🙂
And despite the fact that we may not have Ardell’s magic open house touch, we are showing it on Sunday between 12 and 3PM as described in the open house listing on Trumba.
Update:
I also created an adword campaign around our home. If you see the following ad while surfing the web, don’t click on it because it costs me money and just takes you to this blog post! 🙂
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Funny side note… I decided to try out Google’s option to target ads at specific websites and noticed that Zillow was on the list for real estate related sites. However, in order to see the ad for my home on Zillow, I had to disable the one-two punch of Adblock and Filter.G on my Firefox browser. By disabling these two extensions, so many websites that I visit on a regular basis looked so much uglier! It was like traveling the web naked! It you’re not using the firefox browser with these two extensions, then you are almost definitely surfing a web that looks much more annoying than mine!
O’Reilly discusses research that suggests Seattle is fertile ground for startups, coming in behind San Francisco and Boston at number 3 based on a rough analysis of SimplyHired job postings. Downturn or not, the real estate market here is going to change if a couple more Amazons or Microsofts grow up in the Seattle area.
John Cook has more Seattle-centric observations and points to analysis by (New York-based) Fred Wilson, who claims that New York is number 3, based on an analysis of Conecticut-based indeed.com. Maybe Seattle would hit number 2 if the analysis used job listings from jobster.com, a Seattle based startup.
By the way, for those who travel a lot, I have invites to my favorite Seattle-based startup, Farecast. Let me know if you want one.
[photopress:dig_deep.jpg,thumb,alignright]Whether you are a buyer or a seller, you really need to dig a little deeper when determining the value of a home. One thing I noticed when I first started practicing real estate in the Seattle area, is that almost no one digs deep enough when determining value based on “buyer profile”. This is an old fashioned concept, I guess, that I learned many, many years ago when I was the Certified Corporate Property Specialist (CCPS) for a large real estate company on the East Coast. That’s a fancy name for someone who must quickly sell the vacant inventory homes of relocated executives whose homes were “acquired” via a “buyout” corporate perk. The very first question I had to ask myself when I went to the property before putting it on market was, “Who is likely to buy this house?” I needed to know if I had an expanded or diminished buyer “pool”.
Remember, the market is shifting from a “baby boomer” market to a “Generation X” market, and we have to change our thinking and valuing with the trends that are affected by this shift. “We” meaning anyone interested in the “value” of property, whether that be buyers, sellers or real estate professionals.
Here’s a simple scenario. Four houses. Each 2,600 hundred square feet per mls. Let’s say everything is comparable in terms of neighborhood, lot size, view considerations (all have a view) and improvements. The ONLY difference being the placement of the square footage, each being 2,600 square feet not including the garage.
House #1 – 1,400 square feet on the main level and 1,200 square feet on the second floor. 2,600 above ground square feet with 4 bedrooms on the second floor and none on the first floor. View from all “main” rooms, (kitchen, living room, entertainment spaces and master bedroom).
House #2 – EXACTLY the same house as House #1, but with views out the front door, not visible from main rooms and views from all children’s bedrooms only, when inside the home. In other words on opposite side of the street so front door faces the view instead of the rear of the house facing the view.
House #3 – 2,000 square feet on the main level with 3 bedrooms on main level and 600 finished square feet in basement level with one bedroom in the basement. All views from main areas on main “entertaining” level.
House #4 – 1,300 square feet on the main level with only the master bedroom on the main level and 1,300 on the basement level with three “children’s bedrooms” down in the basement. Another variation would be two bedrooms up and two bedrooms down.
What really concerns me, is I see people getting info from the internet regarding total square footage, and doing comps based on this total square footage. “The house across the street sold for $800,000, so this one is worth X on a “price per square foot” basis. Even if it is the house next door, PLEASE stop valuing property based on price per square foot based on TOTAL square footage. Clearly you can see that those four houses, all 2,600 square feet, have considerable differences with regard to value.
When a pregnant woman and her two year old walk into house #4, they have to walk right back out. Do you really think she is going to love her master bedroom with view, if her newborn baby and two year old are sleeping “in the basement”? Now, personally I love my kids being “in the basement”, as mine are grown. But I wouldn’t pay as much for the house with a huge master suite on the second floor and all other bedrooms in the basement, as I would for one with more bedrooms “up”, even though that suits MY “buyer profile“.
Diminished buyer pool means that the average family buying a home cannot live with that floor plan, and that affects value, even if that floor plan suits YOUR needs. If the answer to the question, “Where do the kids sleep?!?” is down in the basement, on a separate floor from “Mommy”….hmmmmm.
Investors be very aware of this concept, as what you are thinking is a “bargain” in the neighborhood, and buying as a flip project, may be the ones with this “floor plan flow” problem. You sink a ton of money into granite counters, etc. only to find the low price was based on these types of differences in square footage placement, and you get nailed on resale of the improved flip house.
If a house is not selling and the price is reduced below the prices of the neighboring properties, make sure you know WHY that is happening. Likewise, if a real estate agent prices a house with 3 bedrooms on the main level and views from main rooms like house #3, based on the price “per square foot” of the house next door like house #4 with the kids in the basement…THAT house may be a TRUE bargain.
Thanks to Tom of Trumba, I’ve been playing around with Trumba‘s calendar solutions. They are definitely doing some interesting things and there are some benefits to their solution that go above and beyond the current offerings of Google Calendar I discussed a little while back. In particular, I really like two features they’ve added to the NYTime’s Automotive Calendar that I think could easily be ported to the Seattle real estate scene.
There are two types of calendars that can easily be added to another site. One is a preview calendar shown on my sidepanel (below the comments!) and the other is a “full” calendar shown below.
I really like the distributed collaboration and if anyone wants to add this calendar to their real estate site, it is as simple as copy-and-pasting some code… If you are interested, email me and I’ll send you the code!
By the way, the current calendars on this site do not have the “add an event” feature, but Tom assures me that it will be available in a few weeks! Until then, feel free to email me with your real estate event if you’d like me to add it to the calendar!
One more thing!!! The TechCrunch event looks to be a lot of fun and is coming up this next Wednesday!!!
Interestingly, the NWMLS is now allowing agents to list sold data on real estate websites.
Along these lines, Shelley Rossi, the Director of Public Relations for John L. Scott, emailed to let me know that John L. Scott added a comparable market analysis tool to their home search Robbie discussed last week…
There are two ways to access comparable sold property information on JohnLScott.com. The first is by address, which can be refined by entering property characteristics, such as square footage, bedrooms, bathrooms, etc., and the system will identify the ten closest “sold homes
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!
[photopress:hair.JPG,thumb,alignright]It is very difficult for young people today to buy with confidence. There are some very real fears, and justifiably so, that housing prices can not and will not continue to rise at the levels they have in recent years. Some ask if they should wait until they have saved 20% down. Historically, most people have bought their first homes with less than 20% down for good reason. There are no guarantees that interest rates will not rise. Interest rates are still, historically very low. How would you feel if you waited to purchase only to find that prices were still high and interest rates were 9.5%?
Renting when you are a family with children has its risks. What do you do when one day the landlord knocks on the door and says “I’ve decided to sell the house and you all have to move out in 30 says”?
Anyone who can qualify for the first time buyer program at First Tech, should consider that option. It is an excellent program, with almost no loan costs and a very low interest rate. Take the time to find the very best loan program that you can and work on your credit score to insure you can get the best possible rate available.
When selecting property, try to convince yourself to buy that diamond in the rough. This way if values do not increase, you will still be able to sell at a profit. Buy the house that needs a lot of cosmetic fixes, but has good curb appeal and is in a decent area. Consider all of those areas that have only increased by 10% or 15% but border on areas that have increased by 30%. Buy that “old people” house in a great neighborhood that everyone else is turning their nose up at because it has sculptured carpet and pinch pleated avocado drapes.
The one sure way to buy with confidence is to ignore the cosmetic issues and don’t be fooled by heavy “staging” that might lure you into paying too much for the house. It has never been more important to buy wisely. It has never been more important to avoid making choices based on creature comforts like “needs nothing”, totally remodeled or brand new, less than 15 minutes to work. Don’t get tangled up in these creature comfort premiums, unless you are willing to face the fact that the tradeoff may be having to sell for less than you paid when you need to move.
There are still plenty of values and many of them require a little TLC like paint and landscaping. Be the smart buyer who isn’t crying the blues in a year or two if prices level out or take a dip.
Good news for people who like bad news:
And a couple of articles:
And if those aren’t enough, I suggest the tongue-in-cheek There is no Housing bubble!
It sure is easy to be a hater, isn’t it?
I think both sides are taking a foolish black-and-white approach to the bubble question; clearly there are some indicators that there is a real estate bubble, but the consensus seems to be that the risk of home prices plummeting is low. Home prices will probably be flat until inflation brings prices back to “normal” levels. My concern is that if house prices do pop precipitously, there are going to be serious consequences for home owners and non-homeowners alike.
A similar scenario, different context: A few years ago, the Fed found itself with a small risk of Very Bad Thing happening. That Very Bad Thing was deflation (remember that?). Few economists were convinced that actual Japan-style deflation would occur, but because of the potentially devastating effect of deflation on the economy, the Fed moved aggressively to combat it (giving us the cheap money we used to buy expensive homes) even though the solution could cause other problems. Why? Here is the economist (login required) in 2002 (slightly out of context):
… however small the risk of deflation, the economic cost would be so high that policymakers should respond as if it were a central risk.
Someone who is looking at a home today or who has a sizeable mortgage on their home today should look at all this bubble talk in the same way; the risk is low that your property value will decline 25% or even 10%, but the risk is certainly there. Specifically:
Perhaps house valuations have fundamentally changed over the last 5-10 years and we there is no risk of house price declines. The one argument I do not buy is that our land use laws are making property more expensive; builders are cranking out hundreds units and making loads of money on each unit, meaning they could continue profiting even at lower price levels.
Galen
A little less than a month ago, I released the Rain City Guide Wiki and I’ve been very impressed with the results so far… I’ve had quite a few local real estate professionals add themselves to the (free) directory that I’ve set up and even a few, like Grier Smith and Chuck Reiling, add their own pages.
Interestingly, I figured it would take some time before Google caught up with the wiki site, but I’m pleased to say that it really didn’t take much time at all! A search on Chuck’s name shows that the wiki page he created for himself is the number one result, even above his writings on Rain City Guide, which kind of surprised me.
[photopress:wiki_screenshot.jpg,thumb,alignright]Because creating a page on the wiki is as simple as putting text in brackets: […], it seems like a no brainer for real estate professional who want to kick start their internet exposure. All you have to do is add your name (in brackets) to the Seattle Real Estate Directory. After you save the page, you will be prompted to create your own page where you can write about yourself and add photos to your heart’s content.
However, I think the real benefit of the wiki will come as people fill in more details about the home buying process. Grier did a great job starting up the discussion with a page on the Home Buying Process. If others are interested in adding to his description, editing the wiki page is as simple as clicking on the link that says “edit this page”! And if you are making a meaningful contribution, I highly recommend you add yourself as a source!
Here are some of the areas of the wiki that I’ve put some time into updating recently:
I’ve definitely gone wiki, and if you care to join, it can be a lot of fun!