Category Archives: General

$100,000 + in consumer savings: It pays to shop

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[photopress:j0409344.jpg,thumb,alignright]Since Ardell mentioned the rebates her clients enjoyed, it got me thinking about our small business and how we stack up. During 2006, our purchase and sale clients saved over $60,000 in escrow fees alone compared to our competitors, more if you add up all the other industry inventions consumers are charged for. That figure does not even include the refinance business our office closed.

Put this in perspective:

Let’s say the median sales price in the Seattle area for a single family house is about $450,000 and the fee a seller pays to agents is $27,000, or 6% of the sales price. In contrast, the escrow fee each party (buyer,seller) pays at our office is about .0011111 or 1/10th of one percent of that same sales price. This illustration is not to say agents are overpaid.

Evidently, escrow fees are negotiable. Over the last few weeks our office has received a few calls from people asking if we will match certain title companies who are dropping their escrow fees—ironically, to levels that our clients have enjoyed and where we’ve been residing for the last three years running.

It pays for consumers to shop.

Yet more vacant property theft news in the Puget Sound area…

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Staging Thefts Reported

January 29, 2007. It was reported to NWMLS that a theft of Staging items took place in Area 21 (Tacoma). The thieves broke off the door knob to get the Keybox and were able to retrieve the keys. A long list of items where stolen, stripping the house from towel racks to bedroom doors, including the kitchen island with butcher block on top. The Police Forensics Officer said, it looked like the thieves took things they needed to complete another house. If you have any information please call the police and reference case number #070280683.

It looks like thieves are getting even more gutsy and just putting a keybox on the doorknob isn’t the most secure. Agents – take note and work with your client to set up a safe method of access. Sellers – talk to your agent about the best way to secure your belongings and property. Perhaps come up with strategies for best placement and securing of keyboxes. For those with a vacant house perhaps it makes sense to not have a sign out front that makes it obvious to thieves that your property is on the market? I don’t know if these folks are accessing online systems to find houses for sale – but certainly it might help and it would force a thief to be more crafty than just seeing a sign outside.

The information at the top of this posting comes directly from the password protected NWMLS site for agents as did the previous post that noted thefts from other areas, noted by the codes the NWMLS and agents use to define territories.

To Landlords and sellers in City of Seattle – new rules w/ fines… Get up to speed!

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Important Fair Housing Notice for Seattle

The City of Seattle has recently adopted a new ordinance that requires all real estate professionals (including brokers and property managers) within the city limits to prominently display a fair housing poster in their place of business. The poster is available at http://www.seattle.gov/civilrights/outreach.htm under the link for “Housing Issues.

$68,745.00 Paid to Rain City Guide Readers

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[photopress:dollars.jpg,thumb,alignright]Well I have to admit that it has been a very, very odd year indeed for me. I stumbled into the world of blogging, and I had no idea where it would take me. Well it took me into a totally consumer-centric view of my world.

Transparency turned out to be much more transparent for me, than for my “blogclients”. I started experimenting. I did not change how I worked in any way. But instead of simply charging what I “normally” charged, or what most agents charge, I decided to view the commission as “a retainer fee”. I then changed it at the close of escrow, to what I perceived to be a fair value for the services rendered.

Sometimes I changed it on day one and that worked out OK. But then in some cases, I found that what I thought would be fair on day one, turned out to be too much at the end, and so I “settled up”. Only once did I have to renegotiate what was agreed upon on day one by raising it, and the client and I both agreed on a different and higher amount. We did that about halfway through, as he changed his parameters, and we both agreed the situation was greatly affected because of that. But I addressed it as soon as it was going sideways, so he had plenty of time to change agents if he and I could not come to terms on a new commission. Fortunately that was not necessary, because we both agreed that the original negotiation was based on factors which did not hold true as time went on.

The stories, which I will try to detail on my blog tonight, will be covered in a somewhat vague manner, as I have to retain the confidentiality of my clients. But I will try to give the stories in a way that we can all learn what a true sliding scale of different fees for different services might look like. A commission schedule that is so fair, that no client felt like they overpaid, and several even felt like they underpaid. And the one man who got the service for free, almost forgot that he wasn’t my client at all 🙂

I never calculated the end result of the total monies returned at the end of the day, until tonight. It is almost three in the morning, and no one is more surprised than I to see that $68,745.00 was paid to my “blogclients”. While most of those clients had read both my writings here on Rain City Guide and my blog, I have to attribute the bulk of the clients to having come to my blog via Rain City Guide.

There were a couple of times when I went a bit overboard, and I admit there were a few times when it hurt like hell, especially in the beginning when I was “training myself” to view the settle up at the end as fairly as I could. But I can honestly say that the couple of times I erred with regard to fairness, I erred on my side of the fence. I did that because those particular clients were injured by someone before me, someone in the industry who “did them wrong”. I felt the need to compensate them for what happened to them, before I entered into their world.

Most importantly, when you treat your clients fairly, when you discuss commission issues openly with your clients, both buyers and sellers, everyone is happy at the end of the day. I treated them all like family. I charged them what I might charge my Mother or my Sister or even my own child, well…maybe some more like my cousin 🙂 I charged a fair value for the work at hand. And while even I am amazed at the total tonight, and frankly it hurts…it really does, I know in my heart that every single time, it was a fair assessment of a valid cost for the services rendered.

It doesn’t break down to a flat fee or a fixed percentage. Some needed a lot more assistance than others. Some found property quickly and some took a very long time. Some sold their property quickly, and some took a very long time.

I’m looking over my list and only $2,175 of the $68,750.00 was paid to someone who “asked for a discount”. Almost all of it, was offered to them by me, without their needing to ask for it. Most of all, my “blogclients” have truly been a joy to work with. They totally trusted me to have their back. They totally trusted me with their most important goal and they totally trusted me not to treat them unfairly in any way shape or form. Not just about the money part, but in all things. Every single one felt I had gone above and beyond the call of duty. And every single one appreciated my efforts on their behalf at the end of the day.

I would very much like to take this opportunity to thank both Dustin and Anna Luther, for this wonderful opportunity. I also thank them on behalf of my “blogclients”, who are all grateful for having Rain City Guide to help them through what might otherwise have been a more difficult process.

The internet is truly a wonderful thing, and we are all learning to use it to everyone’s best advantage. We no longer simply “surf the net” to suck up information. We use it as a vehicle to form relationships, both business and personal.

I need to put the actual stories on my blog because we are really not permitted to discuss commission specifics in a “group” setting, under anti-trust laws. And also because this post is already way too long 🙂

To First Page of Google in 7 Hours!

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[photopress:w_1.jpg,thumb,alignright]Isn’t blogging grand!  I got a call this morning from a nice Realtor from Saline County, Arkansas named Wally Fry.

I was a little ticked at first because he said he got my name from Top Producer, and they told him to check out my blog as an example of how to blog.  My first thought was Holy Sh.t! Batman…I can’t take a call from everybody in the Country who signs up for a Top Producer Blog!  But he was such a nice guy that I couldn’t be mad at him, so after talking to him for fifteen to twenty minutes and checking out Central Arkansas while on the phone with him, I came up with an idea.

Where there you go, Mr. Wally Fry of WallyFryRealtor.com is already on the first page of Google at number five or six.  Doing better than me even.  Of course it took Wally to follow through on my idea, and he was spot on it in a jiffy!  What a fabulous opportunity there is for those getting into real estate blogging today, especially for those who are in areas where the concept is still really new.

Thank God and Gore for the Internet!!  Good Luck, Wally! I’ll be mentoring him for another couple of weeks, but I can already tell that he’s very quick on the uptake and a fast study.  By the time other Realtors in his area “catch on” to the concept of blogging, he’ll be way ahead of the pack.

The Perfect Real Estate 2.0 Company

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[photopress:timeYOU_big.jpg,thumb,alignright]If I had millions of dollars like Jim and Shirley Wilson now have (254M Powerball this week) I would create what I feel is a void in market today. I would take a Zillow like property evaluation tool and add a social networking back end to it. This was actually some of the conversations Dustin, Robbie and I had over a year ago when I was first introduced to RCG.

Anyway, what the market needs now is a valuation tool like Zillow that is enhanced by taking in to account neighborhoods, the particular street the house is on, the property’s zoning, the neighbors to your left and right and many many more. Zillow has added features to allow home owners to update their statistics for a closer estimate, but there is nothing out there that allows the brainchild behind Web 2.0’s success… YOU! (also a reason I feel the Web 2.0 bubble is far from bursting).

This would allow owners, neighbors and most importantly realtors to add comments to their communities, neighboring houses and their own house. I can only imagine how valuable this content would be to future home owners. Matter of a face, this would add some type of accountability to neighbors and home owners to be ‘good neighbors’. I guess this would be like a Better Business Bureau for home owners. I am sure all of the tenured agents out there have heard horror stories of their clients having troubles with a new home where the Form 17 disclosures could not provide any protection. This would be especially valuable in multi family communities.

[photopress:my_currency.jpg,thumb,alignleft]San Francisco’s my-currency launched today looking to tap in to this resource. John Cook’s blog talks about it as My Currency takes on Zillow which I understand, but I feel the underlying message here is putting the power in the people’s hand. It is easy for a site to put together stats that combines total square footage by numbers of beds/bath times a special area by area multiplier (I assume this is similar to the formula most of these sites use), but the does that mean someone will actually pay that price? If this were true, I would sell my house today for 200k more than I think it is worth because Zillow says so 🙂

2006 Statistical Review and Highlights

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Straight out of the horses mouth. I noticed these stats posted by the NWMLS today. I found a smilar post on their public site, nwrealestate.com. You can see the detailed story here

During 2006, members of NWMLS. . .

  • Reported more than 96,000 closed sales with a combined value of more than $35 billion
  • Experienced a 6.7% drop in number of units sold compared to 2005, but an increase of about 5% in the dollar volume of the closed transaction
  • Reported 1,951 sales of single family homes priced at $1 million or more (up from 1521 during 2005) and 859 sales of condominiums priced at $500,000 or more (up from 623 during 2005).
  • The MLS area covering Bellevue/West of 405 had the highest number of million dollar-plus sales with 219, followed by Central Seattle/Madison Park with 165. For high-end condos ($500,000-plus), west Bellevue had the largest number (183), followed by Belltown/downtown Seattle (130) and Kirkland (117); 145 condos sold for more than $1 million
  • Among the 19 counties in the MLS service area, San Juan claimed the highest median price ($539,500) for single family homes that sold last year; King County followed at $425,000
  • Maintained a high ratio of cross-sales: more than three of every four transactions were listed by one office and sold by a different office
  • Added 139,814 new listings of SFH and condos to inventory, with the highest volume (14,541 added during June
  • Represented more than 30,000 home sellers, on average, each month
  • Reported double-digit price gains for SFH compared to 2005 in all but one county
  • In the four-county Puget Sound region (King, Snohomish, Pierce and Kitsap), only about 6% of single family homes sold for under $200,000
  • Sold more than 15,000 condominiums, about the same as during 2005; approximately 63% of all condos that sold system-wide were in King County.
  • Found wide variation in prices of 3-bedroom homes. For pre-owned homes (built 2004 or earlier), the median sales price ranged from $124,900 in Grant Co. to $508,000 in San Juan Co.
  • In King County, the average price of a single family home that sold in 2006 was about 2.9 times higher than the price in 1990 (up from $178,187 to $518,108).

NWMLS at a Glance

December 2006
Member Brokerages
2,075
Sales Associates
26,183
Counties included in Summary Report
17

Appalling Statistics

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Recentlyk Reba Haas wrote a post about theft of copper from new construction sites.

Today the NWMLS reports that this theft is still on the rise. Here are the appalling statistics.

The thefts since January 1st have occurred in the following areas:

  • Area 54 – Tacoma area – 1 theft reported
  • Area 72 – Edgewood area – 1 theft reported
  • Area 100 – Auburn area – 1 theft reported
  • Area 140 – West Seattle area – 1 theft reported
  • Area 500 – Newcastle and Newport Hills area – 7 thefts reported
  • Area 550 – Union Hill area – 1 theft reported
  • Area 760 – Darrington area – 1 theft reported
  • Area 730 – Meadowdale area – 1 theft reported

[photopress:snarling_dog.jpg,full,alignright]Appliances, staging furniture, copper are being stolen, by apparently opening the nwmls keybox without a keypad, since the use of a keypad would be recorded.

What do we do next? Iron gates and patrol dogs?

Amazing Access

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My husband was helping our son remodel in Portland this weekend. I had alot of work to do, keeping up with new classwork and working on business. I was going to stay home but decided it was lovely weather and I’d travel along with him so I could see my kids, too. 

Having been in college when learning programming meant using keypunch cards, (A key punch is a device for entering data into punch cards by precisely punching holes at a designated locations :)).I have to constantly remind myself to remember how mobile my work now is.  There was nothing that I had to do at the office that I couldn’t do sitting in the car with my computer on my lap, including this post!

I remember the first time I left the office with my cell phone and talked to a customer in Nordstrom.  I pretended I was in the office and that I had time to talk. I remember the feeling that I could really do almost anything as long as I had my cell phone with me and no one would even know I wasn’t at work.

The craziest was when I got an offer on a listing about 10 minutes before pulling out of Miami on a cruise. The deal came together, the seller never did know I was not in town and I handled the whole thing from the ship’s computers.  I don’t turn my business over to an associate unless I have to, and I don’t tell my clients where I am unless it’s necessary. So for a work-a-holic like me, It’s amazing how much free time I have now with mobile phones and now, the mobile office.

[photopress:Copy_of_P1010174.JPG,thumb,alignleft]So, Randy is waiting for me to get back on the road where I can get back to listening to my lecture series online and typing a blog on my laptop plugged in to the battery with my really slick sprint card.  I’ve already answered several emails, searched for a handyman in Vaughn for a client, done a CMA for another client and emailed all the results, while driving up I-5!

It may be that I never really get away from the office, but at least by bringing the office along with me, I can now even enjoy the hours I put in on the job.

BTW, my son is moving from his 1910 bungalow 2100 sq ft home in NE Portland worth $600,000 to a 3600 sf ft new home in Vancouver on 1/2 acre with more bells and whistles than I knew exsisted for $650,000. And it’s only 20 minutes away. Location, location, location.