A Real Estate Discussion Blog

Ever feel like you keep hearing about the same real estate topics in the media over and over again.  And wonder, why are we stuck talking about this subject.  Has any progress really been made? 

Sometimes if you step back and look in the rear view mirror, you can see just how far the real estate community has come.  wwww.archive.org is a site dedicated to building a digital library of the history of popular websites.  You can enter a web address into their "wayback machine" and get a snapshot of what a site looked like in years past.  When you see where sites like http://www.realtor.com/ started, it is easier to see how far they have come.  Fun to even look how much Zillow has changed in the 16 months since its launch. 

Many times the pictures don't load well on the site, but you will get the main idea. 

Realtor.com-  Janaury 3, 2001 - http://web.archive.org/web/20010105182500/http://www.realtor.com/  (check out the little "search for a home" box in the upper left hand corner)

January 24, 2002 - http://web.archive.org/web/20011217043526/www.realtor.com/default.asp?hm=on&poe=realtor  (guess they figured out people wanted to primarily search for homes on a real estate website)

January 4, 2003 - http://web.archive.org/web/20030603224911/realtor.com/Default.asp?poe=realtor  (for the most part, this layout stuck until this year)

Zillow.com     November 24, 2004 - http://web.archive.org/web/20041121055020/http://www.zillow.com/ (what was the site going to be???  Top secret at this time)

February 9, 2006 - http://web.archive.org/web/20060209020550/http://zillow.com/ (the pictures load funny, but a lot of progress has been made in a year)

Others Worth Noting 

HomeGain- May 10, 2000 - http://web.archive.org/web/20000510005354/http://www.homegain.com/

ActiveRain.com - July 9, 2005 - http://web.archive.org/web/20051028051122/activerain.com/

Remax.com - August 15, 2000- http://web.archive.org/web/20000815105139/http://www.remax.com/index.html

Homes.com- May 30, 2000 - http://web.archive.org/web/20000530222829/http://www8.homes.com/

Realestate.com - March 1, 2000 - http://web.archive.org/web/20000301172838/http://www.realestate.com/

Craigslist.com - November 10, 1999 - http://web.archive.org/web/19991110033547/http://www.craigslist.com/ (when Craig used to just be a San Fran thing)

Feel free to post any fun links you discover on the website! 

Warning- You can waste a lot of time on this site!

AR forgive me, it has been 8 days since my last post.... 

If you would have told me I would feel this much guilt for not posting in week when I first started blogging, I would have said you were crazy.  Now I get this tinge at the end of every day that I log off and didn't blog.  Not sure if this is a good or bad thing yet. 

But there are good reasons for my absence!  We at Zillow have been working around the clock to sign up some great Broker partners.  Most recently we have forged new relationships with organizations such at The Real Estate Book, the Real Living Network, and Prudential California/Nevada/Texas.  We also implemented a neat content relationship, through our API program, with Homes and Land magazine- check that out here.  And there are many more announcements in the works, so keep an eye out for that. 

We have started working with sites like Yahoo! and Trulia to develop a standard data format for the distribution of real estate listings online.  This will be a huge help to those who distribute listings to a number of different sites.  Now you won't have to format each one to specific site requirements. 

Finally, this is the time of year when it seems like there is always a Real Estate Convention going on.  We just wrapped up a successful Inman Connect, where we sponsored the opening party Beer For Bloggers. 

And next on the agenda over the next two weeks I have three speaking engagements where you can catch even more Zillow action:

Coldwell Banker Greater Los Angeles Education Fair, Jan 31- I'll be on a panel discussing Internet Advertising with Burke Smith, CEO of You Net Coach; Dustin Luther, founder of http://www.4realz.net/; and Alejandro Foung, Manager of Strategic Partnerships for Trulia. 

Keller William Family Reunion, Feb 10-  The panel discussion I will be participating in is entitled "Marketing with Technology: Online Listing Marketing & the KWLS", where will we discuss strategies behind distributing your listings online. 

GMAC Experience 2008 Annual Business Meeting, Feb 13 - This panel is entitled "The Future of Your Business with Web 2.0" and will explore the impact of Web 2.0 on the real estate consumer.  The panel will be moderated by Verl Workman. 

Zillow will also have a booth at the Keller Williams and GMAC shows, so please plan on stopping by if you would like to discuss any specific matters with us.  We will be having a drawing for an iPod at both shows, so at least stop by and register for that! 

While I am not looking forward to spending time away from home, I am looking forward to getting out of the office and talking with real estate professionals about what is and is not working for them today is the world of Internet marketing.  If you are attending any of these three events, please do come find me and introduce yourself. 

I am going to try not to let it go eight days again.  I hope to finish this round events with fresh, new content to blog about.  Please feel free to leave comments below regarding things you would like to hear addressed in these panels. 

Whenever I read a post about Zillow there are inevitability comments that sound like something from Goldilocksand The Three Bears fairy tail- My Zestimate is too high, My Zestimate is too low, My Zestimate is just right.... 

My answer has always been the same, it is simply a starting point and is no way an appraisal.  It is something that attracts users to the site and creates a massive and dynamic audience for you then to market to, whether that be posting your listings for free or participating in a Discussion. 

We will never be 100% accurate, we know this.  We obviously haven't walked through the house or looked at comps with a human eye- that is why you hire a professional.  Zillow is actually one of the few sites that is completely transparent about just how accurate we are, down to a local level.  There is a link at the bottom of our homepagewhere you can get this information.  If you are an Agent that comes up against Zestimates a lot in listing presentations, I highly recommend you print the accuracy chart and use it to your advantage. 

But the question still remains, how exactly do we come up with that Zestimate?  And furthermore, what are we doing to make it better?

The most significant factor that impacts how the Zestimate accuracy how much data is availablethrough your local county and the frequency in which they update this information.  All of this information is then pumped into a complex formula.  When our statisticians developed the model to determine home values, they explored how homes in certain areas were similar (i.e., number of bedrooms and baths, and a myriad of other details) and then looked at the relationships between actual sale prices and those home details. These relationships form a pattern, and they used that pattern to develop a model to estimate a market value for a home.  If you want even more information about what a Zestimate is, I invite you to visit the 'What is a Zestimate Value" page on the site. 

What are we doing to improve on accuracy?  We recently added a number of new data sources(all done behind-the-scenes), on both on local and national levels.  We also made a dramatic change to the way Zestimates are calculated by increasing the number of statistical models that are used in determining the number by 20 times!  For example, the way a Zestimate is calculated in CA (you lucky Prop 13 people!) is not looked at the same as a home in IA, verse the way a home is looked at in a non-disclosure state like Texas.  Not only can these models differentiate between states and cities, but they are now looking more closely at various areas within a specific city. 

We now take into account homeowner-added facts when calculating the Zestimates.  To date over 1,000,000 homeowners have edited something about their home!  Doing all this immediately resulted in a 12% improvement in Zestimate accuracy nationwide. 

I want to note one final change on the site that we made a few weeks ago.  We used to display the Zestimate at the top of each home's page, right next to the For Sale price.  Based on the feedback from MANY agents, we changed the layout of the home detail page to push your information and the home's information to the top of the page.  We removed the Zestimate from the title of the home, so that your For Sale price is the only number prominently displayed at the top, and demoted the Zestimate below the fold of the page.  This way we are drawing the most attention to the number that came from a professional, verses a computer. 

Hopefully this will give you a little insight as to why the numbers are what they are.  It is these Zestimates, and all the other functionality on Zillow, that are bringing MILLIONS of people to the site every day.  As an real estate agent, this is the asset of Zillow that can be very valuable to you- the real people that you can now get your message out in front of. 

At the end of the day, the consumer still needs a professional to help determine an asking price that is JUST RIGHT! 

(I am not exactly sure what "porridge is??)

The City of Chicago is pricing us out of here!  I hate to rant on a Friday, but the most recently passed legislation infuriates me to no end. 

In the last year, here are the major additional taxes that we have been hit with (on top of all sorts of other little increases in fines, fees and taxes that come out of the woodwork ever time I pay a bill):

1) Chicago Mass Transit Tax,part 1- This ridiculous circus act of legislation has been going on for months.  Yesterday, they finally got resolution which involves the Real Estate Transfer Tax (which buyers pay) going from $7.50 per $1000 to $10.50 per $1000!  This additional tax is being used to bail out the mass transit authority.  The alternative was to increase fares from $2 to $3.25.  My husband and I are currently shopping for homes in the $700K range.  This means that when we go to buy, we will have to pay an additional $2100 (net of $7350) at closing.  If the alternative was paying an additional $1.25 at the train station, this means that I will have to ride the CTA 1680 times to break even on this tax.  Like houses were already flying off the market, I am sure this will help, thanks a lot.  This hurts the affordability of buyers and can carry into the equity stake of sellers. 

2) Chicago Mass Transit Tax, part 2- The second part of this textbook case for bad government, involves raising the sales tax from 9.0% to 9.25%in Chicago, and even higher tax increases in the collar counties.  It sucks paying 9.0% in the first place on items that are typically already priced higher because we live in a big city, and it sucks even worse now.  I love Chicago.  I want to support it and especially support local merchants, but personally all this tax increase will do is make me buy more online.  The shift in my spending habits became apparent this Christmas when I calculated that I saved about $150 in taxes by doing a bulk of shopping online for the first time.  From now on this shift to online will only be more dramatic  Instead of figuring out how to trim the fat out a budget, they are now going to get even less from me overall. 

3) The Water Bottle Tax- On January 1 of this year the City of Chicago was the first in the nation to impose a 5 cent tax on bottled water sold in the city.  They hope to decrease plastic waste and generate $10.5 million in revenue by doing this.  I guess tap water was good enough for me growing up, and it is going to have to be good enough again as an adult. 

4) Illinois State Toll Roads-It used to cost .40 or .80 to drive through a toll in Illinois.  Last year those rates doubled to .80 and $1.60.  The relief for this one is that if you have an EZ Pass, you pay the half this, taking the tolls back to their original rate.  So this increase isn't nearly as painful as the first two. 

I majorly simplified what happened with the first two increases in this post.  If you want to find out more detail, I encourage you to click on the links provided.  If you want to read the viewpoints of what other people are saying, check out this page of comments that CBS2 is compiling. 

This whole situation is a big waste of taxpayer money and I fully intend to remember every name that was both involved in it and voted for it next time I am at the polls. 

If you are wondering whether or not our Realtor lobbyist stepped in, yes, they were there.  They are still there.  They just weren't enough of a force against Chicago's corrupt government systems.  Brian Bernardoni, director of government affairs for the Chicago Association of Realtors, made many appearances in Springfield.  Earlier this week, the Realtors group pressured tax-weary aldermen to reject a transfer tax hike it called "anti-business, anti-affordable housing" and incredibly ill-timed in the midst of a housing slump.

"The mayor or whoever crafts the ordinance has a wide range of options, which changes our strategy. But, whoever the tax impacts, it's going to hurt. If they decide to impose the tax on the seller, it's stripping equity. If they apply it to the buyer, it'll be tougher to invest in Chicago," Bernardoni said.

Last week Brad Inman opened Inman Connect with 5 points he felt Realtors needed to embrace to make a different in 2008.  He stated that nationally real estate was down 18% year over year.  What are we going to do to help move the trends in the right direction?  These points are all Brad's and I tried to fill in around them the best I could remember.  I think he is right on, again.

1) Be a consumer advocate-  You helped people get in their loans and you should help people stay in them.  Pick up the phone and call everyone you sold a home.  Reach out to them.  Make sure they know what resources are available to them.  Consumers reach for competence, be there for them.  

2) Cut costs- Buckle down.  We are in a downturn and money needs to be spent smartly. 

3) Participate in the online conversation- You need to be where your customers are.  You are still very necessary to the end means of completing a transaction.  Make sure you are positioning yourself to be considered when it comes time to actually transact.

4) Expect government scrutiny- But embrace it.

5) Find and use new technology available to cut costs-  In the process you'll probably find these cost saving measures are actually saving you time as well, on top of gaining new business.  The amount of new technology out there is mind-blowing, and so much of it is free. 

Hope these points sparks something within you to go and get the next transaction done. 

Recently my colleague and fellow ARer (is that a word?) Spencer, did a post recapping a recent survey of Realtors who use Zillow.  It was very interesting and I wanted to give that post some attention. 

To build on Spencer's post, it is also interesting to look at the flip side with regard to how the general public is using Zillow. 

So for all of you number people out there, enjoy!

• 4 Million unique people visiting the site each month.
• 25% of these people come more than 10 times in the same month!
• 21% of this audience are real estate professionals (Investors, Agents, Brokers, Lenders, Builders, Appraisers).
• 90% of our audience owns a home and 65% are actively in the real estate market.
• Over 40,000 Agents have created a free profile on Zillow.
• 37 Million homes have been viewed on Zillow since launch- that's 40% of all homes in the country! 
• More than 25,000 community contributions are made to the site each day. 
• 1.5 Million homes have been claimed by their owners, with about 1,000,000 of them updating some information on the record. 
• Nearly 4 Million photos have been added by people. 
• 151,000+ discussion point and 70,000+ questions and answers on homes have been written
• The 2007 CAR study showed that buyers considered Zillow one of the most useful sites during the home buying process, ahead of Craigslist or Google.  Specific CAR rankings for most useful:
• Web sites with listings that buyer was interested in (81%),
• Individual agent's Web site (80%),
• Realtor.com (80%)
• Zillow (54%)
• Real estate company web sites (40%)
• Craigslist (24%)
• Google (7%)
• Over 100,000 homeowners have posted a Make Me Move price since the feature launched a year ago.
• Most people who post a Make Me Move price on their home plan to use an agent if the home sells:
• 91% of homeowners who posted a Make Me Move price say they would consider paying an agent commission if their home were to sell.  Most (64%) say they would pay between 2-3%.
• About half (45%) of people who post a Make Me Move price on their home say they would use an agent on the sell side to complete the transaction.

This is a bit overdue, but I wanted to get some of my pictures from the Beer For Blogger's event held at Blogger Connect last week in New York up.  So many reviews have been written already about the event, so I'll spare you the details.  I would just like to say that it was wonderful seeing everyone out at the event and getting to know you all better. 

See you again in San Francisco at the next Beer For Bloggers event in the Fall!

Please forgive me for not knowing all the names here.  I'll number the pictures in case someone wants to reference a face in the comments. 

1. Brian Brady, ?, ?

 2. ?, Mike Price, ?

3. Brian Block, Me, Bob Stewart, Tom Plant

4. Dan Green, ?, ? 

5. Chess, Jorrit from Zillow, Brandon King

6. Michael Simonsen, Dustin Luther, Nicole Nicolay,Reggie Nicolay, Jeff Turner

7. Joel Burslem, Dan Green

8. ?, Matt Heaton, ?

9. ?, ?, David G from Zillow waving, and Pete Flint

I often speak on the way Gen X and Y search for real estate information and am met by looks of awe and wonderment from Agents outside of these generational categories.  Well, I put the shoe on the other foot over the holidays, and I was the one in awe. 

I recently wrote a popular post called "Top 9 Things Customers Don't Care About- From Gen Y Perspective".  When I was home with my parents over the holidays, I thought I would pose these same questions to them and see how their answers differed from mine.  For the most part we wanted the same end result and wanted to be treated fairly throughout the process, but the methodology we used to get there couldn't have been more different. 

The biggest take-away I took from the interview was that Agents need to figure out exactly who they would like their clients to be, and implement their marketing and systems appropriately.  One size does not fit all.

My parent's real estate situation:  About 2 years from retirement.  They have lived in the same home for 34 years and own it.  They live in a small, rural town in Iowa.  They aren't actively looking for a new home, but if something perfect came on the market they would consider it and have looked at a few homes in the past.  They would either like to move into a newer home in the same town or relocate to North Carolina. 

[SB] Can I interview you for my blog? - [SB Parents] You have a blog?

Let's say today you decide that you were going to move, what is the first thing that you do?  I would go drive the area.  And if you found something interesting?  I would call an Agent about that home. 

How do you pick the Agent you call?  It would be someone I know. 

What if you want to move somewhere where you couldn't drive the area or you didn't know anyone?  I would call an Agent I know locally and ask for a referral or call any friends in the area and ask them for a referral. 

What if this Agent found some other homes you may like, based on your criteria.  How would you like for them to get this information to you?  Call me.  Would you like to get an email so that you can see pictures of the home first?  No.  The Agent knows what I want and I want them to do the searching process.  If it has anything to do with the Internet, I am not going to do it. 

Let's shift to selling your house.  You have already said that you would work with someone you know.  Let's say one Agent said they could sell your house for $250K for 3% and another said $200K for 2%.  Who would you choose?  A lot depends on the numbers, but I would probably go with the $250K because I feel like the other person wants to charge less for my home to move it faster and get their commission check quicker. 

How important is the commission percentage to you?  I would pay more if I thought I was going to get better results.  It all comes down a feeling of trust.  I want to be able to fully trust the person I am hiring and I'll decide that very quickly. 

Does it matter to you if someone has one year experience or thirty years?  To some degree.  I am hiring an Agent because of their knowledge about the market and an experienced Agent is going to have this.  Although a newer Agent might be hungrier and work harder for you.

With regards to follow up, how often would you want to hear from this Agent?  Almost daily, via the phone, especially when we are just getting started and things are hot.  Would you look at any emails the Agent may send?  Maybe.  But I want a phone call.  I want to be able to hear any possible inflections in the Agent's voice to be sure I am getting the full story.

How important are Agent designations to you? What do you mean by designations? 

What about if your Agent is a Realtor vs a real estate professional?  What's the difference?

How important is a national brand behind an Agent to you?  If I have a referral, it doesn't matter.  If I don't have a referral, I am not going to just go with Joe Realtor and call up some business I have never heard of. 

Let's  talk about any media you may use. 

Newspaper- Yes, I use it.  We live in a small town, so the amount of information in the classifieds is manageable.  I don't know that I would use it as much if our real estate section looked like the Chicago Tribune's.  I like it when the paper breaks it down by price range, it is easy to read.  I HATE it when Agents don't include the price on a listing.  If there is no price, I automatically assume it is out of my price range.  They usually only leave the price off of expensive homes.  Do you ever look at the display ads in the paper?  Yes, if they have a price on them.

Billboards - Yes, I notice these.

Homes Magazines-  I like those a lot.  I can look at 200 homes right away and get an idea of price ranges for an area.  I like being able to see all the pictures of homes.  Again, there better be a price on the home for me to consider it.  If I see something interesting, I would call my Agent for more information.

Well, if you like seeing pictures of homes so much, wouldn't the Internet be something you would use?  No.  Maybe your Mother would look at it? 

Ok Mom, for the sake of both of your daughters and son-in-law working in the Internet advertising industry, let's say you were going to use the Internet, what would be your first step online?  I would use the default search engine on my computer and would type in "houses for sale in Pinehurst, NC".  Do you know what search engine that is?  Google (it's Yahoo). 

Have you ever heard of Realtor.com?  No.

Any closing thoughts?  Can I tell you what I don't like about Realtors?  (pronounced Realitors) Sure! 

I hate part-time Realtors, because you don't get their full-attention.  I want to go with a full-time professional that makes their living dealing in real estate.  Whenever I have dealt with someone doing it part-time, they never call me back [he gives a personal story here]. 

And after you got that type of treatment from [person mentioned above], did that affect how you perceive her whole company?  Oh yes!  Well, except for [name], because I know him. 

I also don't like that because I am in the stage of ‘just looking', I don't get the attention or follow-thru that I deserve. 

Ok, I'll let you know when our interview is live online.  Great, I'll have your Mother print it out for me to read. 

Oh boy...  Great, thanks for your time!

If only I was as creative as Bob Stewart to come up with  10 reasons why you should attend their Active Rain gathering on January 9th in New York....   

But it's Friday, I just had a painful root canal and have absolutely no creative writing skills at this point, so I'll just try to lure you to attend the Beer For Bloggers event sponsored by Zillow.com on January 8th, with free beer, free goodies and good company.  Hopefully one of those three things will appeal to you.

When- January 8th from 6:00pm -8:00pm

Where - Heartland Brewery (also know as the Chophouse) located at 127 West 43rd Street (between 6th and Broadway) near Times Square. 

How To Get There: Go south on 7th Ave for approx .12 miles.  Turn left on 43rd Street for about .10 miles.  If you hit 6th Street you have gone too far. 

Look forward to seeing everyone there and kicking off Bloggers Connect and the new year!