real/diaBlog - tomorrow's real estate trends discussed today

RE.net/Social Media Realtor Meet Up At NAR Mid-Year In DC

Come join your fellow RE.net/Social Media Realtors attending NAR's Mid-Year meeting for dinner/drinks on Wednesday, May 14. Matthew Rathbun is heading the efforts and has more information on his site.

-Danilo

Are You Targeting Your Audience?

There's a great post over at Copyblogger that asks "Are You Talkin' to My Generation?". It deals with generational targeting/marketing. It's applicable to real estate because it deals with the way you communicate with and appeal to consumers whether it be through a blog, in person or other form of communication.

Here's an excerpt:

"So what values should you aim for? Here’s a look:

Silent Generation: respect for authority; conformity and adherence to the rules; law, order and duty; dedication, hard work and sacrifice.

Baby Boomers: personal gratification; personal growth, health and wellness; optimism and positive attitude; teamwork and being involved.

Generation X: diversity and global thinking; self-reliance and independence; life balance; fun and informal attitude; technologically literate.

Generation Y: confidence and achievement; sociability and collective action; diversity and morality; street-smart; optimistic and savvy.

These days, it’s not enough to slap up a nice design and some well-written content. You have to get into the heads of your buyers and learn how they think – and why they think that way. Targeting your market means intimately knowing who’s going to feel good about your business…"

A buyer or seller from any one of these 4 generations is looking to do the same thing - buy or sell real estate. But they will most likely work with a person who believes in what they do and how they do it because they will relate to them. That's why it's important to know and target your audience rather than trying to be everything to everyone.

-Danilo

$225M? It's "UnZillowable"!

According to the Silicon Alley Insider blog, Zillow is worth $225M. But that "valuation" is without any access to company financials. Though Zillow wouldn't comment on the valuation, they were quick to point out the discrepancy between what Compete says about Zillow's monthly unique visitors (2.2M) and what Zillow claims (5.5M).

Just goes to show how much people will say you're worth if you come up with something addictive (Zestimates) regardless of how accurate it really is.

(via Inman)

-Danilo

Lawrence Yun Chipping Away At The Great Wall Of Lereah

Since Lawrence Yun took over as Chief Economist at NAR, he's been slowly, but surely chipping away at the thick wall his predecessor, David Lereah put up while he was in office. It seems Yun's efforts to bring some credibility to the NAR Chief Economist position through his own efforts may be working. Yun is earning credibility and respect, something Lereah didn't do so well.

Just check out some of the love that even NAR's harshest critiques are giving Yun lately...

Check out this post over at NAR Wisdom, a blog that regularly calls out and questions NAR and it's upper management.

And check out this post by Jim Duncan over at RealCentralVA. If you've ever met Jim or read his blog, you know he's quick to call out the NAR as well.

Lastly, check out this post over at VAR buzz about 5 bloggers (including me) who had lunch with Lawrence Yun a short while ago.

Lawrence Yun has a long way to go and I think he knows it. But he's off to a good start. Will he continue down this path and bring some credibility back to his office as well as NAR? As Jim said, "only time will tell".

-Danilo

HVCC, Appraisal Reform Worse Than The Problem?

The "Home Valuation Code of Conduct" (HVCC) was supposed to deal with the shady and unethical practice of pressuring appraisers to "hit the numbers" and a conflict of interest caused by lenders having ties to appraisal management firms. The HVCC came out of a March 3rd agreement reached between the Attorney General of New York (Andrew Cuomo), the OFHEO and Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac. In the settlement agreement, the parties agreed to address issues of appraisal coercion and independence in exchange for the Attorney General dropping the investigation.

Sounds like the HVCC is going to do everyone a lot of good, especially appraisers, right? Before you say "yes", take a closer look at the entire HVCC document including the fine print.

In addition, check out the post by Dave Biggers from AppraisalPress.com. Here are the five main points he makes about the proposed HVCC:

1. Under the HVCC, any lender using a professional appraiser incurs substantial regulatory risks and additional costs, whereas AVMs, BPOs, and other valuation alternatives are expressly and repeatedly exempted from the same regulations and liabilities.
2. The HVCC unduly restricts the appraiser's ability to operate a business in the same manner as the other parties already in the transaction.
3. Lenders must be prohibited from owning or controlling, in whole or in part, any sort of valuation entity or mechanism used in the origination of a loan.
4. All valuations, regardless of method employed, must be provided to the borrower in the same manner.
5. Any complaints regarding the valuation process should be reported solely to the IVPI, not to the lender overseeing the origination.

Dave Biggers goes on to say,

"The language in the HVCC's sections VIII and XI in particular make it crystal clear that the authors are aware of the distinctions in the document between appraisals and other valuation products, and lenders are thereby subtly encouraged to utilize the distinction as a loophole to replace appraisals with unregulated and unrestricted alternative valuation methods. This runs contrary to the clearly stated goals of the parent document, the settlement agreement establishing the HVCC."

If you find yourself thinking that the HVCC is not all that it's cracked up to be and want to help do something about it, check out these two posts:

• "Proposed Changes to the HVCC" by Jennifer Sides at AppraisalPress.com
• "Make Your Voice Heard" - alamode.com

(h/t Ben)

-Danilo

E*TRADE Hit Hard, Closes Mortgage Department

Just heard from my client that E*TRADE is closing down the mortgage side of the company. He was in the process of getting a loan through E*TRADE, but was told today that they're "no longer in the mortgage business". This comes after E*TRADE reported a $91.2 million quarterly net loss last week which it attributed to the mortgage meltdown and it's exposure to mortgage securities.

It's too bad...I've had several clients use them for financing in the past with great success.

-Danilo

What Agents REALLY Need To Know About "Short-Sales"

Lem Marshall, Special Counsel for the Virginia Association of Realtors gave a presentation this morning called "Advanced Short-Sales". It proved to be an excellent presentation that probably should have been called "What Realtors REALLY need to know about short-sales to successfully deal with one".

Some of the things in the presentation that Lem covered were:

• The history of lending in America, how credit markets work and why we're in this mess.
• Prices may not be at the bottom yet. It may take another 12 to 18 months to get there.
• Knowledge is the key. Make sure you get everything out on the table regarding the seller's financial and personal situation. You can not properly help them without knowing all the facts and their overall situation - past, current and future.
• Make sure you get the borrower's permission, in writing, in order to publicize the fact that it's a short-sale. You must have the seller's permission to disclose personal and financial information about them, which is what you're doing by publicing that it's a "short-sale" or stating "subject to third party/lender approval".
• Make sure that you correctly word the "subject to third party approval"/bank contingency. How you word this will directly affect whether you face potential issues in the future or not.
• If the bank says that they want the commission lowered from what you've agreed upon with your client, don't give in so easily. Many Realtors in attendance said that they said "no" to the bank's request and that the bank was ok with it.
• If the bank insists on lowering your commission, try asking them to counter at a higher price that covers both your and the Selling Broker's commission.
• Remind the Selling Agent (Buyer's Agent) that the process of approval by the bank can take 60 to 90 days, if not longer. This will help alleviate an upset agent and buyer down the line.
• Short-sales can be messy. Be prepared to do much more work than a traditional resale or even a foreclosure.

There were many other great points that Lem made that Realtors can use on a daily basis when dealing with short-sales. I recommend watching the video of Lem's presentation once it's up on the Dulles Area Association of Realtors' web site sometime next week. I'll publish a quick post when it's up to alert everyone so you can go check it out.

UPDATE: VAR and Lem Marshall have released a 30 minute video on short-sales on VAR Buzz.

-Danilo

Social Media/Blogging Presentation at NAR Mid Year Conference

I was fortunate enough to be a panelist on the Social Media/Blogging Presentation at the NAR Mid Year Conference on Thursday, May 15th from 9:00 to 11:00.  Here is the flyer for the event. 

Social MediaBlogggin Presentation for NAR - Get more documents

FranklyMLS Better than Matrix Wireless

Frank LLosa of Frankly Realty has built a search site that is better than the search site that the MRIS makes agents use to access the MLS.  The reason it is better is very simple - his search site is simple and fast and gives you what you need.  The Matrix Wireless system is complicated, slow, ackward and is less comprehensive than Frank's site.

FranklyMLS.com is the name of the site and it is lightning fast. 

5 Reasons for Inflated Real Estate Commissions

The real estate industry business model is built on commissions.  And commissions are only charged when a transaction is completed.  Failed attempts to buy or sell real estate generate no commission.  But they do take up time and resources.  Therefore, real estate agents must overcharge for the successful real estate transactions to make up for the failed ones.  Here are 5 failed transactions that lead to excessive commissions. 

Realtor Bloggers Make Headlines - Evolving Buyer Habits and FranklyMLS

Congrats to Frank Borges LLosa, Jay Seville, Brian Block and Jim Duncan, fellow Virginia Realtor bloggers, for being featured in an article in The Washington Post! The article discusses the evoloving habits of buyers and the tools and resources they are using in today's market. It also discusses the FranklyMLS, a "wiki" style MLS, which allows buyer agents to upload their own photos and information about properties. The site encourages cooperation among agents as well as consumers, a concept not always practiced in real life.

Inman News also ran an article on the FranklyMLS this afternoon.

What Happened At The BloggerCon Today

The first ever BloggerCon at the Dulles Association of Realtors (DAAR) was today. Our host is Ben Martin, Director of Communication and New Media, Virginia Association of Realtors. There are almost 30 Realtors from around the area, including southern Virginia and Maryland who came out for the event. They span from those who have been blogging for years as well as those who don't have a blog, would like to, but don't know where to start.

The event started off at 10:00am with introductions of everyone in attendance. We then moved on to throwing out various topics of discussion up on the whiteboard and voting on them. We took the top 4 topics, along with a discussion with Keith Garner, Managing Director Center for Realtor Technology (CRT) at NAR. There will also be a 1-on-1 discussion forum at the end of the day to help answer any unanswered questions. All these helped create a general outline for the day though it was flexible allowing for other discussions on topics that are important to attendees.

The 4 topics were:

1. Blogging platforms
2. Blogging 101
3. Getting tangible results
4. "Potpourri"

The first topic of discussion was about the differences between the top blogging platforms available (Ben Martin from VAR, Bob Carter, Brian Block, Frank Borges Llosa and myself). The 4 platforms we discussed were Wordpress, Blogger, Active Rain and TypePad. We focused on the pros and cons of each and the ease of use of one versus the other. We actually pulled up blogs on each platform to show real life examples to the back-end functionality.