BloodhoundBlog

There’s always something to howl about.

Month: July 2006 (page 3 of 6)

July 24, 2006

Is all video good video?

by

Suburban Phoenix Real Estate Broker

Author website

The Real Estate Bloggers have a post on using YouTube video to sell homes:

As more people are using high speed bandwidth, the smart real estate agents are using tools such as YouTube to put listings on the internet. This McKinney, Texas real estate agent put together a 40 second teaser video that gives potential buyers a view of this golf course home.

I don’t hate the idea, in general, but I have specific caveats. First, the cited video isn’t really a video, it’s Ken Burns-style panning and zooming on still photos. Second, the house doesn’t seem to me to warrant a big send-up. An Ugly Step Sister with her own Fairy Godmother is still an Ugly Step Sister. Third, and much worse, YouTube.com‘s video quality is… much worse. For now, at least, a first-quality virtual tour — or better-quality video — seems like a better choice.

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July 24, 2006

Oh, good lord! They’ve got one of our own!

by

Suburban Phoenix Real Estate Broker

Author website

This morning’s Arizona Republic has a little featurette on a housing bubble weblog in Gilbert. It’s called the Housing Doom Housing Bubble Blog, but I think would it be more sonorous if it were to be named the “Housing Doom Housing Bubble Housing Blog” or even the “Housing Doom Housing Bubble Housing Blog Housing.” After all, soon enough there will be no housing, according to the BubbleHeads. That notwithstanding, the Housing Doom Housing Bubble Blog insists that, “The housing bubble is getting ready to burst.” That sounds like an ascription of purpose to me, and I’m left wondering why the housing bubble doesn’t take itself down to the Doc-in-the-Box to have itself lanced. I mean, who wants bubble pus all over the carpet?

For what it’s worth, the Housing Doom Housing Bubble Blog is not as amazingly daft as some other BubbleBlogs. But so close to home… And in Gilbert no less, perennially the fastest growing small city in America… Think about it: How do you go about seeing faces in clouds in a place where there are no clouds?

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July 24, 2006

Phoenix Metroblogging celebrates its first anniversary with 30 reasons to love Phoenix

by

Suburban Phoenix Real Estate Broker

Author website

From the Republic:

Your first haboob. Light rail in other cities. Where to see good art.

These topics are regularly hashed out on a collective blog focused solely on the Valley. The site, Phoenix Metroblogging, turned 1 year old Wednesday. And to celebrate, the Weblog has been counting down 30 things to love about Phoenix.

And yes, haboob is on the list, with loving the transient nature of residents as No. 1.

Metroblogging is one of several hyperlocal, city-specific Web sites in 49 cities around the world. The site generates a daily feed of headlines from its members, so one could read postings from Dubai to Houston to Tokyo. Content isn’t filtered or edited.

In Phoenix, the blog draws together different perspectives from throughout the Valley.

Phoenix Metroblogging has that Alt-Phx kind of pomo vibe that can wear thin the further you get from the Melrose Curve. Indecipherable? Precisely! Even so, enGoogled, “the top 30 things I love about Phoenix” is fun reading.

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July 24, 2006

Having trouble getting your house sold? Sell it to ASU!

by

Suburban Phoenix Real Estate Broker

Author website

Arizona State University, a tax-payer funded institution whose apparent purpose is to salvage poorly-thought-out commercial real estate investments, races to the rescue of another white elephant:

Arizona State University has struck a multiyear deal with downtown Phoenix’s only shopping mall and plans to use it as a temporary student union for its new college campus.

The university will lease about 4,000 square feet of space at the Arizona Center – an outdoor restaurant, retail and office complex at Third and Van Buren streets – and hopes to make it available to students for meetings and social gatherings by September.

The student union space will be directly above the AMC Theatres on the mall’s northern end.

The terms of the deal are still being finalized, but both ASU and the shopping center stand to benefit from the arrangement.

University officials, who have just weeks to go before the new Phoenix campus opens, are feverishly looking for ways to boost the student-life appeal of the downtown area. The Arizona Center has long been underutilized as a shopping destination. Partnering with the university could mean a substantial boost in the center’s foot traffic.

Alas, unless you’re wired with City Hall, they probably won’t take your house off your hands…

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July 23, 2006

MarketPulse…

by

Suburban Phoenix Real Estate Broker

Author website

I had a pretty good turn-out for my open houses today. Cathy normally does these two, may god bless her aching feet, but she had to work a third open house. The homes I worked were in the F.Q. Story Historic District of Phoenix. When the real estate market is normal, the streets down there are aswarm with huge, expensive vehicles, all cruising at about seven miles an hour. It’s been a lousy summer for cruisers — a lousy summer for real estate — but the cruisers were out in force today. I have three theories why this might be so:

  1. People eventually want to look at houses more than they want to say, “It’s too dang hot to look at houses!”
  2. The itch to buy houses, epidemic in Phoenix, can be treated but never completely cured.
  3. The Arizona Republic has failed to say something poisonous about the residential real estate market for seven days in a row, so buyers think it’s safe to come out and shop.

Whatever the reason, it was fun to work at an open house for a change.

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July 23, 2006

You vill grow as you are told to grow!

by

Suburban Phoenix Real Estate Broker

Author website

The model is a general guide, not a strict equation, and shows Phoenix’s fringe cities have the potential to become regional destinations.

Well, duh!

The quote is from the Arizona Republic’s latest mash note about the beauty, glory and power of central planning.

If you don’t like their plan, don’t worry. After 160 years and 160 million corpses, they have learned precisely nothing, so they’re going to ram it down your throat like it or don’t.

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July 22, 2006

Show us your house!

by

Suburban Phoenix Real Estate Broker

Author website

We have another web site in the works, DistinctivePhoenix.com. It’s hugely alpha right now, partly because of philosophy issues and partly because we haven’t been able to make the time to do the things that need to be done to get it ready to go live.

But: I am putting together a post for BloodhoundBlog about technologies Realtors will need to have mastered to prosper in the 21st Century, and there is a nice little demonstration at that site.

It’s called Show Us Your House! It’s a form that takes your input and then builds a custom web page from the information you give it. In the long run, those web pages will be organized by other software so that people can look at them sorted in various ways. We’ll add ratings, too, for the look and feel of real Web 2.0.

But for now, this is something you can play with, if you like. If you’ll Show Us Your House!, we’ll show it off here.

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July 22, 2006

“The seller paid my closing costs — with my money!”

by

Suburban Phoenix Real Estate Broker

Author website

Not all of the calls I get in response to my Republic columns are irksome. I like the calls I get from real people, rather than Realtors or brokers. Very few of them are viable, in-the-market, potential clients, but that’s not why I write the column. On the other hand, a brief telephone call is not the best way for a person to wrap his mind around a new idea.

As an example, the first call I had yesterday was about the “Who pays whom” article. He was a very sweet man, but he insisted I must be wrong, because the seller of his home had paid his closing costs.

I explained to him that I write deals that way all the time, that I prefer to do things that way no matter what the buyer’s financial circumstances, because, for now at least, retaining your own cash is usually more profitable that the interest-cost of the additional borrowed funds.

But — emphasize that — but: It doesn’t matter. You’re paying your own closing costs either way. If you pay them in cash, you can watch the money come out of your checking account. But if “the seller pays the closing costs” all you’re doing is exchanging one price discount for another. Your money stays in your checking account because you are paying more for the home and financing the closing costs.

“But, but, but–,” he sputtered.

“I know. This is hard. If the seller hadn’t paid your closing costs, would the purchase price have been the same?”

“Hell, no!”

“So you took a three percent discount in closing costs instead of shaving three percent off the price.”

“That sounds about right.”

“So you borrowed three percent more than you would have done, if you had paid the closing costs out-of-pocket.”

Silence — the threshold of rhetorical surrender.

“So who paid the closing costs?”

“…When you put it that way…”

“Who paid for everything?”

“I’ll be damned if you ain’t got me convinced…”

If only my Realtor and broker callers were this reasonable…

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July 22, 2006

You buy something, you pay, m’kay?

by

Suburban Phoenix Real Estate Broker

Author website

Friday can be my dread day. I write a small real estate column for the West Valley sections of the Arizona Republic. That is not nearly as sexy as it sounds. They give me 350 words — might you have guessed that I can go on at greater length? — and then they frequently cut it down to 275 words or so. I like to make it very practical, first because I’m really not the potpourri and feng shui type of Realtor, and second because so much real estate coverage in the media is do daft, so wide of the mark.

But Friday can be a rough day if I’ve said anything even remotely controversial. I’ll get angry — but anonymous — phone calls from testy Realtors and brokers all day. Their being angry is fine. I just wish they wouldn’t waste my time venting their ire on the phone to me. Coming in anonymously — no name, no disclosure of license status, no brokerage affiliation, Caller ID blocked — is cowardly.

How much time do you think I should spend worrying about the opinions of people — supposed professionals! — who won’t stand behind their views publicly?

Yesterday’s column unearthed the mother-lode, of course. One caller, who sounded just like Mr. Mackey in South Park, told me that she had 22 years’ experience in real estate, m’kay? And she had never read anything as stupid as my column, m’kay? She hopes, sincerely, that I can amend my ignorant ways, m’kaaay?

For the record, I am an Accredited Buyer’s Representative, a Certified Buyer’s Representative, a Certified Residential Specialist, an E-Pro Internet Certified Realtor and a Graduate of the Realtor Institute. I hold a broker’s license, for goodness sakes! If I don’t know what I’m talking about by now, I never will.

Another caller spent two very obscene minutes in voicemail telling me what an idiot I am. The gist of it was that buyers should be down-on-their-knees grateful that the seller is giving them the opportunity to build equity. Then he said, “Of course the [frolicking] buyer pays for everything! You buy something, you pay!”

Oh. Yeah.

I Read more

July 21, 2006

Fast is the new slow…

by

Suburban Phoenix Real Estate Broker

Author website

Last Friday Seth Godin offered galley copies of his new book, Small Is the New Bigto the first 30 people to send an email to his publisher. I was lucky enough to have the opportunity to be fast enough to respond — an apposite metaphor for internet marketing generally.

The book got here today, but it ain’t your father’s galley proofs. It’s a print-on-demand trade paperback, perfect bound with its own custom shell. It’s a book without a bar code. What it is is a superb marketing piece. Witness me writing about it without having read it!

I have two Open Houses Sunday, in the sleepy, sleepy summertime. Sadly, I should have plenty of time to read. I’ll let you know what I think of the book.

I’ve added a link in the Reading List in the sidebar to pre-order the book.

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July 21, 2006

If it’s a heat map, why does it look so cool?

by

Suburban Phoenix Real Estate Broker

Author website

All right, here’s the deal with Zillow.com:

I decide I’m going to buy you a pair of designer jeans, nothing but the best for you. I know that fit is important, so I go to three of your best friends to get their sizes. Not yours, theirs. I strike a happy medium amidst the diversity, reckoning that — what the heck! — you can’t be that different from your friends.

If the jeans I buy for you actually happen to fit, this will be a happy accident. More likely, the jeans will be a close but not perfect fit.

You understand why, of course. Epistemological error was built into my sizing algorithm. I chose a method that might have been convenient, but which cannot possibly produce objectively accurate results with any degree of confidence. Arguably, the more of your friends I measure, the smaller my margin of error. But I am still pursuing an inherently erroneous sizing methodology.

For Realtors, a perusal of the tax records, the equivalent of a Zillow Zestimate, is the first step in comping, the step known to be least accurate. The next step is comping the house one-for-one with recent past sales and currently-marketed (competitive) listings. The last step is working all those numbers against the subject property in its current state of upkeep and upgrades.

In the same way, if I don’t take a tape rule to your inseam, the chances of my getting jeans that fit your unique physique are very poor.

However: In email, my friend and client Richard Nikoley set me straight on the value of Zillow.com:

I still think it can be used as a valuable tool for getting an idea of the relative values between neighborhoods in places you’ve never been to. Of course, once you determine where you want to buy, based on a number of factors and Zillow being only one input, then you need to begin the real homework.

Plus which, it’s fun to play with. It would be even more fun in Safari.

The map to the right is a Zillow heat map for Greater Phoenix, reflecting not the ambient temperature (115!) but the (approximate!) Read more

July 21, 2006

Who pays whom for real estate? Follow the money . . .

by

Suburban Phoenix Real Estate Broker

Author website

The second in my series of articles devised to tick off real estate brokers appeared in the Arizona Republic today. (Here is a more permanent link to a longer version of the article.) Torquing the brokers is not really my intent, just a secondary consequence. Next week we get to Ardell DellaLoggia’s issues, which may just spark a riot at the Arizona Association of Realtors.

Here’s today’s article in full:

The conventional wisdom in real estate is that the seller pays the sales commission to both the listing agent and the buyer’s agent. Is that really the way things work? To find out, follow the money.

Imagine a closing conference. Normally, we don’t have these in Arizona. Buyers sign their documents at one time, sellers at another. Neither party need ever set foot in Arizona, for that matter.

But for the sake of discussion, picture a settlement conference. Let’s invite everyone who has a seat at the table, so to speak, so we can see who pays whom.

At the head of the table is the escrow officer, who will be getting paid escrow fees and title insurance premiums.

Next comes the County Recorder, who will receive a recordation fee. At the next seat is the County Assessor, who will receive property tax payments. Then comes the insurance underwriter, who will get the hazard insurance premium.

The seller will get a big pile of money, some of which will be passed along to the seller’s mortgage lender.

The two Realtors will both get paid, of course.

The buyer’s lender arrived at the table with a big satchel of cash, but the lender will be taking some of it back in the form of loan origination fees and pre-paid interest. Moreover, the money the lender brought is really the buyer’s money. It was lent on the surety of the home and the buyer’s income and credit.

In fact, everyone seated at that closing table is going to be pocketing money — with one exception.

That one exception is the buyer, who pays for everything else, either out of pocket or on credit. The seller doesn’t pay the Realtor commissions — or anything else. Read more

July 21, 2006

21 reasons to bank on the Phoenix real estate market . . .

by

Suburban Phoenix Real Estate Broker

Author website

HousingPanic, a particularly vitriolic BubbleBlog — which is saying something — asks:

Realistically, how overvalued are Phoenix home prices?

Obviously, I consider this a profoundly silly question, but to lurk among the BubbleBloggers and their seething commentariat is to acquire an education in a slice of America invisible from this side of the sewer gratings. Notwithstanding the idiotic economic analysis, which is really no worse than the static-market fallacies paraded as profundities in the pages of the Arizona Republic, these sites — and not just HousingPanic — are infested with a cult-like fever to inflict suffering — at second hand, to be sure — on people who are in fact guilty of nothing except failing to have drunk the BubbleBlogger KoolAde.

That’s all one. I don’t care. The whole of the last century was dominated by the bad behavior of viciously angry wretches, but look where it got them. The BubbleBloggers will someday bawl balefully in private, but they will never, ever admit that they have been very publicly very foolish. You will know and I will know and in the secret chambers of their hearts they will know they were wrong all along. But as long as you don’t hold your breath waiting for that contrite admission of error, you should be fine.

Here’s where I do start to care. Whenever the subject of Phoenix comes up in a BubbleBlog, the assembled Brown Shirts pile on, for whatever reason. This is their perfect right — even though I think they’re wrong. I love this place. I came here for three months in 1988, and I could not wait to get back. The first time I set foot here, on March 13, 1988, I knew I was home. We moved here for good on April 1, 1991, and I cannot imagine living happily anywhere else. Our relocation page is my extended love letter to the Phoenix area, warts and all. I’ve been writing lovingly about this place since the day I got here, and I’ll keep it up at least until the day before I die here.

Which brings me back to HousingPanic’s question. We keep Read more

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