Trulia’s Integrity Called Into Question

Galen from Estately writeson Bloodhound about Trulia’s practice of running listing links through a temporary (302) redirect, which essentially stops Google from following the link and making Trulia the original source of the content (in Google’s eyes), which boosts Trulia’s search engine ranking for the addresses instead of the actual content provider (the listing partner who gave them the listing information to begin with).

Sneaky… but is it really so surprising that Trulia is bullying brokers out of top search positions? Trulia’s model is built around using broker information to position itself above brokers, hence becoming valuable enough that brokers want to use the site instead of relying on their own websites to get business. If a broker or agent is getting enough business branding themselves they will not need to pay these companies for their leads or advertise on them or give them their listings.

So Trulia (and other listing aggregation websites) need to make themselves better then the brokers and agents so those people will need them.

Hmmm, a company taking broker information and using it for it’s own gain, even when it hurts the broker AND even charging those same brokers who want to use that information to get business… but putting the brokers into a position where they are now so reliant on the company that they feel like they have no choice but to continue the relationship…?

Sounds a little familiar…. almost like… an MLS!

Real estate brokers and agents are hurting themselves by using third-party listing aggregation websites (like Trulia, Zillow, Realtor.com, Homegain, Craigslist, Frontdoor, and on and on and freakin’ on) but cannot stop because some are getting leads from them.

I’m not saying that nobody should use these services, but it’s important for agents and brokers to brand themselvesonline and not simply use these companies as their online business strategy. Brokers and agents are the ones with the data, the information, and most importantly, the knowledge, that is fueling these other companies. Make sure you fuel your own success, too.

 

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Redfin Becoming What They Hate… Traditional

Redfin today announced that they are taking yet another step toward becoming that one thing that they so desperately are trying to position themselves as NOT being… a traditional brokerage.

They began as an online-only brokerage, touting themselves as the first online brokerage and making a lot of noise about their unique value proposition. Buyers found the home they wanted to buy, made the offer on redfin’s website, and got a cut of the commission check.

Then…

Redfin began offering property tours for a fee.

Then…

They began offering more tours.

Now…

They’re offering tours through homes the way traditional agents do, with no set amount of homes or fees (other than they’ll only take you twice per week) and you get less of a cut of the commission.

They already ditched their industry-best map and search capability and replaced it with Microsoft’s api, replaced their logo with a worse one, and have given the metaphorical finger to traditional agents every chance they get, shouting how “different” they are, being an online broker. 

Making bad decisions, playing catch-up to others in the industry, spin-selling… sounds like they are more traditional than they think.

Next…

They will probably offer traditional agent services in a menu-driven model, where buyers can choose which level of service they want (full service, some service, no service). Just like everyone else, Redfin is adjusting to the industry, not the other way around. They are learning something I learned quite a while ago (I’m a faster learner), having a kick-ass website only gets you the introduction- you still gotta earn the business. And when people invest $700,000 on anything, they want an expert who knows their stuff and who can give the very best advice and share their knowledge, not just someone to fax your documents and schedule your inspection for you.

There is a difference between information and knowledge. Redfin is learning this, albeit very slowly…

 

Will Zillow Begin Competing with Itself?

 

Rich Barton, founder of Zillow, has raised a few $Million (along with however much of his own money) and is launching a new company called Glassdoor, which some are speculating could be a real estate-related venture. That does make sense, after all, “The name itself suggests transparency within real estate” and Glassdoor’s website points out right from the beginning that it’s founders “are a team led by ex-Expedia and Microsoft executives that have a history of using new technology to rewire old industries.”

If they are doing something within the real estate space, my guess is that it would be on the brokerage side, because anything not on the brokerage side would fall under Zillow. What is interesting is that Rich Barton, if the company is a real estate brokerage, would be the CEO of two competing companies, and would probably disenfranchise all the brokers who are currently using Zillow as an advertising model, bu now competing with them while at the same time asking them to fund his other company (Zillow).

Of course, it’s all speculation right now what they are launching because they are saying. Some suggest they are creating a social network and some think it’s a real estate brokerage. And neither a real estate brokerage or social network would fit into the description of what they claim is going to be something “pretty unique”.

It could be a glass door company for all we know. Barton obviously likes the idea of starting a new company and getting free publicity by not saying what it will be. If you hear anything about it, leave a comment and impress us with your keen investigatory skills.

(h/t 4realz)

Realtors Beware- Learning From Home Depot

 

Rob at The Notorious R.O.B. (Rob works at OnBoard, a data aggregation company) wrote an excellent post about the damage that can be done to brokers and agents by using Trulia, Realtor.com, Zillow, and other third-party listing aggregation websites.

From Rob’s post;

“[The] consumer then has a relationship (or at least an experience) with Trulia or whoever; it’s how they found the house, and found the real estate agent…

…But the brokerage?  Or the brand?  Just like I couldn’t remember the name of the contractor that did my windows, would any consumer remember RE/Max or Coldwell Banker or whatever?

Would said consumer, upon resurfacing seven years later (on average), remember the agent who took such good care of him the first time around?  Or would he remember the really useful website where he found a house and someone to “install” the house for him?”

Instead of building the brand of these companies, build your own brand.

It’s a great post and a good story, and it has a good message that every broker might want to think about.

America’s Top Ten Lustful Cities

 

Forbes has come out with another social list- this time called America’s Most Lustful Cities. Salt Lake City ties with Boise for fifth place, yet the list is not actually a list of the most lustful, it’s a list of the cities with the highest per-capita condom sales. To say that condom sales indicates lustfulness is not only irresponsible, but really dumb.

Most condoms are sold to married couples or other monogamous people in relationships. And to think that Denver ranked #1  and Vegas isn’t even on the list makes the whole thing a bit difficult to believe. I’ve lived outside of Denver and I’ve been to Vegas a lot of times and, while Forbes puts out a lot of great social top ten lists, I just can’t seem to buy into this one.

(h/t Cityburb)

What Real Estate Consumers REALLY Want

 

Every week there is new set of charts and graphs that come out. They analyze every minutia of data and all the information imaginable. New killer-apps are being released at such a rapid pace it’s tough to keep up with them all. And why?

Well, according to the techno-listing sites, the third-party aggregation websites, like Redfin, Zillow and Trulia, apparently what people really want is…. yep, more data. That’s right- more and more data. Every conceivable number and metric they can think up.

It’s like a race now. Who can churn out the most data, and cram it onto their website, the fastest. Who cares if it’s relevant or if anybody will actually use it- it’s DATA! It’s cool color charts and graphs that can show you everything you never thought possible. Come and see how many times people in this neighborhood walk their dogs on Tuesday mornings or find out the ratio of homes that sold for 1/25th of their initial listing price, during the first 118 hours being on the market, after being sold 2-3 years earlier, that have a redwood deck, and were listed with a Realtor named Sally- all in a cool pie chart.

So, this is where all the investment capital is going with all these techno-listing sites- more data? Millions of dollars are being pumped into these companies by investors who are counting on profits from all this data, yet none of these companies have made any profit. Think about how ridiculous this is. Redfin gets $20Million and it’s whole model is based around the idea that if they give more data and info, people will just buy homes online. The whole Redfin company, with all of their PR, news coverage, and dozens of full time employees and agents, only sold about 1000 homes last year.  For a comparison, I sold 114 homes last year. And these investors keep pumping money into this sinking ship.

Zillow just got another $30Million and Trulia has now received almost $18Million. And the business models of these companies is to get advertising (more stuff to put on the websites). I guess they figure at a certain point people will just become so buried with all the data on their websites that they’ll just have to fall over and surrender to them. When these companies run out of money (like they all keep doing), they simply come up with some new graphs and heat maps and show the suckers investors how this new data will finally get them some of that “profit” they keep hearing so much about, but alas… it does not come.

I receive a lot of advice on what I should add to my website. I have had no less than twenty companies approach me to sell me some cool new data field or information feed.  And I like data, and using it to give people good information, but enough is enough.

 People don’t want more data- they want a great experience.

I don’t want to climb over piles of charts and graphs to find what I’m looking for. If I’m thirsty I don’t really care if the glass has twirling lights and does my taxes- I just want the water that’s in the glass. The next cool drinking glass that has dancing girls and live-streaming music might be hot for a little while (like these tech-sites), but in the long run I believe that people will always use simple, easy to use water glasses. Because when they are thirsty they want the water, not the glass.

My point is- don’t cram your website with as much stuff as you can find. Instead, use good data and information, and present it in a way that offers a good, fun experience for your consumers. Give them a presentation that is visually appealing, as well as powerful and technologically advanced. Don’t forget that people make decisions based on emotion, and we always will.

Give me a great experience and I will give you my business.

Companies That Need to Be Founded

 

I’m in the middle of launching my own new company, but if I had the time and the know-how here are some companies I would love to start. And maybe someone out there will someday…

A social network that is much better. A place that has more features than Linked-In (which has none), and is much easier to use than Facebook (Can they make it any more difficult to simply send a message?), but that is more grown-up than MySpace. I’m talking about a social network where I could go to and keep up with people, chat, share photos, etc. And it needs to be simple and easy to use and understand. Make it simple!!! And without all the stoopidness of MySpace, you know the blaring hip-hop and porn on people’s pages. Why not a calendar that I can share with my network that we can all share events and birthdays, an easy way to rate and recommend local bars and restaurants, and a clean, simple design that is intuitive and fun to use.

A Twitter that was much better. This wouldn’t be difficult to build, either and if I had time I would probably just do it myself. Take the basic idea of twitter, but make it so I don’t have to read all the responses to messages I can’t see and make it so I can choose channels or areas to be in. So maybe I can be in a business section where I’m not reading about people feeding their dog or whatever, but actual business ideas and messages. And why not let people drag-and-drop photos, videos, music and other stuff? Also 140 characters could easily be expanded to 500 so I could finish a thought… that would be nice.

A search engine that utilizes human judgement- at least for the top commercial website ranks. Keywords and meta-tags ruin the results on existing search engines. SEO kills good design, making website creators (and their clients) to choose between a good website design that they need to pay for all the traffic to, or a wordy manifest with keywords repeated ad nausea and no design appeal in order to rank high in organic search results. For the top commercial website results, at least, human judgement should be used to ensure relevance, but also, that the best websites rank the highest.

Just because something new comes along, doesn’t mean it’s been done right. Instead of just doing more of the same or only looking for the next, new big idea, we need to take existing ideas and make them better. Remember, when a company becomes big, it becomes slow and less willing to take chances and make improvements. There are a lot of opportunities out there for people who are willing to take the chance and put in the work. People don’t want to be sold anymore, they want to be inspired.

Trulia- Tech Guys in Realtor’s Clothing

The real estate industry has been in a major state of flux for two years now, with new technology and innovation entering the market constantly. It’s truly an exciting time to be in this industry. Some of the technology has really benefited the consumer and real estate agents alike. Many agents are becoming much more efficient and are offering much better service than ever before. Some technology (virtual tours, online fax) has become so common and accepted that many would not want to think of working without it.

One of the areas that has seen major growth is in the third-party, tech-guy’s turned real estate entrepreneur’s, listings.bot arena. First there was HouseValues, which was an innovator in that it saw how weak real estate agent’s were at attracting business from the internet so it capitalized on that weakness and got it’s own internet leads and sold them to real estate agents. Then, Lending Tree jumped in with it’s bid-for-mortgage business model becoming a bid-for-anything-real-estate-related model, and it now sells leads to agents as well.

And Realtor.com was actually doing this before any of them. By being the official website for the National Association of Realtors (NAR) it was given exclusive access to all the content from all of the MLS’s across the nation. So, did it take this MLS data and use it to further the industry and pursue noble Realtor causes? Of course not, it sold leads back to the agents, just like the other guys. Realtor.com used to charge $1000’s to be the “designated” Realtor for an area and get those area leads. Now it charges agents to place their listings at the top of the results and to have the agent contact info and property address shown.

Today we have Trulia, among many others, who have a new business model- Give it all away for free and be the agent’s best friend, grow really big until the agents depend on you, then charge them and make a bundle.

Trulia takes the listing info and sends the leads back to the agents with no charge. Everyone loves that. But when you have VC money you’ve got to make profit and giving stuff away doesn’t bring in any profit.

Trulia has always sold ads on their website, and at the beginning claimed they were only interested in making money from those ads. But, now that they have grown and are getting a lot more traffic (and have investors), Trulia is changing, as I thought they might. They are no longer just making money from advertising. Now Trulia sells placement of listings to the agents, just like the other guys. And it’s only a matter of time before they begin charging agents to be a “designated” or “premier” or “showcase” agent, and then only a matter of time before they charge for the leads.

Not that’s there’s anything wrong with that. They certainly have a right to have their business model, and their search function and information is superb. They offer a lot of info and have some really cool tools on their site. But it’s just data- they have no real estate knowledge or expertise because they are not real estate people. Trulia was founded, as most of the other listings.bot websites, by tech people. Just a couple of tech guys- not real estate guys, tech guys.

A better alternative for brokers and agents (and the consumer), would be to have their own destination website that is not only full of rich content and great search functionality, but offers the individual agent’s local knowledge and personality. Because, while real estate technology is expanding and becoming global, the transactions and business are still based on relationships and personality and trust between Realtors and their clients.

It is wonderful to have great data and technology, but a successful real estate business still needs to be founded in service and relationships. And no national website can offer people the personal touch of a local agent, with their intimate knowledge of an area and the excellent service they provide to their clients.

There is a difference between information and knowledge. These mega-websites can offer tons of data and graphs, charts, statistics, reports, and other information, but at the end of the day- none of them can advise a local buyer like I can.

Agents and brokers could, as an alternative to feeding the machine of these mega-sites, create their own online brand, their own online real estate destination, and offer the same cool data and technology, and fill it with their own personality and their own knowledge and experience. Instead of contributing to a mega-site knowledge base, they could offer their own, local knowledge bases. If I am buying a home in Salt Lake City I want to know about the Salt lake City area and local market conditions and get expert advise and guidance for that area and I really don’t care about who is the top agent in Grand Rapids or what ten agents say about the market in Boston.

My founding BlueRoof360, stemmed from the dozen or so monthly emails and phone calls I receive from agents and brokers asking me if I can help them build a website or help them convert online leads or help them with their online services. 

Agents can now have their own websites and blogs and have innovative technology and cutting-edge search tools and data, and keep their business for themselves and offer their own personality and knowledge, without spending $100,000 and twelve months designing a custom website. I’m not just trying to be noble- I want to make a profit, just like the next guy. But I’m doing it in a way that helps, not hurts, the agents and brokers in the long-run.

Unlike Trulia, or Zillow, or Redfin, or many of the other tech.bot real estate sites- I am not a tech-guy trying to make money in real estate. I am a Realtor using technology to offer better service for my clients.

And now I’m using technology to help other agents grab hold of their fair share of the internet business that so many of the tech-guys are trying to take from them. Using these mega-sites is not bad, but it shouldn’t be an agent’s only source of online business.

Real estate professional know real estate better than tech guys or anyone else, and with the right technology won’t need these outside mega-sites because they will be one of their own.

At Least it’s not a Meth House

Hey, no house is perfect, right?

Realtors are Just too Damn Old

Ever been out with friends at the local bar filled with 20 and 30-something’s having a drink and you notice the old horny dude in the back just sitting, watching? He’s probably a nice guy and has a lot of great stories about the “good old days” when he actually belonged at this college hangout, but he doesn’t quite fit in with the vibe and environment.

Many Realtors are that old dude. Experience is good. Knowledge is good. Stories wrapped in nostalgia can be good. Being  outdated and unwilling to evolve and offer effective service because you’re too (old, lazy, experienced, busy, set in your ways, dumb, etc) whatever -  that is bad.

I’m not a fan of the blogging movement that seems to be happening where agents simply bitch and whine about everything just to gain some sort of credibility with consumers, as if to say, “See I’m complaining- I’m on your side, so give me business!”

I am not complaining to get business- I am complaining so that hopefully 100 of the old agents who read this will leave the business immediately. And by old I don’t necessarily mean age, it’s more the attitude and approach. But it usually does correlate to age. The average age of Realtors today in America is like 87 or 104 or something. It’s just really old.

Let’s look at some of the reasons for this…

People enter into real estate at a much older age than other professions. They rarely gradute high school thinking they want a career in real estate and then immediately pursure that dream. There aren’t many kids running around dreaming about being a Realtor. Usually people enter real estate after years spent in some other career in some other field. They decide they want something easy different and give real estate a try. And then some make it, but most do not (90% of people who get a real estate license do not renew their license).

Older people know a lot of people. After ten years on the city bingo league and twelve years as soccer-mom and six years in the PTA and a lifetime going to church, some have a big sphere of friends and family and associates to beg network from. So some of these agents just hang around waiting for somebody to call them and don’t think about enhancing their service to attract new business.

Older people seem more trustworthy. Every generation seems to have this belief that people from past generations were better workers, more trustworthy, more wholesome, better dressers, better people, more dignified, more educated, more spiritual, and just plain better people. This is not true. Every generation is just as good as the last and just as bad as the last. Just because someone is older does not make them anything necessarily, except older.

Some older people have nothing better to do. There aren’t a lot of job opportunities for a 54 year old real estate agent who used to be the vice president of PaperDolls,inc. They don’t have anywhere else to go, so they stick around, passively. Without having a real drive, they don’t work to be the best or even be better. Many times they are content to just be there at all.

It’s tough to fire an older person. If 23 year-old Justin doesn’t cut it or learn the new stuff it’s easy to kick him out and tell him he needs to find another job. But good ole’ Betsy who’s got all the great stories and knits everyone sweaters and has no other job prospects, that’s tough. So noone kicks her out. She just hangs around doing nothing and not learning anything new and not giving her clients the best service and not making any money.

I’m not saying that everyone older than me should leave the business. I’m saying about 85% of the people older than me should leave the business. There are 9000 agents in Salt lake and 8000 of them are older than me. If 85% of them (6800) left the business there would still be 2200 agents in Salt Lake, which would still be 1000 too many, but it would be a good start. It’s been no secret that I think there are way too many agents and it’s too easy to enter the real estate field.

Competition=good.

People unwilling to learn new things=bad.

I know,  I should respect my elders. And being young doesn’t make someone more tech savvy or have more energy or better. That is why I’m not saying everyone older should leave- only 85% of them. There are 15% who continue to learn and evolve and understand new trends and have enough energy to work more than 2 hours a day and actually return phone calls. And I agree that just being young does not make someone more tech-savvy, but younger people can be slapped-around and molded more easily. And if they don’t cut it nobody really cares about kicking them out of the business so there’s less guilt when they leave.

Like it or not, admit it or not- real estate is in a state of flux right now. The industry is being forced to evolve and those who lead the charge and accept the new protocol of constant change will be those who lead. Others will follow, and others will be pushed out of the way. This is not only acceptable, this is healthy. Evolution is all about making way for newer, and more evolved breeds.

Technology does not take the place of a relationship and it shouldn’t. Technology, when used properly,  should enhance it. I remember when I first got into the business they were just switching the MLS onto a computer. Previously it was just a big book. And I remember how much resistance there was to the change. They kept the book around for a while to help with the transition and I remember how most agents thought they book would always be around because nobody would want to drive to the office to look on a computer to find homes when they could just look in the book that they carried with them everywhere. This was only fourteen or fifteen years ago.

Tomorrow’s successful breed of Realtor will be heavily equipped with technology, a forward-thinking attitude, and a willingness to grow as they work diligently toward adding value for their clients. 85% of agents today do not want to grow and adapt and diligently work toward anything. 85% of agents today want to take their past or their extensive list of friends or their 40 hours of real estate schooling and sell enough homes in 2 hours/day to be successful. There are a lot of good people in the real estate business and hopefully those good people will evolve and stay in the business as it changes.

Prudential  Utah just made it mandatory for every listing to have a virtual tour because 60% of the agents weren’t taking photos of their listings or having any sort of photo tour posted. When I search for homes on the MLS many listings don’t have any photos other than the drive-by snapshot the MLS takes.

Consumer expectations are changing. There is more dicussion taking place between consumers and between consumers and agents. People demand value, and value is not the commission rate. Value is what someone gets in return for the price. It’s the whole experience. Consumer’s are moving online more and more every day and older techniques for marketing are becoming less effective. Those who want to be successful in this industry in ten years need to begin growing toward that today. Or move out of the way and watch as some of us lead the evolution.

MySpace Wants to be BlueRoof

 

Or at least they want to take my blog, slap their branding on it, and put it on their new “News” section of the site. There are many ways to break into the news business, but simply taking other people’s content and branding it as your own is not the best way to do it.

It’s always nice to be recognized, especially to be considered newsworthy by a well-known source, but this goes a bit far. Nobody contacted me to ask if they could use my content. I suspect they have a spider or program that goes through each category and finds the sites with a certain level of traffic and then copy the content from those sites. There’s not much flattering about that.

MySpace has mastered the whole get-kids-to-make-silly-websites-and-post-naughty-pictures thing, now they might want to learn good business practices.

Cry-Baby Board of Realtor Associations and MLS’s Continue Desperate Rule-Making

The Northwestern Wisconsin Multiple Listing Service, operated by the Realtors Association of Northwestern Wisconsin, is realizing that it is a lame monopoly that is going extinct, in fact, an MLS system. And they have decided to take the same ridiculous position that the Regional MLS of Minnesota and the Multiple Listing Service of Northern Illinois and Northwest MLS in Washington have taken…

They cry about it and demand that the term “MLS” is theirs and demand that people stop using it. Do they have a copyright or trademark on the term, you ask? Of course not, but that doesn’t matter to these cry-baby pissy-pant’s- what matters is they want to continue their monopoly of information.

Here’s how the MLS works:

Broker pays MLS a fee to become a member, Broker takes listing, Broker displays listing on MLS, Broker pays MLS more money to display MLS listings on website, MLS sets ridiculous rules that broker must follow or be completely cut off from using MLS information.

And the Boards of Realtors are the ones handing down this new trend after the National Association of Realtors decided that it would continue being irrelevant give that authority to the local Boards.

MLS’s around the country are seeing the writing on the wall. They know they are a monolpoly and that they cannot continue to control everything like they want to. So, instead of evolving and becoming a solution and making things better, these absurd MLS’s are rolling around on the floor kicking and screaming.

These MLS’s don’t want agents to be able to use the term “MLS” to advertise their services to the public. Although the information for the home searches on the agent websites come directly from their MLS, they don’t want the agents to be able to say so.

This precisely shows why we need new systems and websites to replace the MLS’s- or we need some real leadership at NAR to help connect the dots for these guys. All these MLS’s doing damaging things and NAR is just watching the crash-up derby from their comfortable position at 10,000 feet and that does not help the industry.

Inman has better coverage.

Video is Over-Rated

Video has been the “new” thing now for while and some people are really into using video for blogging and for real estate tours. But not everything that is new is better.  I have not embraced using video in real estate sales or in blogging (vlogging), and here’s why…

The written (typed) word inherently allows you to go at your own pace- read fast or slow, re-read over and over- stare at and study, or speed-read at a very fast pace.

Moving video of something standing still (rooms in a home) accomplish nothing more than a still-shot photo does. Moving around a room with a video doesn’t really show you anything you wouldn’t see in a few photos.

Copy/paste. With a written blog I can copy certain text I want to share, and simply link back to the original. With a video I have to show the whole thing if I want to share it. With virtual tours I can share the photos I want and only the photos I want.

Sometimes people don’t look as good as they write.  

More moving parts= more room for mistakes. I pay a professional to do my tours, but even if I were to do my own virtual tours, I could snap 200 photos and pick the best ones to show my listing. By doing a video, even if I get the lighting right and there are no annoying background noises and I can hold the camera steady, there is still the issue of shooting flattering angles and just as importantly, not shooting unflattering angles of the home, or me.

Difficult to keep your eyes on the ball. When I read a blog I am reading the message the author gives me. When I see a video I am just as interested in the quality of the shoot, the sound, what they are wearing, what they look like, where they are, what’s going on around them, etc. The message is in there, too, but it doesn’t have my full attention.

Movies are never as good as the book. When I read a book I get to know the characters in a different way. I read what they are thinking and feeling and get all the great details that are typically missed in the movie version. Books have my full attention (see above paragraph) on where the author takes me. Movies (videos) sometimes suffer the message for the show. When I watch a horror movie I’m thinking of what they used for the fake blood (chocolate, ketchup, red dye?) and not the plot.

Photos are easier. Much much easier for most people. As I mentioned before, there are lighting and sound issues, and having a steady hand, but I need to plan my steps and route and think about a bunch of little things that affect the shoot. With photos an agent can take them and then sort later for good ones. And if you mess up a little- photoshop.

Start and finish on my time. I can begin to write a post and then stop and finish later. I can snap photos of a house and then go to an appointment and edit through them later. With video you’ve pretty much got to do the whole thing at once.

I understand why some people like video. I like watching videos, too- just not for real estate.

Point2 Agent Shaken Up- Good For Consumers and Agents

 

I don’t know as much about Point2 Agent  as a company as many agents do, but I am a member and have used the system. It seems to me to be an entry-level type service with a template website given and then you pay for add-ons and additional services. One thing I do know is that the company, as far the real estate piece of what they do, is centered around template websites. I think it’s important for our industry to evolve and maybe it’s time to begin to step-up to a higher level of website than templates offer.

There are better options than templates.

For most agents, a template website is their only on-line presence- either a template or an “agent page” on their broker’s website. So consumer’s see all these template sites and it affirms to them that agents don’t know much about technology. Often the consumer ends up going to the better websites (clean user-interface, enjoyable search experience, etc) that they can find, and in most areas Zillow, Realtor.com and Trulia are the best they can find.

Problem with Trulia, Realtor.com and Zillow is they are not real estate companies- they are technology companies. They take agent information (listings) for the purpose of selling ads and leads to agents. Their purpose is not to help consumers find homes, it’s to sell ads or leads. Obviously that’s not the best business model for the consumers (or agents)?

Now Point2 Agent is getting all shaken up and people are talking about it. I don’t wish bad on them at all, in fact for many agents they have been the only a good solution, but I think this shake-up may a good thing in at least one way- maybe it will open some discussion about different and even better online solutions for agents.

Instead of creating well-designed websites that offer real value to the consumer, agents usually either get a cheap  template just to have a website or they pay a technology company (Trulia/Realtor.com/Zillow) for leads. I understand why- it’s a lot easier and much less expensive than it is to build a custom site. Custom websites can cost a lot. I spent well over six figures on BlueRoof.com, and it’s tough to pay that kind of money, especially if you have no experience converting online leads and have no idea what sort of return (if any) on your investment you’ll get. But help is on the way.

Point2 and other template sites serve their purpose, to be sure, but I think many agents who have a Point2 websites would like to have something better.

In February there will something much better.

See it here:

http://blueroof.wordpress.com/2008/01/18/blueroof360-industry-best-realtor-websites-lead-and-client-management/

The Media Says Now is a Good Time to Buy

 

That wacky media, and it’s incredible contradiction… From the Deseret Morning News come this article talking about how Salt Lake’s stellar economy and job growth are shielding it from the same harm some other markets are facing (sound familiar?) From MSN Money comes this article  about buying real estate now, and this one  saying now is a good time to invest in builder stocks because the market is collecting a strong pent-up demand from homebuyers.

From the Article,

“Employment is still strong and plenty of folks who have the desire and the means to buy aren’t doing it. Why? For most of us, buying a home is the biggest investment we’ll ever make. Would you buy a house when everyone is telling you that home prices are headed down? Me neither. But the demand isn’t going away. The ready and willing buyers are waiting for a signal that home prices have stabilized. Everybody wants a bargain, and many will rush to buy if they think that prices are headed back up. That signal could come early next year.”

Even Donald Trump is saying that now is the time to buy. On Larry King October 21st, Trump says,

“It’s an amazing situation. There are tremendous opportunities. You know what’s interesting, I was begging people not to buy real estate two years ago. And everybody was interested in buying. And now they are less interested, and this is the time they should be going out — not buying, negotiating to buy. This is the time. “

Trumps also addresses the foreclosure issue,

“TRUMP- But this is the time. You were talking about books. This is the time that people should be going out and making unbelievable deals on real estate. And one other thing, Larry, you read all the about subprime and all about the people (ph). I don’t understand where these people come from. The bank sends them a letter, and they leave. They send them a letter, you have to be out. They leave. Why don’t they call up the bank and negotiate?

KING: Yes, everything is negotiable.

TRUMP: The bank doesn’t want to take over their house. I mean, the bank, whether they are nice or not. What are they going to do, put security people in there? I mean, the bank, you can sit down. You can make a better deal than you would have made five years ago with the bank.

Cut the price, make it interest, make it long-term. The bank needs these people. But what happens is the bank sends them a notice, the people leave. I don’t get it.”

Makes sense to me- when it’s a buyers market- that would be the time to buy. There is pent-up demand because people get scared, but here’s the thing about real estate- you don’t wait to buy real estate- you buy real estate and wait.

Buying a home is a long term investment. You buy a home and enjoy the tax benefits and the pride of ownership and as the years pass you enjoy making a lot of money from your home rising in value. Most of the wealth in this country has come from real estate. Most people who have wealth have made that wealth through real estate- either all or in part, through owning real estate.

Of course the market goes through cycles, but if you stay for a while, all real estate (especially in metropolitan areas) goes up in value.

The media as a whole is one of the biggest factors in different real estate markets suffering this year, but it’s not everyone. People who know investing know the best time to buy is when everyone else isn’t buying. And in real estate, the best time for buyers to buy is in a “buyers market”. Hence, the name…

Real Estate Licensing Makes a Mockery of the Industry

 

Would you like a life of luxury? Driving around in your new BMW looking at expensive homes and having all the free time and money you could ever want? Just get a real estate license and you’ll be living the high-life making way too much for doing way too little.

That’s the promise and dream of many who get into the real estate industry.

And that’s what many are told by attending “career nights” that are held all over the country by brokers wanting to hire new agents and schools that want the tuitions. And the state’s don’t mind because they make tens of thousands of dollars every month from real estate licensing fees. 

The barrier to entry is so low that most people jump into real estate thiking they’ll just give it a try, and why not- it only takes a month of schooling and a few hundred bucks to get the license. They don’t know the whole truth about a career in the business, and it’s so easy to get in that they figure it’s worth a shot. They’ll try it part-time until they can go full time or they jump in full time confidant they’ll be wealthy by next year.

This hurts the real estate industry, the people getting into the business, and mostly it hurts the general public who hire these new agents and have horrible experiences with them before they eventually leave the business.

Many say that the responsibility lies with the brokers who hire and train the new agents. These brokers need to take responsibilty for their training and the agents need to take the business and their responsibilities seriously enough that they will go through the training and have mentors and will prepare for the financial and emotional stress that getting into the business can bring. Well to those people I say Bravo for an ideallistic and ridiculous view of how we can fix the industry and improve it’s standing among professions and the perception is has (earned). The reality is that the brokers make money from these new agents getting into business and will not, and have not, fixed the problem. In fact the brokers (in general and as a whole) have been one of the main reasons so many unprepared people get into the industry in the first place.

Consider for a moment the responsibility placed on a professional real estate agent. Representing someone with their greatest financial asset, coordinating and enabling people to relocate their families, coordinating and following up with people as they walk strangers through their homes. These are things that individually merit enormous responsibilty and care, yet state-given licenses are handed out like candy to anyone 18 years old with a month to go through school and few hundred bucks.

Licensing should be much different than it currently is. It should prepare agents for what being a real estate professional is supposed to be about and educate them to how to perform the work and train them on the responsibilities, not just a brief history of the business and memorizing a hundred terms they’ll never use again.

So what should real estate licensing look like? Since I’m complaining about it, what is my answer for it and my great idea that would supposedly fix the problem? Stay tuned…

Blog Tour Rolls Into SLC Tonight

The Sellsius Blog Tour is a 24-City tour of the country by Rudy and Joe at Sellsius Blog. They’ve got an RV, a lot of free time, and some large livers- and they’re rolling into the valley July 23rd.

There will be an industry party at the Cottonwood Oyster Bar, Tonight at 6pm where you can meet some of the local real estate bloggers, real estate people, or just have a drink and socialize. The tour kicks off the Big Apple and ends at the Bloggers Connect event in San Francisco.

Here’s the route. As you can see- these guys love the coasts, pandering to the largest crowds possible, and completely despise the south (they told me so themselves). It would have been much simpler for them to straight-shot from Denver to AZ and then up the coast, but they zig-zagged over to SLC just to see the LDS temple (Rudy is Mormon) and to get a shake from Iceberg (Joe judges ice cream for a national competition sponsored by Ben and Jerry’s).

Don’t tell, but while in town they will be staying in their RV, parking it in the parking lot of the Dan’s grocery at Highland at Fort Union. They do not have permission to do so and may well have their RV impounded. Of course they’ll need to cancel the rest of the tour, but there is Crystal Inn within walking distance of Dan’s so they should have a place to crash after the arrest.

This isn’t the first time the guys have been in town. Last time we met up Rudy got toasted and spent the night in the slammer with a dude named “Big Al”. He won’t talk about it.

Alright, I made some of that up, but not all of it. The tour party will, in fact, be Tonight at Oyster Bar- 6pm. There’s usually a good turn-out at these things so you might want to come early.

See you there…

Why I think Advanced Access Sucks! (Realtor Websites)

 

Advanced Access is company that builds crappy template websites for Realtors. They sell you on their websites and how they will optimize your website to be “search engine friendly”, meaning that the site will place high in the search engine rankings.

What they don’t tell you is how their service is horrible and if they do not build the website the way it was promised- they will not refund your money and will not do anything about it. While I was talking to the salesperson I was told all about how wonderful they were and how they pride themselves on their service. He told me about their 30-day money back guarantee and if I was unhappy about anything I could cancel the deal. What I experienced was very different…

They do not care about you after you have paid.

I paid for their top-of-the-line program, apparently the very best service and site possible from them. This cost me about $3000, plus whatever I wanted to pay for links and ads and such.

I was told they would build a website and optimize it for home searches in Salt lake City, Utah, but because they already have another client with Salt Lake City as their main city that they would make another city my “main” city, but it would still be completely optimized for Salt Lake City and really wouldn’t matter which city was named as my primary.

This was a lie. The site was built around another city and when I asked them to optimize it for Salt Lake City, as promised I was told they wouldn’t because another client had a site optimized for Salt Lake. I went over exactly what the sales person had told me and the service personnel said the salespeople would never have told me what they did and they would not do anything about it. The website was built as a template and the linking strategy and optimization would be according to their program and I could cancel or just accept their program.

They have a 30-day money-back policy, but it took them longer than that to even put the site together. In fact the site is still not completed and it has been about 60 days. When I informed Eric Mendes (a service rep) about this I was told the 30 day policy began the day I signed up, no matter how long it took them to build the site. He was not willing to discuss my concerns or offer any solutions.

So even if the product is not available to see, the policy expires. I called back and asked for Eric’s supervisor. They directed me to Casey Griswold, who informed me that he was, in fact Eric’s supervisor and after explaining the situation he told me that he didn’t care whether the product was what I was promised and the 30 days had expired and if I wasn’t happy I could cancel the website, but will receive no refund or concession of any sort.

I told him that I work with a lot of agents and couldn’t understand why they would want to give such horrible service to someone who could refer a lot of agents their way, to which he responded that he didn’t care.

Their business is built from online leads, not from referrals, and I don’t see this changing with the horrible service and ridiculous policies they have. Not only will I never do business with Advanced Access again, but I will let everyone I know about my experience and how I think Advanced Access, Eric Mendes, and Casey Griswold have bad business sense and no respect for their paying customers once the credit card has been charged.

Advanced Access= Buyer Beware

Beginning in February ‘08- There will be something much better - See it here:

http://blueroof.wordpress.com/2008/01/18/blueroof360-industry-best-realtor-websites-lead-and-client-management/

Shooting from the hip blind-folded on subjects I know nothing about

         

I remember blogging a few years ago when nobody read blogs and I didn’t think anyone would ever read my blogs. I had a few blogs (most are no longer active) and now I really only post to this one. Back then I wrote about much more personal things.

And because this is my blog I write about things that I think about and have opinions about. I was interviewed a few days ago by Brad Inman about blogging and he asked me where I come up with the content for my posts.

 The content for my posts come from happenings in the industry, local interests and news, and my thoughts and opinions about whatever. The beauty of a blog, at least my blog, is that it is purposely not a politically-correct bore-fest of facts and promotion. It is opinion and open dialogue.

I moderate the comments very light-handedly. They are immediately posted and sent to me and I delete comments that are spam, personal attacks, and sometimes just because they are obnoxious.

I’ve had a lot of advice about how I should run my blog. Some say I should advertise on it, some say I should not allow any comments, many tell me that I should be PC and not give any opinions unless they are flattering, and many advise me to post about big things that searched for a lot and link to tons of people. Hearing advice and different opinions has been great. Some of it I agree with and some I don’t.

But I don’t apologize for the way I run my blog. I’m going to have people disagree with me and that is a good thing if it leads to honest dialogue and debate. I’ve had my opinions changed before and I know I’m not always right- in fact I’m wrong all the time and that’s something that I like about blogging.

        

There are a lot of people that read my blog from a distance. It’s interesting to me how many agents in the area read my blog but don’t comment on it (at least they don’t comment on the blog- I’m sure they comment about it to people they know). Agents quote lines to me and tell me about things they liked. Usually I had no idea they even knew what a blog was, let alone- they actually read mine. And I’m sure they are some of the “anonymous” comments, and that’s fine by me.

I do think that people should stand behind what they say and include their name, but some people have their reasons and I’m okay with that. All I want is to further the conversations, get the dialogue out there and allow people to formulate their own opinions and give their two-cents if they want. And when I’m wrong and make a fool of myself, that’s okay, too, because at least I’m out here shootin’ away and taking my best shots.

This post was inspired by my main protagonist, Mike Elliott.

           

Home Seller Guarantees

     

Question:

How can an agent guarantee that your home will be sold in a certain amount of time?

Hint:

It has something to do with price.

     

        

We’ve all seen the ads on billboards and in magazines, on bus benches and in the newspaper. Real estate agents who will guarantee to sell your home in __ days or they will (SELL IT FREE/Pay You Money/Buy It)!!

So how can an agent gurantee that the home will sell? Well, let’s think about this.

If you are an agent and you sign a written guarantee with a home seller saying that if their home does not sell in 60 days you will pay them or buy the house, how would you want to price that home?

My guess is that most agents who guarantee they will sell a home price it lower than the top its market potential, to ensure the sale.

       

The reality is that nobody can predict the future. A guarantee that a home will sell in a certain time frame is a gamble. Even with all the marketing in the world it comes down to this- they are betting they can sell it in that amount of time. And because they are signing a written guarantee my guess is they might want to hedge their bet by pricing it lower than it normally would be priced.

Sometimes a home seller needs to sell as fast as possible for some reason. In those cases they will probably be expecting to offer the home at a lower-than-market price. But in my experience, most sellers would rather sell for as much as possible, not as quickly as possible. When I have a listing that sells to the first buyer who looks at it or the first week it is on the market, many times the sellers are wondering if they under-priced it. And I would too. Sometimes the right buyer just happened to see it at the beginning of the listing period, but if I listed my own home and received three offers the first weekend and they were for more than my listing price I might wonder if I priced it low.

I’d rather sell my home for $325,000 in 64 days than $299,900 in 4 days. And I wouldn’t guarantee that I can sell a home in ___ days unless I knew it was priced pretty well for the market and area. Not that everyone who markets this service is under-pricing homes, but I think by guaranteeing a sale, it makes it more likely that they would.

      

How about you?

Surrounded by A–holes?

      

Guy Kawasaki has posted the Asshole Rating Self-Exam (ARSE), created by Bob Sutton from Electric Pulp, at his blog. Sure, many people are, but until they take the exam, they aren’t certified.

Colts Win Superbowl 27-17

                            

                    

Okay, it’s not official yet, but here’s my prediction for tomorrow’s game.

                 

Real Estate’s Revolving Door

             

When I first came into the real estate industry in the nineties there were a couple thousand real estate agents licensed in the Salt Lake City area. Four years ago there were about four thousand. Today there are over eight thousand. That’s 100 percent growth in four years! In Utah there are now over 25,000!

          

The general perception is that Realtors drive their big fancy cars around all day looking at beautiful homes and make hundreds of thousands of dollars a year working part time hours with no education.

Truth is about 90% of people who get into real estate fail. They’re so focused on what the job entails that they really never understand what the work is all about. And it all begins with licensing.

The state makes a lot of money collecting licensing fees from all these people who are so willing to pay for the chance to make it rich selling dream homes every Saturday at the open house. But this lack of education, commitment and understanding is the principle reason for the overall failure of these licensees and their ill-fated clients.

In Utah it takes about two weeks of schooling to get through all the classes required to get your license. Two Weeks! And when you do earn your license what do you know about selling real estate? Nothing.

Many new licensees don’t even own their own homes and have never bought or sold real estate before. Often the client knows more about the real estate transaction than than the Realtor does. And these are the people the state deems “experts”. They have spent two weeks learning a few hundred completely useless terms, how to calculate the cap-rate of a four-plex and they skim over the legally binding purchase contract and they are then sent out to represent people in the largest financial transaction of their lives. Yeah- that makes perfect sense.

And every time some Yahoo gets a license and screws up a deal or two before going back to their “real” jobs they ruin the industry a little bit. Give a few more people reason to not want to have “professional” representation next time they need to buy or sell real estate. Sometimes they cost people tens or even hundreds of thousands of dollars and assist in causing families myriad problems and heartache.

         

The licensing process should be a two year process of instruction, education and, most importantly- internship. Students should attend courses (not classes) on agency, including its application and meaning. They should be taught actual case law examples of fraud and they should be shown what representation and fiduciary really mean. And they should spend a year as an intern for working Realtors where they can learn the work that is supposed to go into each transaction. Let them see the prospecting and how most agents go months without making any money. Show them the endless phone calls and marketing expenses that sometimes end with no reward.

Give them the real part of real estate.

Students could take courses on inspections and the different testing that occurs, title insurance and the title plant operations, home warranties, escrow process, zoning and state regulations, negotiations, and every student could be required to get licensed in appraising and lending.

By having this kind of education in the business every licensee would have real value to offer their clients and the clients would be much better represented and taken care of. Fewer people would get into the business and fewer people would fail. Everyone would win- especially the consumer.

It takes two years to get a license to cut hair but it only takes 90 hours in Utah to list million dollar homes and advise people where they should relocate their families.

Is that right?

Real Estate Revolution Not For Sellers

     

Taking a look at the Real Estate industry from the perspective of an involved real estate blogger who does a lot of reading, research and speculating about the industry, I can tell you that at times I have been excited, optimistic, frustrated, and hopeful about the “Revolution” happening in the business. But when I look at the reality of it all, without judgement, I’m mostly amazed and here’s why;

Everything is still the same

At least when it comes to listings. Sure, there are a few more companies and some new models, but when you look at the market share of these new models- they seem to be taking their business from other new models and smaller shops, not from the large brokerages. In my area the large brokerages are growing and although there are tons of small companies popping up every day, the don’t become relevant and they aren’t taking away market share from the established companies.

There is a pool of consumers (25%) that are going to use alternative models, go the FSBO route, and use the lowest-bidding agent they can find and that’s just the way they are. They would rather “save” on commission then make more money with a higher sales price.

And that pool of people are selecting between those smaller brokerages and new models, but the majority (75%) of consumers are just not buying into it. They are going to use a large full-service brokerage no matter what is going on in the industry and no matter what “special deals” there are. They don’t care so much about “saving” money- they care about the job that gets done.

So newer models and smaller shops are all competing over 25% of the market and the major brokerages are all competing over 75% of the market. There are some cross-overs here and there, but this is the same ratio we’ve probably had for the last ten or fifteen years and it doesn’t seem to be changing much.

I like the new innovation. In fact I happen to think I have the best real estate search on the planet  (BlueRoof.com). I feel this way because I’ve been told this by a lot of people and my clients feel this way, but mostly because it’s just my own opinion. I’m building it to be what I want in a real estate search. Of course there are tons of things I am still adding to it and improving on it- that’s how websites are. But as much as I like the new innovation and the new sites popping up- the consumers are still listing with big brokerages.

Seattle seems to be a hot-bed right now of real estate tech, with Zillow and Redfin and about ten other new models, but isn’t JohnLScott  and Coldwell Banker still the biggest and growing?

Buyers are finding agents on the internet, but sellers aren’t finding their agents that way- the RE 2.0 market is a buyers market- not a seller’s.

Used to be that you had to “List to Last”- meaning that to last in the business you had to get listings. Not so anymore- now you can have buyers come to you by using other people’s listings on your website. But the listings aren’t coming so much from internet.

At BlueRoof we’ve taken a lot of listings (about one every 2-3 days average) and we’ve had quite a few of the clients contact us from the website after reading about us or hearing about us or just finding us. But the amount of buyers we get compared to sellers is huge. My other website is even more so.

What thisall means to me is the consumer is enjoying the internet search and innovation when they look to buy a home, but when it comes to selling, the new “revolution” is pretty much the same as it has been.

My Thoughts on Zillow Before they Launched

      

Earlier today I was cleaning up some documents on my computer and ran across a blog post of mine from one of the blogs I have from the past (I have several), back before anyone was really reading real estate-related blogs.

Anyway- this was a blog I started called Zillow- Another Data Company and its first post (of just three) was on December 19, 2005, or a few months before they launched.

Here’s my take on Zillow right after they launched last February;

So Zillow is now up and it’s secrets are all out. So, what was all the secrecy about?

Zillow will let you find out how much a home is worth!

Wow- that’s what we’ve all been missing. Like you can’t go to about a million sites and get a FREE (and accurate for that matter) value of any home. Realtors have been giving these free home value’s for decades.

So they got $32 Million and this is what they came up with?

What’s next? Maybe they can revolutionize the restaurant business by telling us what the ingrdients are to over 60 Million entrees. That will show those chefs…

    

It’s interesting to me how much the industry has evolved in the last 14 months, but it’s also all relative. There are hundreds of thousands of Realtors out there who don’t know anything about Zillow or any other “New, Innovative Real Estate Model”.

They, and their clients, just go on day to day buying and selling homes and it’s business as usual.

Sometimes I forget that most real estate agents really don’t know or care about any online models. For many, the only website the even know of is their company site, if their company even discusses it with them, or even has a site at all.

My thoughts at the time were mostly about how Zillow was just another data company and more data doesn’t matter much. And I still mostly agree with myself, but I think there is a thirst for more, and better, information from people who are in the process of buying a house or thinking of selling and are doing their research.

Zillow gives us more data, and it is usually not very correct, but it’s a fun site to play with and it gives people something to look at while they are thinking about real estate. I think about real estate all day long every day, even when I am trying to not think about it. But the average person only thinks about it when someone else brings it up or when they are looking to buy or sell a house, and that usually only happens every five to seven years.

Anyway, I thought it was interesting to see what I wrote back then and I thought I would share it with anyone interested…

Security Warning

Also- comments that are self-promotional, rude, or simply unappealing to me…

(Thanks Sellsius)

Patience is No Longer a Virtue…

… it’s a national treasure. In a world of A.D.D. and A.D.H.D. and multi-channel surfing and instant replay and headline news and “feeder”-reprieve and text messaging and go-go-go we are a more efficient populace, but we are definately not patient.

When I search on Google I am told how many gigaseconds it took to find my results as if 0.00013 seconds means something different to me than 0.00045 seconds does. I mean, really- what is the cut-off point between fast and slow?

     

If I’m using a website I want it to be fast. And when people use my website they expect it to be fast, I know this because I get emails all the time complaining that it was too slow this time or that it was so fast the last time. Here is an excerpt from an email I received yesterday…

“…but having the best user-interface means less if it’s too slow. My last search took 17 seconds to load 102 houses. I suggest increasing your bandwidth, adding an additional server, or increasing the memory on your current server.”

First of all, we’ve added additional servers and increased our server’s memory several times to keep up with our growing traffic. But as anyone with a website knows, traffic is not a steady stream, it is a tidal wave followed by a trickle. One minute the site may take 17 seconds to load and then next it could take 5 seconds to do the same search.

And on a side note- if you’re on dial-up don’t complain to me about the speed- you wave all rights to complain by having dial-up. That’s like complaining to your car-dealer that your mini-van doesn’t handle well.

But 17 seconds isn’t really that long. Loading over 100 homes, including photos and detail information, and placing them on a map, takes some calculations. Let’s see you do it, smarty pants…

There is a contigency out there that supports Web 1.0 sites, or as I like to call them, “really boring template sites” because they are “fast”. So if I understand this arguement correctly, they would rather have a webpage that looks like a spreadsheet, has no substance, and is clogged with links and meta-tags if it will save you a few seconds of loading time?

Not me- I’d rather have all the goodies and a site with some soul. I like websites that are visually appealing, easy to use, and fun. And although I’m a pretty busy guy, getting all of that is worth an extra five or ten seconds.

People Love BlueRoof! (or hate us)

I was reading Inman Blog and came across a post from Tuesday (no linkbacks) that mentioned this post from Real Estate 2.X which talks about how companies are buying the domain names of their company with the word “sucks” after it so people can’t buy that domain name. So, of course, I went and bought www.blueroofsucks.com because, like I mentioned on RE 2.X, if anyone’s going to talk about how much I suck, it’s going to be me. And then in my emal this morning Mike (our prez) sent me this photo from a fan, which I actually like quite a bit (ahem…)

              

And it got me thinking about how some people get so threatened by new competition, especially when you are doing things that are be