years, it has been extended to things like conformance with building codes. It does NOT, however, cover things that a new construction buyer usually deals with post-closing. Things like paint chipping, floors warping, siding going bad, window cracks, carpet coming up, etc., etc., etc. These defects are usually smaller items but can add up in total to a lot of money and even more frustration. The only warranty that would cover something like this is a written warranty from builder to buyer. If one does not exist, then no warranty and no recourse to Buyer. Buyers should also read the fine print as many builder warranties contain more holes than swiss cheese. Don’t rely on the fact is says “Warranty” on top of the page. In my experience, the good builders usually provide pretty decent warranties. The smaller builders are across the board. In this case the old adage applies — Get it in writing!

Crossing the MLS moat

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One of the things I’ve noticed over the past few months is that an MLS feed is hard to get a hold of. The NWMLS places a 2 internet feed limit on brokers and agents are essentially handcuffed to their brokers IT decisions. The problem is that software engineers can’t develop new web sites for brokers unless they already have feed access and brokers can’t give you their feed access unless you already have their web site completed for them. Needless to say, this helps explain why online real estate search & estimation are relatively immature technologies, because the folks who could mature them, are kept out of the castle.

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Although, I got past the black knight guarding the castle, I can’t help but wonder how much better the technology would’ve been if things were less restrictive. This stance imposes artificially high technology switching costs on brokers. Oh well, in a way, I’m kind of happy there’s a black knight. The fewer unhappy Micro-softies that get into the castle, the easier it will be for me to get my share of the King’s gold.

Speaking of Google…

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[photopress:google_troll_logo.gif,full,alignright]I was all ready to go to bed and not post anything else tonight when I saw this article from the Seattle PI that says Google is possible looking to open up an office in Fremont. The article itself is not very memorable except for the fact that someone at the PI has a great sense of humor as they subtlety included Google troll logo above the map of the proposed location. Hilarious!

If you’re looking for a smile, it is quite easy to find fun Google logos on the web.