"I am Tiger Woods"

Posted on September 2, 2006 by Robbie

tiger-woods When I was at Inman, I believe it was Dottie Herman (although I realize that Altos Research attributes the quote to Burke Smith) who said “Technology won’t replace agents, agents with technology will replace agents“. Regardless of the source, it’s a great quote! That remark struck a chord with me. Except there’s one small problem… There’s not enough “real” technology vendors out there! Let me explain further…

OK, at one end of the Real Estate 2.0 spectrum, you have Zillow, Move, & Trulia. They use cool technology to sell advertising in the Real Estate market. Nothing wrong with that. Being a ‘softie alumni perhaps I’m a bit too set in my ways to fully appreciated the size of the opportunity these fine companies are going after. After all, MS only has a 10% share of the $500 billion/year enterprise IT market. But Google, probably only has a 1% share of the $3 TRILLION/year advertising market. Maybe those numbers are off, but it feels like a good Zestimate to me. Clearly there’s a lot money to made from the death of print media and these guys are at grave yard with their shovels ready. More power to them I say.

At the other end of the Real Estate 2.0 spectrum, you have HouseValues, HomeGain & others. They try to use technology to lure in and sell leads. It’s not my cup of tea, and some people don’t like them, but there’s nothing wrong with that business model either.

But where are the companies that use technology to just sell technology? When I look at the MLS search offerings of my future competitors like Birdview, Wolfnet, Superlative, Logical Dog, and literally a cast of thousands etc, I just cry and smile. The maps are non-existent or very Web 1.0-ish. RSS or KML? What’s that? Foreign langauge support? Is English considered a foreign language yet? Data Visualization? You gotta be joking. Page speed? Maybe if you measure performance with a calendar. And I haven’t even talked about half of the things I want to see or invent in a world class MLS search tool.

Granted, my game still needs a lot more work as well. Zearch is English only still, there’s more to data visualization than pretty Zillow charts, I really have no idea of how bad I scale yet (better than reply.com I hope, otherwise I know I’ll never hear the end of it), and I only support the NWMLS right now, but on the whole I’m feeling pretty optimistic about my chances on the pro tour.

Picture this scenario, here I am, John Q Homebuyer, getting my Zillow fix, Moving around the web, and being Trulia impressed with all this Real Estate 2.0 stuff, and then I click on your ad. I goto your web site, I wanna search for homes (because frankly that’s why people visit your site, unless you’re a famous blogger) and do you know what happens next? It’s reminds me of the guy going for a test drive in the new Volkswagen radio ads.

“This broker’s web site has 3 speeds, and this one is disappoinment. Web site, honk if you suck *honk* Take me to a RealTech or Caffeinated web site”

FYI – I’m leaving out RedFin because there are an exception to this generalization. They are a broker that has developed great technology in house and they are keeping it all to themselves (punks ;)). So most other brokers can’t really compete with them technologically speaking unless they partner with a technology vendor (like RealTech or myself).

I mean, we have all these “consumer portal” companies doing interesting work, empowering consumers, and then when I visit the broker’s or agent’s web site for the full story, it’s a total and complete let down. There’s over 1 million agents in the this country, and probably only a 1000 agents that have web sites worth visiting (I suspect half of which are regular Rain City Guide readers), and hardly anyone with compelling MLS search tools. It feels like all the good software engineers involved with this industry want to sell it an ad or a lead, instead of a killer web site. Maybe the industry needed a few well funded and very talented start-ups to smack it around to finally wake up and smell the software? (sniff, aaaahh, Firefox fresh scent, yummy)

Clearly there’s a big opportunity for developing a good MLS search tool for this industry. Maybe not Zillow, Microsoft or Google sized, but it’s big enough to make me interested in going for it. I’m pretty excited at the thought of all the possibilities, personally.

This is why I cry and smile. I cry because I feel my clients pain. They just want a cool web site to capture leads so they can get off the advertising & lead buying treadmill, and finding a good one is just about impossible. I cry because I feel the home buyers pain. This stuff should be so much better than it is. Many brokers have the money and are willing to do something about it, but it just looks like the current set of vendors serving them are developing products like it’s web circa 1999. I smile, because I’m in a position to do something about this. I feel like a Tiger. Here’s how I break things down on the links…

Jack Nicklaus is still winning most of the major tournaments these days, but he’s the one whose records I wish to break. RealTech has done some real nice work w/ John L Scott, CB Bain (did you guys do CatalistHomes? It looks like your work, but I don’t see your brand anywhere?). He has a few years of a head start over me, and is probably in process of making his other clients very happy. I hope that Zearch will eventually be as well regarded as the work you’ve done.

But after Jack, I can’t see anybody else out on the course improving their game. Maybe they are all down at the club house sipping some buds? Maybe they think the mine field of MLS downloading rules and methods will keep their market shares safe from technology disruptors (and to be honest, they are partly right – I wouldn’t be crazy enough to take this on if I wasn’t so convinced that I could build a much better set of web tools than most of the vendors I’ve discovered). Maybe they’ve never read Andy Grove’s “Only the Paranoid Survive“? But if this industry embraces RETS (or better yet, screw the SOAP and let me get dirty w/ the MLS’s SQL Servers), I suspect a few names on the MLS/IDX web site industry leaderboard will change.

But how can any vendor support all 900+ MLSes in this country! This is a monster challenge, even for a Tiger. We’re talking a 600 yard, Par 3 sized challenge here folks. Sorry, but even Tiger’s Nike golf equipment can’t par that hole. I’ll suspect I’ll just refine my game on the local links until I get really good. (If Dustin would only give me the connection string to Realtor.com’s SQL cluster it would all be so much easier. ;)) Oh well, if I gotta play the game one hole at a time, that’s the way I gotta play. Just keep making pars, make a birdie here or there, no bogeys, and watch the other players fall apart like a Sunday afternoon during a major. I dunno, but it’s starting to feel like the 2nd round of the 2000 US Open at Pebble Beach to me.

I’m working out, I’m going to a swing coach, I’m sinking my putts, I’m killing balls on the driving range, and more imortantly, I’m feeling a little faster, stronger, & smarter with each passing week. So all you other players, better step up your game. Tiger’s turning pro soon. Maybe not this year, maybe not next, but soon. And when he does, the game of real estate will not be the same.

Except for Jack, I wouldn’t worry about him too much. We’ve all seen the green jackets in his closet. 🙂

I know Ubertor’s got game, but I consider them more of a Michael Jordon type player. Great stuff, but he plays a different sport than we do. So Mr. Agent & Ms. Broker, are there any good MLS/IDX vendors out there whose game impresses you? (Other than Jack’s & Tiger’s of course?)

Everyone Run to Redfin!

Posted on September 1, 2006 by ARDELL

[photopress:run.jpg,thumb,alignright]I just got back from 200 1st Street in Kirkland and these are definitely all that I hoped they would be. Of course, I already know them fairly well and have been in there many times. But they were not available for sale.

Now here’s the VERY BEST USE OF REDFIN! In fact, I love these so much, I’ll make you the same Redfin deal. And you make out much better signing in as WITH AGENT than sans agent, as there is no benefit best I can tell, for those without. So you might as well get the 2% cashback.

For those who don’t know what the “Redfin Deal” is, you go over and sign in showing Agent as “Redfin, or assigns” or put my name, or any agent willing to give you the Redfin deal. But do NOT put “no agent” on that line. The field is wide open over there with only one sold. You get your pick of the litter, plus 2% back. DO NOT listen to the sales people, they are…and be careful on selection. Don’t restrict yourself to the ones they will let you see. Figure out the floor plan, as the very best deals are available to be bought, but not to be seen.

The price differential for positioning is off, so about 20% are real bargains and about 40% are overpriced. Get over there before they figure that out. When you write in your agent, or meet your agent there, the agent gets 3%, but according to the sales office, and I do not know why not, they are not allowing the buyer to take the 3%. So sign in your mother, brother or sister with a license…or me or Redfin, to take advantage of the cashback feature. Hopefully they will permit the buyer to take the 3% at some point without doing it this way. But in the meantime, don’t lose out on the benefit.

Yes, sometimes Redfin works. New construction or condo conversions, as long as you know how to factor in the location differential properly, is clearly the best use of Redfin. If you want an agent who knows how to factor in the price differential per location in the building…just throw my name on there and I’ll throw back the same 2% as Redfin (ONLY on these at 200 1st ST guys, not an open offer) since I live right up the street.

You know I don’t push everything, even my own stuff. And I clearly don’t like every unit in there. But with the field wide open through this weekend and only one sold…RUN!

Yahoo Responds to Our Questions!

Posted on September 1, 2006 by Dustin Luther

Based on my request for questions a few days ago, I put together a slew of questions for Yahoo to answer about their new real estate site. I must say that I was a little bit disappointed in the number of times they state “we can’t comment on future releases or upgrades”, but otherwise, I think there are some nuggets of gold in their answers. (Note that I also added a few questions in the beginning to get them talking about their service before I hit them with the agent-specific stuff. 🙂 )

1) What are the three best features of the new site?

1. Integration with Yahoo! Local & Maps:

Yahoo! Real Estate has added maps with satellite imagery so house hunters can easily see where homes for sale or rentals are located and their proximity to roads and other landmarks. In addition, integration with Yahoo! Local allows users to also see “inside information

The Rockford Files leads to "The Escrow Files"

Posted on September 1, 2006 by Tim

[photopress:Jimrocky.jpg,full,alignright]

For those of you who grew up in the 70’s, if you were like me and missed an episode of the Rockford Files, you were really bummed out. Missing the Rockford Files was almost as bad as my parents making me late for my soccer games. Not a good thing. Tivo, where were you?

Jim Rockford (James Garner), what a guy. He always seemed to get into a pickle and get out of it. That Pointiac Firebird of his; all my friends wanted one, even if it meant riding my dirt bike to the store and buying a $2.50 model of it and putting it on my dresser. That was good enough for me. Those humorous one liners with “Angel,” brings back lots of great memories. The humor reminds me of some of the things we have come across in the world of escrow. In escrow, if you can’t find any humor in the business, it will eat you up.

Rather than send out mundane APB’s to our entire client base about issues that come up or tips based upon transactions that go haywire, we think that adding humor into the fold has more impact and can also be helpful to our Realtor customers in providing better service and foster smoother closings for their clients.

For example, escrow companies are extremely busy at months end and the phones ring constantly. It’s hard to get work done when you receive phone calls from nearly every party, sometimes two or three times in a day, asking, “is it closed yet?” So, to help reduce stress at month end, we started a “counting” system where we tally the transaction with the most phone calls asking, “is it closed yet?”

We made the question, “Is it closed yet?” into a funny YouTube video parody skit, starring our kids who play the Realtor, the buyer, the seller and loan officer. The movie series is called “The Escrow Files.” This Fall our series will be both print and video.

Since the month ended yesterday, the transaction with the most “is it closed yet” calls was nine! For perspective, if our small office closed 30 purchase transactions this August, you get a good picture of all the people calling: buyers, sellers, agents, loan officers, funding depts, etc….on just one deal…now multiply by 30. Maybe we should get another number from Verizon dedicated as our “Is it closed yet?” hotline!

To tickle your funny bone here’s a sample from this year’s, The Escrow Files:

Written on an “Addendum” during 2nd quarter 2006: “Buyer to walk through house prior to closing.” Didn’t they do that already, like many times?

Lowest earnest money amount winner ytd: $200 cash. Wow.

“Should I stick around for you to cut my commission check?” –agent with clients who just signed their loan docs and the deal won’t close for another week.

Stay tuned for more and have a great three day weekend! We are looking forward to the day off!
Tim & Lynlee

The last seven days in Real Estate

Posted on August 31, 2006 by ARDELL

Last week of August. Who bought what, where and for how much? Typically a slow week with agents and clients taking some time away with their families before school starts.

[photopress:v.jpg,full,alignright]This is my absolute favorite property that sold this week, in Sammamish for almost $4,000,000. Going home there is like going on vacation every day after work. My definition of “sold” in the last seven days, for this article, is STI or PENDING…people “making decisions” to purchase.

Seattle under $300,000 – 38 people, between $300,000 and $400,000 – 66 people

70 people in each for the $400,000 to $500,000 range AND the $500,000 – $600,000

Then we really drop off to only 20 from $600,000 to $700,000, and then half of that at 10 from $700,000 to $800,000, half that again to 5 at $800,000 to $900,000, and 3 in the $900,000 to a million.

15 from $1 million to $2 million and two just over $2 million, one in Broadmoor and the other a tudor in Denny Blaine.

On the Eastside I used, Bellevue, Bothell (King County), Kenmore, Kirkland and Redmond.

Only 5 under $300,000 this week. 75 between $400,000 to $600,000. 4 between $2 million and $3 million vs. only 2 in Seattle, and about 10 in most other categories.

So all tolled on both sides of the Lake, most homes this week were sold between $300,000 and $600,000. That includes condos, townhomes and single family homes.

Fits into the theory that the average buyer is at $450,000 give or take.

RPA Zearch – Now with Turbo Zillow!

Posted on August 31, 2006 by Robbie

OK, I admit it. I got early access to the Zillow API. 🙂 And it’s pretty interesting stuff, it provides Zestimate values, comparable properties, Zestimates charts, and Zindex charts. Anyway, everybody knows I’ve done Zestimates before, but the charts are a new wrinkle I haven’t had the opprotunity to explore yet.

As some of you know, I’ve been working with Gordon & Jay of Real Property Associates (old site) to develop their new site (beta). Although the site is about a month away from going live, I thought I’d let the world know so they beta test my favorite new Zearch feature which I call “Turbo Zillow”.

So if you run a search for Eastside communities, below the map (sorry about the lack of pushpins folks – the server is having a bad geo-coding day), you’ll notice the new Zillow control. The control will populate with every city & zip code that was in your search results. (PS – Will the agent who entered a 00000 zip code into the MLS for MLS# 25147354, please fix it, don’t get me started). It will then let you plot a Zindex chart based off location, dollar/percent appreciation, and 1/5/10 year durations. So the control, looks like something like this…

[photopress:TurboZillow.gif,full,centered]

This is really cool, because getting a new chart, is as simple and changing the drop downs to what your interested in, and the watching the chart change. Comparing city & zip codes median price histories has never been this easy on Zillow. The details page of a listing will also have a Zillow control that will show the chart of the listing, the zip, the city, the state, and the USA in the same way. Currently. the details version of the control appears to have a bug with getting the USA chart if Zillow can’t find the Zestimate. So if you see something that is way off. it could be my bug, or it could be Zillow’s bad Zestimate. Either way, I think charts & data visualization are the next big thing for MLS searches after everybody gets the AJAX maps out of their system.

On the Zillow site, to get this information, I have to click here for Bellevue, click back, click here for Redmond, and then back, and then click here for Kirkland. Why do they make getting Zindex charts so hard? I have to scroll to the bottom page, for everything and then click? Why can’t you do some Web 2.0 map magic instead of a sea of links (or just put the links it at the top of the page)?

OK, enough mini-flaming, I have to give credit were credit is due and I thank the crew at Zillow for having the guts to release an API to the public and having the courage to let me put it through it’s paces. Perhaps my experiments will inspire them to greater things, more APIs and a better UI for the Zindex pages? Until then, I’m using “Turbo Zillow” for my ZIndex fix.

Visit http://www.rpare.com/search.aspx, do your thing, have fun the fast lane my friends!

Russ, NO! Please Say It Ain't SO!

Posted on August 31, 2006 by ARDELL

[photopress:joe.jpg,full,alignright] One of the FEW rights of a buyer these days, is that they have 3 days to review the “Form 17” Seller Disclosure Form.

These forms are often sitting out at the homes when buyers view property, and often buyers pick them up at every single house. Recently the mls system has made these available online, so we can send them to our buyer clients, before they even see the property. A buyer could conceivably recieve 20 or more Seller Disclosure Forms, before even deciding on a property.

The first page of the Seller Disclosure Statement says in all caps: “You (buyer) have 3 days from the day seller or seller’s agent delivers this disclosure statement to you, to rescind the agreement.”

Some agents are suggesting, that every single buyer who has picked up a Seller Disclosure Form in a house, and now possibly weeks later makes an offer on that same property, has given away their 3 day right to review it! They had it in their hand weeks before they were even interested in making an offer, but the clock started ticking the day they picked one of these forms up while looking at property? Is that even remotely possible?

Please say it ain’t so! Otherwise get those darned things out of those houses and off the online access! What a TRAP! Please say it ain’t so…please. Russ, your thoughts MUCH appreciated. Seems to me that if a buyer has “3 days to rescind the agreement” that there has to in fact BE an agreement at the time of delivery!

Really BIG News!!

Posted on August 30, 2006 by ARDELL

[photopress:85936861.jpg,full,alignright] I just got this invite via email. These have been short term rentals until now. I LOVE this location and have placed people relocating in them while they look for a house. There are two buildings on either side of first street that were part of the same short term rental…near Sur le Tab and the Greek Restaurant, for those who know Kirkland. Fabulous LOCATION!!

They will start at $350,000 and go to $1,200,000. Will give another report after the agent preview on the 7th, but email me if you want to get your dibs in on the best of the best. This is really big news for Kirkland. Yes, there are other new condos and conversions…but not with a location like this one!! Excellent traffic patterns as you can go up to 7th and all the way across and out, without getting stuck in “the Kirkland Crawl”. Oops…don’t tell the people on 7th I said that…it’s supposed to be a local secret.

Maybe I’m overly excited because I just love this location better than any other. A local perspective, I guess.

Microsoft vs. Google a real estate perspective

Posted on August 30, 2006 by ARDELL

[photopress:mac.jpg,full,alignright]On a side note, nothing to do with the topic, isn’t that MAC advertising campaign fabulous! Doesn’t everyone want to run out and get a MAC when they see that commerical? Of course I can’t get the mls on it, or at least not easily, so I hate them. But that has got to be the best advertising campaign I’ve seen in a long time. Doesn’t everyone want to be that guy on the right? Heck, I’m a woman and even I want to be that guy on the right.

On to Microsoft vs. Google. So far my Google clients have been able to negotiate significantly higher savings in real estate transactions than my Microsoft clients. Of course I’m dealing with a very small portion of the Microsoft poplulation, even though I have more Microsoft clients than Google clients.

Microsoft has a contract that kicks back 35% of the real estate commission when a new employee is hired, even if they don’t buy a house for a year to 18 months after they are hired. Perhaps Microsoft doesn’t get all of that 35%, but the agent who has to pay it is still unable to negotiate with the buyer, nor are they as able, at 65%, to resolve issues in the transaction using commission dollars. This agreement that the agent pay 35% to Microsoft also limits the employee with regard to agent selection.

I recently had a call from a Microsoft employee’s wife who is being transferred. She was checking online and trying to pick an agent she felt comfortable with and happened upon me. I told her that she really needed to check with her husband and his employer, as I didn’t think she was totally free to pick an agent of her choice. I told her I might be willing to match the 35%, but she would likely need to try the assigned agent first, before suggesting she wanted someone other than the assigned agent.

Now these programs where an agent is assigned to an employee are, of course, beneficial. These programs have been around for a very, very long time. I myself did tons of relocations with Siemens and other companies around the Country, utilizing this very same program. The 35% of the commission paid by the agent to the relocation company, helps pay for a portion of the relocation benefits such as movers, temporary housing, and other benefits.

In my experiments over the past few months with negotiating buyer agent fees, and a few other out of the box negotiations, I have been able to transfer $20,000 of pure cash advantages plus an additional $10,000, into transactions, with Google clients. More importantly, I have been able to treat the Google clients in these negotiations, identically to the way that I treat seller clients…which is my goal.

If Google does hire 1,000 new people, as Dustin suggests they might, I hope that they will not lock the employees into a program that skims off the employee’s ability to negotiate and ties their hands with regard to agent selection. Relocating is a very stressful and emotional process. Feeling hogtied at the same time, only adds to the stress. While many are happy to have someone ready, willing and able to assist, this benefit should be optional at best and should allow the employee more freedom of choice and no restriction with regard to fee negotiations.

Not trying to change Microsoft here…just trying to encourage Google not to follow suit. Once released from the 18 month requirement, I have been able to assist Microsoft employees and negotiate fees, but the Google guys are still way ahead for some reason in total dollars. Not sure why that is, I’ll have to ponder it when I do my year end round up of “the experiment”.

Since we are entering the Age of Transparency in the real estate transaction, kind of like The Age of Aquarius in my day when everone was stripping off their clothes, I do think that it should not be a surprise to anyone that there is an exchange of monies between the agent and a third party. That goes for any “purchase of a person”, see Zapped, that does not disclose to the person that they have been bought and sold.