I said that, but I didn’t include in the video I made for the Carnival of Real Estate blog:
The link shown below is the same film in better-quality NTSC video.
Month: June 2007 (page 6 of 8)
My own personal experience with For-Sale-By-Owner sellers is pretty limited. I’ve never farmed them for listings, so I know nothing of that part of their lives. I’ve called a bunch of them to try to show their homes, but only once have I successfully gotten into one with my buyers. Mostly my experience consists of unreturned phone calls. Not a huge tragedy: The houses I’ve called on were almost always insanely over-priced. Actually, I have seen quite a few FSBOs — after they were listed by professionals and professionally-priced.
This has led me to believe that newspaper reporters live in a different universe. I’m pretty sure that most FSBO stories have unhappy endings, but you’d never guess that by reading the papers.
The New York Times coughs up another example today, this one based on a study done in Madison, Wisconsin. The story doesn’t concern FSBOs, but, rather, an alternative discount listing service, essentially an MLS-less real estate brokerage. The claim of the study is that sellers willing to sell into an artificially limited pool of buyers do as well or better than the sellers of Realtor-represented homes.
Is it true? Who knows? There’s not enough data to judge. Apparently the study measures sold homes. What about the homes that didn’t sell, or didn’t sell until they were listed by a Realtor? The authors of the study claim they were able to account for differences among properties, but this is simply an invitation to endless quibbling. In the end it doesn’t matter. Value is at once a matter of subjective perception and a practical, real-world trade-off. If you believe your time is best spent changing your own oil, you’re probably not my ideal client.
As you might expect, the study was done during the boom, when you couldn’t get a yard sign posted before the home sold. It is also reasonable to expect that newspapers all over the country will pick up the story, since it offers such amazingly bad advice in the current market.
More: Galen Ward speculates on agent skill sets, Glenn Kelman finds still another foot to shoot: Redfin is useless for Read more
This is me in today’s Arizona Republic (permanent link):
Consumer is the loser with real estate licensing, broker argues
We’ve been talking about real estate licensing laws, admittedly an exercise in futility. Whatever arguments I might make for repeal, it remains that the Arizona Department of Real Estate is not going to dry up and blow away like tumbleweed.
But here’s an important question: Who do real estate licensing laws benefit?
If you thought of consumers, that would be incorrect. The model legislation for real estate licensing laws in every state was written by the National Association of Realtors. The purpose of these laws is to artificially limit entry into the real estate business, with the objective being to artificially raise the prices paid by consumers.
The fact of the matter is that virtually all government regulation of commerce exists to limit supply, thereby raising prices. This is not an unavoidable consequence, but since regulations are either written by or heavily-influenced by the regulated industries, the alignment of government and business in one conspiracy after another against the consumer is a nearly-universal outcome.
As we discussed last week, another key beneficiary of real estate licensing laws is the real estate broker. Real estate salespeople must be licensed, but in order to work, they must also “hang” their licenses with a real estate broker, another category of license.
The broker will take a bite out of every dollar his salespeople bring in. It is not an exaggeration to say that a broker’s license is a license to steal.
It gets better. Real estate brokers have managed to get themselves exempted from IRS income reporting and withholding regulations. In any other business, the boss has to withhold taxes. Taxes are vile, but the reporting and withholding requirement discourages careless hiring practices. There is a significant cost to adding employees, so employers will not take a chance on just anyone.
Not so real estate brokers. Adding a new Realtor costs virtually nothing, so many brokerages are packed wall-to-wall with thoroughly incompetent agents — haphazardly trained but licensed by the state to wreck your financial life forever.
If you think these laws and regulations benefit Read more
Lani Anglin asked me in email about my “blogging regimen.” That would almost seem to imply a plan or a schedule, and I don’t do things that way. So I ignored that idea and responded to her second remark: “I’m curious to know how you crank out so many freakin’ blogs.”
Here’s my short answer: I don’t write very much here. I could write quite a bit more. I don’t think the quality would suffer, but I think your patience might. This is what I wrote back to Lani:
I can write 2,000 words an hour if I need to. I can dictate good-enough text at 150 words a minute for as long as necessary. It’s not any sign of genius, it’s more like running: Do it enough and you get good at it. When I was a younger man, I used to write at least 8,000 words every day, seven days a week. The Grand Opera stuff takes more time, but not as much as you’d think.
If you watch the fifth to the tenth minute in Video Verité, you’ll see me deliver a lecture, ex tempore, on the aesthetics of discursive prose. It’s not perfectly-drafted text, but I could whip a transcript into shape in no time. But it would be a lot better — more informative, more memorable, and probably longer — if it were written as an essay rather than spoken.
As it happens, I wrote about writing, among other things, when BloodhoundBlog was just short of a month old. We were just starting to get some attention, and I wanted to memorialize the blog’s beginnings:
Word-slinging in the Rain — or: How I learned to stop worrying and love the blog…
None of this is new to me — except for the parts that are.
I’ve been writing on the nets since before there were nets. Since BBS systems — I ran two of them at different times of my life. Since CompuServe was a time-share system called MicroNet that charged $3.00 an hour for half-duplex transmission at 300 baud.
(Think about that! “Baud” is Bits of Audio Data. My first modem had an acoustic Read more
The first thing Greg did as my coach was to throw me at the wall of Bloodhound contributors to see if I stick. His request was for me to write about the Project Blogger experience. Gulp. Deep breath. Here’s an update.
My inexperience coupled with my polite Midwestern upbringing, have caused me to hold my tongue about Project Blogger. However, the last few weeks much has been written both in public and privately to me, about blogging styles and what makes for great real estate blogs. So I figure what-the-hell, now is the time for a pup to speak up.
Two months ago I didn’t know what an RSS feed was. I read two blogs on a regular basis. Now I have about twenty blogs in my reader, half have been added in the last few weeks, and only 3 are real estate related; yes, one is BHB. The blogs that move me and fascinate me and don’t bore me to tears are for the most part, not RE and the reason is, move in closely- I’ll whisper it to you: Real estate blogs suck (that’s four words, 5 syllables). But hey, I’m just an apprentice here, what do I know?
This pup thinks it’s a big world out there, that outside-of-real-estate world, and in her inexperienced opinion the world out there is much more fascinating blog-wise than the world of RE blogs. I read blogs to grow- to see new thoughts and ideas and new ways of expressing those. Following some bland blogging formula is uninspiring. If it’s a formula, then what’s the point? Leads? Somewhere Peggy Lee is singing… Is that all there is?
Jim Duncan’s realcrozetva blog, Greg’s post about weblogging and dancing on bridges, Brian’s post about selling lifestyles, and Daytonian David Esrati’s thoughts about creating community– that is blogging that inspires, moves, and fascinates me. So when I sit down to post, that’s the advice I work with and I don’t see any formulas there. But hey, I’m just an apprentice, what do I know?
Here’s where I’m at blogging-wise: If blogging and Project Blogger are only about following Read more
Just a quick note to the real estate agents that read Bloodhound Blog: now would be a terrific time to have all of your buyers re-prequalified for a home.
Mortgage markets are suffering through an old-fashioned beatdown and some rates for some products are now sitting 0.750% higher than they were just 10 weeks ago.
The last 48 hours account for 0.250% of that increase.
Your buyer’s prequal from even two weeks ago is likely worthless.
As a real-life example, consider a client that can afford a $2,100 monthly mortgage payment and wants an amortizing loan.
- April 7: $350,000 loan size = $2,100 payment
- June 7: $310,000 loan size = $2,100 payment
That’s a $40,000 difference — poof!
(Image courtesy: American Museum of Natural History)
You just can’t make this stuff up. Redfin’s Glenn Kelman:
At lunch with Cynthia and a local real estate baron, we heard about a new tactic for getting a deal on a property. Rather than offering a lower price, ask the seller to handle closing costs, which can run up to $10,000 or more.
How long have they been doing real estate? And today they discovered that they can negotiate the closing costs?
Recall that Kelman claims that Redfin agents are better negotiators. I mentioned closing costs when discussing why that claim might not be true:
A complicated negotiation might result in a higher reported sales price but a better overall deal for the buyers — for example, repairs or even remodeling, seller concessions, no out-of-pocket costs, etc. These are the types of arrangements more likely to be made by more-experienced agents.
A question their clients — and their clients’ attorneys — might ask: What else don’t they know?
In a word: Yikes!
Technorati Tags: disintermediation, real estate, real estate marketing
This is fun, but it’s not too far from wrong. Pete Townshend is 62. Roger Daltrey is 63. There are some hand-lettered signs (harkening to a Bob Dylan (age 66) video) that make Jeff Brown’s arguments all too well.
Technorati Tags: real estate, real estate marketing
Jay Thompson and Greg Swann to speak at First Southwest Real Estate Blogging Conference on June 21st
Jay Thompson, the Phoenix Real Estate Guy, and I will be speaking the Phoenix Area Active Rain Gathering and First Southwest Real Estate Blogging Conference, to be held on Thursday, June 21st, at 3pm.
If you’re going to see Russell Shaw speak at Arizona Real Estate Commissioner Sam Wercinski’s event, you’ll probably still have time to make the Blogging Conference. The Commissioner is providing lunch and we’ll be having drinks after the Conference, so you can make a day of it.
The event is being put together by Shailesh Ghimire of CTX Mortgage. Visit Arizona Mortgage Guru for more details.
Technorati Tags: blogging, real estate, real estate marketing
Another clip from the discussions Cathy and I had Sunday at open house. This film explores ideas for the focused marketing of specific types of real estate products — for example, how we might take different approaches with historic versus ultra-modern versus mid-century homes. Amazingly enough, there is some actual visual interest in the movie — all of it added in post-production.
I’ve been BADD. Again. But I’m trainable.
Sometimes I write in stream-of-consciousness fashion, and sometimes it just takes more than a couple of sentences to develop an argument or idea. This style of communicating, I now know, is deplorable execrable lamentable just plain WRONG.
So, this morning, I will develop my new skills as I share my opinion on why limited-service business models might not be in every consumer’s best interest.
Tomorrow, I will be sharing my thoughts on the legal fiasco involving Natural Hazard Disclosure Statements in California, Property ID, and ostensible purported so-called RESPA violations. I am making a diorama.
(Total Word Count: 97 not counting strike-out boo-boos, Graphic Images Intended to Capture the Attention of and Entertain the Reader: 1, Lindsay Lohan References to Ensure that Post Content Doesn’t Get Overlooked in Feed Reader: 1)
“If a writer wrote merely for his time, I would have to break my pen and throw it away.” –Victor Hugo
The Russell Shaw entry What’s wrong with Zip Realty?, written in February, was the most clicked-upon post on BloodhoundBlog on Tuesday. Debunking Zillow.com, which was written last July and which often comes in first, took second place.
I’m making note of this because there is a celebration of mental indolence going on just now, reflexively offered up as the rationale and justification for mental indolence. This by itself is meaningless: Erg for erg, laziness is the hardest job there is.
But it occurred to me that the RE.net has undertaken efforts, formal and informal, to instruct novices in the art of real estate weblogging — and laziness is very bad weblogging advice.
The job is what it is. It takes what it takes. If you don’t feel up to taking on the world, that’s fine. But don’t affect to pretend to believe that goofy pictures and bold subheads can take the place of rational discourse. It is actually possible to destroy a specious pose with one onomatopoeical word, but, most often, the work of the mind requires a greater effort.
This matters because you are not writing solely for the day and the visitors thereof. If there is any importance at all to the work that you do, it will be linked and searched. The post that gets only nine hard clicks today may someday get ninety clicks every day — if it deserves them.
What you do is your business, and most of weblogging is ephemeral — of moment for substantially less than a moment. We work the way we do here because we don’t affect to admire the half-assed. If you choose instead to indulge your worst appetites, arguing that that this is the path to popularity among people seeking to indulge their own worst appetites — rave on. It means less than nothing. The work of the mind in real estate will go on — in links, in searches, in perpetuity — without you.
But: If you actually care about improving your own mind Read more
There was a delightfully obtuse article in yesterday’s Oregonian lamenting the abysmal ratings of Katy Couric and CBS Evening News. The writer’s reasoning was that it’s our fault for not watching, that we’re a country of misogynists not ready for a serious female anchor. Damn us.
The fact is that, like most markets, the ratings were entirely predictable. Not that prediction is easy — obviously some people can’t even predict in hindsight — but those who are best able to infer behavior from given cause are those most likely to succeed in whatever they do.
Some suggestions:
1. Trust your first impression.
It’s the first advice I give to buyers: You’ll know it when you see it; if you have to be talked into it it’s probably not right. Same with ideas: if it sounds nutty on first hearing, chances are it is.
When a network news division with serious credibility problems hires as an anchor someone famous for her teeth and entertainment value — and with credibility problems of her own — it’s nutty.
When a company — Redfin — launches on the supposition that buyers will rush to be represented by someone they’ll never meet in their most important purchase of their lives, it’s nutty.
2. The corollary to (1): Don’t project your own bias.
Manifested in the notion that “If I think it, so must everyone.”
The Oregonian is obsessed with global warming (full disclosure: I am not obsessed with global warming). When our local MLS decided to add a ‘green’ search mechanism, apparently intended to pick up those properties with Energy Star or other ratings, The Oregonian devoted sixty column inches to the news. (See here). I still haven’t ever had a buyer ask me to find a green property, a seller who’s asked how to get a ‘green’ rating, nor have I ever talked to anyone else who has, and I live in the greenest state in the US. As of right now, there are 304 green listings in the MLS; out of 12,741.
Redfin’s (and Sixty Minutes’) bias is “Stick it to the Man!” CBS’s bias is: gender trumps merit.
Caveat: It’s Read more
Several days ago I wrote a piece talking about qualified plans, better known as IRA’s and 401(k)’s. It was titled 401(k)’s IRA’s & Urban Myths, and discussed some of the false beliefs many people have on the subject. It also brought an alternative to the table — investment grade insurance.
Though you should read the post to get context, in a nutshell here’s what I said.
By putting your tax deferred money into qualified plans you’re setting yourself up for a nasty surprise upon retirement. Your income will be taxed at a rate for which most folks won’t have planned. Therefore, they should stop contributing to those plans and begin putting that money instead, into investment grade life insurance. It’s not really for the insurance, but has some really cool results — especially when compared side by side with qualified plans.
For instance, the income produced by the insurance which from now on will be called FIUL – Fixed Index Universal Life, is tax free for life . You’ll notice maybe what it’s not – a VUL or Variable Universal Life. One guy decided I was talking about VUL’s — wrong again. He was a reasonable guy, wanting to maybe hear from my in-house expert. He will. I often find it entertaining the way some wish to compare apples to lizards when they disagree. One such example is a guy who wanted to compare the results of $350/mo into FIUL’s vs $750 into his qualifed (employer matching) plan. As good as your investment guy might be, nobody is going to beat someone who is investing more than twice the amount as the other guy. It’s a silly comparison. Now to give him the benefit of the doubt, I did compare taking $350/mo vs $500/mo — and the 401(k) lost big time. (For the record, the annual after tax retirement incomes were the same, but the FIUL income was available for life, not subject to rising future taxes, and upon the death of the taxpayer there was literally no tax owed, as it wasn’t part of his estate in the first place.)
I will tell you Read more
