Real Estate Technology Events on Google Calendar

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With Google’s recently released calendar feature, they’ve made social networking of events much easier. With this in mind I’ve pre-populated a public calendar with real estate technology events that can be shared (and managed) by a group.

So far, the events that I’ve added to the calendar include:

I’d REALLY like to get some other people interested in real estate technology involved and then we can all work together to keep updated on events no matter what part of the country they occur.

At this point, I’ve tested it out with Galen Ward and he was able to manage the calendar with me (i.e. add, edit and invite people to events). If you’re interested in helping us out with this calendar, just let me know and I’d be happy to add you as a manager as well. (You will need an invite-only gmail account, so let me know if you don’t have one and I can get you one!)

For everyone else, here is an RSS feed of the calendar which can be added to your feed reader so that you can be updated each time a new event is added.

If you want to learn more about Google Calendar, Stopdesign gives a bunch of very useful tips and tricks to get the most out of the tool.

The race for 2nd place has begun

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OK, I’m biased and I still believe that “Zearch” is currently King of the Hill of King County home searches. However, I’m willing to give credit where credit is due and say the distance between us and the rest of the pack got smaller today.

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Today, John L Scott and their solution provider, Bellevue based Real Tech, have quietly introducted what they call “Real-Maps 2.0“. Essentially, they are now using Microsoft Virtual Earth instead of the old school ESRI based solution. Additionally, it appears they’ve AJAX-ifed their search pane on their map page, so when you change search criteria it automatically updates the map and the matching results count (which is pretty slick). It also appears that Real Tech has gone all out, and at first glance, it appears they are using the not quite released Microsoft Atlas framework (a new development tool that makes “Web 2.0” style applications easier to develop). It appears they are using JSON for the postbacks (most sites use XML, I currently send back Javascript source code). I haven’t spent much time reverse engineering it or learning Atlas yet, so it’s possible they are using a 3rd party AJAX framework. Regardless of the technical details, it does raise the bar for everybody else.

So what does this mean? Here’s my thoughts….

  • Me – Time to install and learn Atlas this weekend. If I’m going to remain competitive with the big boys, I gotta be using the same tools that the big boys are using. Besides doing complex AJAX with Asp.net 2.0 ICallbackEventHandler is bit tedious for my liking.
  • Galen – Wondering if he should rewrite ShackPrices so it uses Ruby on Rails instead of PHP?
  • ESRI – Between Google Maps & Microsoft Virtual Earth, this company won’t be serving the real estate mapping market much longer.
  • RedFin – That flash based satellite map, though very cool in it’s day, is increasingly looking like a liability. Better update it, do as Zillow did (partner with GlobeXplorer & Microsoft), or let one of the big boys handle your maps. Any map in which the Issaquah Highlands looks like polar bear eating vanilla ice cream during a snow storm, doesn’t cut it for me.
  • Zillow – Better do something cool with that MLS data you’ve been collecting. Otherwise, those eyeballs you were counting on, will be visiting the big brokers instead. Fortunately, for Zillow they could lose the local battle, but still win the national war. The NWMLS is releasing sold listing data in the near future and I’ll be shocked if the local big brokers don’t add “Zestimate” like features to their web sites in the next 6-12 months. Hell, Rain City Guide, already has one, but you already knew we’re ahead of the curve. 😉
  • Realtor.com / HomeStore / Move – Obi Won “Dustin Luther” Kenobi – Are you their only hope? Do something! Add an Rain City RSS feed, if you have to! Anything! 🙂
  • Coldwell Banker Bain – Since they are also Real Tech customers, I suspect they’ll be asking for Real-Maps real soon now.
  • Windermere – They can’t be far behind their arch-rivals, or can they?
  • Other local brokers/agents – Time to re-evaluate your MLS search/IDX vendor? Now that John L Scott’s web site has entered the 21st century, the pressure is building for you to join them.
  • John Q Home Buyer in Seattle/Eastside – The new John L Scott, is like RedFin but with better maps & aerial photos.
  • Everybody else, elsewhere – Consumer expectations are slowly being raised. I believe Seattle is ground zero of Real Estate 2.0. Those of you lucky enough to be living outside of the 206 & 425 area codes (aka the war zone), had better pay attention, because what’s happening here will happen in your neck of the woods, sooner than you think.

So what do our fair Rain City Guide readers think of this development?

Rich Barton of Zillow talks at Northwest Entrepreneur Network on Friday

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Just a quick note to let you know that Rich Barton of Zillow and Expedia will be talking at the Northwest Entrepreneur Network on Friday morning. Here’s the link for anyone who wants to check it out: http://www.nwen.org/calendar/regbreakfast.htm

Note that you have to get up before breakfast for these meetings 🙂

See you there.

Negotiating the Offer Part 2 – The “Contingent” Seller

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[photopress:startinggate.jpg,thumb,alignright]The “Contingent” seller knows exactly where he is going if and when his house sells. He is stuck at the starting gate until he gets an acceptable offer on his home. Every day he faces the possibility that someone else will come along and snatch his new home from him; someone who can make an offer without a home sale contingency.

Contingent offers have a limited time frame, and can potentially leave a seller at the starting gate, if his home is not sold within that timeframe.

Presenting an offer from a buyer to a “contingent” seller is one of my favorite scenarios. It is one of the few true win-win set ups. The seller is more focused on being able to get out of the starting gate and to the finish line. He’s chomping at the bit for the race to start and is genuinely happy to have received an offer on his home. The buyer usually doesn’t have to leap over as many hurdles, to get his offer accepted with a fair price and fair terms.

One of the tell-tale signs that you are dealing with a contingent seller is that the seller’s agent is from far away. When you see a Seattle condo listed by a Lynnwood agent, you get the hint that maybe this seller is buying new construction in Lynnwood. When you see an agent whose inventory generally consists of $700,000 homes in Lakemont, list a home in Kenmore for $450,000, you get the idea that maybe this seller has a contingent offer on a house in Lakemont.

Often buyers make the mistake of looking the seller right in the eye and asking “Why are you moving?”, the normal reaction being a look on their face that resembles that of a deer in headlights. As with all fact finding endeavors in the residential real estate market, it is better to surmise and test, than to point blank ask. When I suspect that I am dealing with a “contingent” seller, I call the agent and say I MAY be writing an offer and would like to know if the seller needs a specific closing date. Most often the seller’s agent will respond that the seller needs “closing plus 3”, so that the funds from his sale can get to his next transaction, and so the seller doesn’t have to move his things out of his house until that next transaction closes. This way I can quickly find out that there is a next transaction identified and that the seller cannot close unless he sells this house.

“Closing plus 3” is often identified in the mls, but it is by no means a sure sign that the seller is in a contingent contract. Closing plus 3 is used in divorce situations and almost any scenario where the seller is going to a rental, so you can’t rely on that fact alone to determine seller motivation.

Negotiating price and terms is generally a piece of cake when dealing with the “contingent” seller. The sticky point in negotiations with a contingent seller often becomes the washer, dryer and refrigerator, if they did not negotiate to receive those in their contingent sale contract, minor detail. When preparing and negotiating offers with “contingent” sellers, we are more likely to be looking over our shoulders for another buyer, than to be worrying about reaching a fair agreement with the seller.

Anytime you take too long getting from offer stage to signed around, you leave the door open for another buyer to swoop in and stop your negotiations in their tracks. Move forward with smarts and speed and wrap it up when the issues in dispute become minor and not worth losing the house over.

Negotiating The Offer Part 1 – The “Homeless” Seller

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[photopress:250px_Tug_of_war.jpg,thumb,alignright]It is a popular perception that every seller wants top dollar as their primary objective.  In my experience that is not always true, and in fact is often not true at all, at the time the offer is being presented.  Let’s take a step back first to see where the perception comes from. 

When a seller is speaking with agents before the home goes on market, it is true that the discussion focuses on selling the property at the highest price, in the shortest amount of time and with as little inconvenience to those occupying the home, as possible.  Agents are trained to speak in these terms, and so that is how the discussion generally goes.

At the time the offer is presented however, if there is a lengthy discussion, that discussion is often not about the price at all.  Even when the discussion is about price, the underlying pressure on the price is often about something else entirely, like the cost of temporary housing for the seller.

For many sellers, the minute they accept an offer on their home, they are immediately, though temporarily, homeless.  I can’t tell you how many times a seller has looked up at me after signing the offer and said, “I guess I’m homeless now”.

Often when a seller is picking on every minutae detail of the offer, it is because they do not know where they are going.  This is a dangerous situation for a buyer, as the seller often wants them to “make it worth their while” to leave.  You might think it was obvious to them when they listed their home for sale, that they would have to leave.  Trust me, the reality in that moment when they pick up the pen to sign your offer, that the minute they sign it they will be “homeless”, hits them like a ton of bricks IF they do not know where they are going.

Any good negotiatior considers the factors on the other side of the table when preparing the offer, or during the give and take of the negotiation process as new information becomes available. While 30 day escrows have become the norm, does that really give a seller the time they need to find their next home?  Often the seller can’t make an offer on their next home until their home is sold, or at least in escrow. If you are willing to give them the time they need to know where they are going, and match up the closing dates so they don’t have to go to temporary housing, you often will win out on price.

If you are currently renting, adding an extra couple of weeks or more to the escrow time can actually save you money.  Go out to the date where you will not be paying rent and interest on your mortgage simultaneously.  Giving the seller time to negotiate the offer on his next home can be a winning strategy in multiple offer situations and even get you the house you want at a lesser price than other offers on the table.  Consider a longer close or a post occupancy agreement when writing your offer. (Some lenders will not permit a post occupancy to exceed 30 days on “owner occupied” financing, so check with your lender before agreeing to anything longer than 30 days past close of escrow, even if longer is only by a couple of days.)

Giving the seller the peace of mind that they can stay in their current home until they are moving into their new home is generally worth up to at least $5,000 in price and sometimes as much as $10,000.  If the seller has two offers on the table, one with an escalator up to $460,000 and one at $450,000 straight up with no escalator, they often will accept or counter the lower offer, if it provides them with the ability to find their next home before having to leave the house.  Sometimes something as simple as letting the seller keep some things in the garage for a week or two can make the difference.  Sometimes giving them the entire weekend to move can make the difference.  Sometimes splitting the weekend, giving them all day Saturday to move out and leaving you all day Sunday to move in is sufficient.  Often these little things prevent the seller from pulling extra had on the price to compensate for his uneasiness and inconvenience.

The perception that the highest price on the table always wins out, is erroneous.  A seller who faces being “homeless”, will often select the offer that affords him the option to stay until he closes and can move his belongings into his new home, even if that offer is not the highest price on the table.

Teaching Effective Blogging to Realtors?

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One of the great things about real estate blogging is that we’re all making this up as we go along… What is the “right” way to blog? I really have no idea but I like to think that the contributors on Rain City Guide are on the right track…

Recognizing that we might be onto something, Russ Cofano approached me a few months ago with the idea of creating a “Bloginar” where we would travel the country teaching real estate professionals how to blog (This is before I accepted a position at Move). With his experience giving seminars to real estate professionals and our combined experience with blogging, the timing seemed right and we quickly put together an outline for our idea. Russ ran this outline past some of his contacts in the industry and the results is that we quickly signed up a few organizations to host our seminars. Our first similar was today in Portland, and for those interested, here is a high-level outline of our presentation:

Understanding Blogs

  • History
  • Anatomy
  • Motivations

Basics of Blogging

  • Creating a Blog
  • Posting Content
  • Creating Links
  • Writing Comments

Increasing Your Business With Blogging

  • Current Internet Real Estate Tools Suck
  • High Search Engine Ranking
  • High Conversion Rates
  • Long-Term Benefits
  • Low Monetary Costs

Effective Blogging Techniques

  • Linkation
  • Content
  • Complementary Tools

It is a full three-hour presentation so you can imagine that we go into a lot of detail on each of these topics!

There are a couple of things that I know are missing from our presentation… I’d really like to spent more time on how to host a blog as well as how to incorporate photos/podcasts/videos into blogs. With that said, we only had three hours so we tried to hit the “sweat-spot” of giving enough information to new bloggers without overloading them on some of the more advanced stuff. My hope is that each and every person that walks out of our seminars feels equipped (and excited!) enough to start an effective real estate blog that evening.

If you’re interested in scheduling this seminar for your organization, please contact Russ (His blog is Realty Objectives [link removed] and his site includes some more information on our seminars [link removed]). You’ll definitely want to sign up soon because with my full-time job at Move, I can only commit to a handful of presentations each month (and we’re already booked-up through July!).

Also, if you are one of the people who attended the seminar, please consider leaving a comment below with your take on our presentation (along with a link to your new blog! 😉 )

SELECT * FROM MLS WHERE Remarks = ‘Whoa’

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I thought I’d take a moment to reflect on how Rain City’s favorite MLS Search is implemented. I’m a little tired of thinking in computer languages (mostly T-SQL, C# and Javascript), so I figured I’d blog a bit in Geek English for a little while before I hit the compiler again.

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I’m always interesed in how web sites & computer software works under the covers, so I thought I share some of the more interesting points about how I’ve implemented “Zearch” to date for the “geekier” folks in the blogosphere.

It all began way back in the fall of 2005 shortly after I got my first MLS feed. At the time, Microsoft’s asp.net 2.0 platform was still in beta. However, after learning what Microsoft’s next generation web development tools were going to do (and seeing what Google Maps and Microsoft’s Virtual Earth teams were doing), I saw a great unrealized potential in MLS search tools and decided to do something about it.

Anyway, it’s all built on top of asp.net 2.0 and MS SQL Server 2000 (yeah, I know I’m old school). One of the first things I did is combined all the property types into a VIEW and create a dynamic SQL query when you search for properties. Some search tools only let you search for residential properties or condominums at one time (which I thought was lame). I orginally tried to implement stuff doing a bunch of UNIONs, but keeping track of the schema variations for the different property types eventually drove me nuts, and I encapsulate all that crud into a VIEW.

I also find it a little ironic, that I’m not the only one who found the MLS schema differences a PITA to deal with. I’m glad the various MLS software vendors and the CRT are working toward a common industry schema (aka RETS), so us application developers can focus on the real problem (developing compelling & useful software), instead of remembering that the ld column in one table, is really the list_date column in another table.

Another interesting thing I do on the back end is that I geocode every listing after I do data download. The main reason is that I don’t trust the MLS data and their bogus geo-coding would make my app look bad. I also knew when I started, I’d eventually do maps, so as soon as a new listing hits my database, it’s gets more accurately/correctly geo-coded. In case your wondering if I’m screen scraping w/ Perl or something else, it’s all done with T-SQL stored procdures. (Well, technically it’s a proc that calls the MSXML2.ServerXMLHTTP COM object, to issue an HTTP request against a geocoding web service, and then uses OPENXML on the response’s XML to get the latitude & longitude).

As you might have guessed, there are also stored procedures and functions to get the distances between two points, doing a radius search, and other stuff of that ilk. Fortunately, all that stuff can easily be found using your favorite search engine, so you don’t need to know how all the math in the law of cosines works (you just need to know of it).

Well that’s it for the back end. Next time I’ll talk about the front end put on my Web Developer hat.


Did you know:

Unintended Consequences

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According to an article in Advertising Age, a NY-based Ad Agency is suing a blogger for copyright infringement, defamation and trade libel and injurious falsehood. Appears that the blogger, Lance Dutson, made negative remarks about the agency on his blog that revolved around the agency’s work for the Maine Office of Toursim. The agency apparently tried to get Mr. Dutson to remove the remarks and apologize. He said no. They sued. Repeat after me, “Never, never, underestimate the power of the blog for unintended consequences.”

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Unforunately for the agency, the blogosphere flew to Mr. Dutson’s plight like bees to honey. According to Mr. Dutson’s latest post on his site, more than 200 blogs are now referencing him compared to just 2 before the suit. Seems that the negative PR to the agency from the cumulative effects of bloggers may have surpassed the harm they suffered from Mr. Dutson’s original comments. At the very least, there are a lot of eyes reading this story that would never have seen the original comments on Mr. Dutson’s blog.

This is another example of how blogging can alter the historical power dynamics of business. I don’t know anything about the financial strength of either Mr. Dutson nor the ad agency but if I was a wagering man (which I am), I would guess that the agency has the resources to use the legal system to make Mr. Dutson spend a lot of money on his defense. This is a common practice in the legal profession and explains why many small firms back away from challenging the entrenched larger firms even when the small fish have good cases. Bottom line is that it takes a LOT of money to litigate a dispute and power goes to those that can afford it. Justice is blind but it ain’t cheap.

While Mr. Dutson will certainly spend some money on attorney fees, it cost him NOTHING to have positive PR spread across the Web. In the old days (like a couple years ago), litigating a case in the press would require the press to actually want you to win. In the blogosphere, Mr. Dutson does not need to worry about the political will or economics of the traditional press to get “web time.” And there is NOTHING that the agency can do about this. The cannot enjoin the collective blogosphere from commenting on this case and opining on its merits or what they think about the agency themselves.

In the end, this is just one example of how blogging can play a part in leveling the business playing field.

How does this impact the real estate industry? Many of us who are (as we like to think) “in the know” debate about the future of real estate, about the new oohs and ahhs in real estate technology and the tidal wave of change that is looming. But the average joe or jane knows nothing about this stuff – yet. They buy and sell homes each and every day just like they did for the last 20 years. As blogs proliferate, so too will communication about the new and the old, and the good and the bad, in real estate. Average joes and janes will spread their opinions about new companies and new offerings and just like the ad agency, there will be an impact on how business is done.

Visionary brokers will figure this out and harness the immense power of social networking. Others, like the ad agency, will operate at its mercy.

Social Networking in Real Estate

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One of the most interesting sessions I attended at Mind Camp was led by Dan from Biznik on Social Networking. Social networking tools allow people to share information about themselves, other people and other things (like photos, products, etc) in a setting that attempts to foster a certain level of trust among users. For example, if I’m in the market to find a real estate agent, Biznik allows me to see the real estate agents that Dan would recommend I use. Assuming I know and trust Dan, that’s probably a pretty good recommendation.

The social networking website with the most buzz today is clearly MySpace. I can’t claim to know or use this service, but I know that my teenage sister (warning: music!) can’t imagine life without it. When she visits, she spends most of her visit checking up on her friends…

But there are lots of other social networks, and depending on how broadly you definitely the term, there could be hundreds, if not thousands, of social networking tools on the internet…

Some of the more popular social networks we identified during the session included:

These are some of the more popular services that are directly built to be “social networking” tools in that they are designed around giving users the opportunity to connect with “friends”. Some of them, like LinkedIn and Biznik, are designed to let users share job hunting and business contacts while Judy’s Book is about sharing references and recommendations about anything local.

The idea is that you’d be much more likely to purchase a product or use the services of someone if you knew that they were recommended by a friend (or more likely a friend of a friend).

[photopress:seo_networking.jpg,thumb,alignright]I’m often surprised that I don’t see more real estate professionals talk about social networking tools because real estate is really about relationships and social networks on the internet are just an extension of this idea. Social networking tools are one of the most powerful ways for real estate professionals to use the internet to connect with potential buyers and sellers. When you get a reference (or lead) from a social network, this person comes to you with a certain level of trust!

By the way, the tricky part about defining social networking tools is that most people don’t limit them to websites. Tools like instant messaging (IM) and email are simple ways to start building up a community through the internet.

In addition, tools like Flickr and del.icio.us, have perfected the art of using community input to make a service that is better than the mere sum of its parts. When sharing photos with Flickr, you enter a community where good photos are commented on and added to groups where a magic “interestingness” rating identifies photos most worth seeing. With del.icio.us you can follow the links and notes of the friends and they surf the web to find webpages worth visiting. (Both of these sites were bought by Yahoo for vast sums of money because of their ability to use the general web-surfing public to organize webpages for Yahoo!).

Which brings up the most controversial part of existing social networking tools. Just about every single one of them requires the user to input information (tags, descriptions, etc) that benefit the owner of the site, but very few of the tools (and none of the major ones) allow a user to output their information or delete their information when they don’t feel like “sharing” any more. Jim Benson probably covers this topic better than anyone else I know and his recent article, People vs. Peep Hole, dives into the idea that a corporate controlled community can never be free.

These concerns are interesting, and definitely worth following, but most real estate professionals are so far behind the curve in effectively using online networking tools that they should worry first and foremost about “getting involved”. In the future, someone will figure out how to keep our data “free” while still providing all the wonderful benefits of a social network, but until then, I’d highly recommend taking part in an online group that interests you… (By the way, joining a group of bloggers also counts! 😉 )

UPDATE:

Right after I hit publish on this post, I got an email alerting me that the MindMap (a topic worthy of another blog post) for the social networking session was published on a file sharing site used for MindCamp stuff. Download the pdf file on the site to see a much more comprehensive list of social networking sites!