Tag Archives: Seattle

Taking on KING/KONG…

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Yesterday I was interviewed by a KING-5 reporter, Kim Holcomb, and which I had written about on my blog at this post.  I had jokingly referred to taking on King Kong but only because the news segment was shown on KING-5 and KONG-6 last night.

King Kong

The news story was about how the market here is changing just a bit to more of a stabilized market.  At the beginning of the report a seller talks about it being a “buyer’s market” but I wouldn’t necessarily agree with him completely.  We’ve still got room to move before that happens and if anything we’re more balanced than the past 5 years.  The segment did run on both KING and KONG stations and, from what my business partner tells me, it is one of the most viewed and forwarded links from the KING-5 website today.  Here is a link the actual news story about the Seattle real estate marketplace along with pieces of my interview.

It seems we’re (Team Reba) getting a lot of press lately.  I was interviewed in July for a story on blogging for the RE/MAX Times back in July (released in September) and just last week I was interviewed for a real estate investment magazine which will be printed in the November/December time frame.  Now, if I could just get the interviewers to pronounce my name correctly…. 🙂

What's in the best interests of agents?

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Jan at the logical dog has set up a petition that requests the NWMLS board to reverse it’s decision and continue sending listings to Realtor.com.

This got me thinking about the often-interesting dynamic between the “best interests” of brokers vs the “best interest” of agents, which is something I’ve heard Russ Cofano talk to quite eloquently. However, I really don’t have a feel for how agents feel about this issue. Is the decision to stop sending listings scene as something that was “thrust” upon agents, or is it something they advocated for? Because of the NWMLS unusual status of a “broker-owned” MLS, I’m assuming the former, but I’ve been wrong before so I’d be interested in hearing from agents in the audience…

How about those SEO tweaks?

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I thought about labeling this post “Does SEO work?” or something similar until I realized that is just stupid. SEO stands for search engine optimization and not only does it work, but in many ways, it is the basis for why blogs work so extremely well for promoting yourself as an expert within a niche topic (as Rhonda has done… Or even a nationally recognized expert!)

So where am I going? I recently had another meetup with my project blogger and I realized I hadn’t made some simple SEO-related tweaks to his wordpress blog that I made to RCG last December. The tweaks I made were to:

  • edit the title tag of all my posts
  • add keywords to the blog

I gave one update to this post, but essentially failed to follow through, so I’m hoping to remedy that right now. 🙂

First, I’m a bit surprised that many of my one week observations held steady. For example, RCG is still the #1 result for [Agent Recommendations]. Also, RCG has essentially dropped off of Google’s radar for a search that used to be our #1 organic traffic generator: [Seattle Real Estate]. My expectation was that Google’s algorithms might be temporarily confused by my changes to the site, but that they would pick up our new configuration after a while and continue to drive us traffic on this key search term. No such luck after four months.

As a matter of fact, I’m pretty sure that Google is still somewhat confused. My logic stems from the fact the page Google has decided is most relevant (using this search term) from RCG changes on a weekly basis. This week it is the link to Robbie’s articles which shows up somewhere down the middle of the page (if you show 100 results per page on Google as I do)

[photopress:robbie_search_result.jpg,full,centered]

However, the real genesis of my SEO tweaks were to see if I could get the “other” search engines to send RCG a higher percent of our organic traffic. The idea is that Google was sending about 92% of the organic traffic to RCG and I wanted to see if I could get MSN and/or Yahoo to send more. As you can see from this Google Analytics chart for stats from the month of March, 2007, I failed:

[photopress:search_origin.jpg,full,centered]

Google sent 91.73%, or approximately 92% of all organic traffic to the site in March of 2007, which means there was essentially no change at all! In other words, the SEO-related changes I made did not have the intended effect of increasing the percent of organic traffic that RCG received from non-Google sources.

However, I’d be ending too soon if I made it sound like the SEO changes were not beneficial. Here is the marketing summary from Google Analytics for the month of March 2007 compared to the month of November 2006 (i.e. well after the changes to before the changes!).

[photopress:stats_mar07_nov06.jpg,full,centered]

What you see is that our visitors from organic sources is up 138% between those months and the visitors from organic Google searches is up 139%. This is almost double the increase from “referral” sources which makes me think that the changes I made to the site were effective and not just background growth!

(Of course, it can’t go unnoticed that the Seattle Bubble sent us over 2000 visitors in March. Wow! That’s well worth a juicy link to the most bubblicious real estate site in Seattle. 😉 )

Also of note… Google really seems to like our article on moving to Seattle. I love that my “little bit of serendipity” has turned out to be so helpful. You can never tell what post is going to kick start an interesting conversation.

Finally, as a treat, I thought I would present the chart that never fails to impress at my seminars. In March 2007, there were almost 25K people who came to RCG once and never returned. 🙁 (that is NOT the impressive part…). On the flip side, there are over 1,800 people who have visited the site more than 200 times.

[photopress:visitor_loyalty.jpg,full,centered]

For the RCG contributors (and commenters!) who wonder how widely that your stuff gets read, realize that there are a HUGE number of people who read without ever letting their presence be known. If you fall into that category (at least 95% of the regular readers do), feel free to introduce yourself in the comments any time! (The first comment is free.) 🙂

So, to wrap this up as a “project blogger” post… I’d highly recommend that anyone starting their own blog get Google Analytics. It’s free, easy to use, and provides a wealth of information about how people use your site! 🙂

Historic Photos of Your Seattle Home

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Did you know that if your home was built prior to 1930, there may be a photo of it in the State Achieves that you can obtain?

It takes a couple weeks to receive the photo and for a few cents extra, you can order the records that they [photopress:prince.JPG,thumb,alignright]have available from that time.    The black and white photo is from 1939 of the property which was built in 1927.   The color photo is a current picture of the home.

To order a photo of your home from the Puget Sound Achieves, click here to send an email.   You will need to provide:

  • Property address
  • Tax Parcel Number (I can help you find this if you don’t have this handy)
  • Legal Description (lot/block…they just want a brief one)
  • Your name and contact info

You can order anything from a 5×7 for $17.00 to a 16×20 for $55.00.   They will let you know what years are available.  It’s kind of fun to frame the older photos or to at least have them on hand.

Neighborhood Roundup: Seattle Uncovers a Funny Bone

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Due to the success of last week’s neighborhood roundup, I thought I’d make another attempt…

After a confusing vote on the Viaduct replacement, the Need to Know Seattle Condos blog lets us know about the grassroots movement to replace the viaduct with condos… This type of mixed-use development is sure to please the folks at City Comforts (temporarily, known as Viaduct, the blog)…

[photopress:pizza_bike.jpg,thumb,alignright]The Capitol Hill Seattle folks are shocked to get fast (and dry) pizza delivery in Seattle. “Because the Pagliacci delivery guy refuses to purchase a fender for the rear tire of his bike (he claims the tips aren’t that good), our pizza not only takes a long time to get delivered, but the cardboard box arrives soaked whenever it rains! The fact that Palermo’s delivery guy uses a car is a big plus (even if it doesn’t please our social sensibilities!).” Do you think it would help the Pagliacci delivery guy to know that he could get free maintenance advice for his bike at the Garfield Community Center on Sunday afternoons?

Seth over at the Seattlest loves the rain. (He obviously doesn’t order pizza from Pagliacci very often).

A much more prominent Seth seems more than a little concerned that Ballard’s Archie McPhee is selling Cap’n Danger Stunt Monkey’s for kids. The photo says tells the story…

The West Seattle Blog lets us know about the “West Seattle Pet Rodeo and Snooty Walk”. Seriously, here’s a link to the event…

Others in West Seattle are looking to return a missing fowl.

Ballard Avenue uncovers this (I’m not sure how to describe it!) video from Finland. Thanks to the fact that my wife loves this video, I’ve watched it more times than I care to admit…

Today’s saddest news in the Seattle neighborhood blog scene… Rumor has it that the writers behind the Seattlest and Metroblogging Seattle decided it would be a fun April Fool’s prank if they switched blogs for a day. However, the joke backfired when readers couldn’t tell the difference…

And finally, this post just missed the entry time for the Carnival of the Cities that is going to be hosted by The Seattle Traveler… (there’s a carnival for everything!) What a bummer!

Neighborhood Roundup: Breaking the Espresso Rut

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Creating the list of active neighborhood blogs was only the first step in my grand vision… (or is it Greg that has the grand neighborhood vision?) Okay… Maybe there is no grand plan, but I thought it would be fun to give a roundup of recent neighborhood posts…

The West Seattle Blog has turned to Cafe Rozella to break out of an espresso rut and is “really impressed”.

Dave at the Learning from Lake City expanded my skatepark world view considerably… Skatedots? Skatepots? Districts? Regionals? Who knew?

Georgetown Stew highlights a scam where people are not only taking advantage of day laborers, but it gets worse…

Not only are some folks in South Park being stiffed out of their wages, the employer(s) are apparently asking the workers for their home address, with the promise that a paycheck will arrive in the mail. And then the surprise arrives. Not a check, but officers from Immigration & Naturalization show up.

Beach Drive gives us a beautiful photo of a brave soul on the Sound…

Linked a day too soon to the Outer Limits blog… Ericka announced that she was moving on (thanks to a job!) and looking for a replacement…

The Miller Park Neighborhood Association blog is looking to get people out at an upcoming (March 28th) Sound Transit meeting to show support for lightrail on the eastside…

The Kirkland Weblog highlighted a great new photo blog out of Kirkland… The idea (as I understand it) is that the author of Kirkland 52 is planning to post photos of Kirkland once a week over the next year.

The Capitol Hill Seattle blog indulges their love of maps with an interesting map of voter patterns on the Viaduct Replacement. (PI Article)

The Belltown Bent highlights an award given by a Harvard Group to Weiss/Manfredi Architects for their work on the Olympic Sculpture Park.

Ballard Avenue wallows a bit in the transportation history of Ballard… I think the photo makes the post.

Why FSBO without putting it in the MLS?

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[photopress:iggy_pop.jpg,thumb,alignright]

Last week, a Seattle-area woman contacted us out of the blue asking if we advertise FSBOs and FSBO open houses on ShackPrices (we don’t), which led to a back-and-forth exchange that went sort of like this:

Me: Out of curiosity, why don’t you list your home in the MLS for $400 and get a lot more exposure? If you’re worried about the 2% – 3% commission, just mark it up that much.

Her: It’s sort of an experiment.

Me: Ah.

Me (in my mind):A $400,000 experiment that will probably result in significantly less exposure for your home and probably result in a longer time to sell (and result in continued payments during that time!) at the very least? Skip the experiment, list it on the MLS and buy yourself a new (if inexpensive) car with the money you are likely going to lose!

Yesterday an even better solution for FSBOs popped up: IggysHouse.com lets you list your house on the MLS for free. Experiments aside, it makes a lot of sense if you’re a FSBOer to get your property in the system that almost every home buyer looks to for listing information.

Do not be offended, dear real estate agent reader. This free listing service, which is apparently a slap in the face of real estate agents, is actually a backhanded compliment. IggysHouse claims to be offering this just so FSBOers will consider their buyer agent service, but it’s clear that they are convinced they can sell those FSBOers on other products and services and that a decent percentage of their FSBO listers will be convinced to work with an agent when they don’t find success going alone or have trouble getting through the close or negotiating with someone who has done it 100 times before.

Update: Greg Swann thinks Iggy’s House will make money from mortgages.

It may not be your business…but it is all mine!

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Two years ago, our company switched our loan operating system to Encompass, so I have data available for the past two years (closed transactions from March 2005 – March 2007).   I’m pretty surprised at the results after analyzing my purchase transactions and so thought I would share this with you.

Mid Credit Scores

3% had credit scores between 600-619

17% had credit scores between 620-679

25% had credit scores between 680-719

47% had credit scores between 720-799

8% had credit scores above 800

25 % of clients purchased with 100% LTV Financing (80/20 or 100% LPMI)

Average zero down mid credit score = 723

7% FHA Financing

  • Mid credit scores ranging from 644 – 744
  • Average FHA mid credit score = 720

39% had 20% or more for down payment.

The most popular loan programs for my clients:

  • 47% opted for a 30 year fixed conventional
  • 26% have 5 year fixed period ARMs

So what do I make of this?   The consumers with scores under 620 will have a much tougher time, if they’re able to purchase at all.   Especially without a down payment of 5% or better.   Depending on credit history (1-2 years of no late payments), they may be able to go FHA or VA for financing.   The 3% (credit scores of 600 – 619) of my clients who I helped with financing over the past two years, would probably need to go back to drawing board and work on their improving credit scores (and, more importantly, work on changing their credit/spending habits) before being able to obtain financing for a home.   With that said, out of the 3% who were able to buy, I’m only worried about two buyers who may not have followed my advice of working on their credit and revamping their budget (and one of them has a 5 year fixed period ARM).

The 17% (credit scores between 620-679) would probably fit into FHA financing.   Over the past two years, most of my clients would opt for 80/20 or 100% (LPMI) financing over FHA for the following reasons:

  • The upfront PMI (1.5% of the loan amount) is no longer refundable on new loans.
  • Monthly PMI was not tax deductible (VA does not have PMI) for loans originated before 2007.
  • The payment with 80/20s was lower than FHA.
  • Borrowers could keep the 3% down (required with FHA) in reserves instead of draining their savings.  

This information is just a reflection of my purchase business from March of 2005 to my closed transactions as of today.   Historically, I have served more south King County families.   Just over the past year, with my move to Seattle, my business is beginning to expand to Seattle and Bellevue areas.

Before reviewing this data, I was certain that a larger percentage of my business was zero down or subprime.  Now I can see that I’ve done many zero down/subprime “prequalications or preapprovals” and they just didn’t pan out…but the effort that goes into a preapproval almost feels like you completed a transaction…especially for a subprime buyer. 

Again, I don’t represent every lender…just little ol’ me!  😉

Now that Matt…

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… has a new condo in Bellevue at the Meritage, you might have thought he would slow down the pace of his condo blogging at Urbnlivn. But no chance there… instead he unleashes the urbnlivn forum for the Seattle-area Market. Very cool. It’s a little quiet at the moment (the site is brand new), but I’m sure under Matt’s guidance, it won’t stay quiet for long…

Also a belated, but HUGE, congratulations to Matt on your new condo!